


Revolutionary Fuckboys

by Cur_Non



Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda, Historical RPF
Genre: A bunch of extra historical dudes, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Dialogue Heavy, Exploring masculinities, F/M, Family Dynamics, Friendship, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, John needed teammates okay, M/M, Mild alcohol and drug use, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Sometimes this degenerates into porn, Stupid jock nonsense, Then I wrote 30k in a month and decided I should probably do something with it, This started off as an inside joke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:26:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 255
Words: 759,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5926771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cur_Non/pseuds/Cur_Non
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Completely irreverent college AU.  Lafayette is an overly-enthusiastic exchange student constantly vidchatting his girlfriend back in France; Laurens plays football except for when he's benched for getting too aggressive or injuring himself on the field; Hamilton, of course, is young, scrappy, and hungry, and he left the Virgin Islands on a full scholarship--not that the real details behind any of their lives come out until after many, many jokes about dicks and some poorly-advised life choices.</p><p>More characters come and go as needed, but this is heavily Gay Trio slice of life.</p><p>Updates at least twice a week (Tuesday/Friday). Find me on Tumblr (because-cur-non) for posting announcements (search tags for "revolutionary fuckboys" for bonus material).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Important Vocabulary Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially a joke story but there comes a point when you figure you should break the damn thing up into chapters and stick it somewhere for posterity. 
> 
> I apologize to posterity.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions; Lunch Date

When Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette came to New York City as an exchange student he was nineteen years old and wrote English better than he spoke it.  He was officially labeled as “proficient” in the language, a title he would have gotten even without his family’s ridiculous wealth and his prior introductions to various important people in the university he had decided to attend for a year.  He could make himself understood with relative ease, but was unfamiliar with American slang and turns of phrase, making it difficult for him to follow along in more informal conversations.  That “came to New York City” and “decided to attend,” by the way, put a pin in that.   As smart as he was, Lafayette was also a reckless teenager and his choices weren’t always as good as he made them out to be in polite company.

“John.”

“Yes?”  Hold up.  No one likes exposition but let’s get this out of the way: John Laurens was a stud.  First string on the football team, played all through high school, now in his senior year and with his eye on championships.  Tall as his father, a congressman from South Carolina, since hitting puberty, Laurens like Lafayette was the complete package if what you wanted to unwrap was a country boy with killer abs and father issues the size of his family’s estate.  

“What is a ‘fuckboy’?”  Lafayette—he didn’t bring it up on his own but the name was a title, he actually _was_ descended from the marquis who went to France for more funds and came back with more guns, but don’t pull at that thread too hard unless you actually want him to draw you a genealogy diagram explaining how he descends directly from the more famous Marquis de Lafayette, Daveed Diggs, Voltaire’s Hero of Two Worlds—was sitting cross-legged on his small twin bed, thick black hair pulled back and out of the way, his laptop open next to him.  When Laurens made an awkward noise and didn’t answer quickly enough, Lafayette lied, “I need to know for class.”

“It’s like…”  Laurens turned around at his desk.  “Someone who is very rude and disrespectful, _un connard_ , especially when dating.”

“Ah, I see,” Lafayette said with slight disappointment, leaning back over his laptop and continuing to scroll through the comments on the forum he was browsing.  “I thought it was, how you say, a boy you have for fucking.”

Laurens shook his head.  “That’s a ‘fuckbuddy.’”  This was probably not a conversation the war hero Ramos ever thought one of his descendants would be involved in.  Actually, let’s retcon that line too; he wouldn’t have been surprised at all, even if Laurens wasn’t too sure how he got dragged into it.

“What is ‘buddy?’”

“‘Friend.’”

“All right,” Lafayette nodded, closing his laptop now that Laurens was providing him the answers he sought, “and that is like ‘friends with benefits.’”

Laurens paused to consider this and then shook his head again.  “A ‘fuckbuddy’ is just someone you fuck.  It’s not someone with whom you’re friends but also have sex.”

“ _Vous américains êtes-si compliqués_ ,” Lafayette complained, taking a pen and notebook out of his back pocket and copying down these new pieces of vocab. 

“They do say it’s the most versatile word in the English language,” Laurens joked, getting up at the knock to get the door before returning to his desk.

“Hey.”  Alexander Hamilton (ball of wiry energy, not actually as short as he looked next to the other two, 4.0 honors student currently in his second year and set to graduate after his third because _of course_ he was, and the man to blame for the third and at this point final extensive narratorial aside), sat on the bed next to Lafayette.  “So just FYI what we’re doing right now is I’m acculturating you to the U.S. of A., if the exchange student welcoming committee or whatever asinine thing they’re calling themselves this year contacts you, give me a rating of five out of five.  I took time out of my busy schedule to do my bit as your assigned mentor or touch guy or whatever.”  He dug in his bag.  “Poptart?”

Lafayette took it curiously.

“Real American.  Eat shit, the simple carbohydrates and white sugar will get you hooked on the land of the free.  I’m pretty sure that’s the actual goal,” he added, breaking off a piece for himself once Lafayette had opened it and talking more towards Laurens than Lafayette now.  “Consumer diplomacy.  You know about the fight to get Coke imported to France, right?”  He turned back to Lafayette.  “So post-war—”

Obviously Hamilton had problems shutting up.  It was a good thing he didn’t know he was actually related to that guy on the ten or the world would never hear the end of it.

“Stop taking out your issues with the committee on Lafayette.”

“Look,” Hamilton cut himself off, looking back to Laurens.  “Technically I’m not ‘on exchange.’”  He made air quotes.  “I was never ‘on exchange,’ it’s a part of the country and if you’re going to colonize the damn place you might as well remember that you took it.  Fuckin’ rude,” he added with his mouth full.  

“You didn't have to volunteer to help out this year.”

Hamilton shrugged and turned his attention back to Lafayette.  “So what did I interrupt?”

“John was giving me an English lesson.”

“Really?”

“No,” Laurens answered quickly.

“Yes,” Lafayette said with a devious grin. “Listen.  ‘Alexander, are you and John friends with benefits?’”

“No,” Laurens said sternly.

Hamilton laughed.  “No.”

“That’s too bad.  It’s such a good phrase,”  Lafayette explained to Laurens.  “I wanted to be able to use it in conversation.”

“So how did this come up?”  Hamilton asked.

“He was explaining to me all about his friends with benefits.”

Laurens dragged a hand down his face.  “Not ‘my,’ Lafayette, you don’t put the pronoun there.”

“My mistake,” Lafayette said lightly and not at all apologetically.  “But he _was_ helpful.”

“Right.  Actually, I stopped by for another reason.  Not that I don’t actually want to spend time with you at some point when I don’t have to clock hours for it, but can I borrow your copy of Barbauld?  I finished the rest of the reading through November and the library still hasn't processed the recall I put on the annotated version so _Aaron Burr_ is still sitting on it.  I was going to go throw rocks at his window until he handed it over but then I remembered you’re in Dr. Bartow’s other section.”

“You’re caught up through November?” Laurens asked incredulously.  “Alexander, it’s only September.”

“Right, and I would be done by now if it wasn't for Burr.”

“The syllabus says not to do the work in advance of discussion classes,” Laurens pointed out.

“Yeah, because the professor doesn’t want to deal with some obnoxious prick who thinks he knows everything just because he read one book on the subject,” Hamilton said, completely missing the irony.  “I’m not going to turn anything in until after I make sure the criteria hasn’t changed, don’t worry.”  He stood up to get the book off of Lafayette’s desk and started flipping through it.  “Excellent, this even has the extended introduction.  The library copy is an older edition.  That’ll show Burr to hoard books.”

Lafayette greatly doubted that it would, but he let it go in favor of asking a more interesting question. 

“Who is this Aaron Burr?”

Hamilton closed the book and tucked it under his arm.  “Burr’s that guy who actually brought the professor a basket of _mini muffins_ on the first day of class because he ‘saw them on sale at the market and remembered that she liked them.’”

“What a fuckboy,” Lafayette sighed.  Hamilton and Laurens both gave him that amused “you tried” half smile that frustrated Lafayette to no end because it meant that something had gotten lost in translation again.  He wasn’t used to having words come out wrong or phrases go over his head in France.  “What?” He asked, a little accusatorially.  “Laurens, you said that meant someone who was inappropriate in relationships.”

“It’s rougher than that.  And I doubt Burr is trying to hit on the professor.”

“Oh my God, can you imagine though?”  Hamilton’s eyes lit up with delight.  “Burr’s so slimy, I bet he’s smooth like a ken doll down there.”

Lafayette didn’t even pretend to understand what Hamilton was talking about, and changed the subject altogether.  

“I have a lunch date with my girlfriend tomorrow,” he said to Laurens pointedly.  “So can you—not be here?”

“Sure,” Laurens said.  “I’ll just go—”

“You can come with me!” Hamilton cut in.  “We can crash that seminar Burr is leading and boo and hiss at him discreetly to throw him off his game.”

“You need new hobbies,” Laurens told him sternly.

 

A little before five the next morning, Laurens was woken by Lafayette shaking his shoulder roughly.  He opened his eyes to find all the lights on in the dorm room and his roommate dressed in a nice shirt and slacks, freshly delivered flowers on his desk.  “What are…  You’re wearing a tie?”

Lafayette looked down at his outfit.  “Well—of course.  It’s a date, non?”

Laurens looked at his phone.  “It’s—it’s five in the morning.”

“Yes, now get out.”

“You said it was over lunch.”

Lafayette held up a brown paper bag.  “Yes, it’s lunchtime in Paris.  Please go,” he added as Laurens sat up slowly.  “I’ll call you when you can come back.”  He waited impatiently while Laurens grabbed his gym bag and headed out the door, the clothes he slept in fortunately more or less what he would have put on that morning anyway.  

Laurens yawned and automatically reached for his phone only to realize he had forgotten it inside.  “Lunch in France better not take more than two hours,” he muttered as he consoled himself with the thought of having free pick of equipment at the gym.

 

It wasn’t until the the fifth time this happened that Laurens finally complained to Hamilton over actual EST lunch.

After laughing for several minutes, Hamilton asked, “Why don’t you just come over to my apartment?  At least you’ll have somewhere more comfortable to wait until he’s done with his booty call.”

“I don’t even think it is a booty call,” Laurens said, taking a long drink of sweet tea.  “Honestly, Alexander, I think they just talk and compare sandwiches.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“I’m serious.  Everything is always so neat afterwards.  The room is just like I left it, and he’s perfectly—Did I tell you that he wears a tie for this?  I wouldn’t mind as much if it actually lined up with my schedule.  I have to be out of the room before six half the time anyway, you would think the two things could line up.”

Hamilton laughed again.  “Speak of the devil,” he said as Lafayette sat down at the dining hall table next to him.  “It’s a turn of phrase,” he clarified unnecessarily, pretending to do so for Lafayette’s benefit.  “I’m not talking about Burr this time.  _But_ , so, about those evaluation forms, I need you to—”

“I need to go shopping for Adrienne.  My girlfriend,” Lafayette clarified equally unnecessarily, seeing as how frequently she had come up even in the few times he and Hamilton had talked.  “I don’t think she’s forgiven me yet.”

“What does she need to forgive you for?”  Laurens asked.  “What on earth did you say to her over lunch?”

Lafayette carefully folded his hands on the table and completely avoided eye contact.  “Alexander,” he said, diplomatically picking the current lesser of two evils, “come shopping with me and I will personally go to the head of the university himself and tell him how much help you've been.”

“I thought he just needed you to—”

“Done,” Hamilton agreed readily, putting his hand out.  “Screw the form, think about that line on the resume, John.  See if you can get something in writing,” Hamilton added to Lafayette.  “It’s _always_ better in writing."


	2. Paying Attention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping; Poetry; Texting; Benched

Three hours later Lafayette and Hamilton were looking for dresses in a large but mostly empty boutique that Lafayette was clearly right at home in and that Hamilton couldn’t help but think would have turned him away at the door a couple of years prior. 

“I literally can’t afford to buy a keychain in this place,” Hamilton muttered to Lafayette as they passed a small rack of accessories.  He turned one to see the labeled price.  “Yep, no, can’t afford it.”

“If you want, I’ll get it for your birthday.”

“Thanks, but for that price I’d rather you just pay my rent.”

Lafayette, dressed to the nines, shrugged.  Hamilton noted that several people in the store had been throwing Lafayette approving glances while looking at him with distaste and he felt a sharp stab at his pride, the kind of twist of the knife that argued it was better to just keep digging until he came out in middle of the Indian Ocean. 

“Anyway,” Hamilton said, louder than he needed to as they passed a sales assistant.  “That party last weekend got real wild.  Those two Schuyler sisters—I couldn’t keep them off me.”

“Did you want to keep them off of you?”

“No, of course not!  Besides, that’s not what that means.  It means that they both wanted me.”  He made eye contact with the  employee.  “For sex.”

“I don’t think I believe you,” Lafayette said.  “But what happened?”

“It was awesome.  Picture this,” Hamilton drew his hands out in the air in front of him.  “I’m on the couch—”

“What do you think of this dress?” Lafayette interrupted him.

“That’s nice,” Hamilton agreed.  Lafayette told the salesperson the size he wanted and continued to move through the store.

“Anyway, so they’re both all over me,” Hamilton paused, the running monologue in his head of  what he wanted to say getting distracted by what had actually happened.  “But the window’s open,” he admitted with less bravado, “and I can hear Laurens outside on the phone and it sounds like his father is just going off on him.  Like, shit, I don’t know what they were arguing about but it sounded pretty brutal.  He just left after that, didn’t even come back inside, and I don’t think his friends had to drag him there.  I’m just saying that it’s too bad, he’s a pretty popular guy, football jock and all, maybe he could have finally gotten some.”

“Is Laurens trying to get a boyfriend?”

“No, I don’t think he’s into guys—”

“Incorrect,” Lafayette said, taking a pink dress with red pinstripes down and looking it over.  “Too much?”

“Not for you,” Hamilton said.  “But I don’t think he likes guys.  I mean, I know shit about him beyond that he’s pretty good about getting me in contact with you when I’m trying to hunt you down—By the way, you got your phone to work, didn’t you?  I’m going to need a copy of your number because I keep thinking of shit you should know that’s not included in those handouts.  I’m pretty sure the last time they updated them properly we were still paying for things in pounds.”  Hamilton paused.  “Maybe that’s why the office thinks the Virgin Islands count as foreign.  Remind me, I gotta look up the originals, fifty/fifty they were drafted before 1927.”

“I don’t know about that but he definitely does,” Lafayette said, barely bothering to glance at Hamilton as he said so and handing him his phone so he could get his number.  

Hamilton looked skeptical still as he sent himself a message from Lafayette’s cell and gave it back.  “I can text you, right?  You got a data plan?”

“Of course.  Unlimited everything.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes and tried once more unsuccessfully to guess the password for the store’s wifi.

The final total at the register was more than Hamilton had paid for his meal plan for the entire semester. 

 

After paying for everything and sending the box out (overnight express, “Seriously?” “ _Oui_.”), Lafayette took Hamilton out to dinner to thank him for his help.

“I’m just saying,” Hamilton began, “whatever it was can’t have been that bad.  She’s still talking to you, isn’t she?  Haven’t you been texting her on and off all day?”

Lafayette shrugged, checking his phone again.  “I miss her,” he said simply.  “It’s not easy being so far away.  You understand, I’m sure.”

Hamilton toyed with his food.  “Right, sure.”

“This is just very different from living with her.”

“You were living with her?”

“With her family,” Lafayette clarified.  “I was going to school in Paris and they live closer than I do.  You should come to France, you would like it.”

“I’ve known you a couple of weeks, are you seriously inviting me to go on a trip with you?”

“Is that strange?”

“A little.”

“It is a long flight,” Lafayette said, not really getting the point.

“Uh-huh.  Anyway,” Hamilton said, in the tone of someone decidedly moving on.  “Hey, question.  Can I ask you something?”

“I flew on—”

“No, no,” Hamilton gestured at him to stop.  “Not about that.  I know it’s none of my business, but it’s not like I can just turn it off, so you’re his roommate, what’s the deal with John’s dad?”

Lafayette cocked his head to one side.  “I think that was a private conversation.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Lafayette was clearly waiting for some kind of explanation.

“It’s just,” Hamilton tried again, “Look, I’m curious, okay?  Sue me.  Besides, we’re both washed up on foreign shores, apparently.  We should get each other’s backs.”

“Hm,” Lafayette took a bite of his food.  “I’m not sure.”

“About John or about the rest of that, because that’s a legitimate immigrant community survival tactic—”

“About John.  He doesn’t talk about his family much but I know they’re important to him.  If you really wanted to know you’d have to ask his friends.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “Right, I’ll walk right on down into the middle of the stadium, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“I know.  But I’m right.  He spends more time with them than with me.”

“He’s smart, though,” Hamilton said, getting a little more enthusiastic.  “I know, I know, ESL, but you’ve gotta be able to tell by the way he speaks anyway.  I think the tendency is to assume that he’s just some meathead but he’s _smart_.  And it’s kind of a surprise, it comes out of nowhere, you know?”

Lafayette laughed a little.  “I know.”

“I told you, you and me,” Hamilton gestured between them, “we’re on the same wavelength.”

“Wavelength?”

“You get me,” Hamilton clarified.

Lafayette smiled.  “And I’ll have your back.”

“Get Laurens’, too,” Hamilton said.  “I’m pretty sure he could use it.”

“All right,” Lafayette promised.  His phone vibrated and he checked it.

“Adrienne?”

“ _Oui_.”

“You must miss her.”

“Yes, it is not easy,” Lafayette said, then continued almost like he was trying to convince himself.  “But she is still in school also and we wouldn’t be together often anyway.  The timing is right.”

“But I mean—miss her, miss her,” Hamilton teased.  “ _Comme baiser_.”

“Yes,” Lafayette sighed, “I do miss that.  There is the computer, but it is not the same.”

Hamilton choked back a laugh.  “Sorry.  It’s just—I told him you guys were fooling around and he didn't believe me.”

“Well, we don’t do anything inappropriate over lunch.  She’s at school after all, but if we see each other later…  I clean up afterwards, and even if he did come back before I was done I would be able to make myself look presentable.”

“Yeah?”

Lafayette nodded seriously and leaned over the table.  “Adrienne has five siblings.”

Hamilton whistled.  “Shit.”

 

“What are you…”  Lafayette’s eyes widened as he set his bag down on his desk, looking at Laurens’ book.  “Is that Évariste de Parny?”

Laurens glanced up from where he was lying on his bed.  “Yeah.  Do you know him?”

“Know him,” Lafayette enthused, “Of course I do!  ‘ _Du calme et du repos quelquefois on se lasse, on ne se lasse point d'aimer ou d'être aimé_.’  How are you liking him?  Are you very familiar with his work?  I inherited a full collection of his books as a child and—”

“Whoa.”  Laurens put the book down, the sticker on the spine that indicated he had bought it at the school bookstore now visible.  “I’m sorry, Lafayette, I’m only reading this for class.”

Lafayette’s shoulders sagged.  “Oh.”

“He’s good, though,” Laurens agreed.  “This isn’t really my style but you can’t deny talent.”

“That’s true.”  Lafayette perked up and sat on his own bed.  “He’s very talented.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens picked up the book again, finding his place.  “Actually…”

“Yes?”

“Okay, this is going to sound weird, I don’t mean the content but he reminds me a little of Alexander.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette nodded very politely, trying to restrain himself.  “I see.”

Laurens looked embarrassed that he had said that even after recognizing it was odd.  “I don’t mean in content—Well, maybe I do for that one about the king—but his control of language.  Have you ever talked to him when he’s really on a roll?”

“Évariste de Parny?”

“No, Alexander.”  Laurens was pretending to read again.  “He’s really something.  His way with words, I mean.”

“Hm,” Lafayette watched him curiously.  “I’ll have to listen more.”

 

> A. Hamilton: important question—2 dicks at one time, can your ass actually stretch that far or would you just tear something

> A. Hamilton: maybe unrelated Burr keeps staring at me across the room at the student body council meetings and if he can actually read my mind I want to know if I’m scaring the shit out of him or giving him an actual rage boner

> A. Hamilton: maybe more related GodDAMN this meeting is boring, what’s up with you?

> G. Lafayette: mdr

> G. Lafayette: yes I will explain to you later.

> G. Lafayette: Adrienne liked the package

> G. Lafayette: She says hello

> A. Hamilton: bonjour

> A. Hamilton: so how long have you two been toghetr?

> A. Hamilton: *together

> G. Lafayette: five years <3

> A. Hamilton: jfc 

> A. Hamilton: Lafayette you’re 19

> G. Lafayette: She is my light.

 

Hamilton wasn’t sure what to do with that.  He glanced up from where he had been semi-surreptitiously typing under the table at the meeting.

The guy next to him caught his eye.  Hamilton shrugged and mouthed “Lafayette,” not really sure how to convey the full message.  The other guy must have at least recognized the name because he gave him an understanding nod.

 

> G. Lafayette: Have you ever read Évariste de Parny?

> A. Hamilton: he’s at the top of my list right after all the other shit I have to get done  

> A. Hamilton: ill squeeze him in when its a slow day at work.

> G. Lafayette:  I thought it was always slow?

> A. Hamilton: hah

> A. Hamilton: front desk of the student union  

> A. Hamilton: friggin zombie apocalypse let me tell you

> A. Hamilton: either overflowing with idiots or completely dead  

> A. Hamilton: Seriously though I asked them if I could forward calls from the desk phone to my cell so i could take them while working on other things but they denied me.  

> A. Hamilton: it’s bullshit!  

> A. Hamilton: ofc I did my first parttime office bitch at 14 so at least i’ve got experience dealing with that crap

> G. Lafayette: I’ll lend you my copy.

> A. Hamilton: Thanks

 

Hamilton made the effort to pretend to listen for a while but the speaker was still summing up conclusions that had already been made blatantly apparent half an hour ago, so he looked back down at the new messages on his phone.

 

> G. Lafayette: I want to go to an american football game but they're always “away”

> G. Lafayette: Laurens is on the team

> A. Hamilton: yeah they travel a lot

> G. Lafayette: Oui 

> G. Lafayette: The next home game is in two weeks.  Will you go with me?

> A. Hamilton:  sorry can’t

> A. Hamilton: finals are like RIGHT THERE I'm gonna be swamped

> G. Lafayette: I’ll take Adrienne

> A. Hamilton: …okay…?

> G. Lafayette: video chat

> A. Hamilton: youve got the best dmn data plan

 

Lafayette looked up from his phone—one chat open with Hamilton, one with Adrienne—as Laurens roughly opened and then slammed the door to their room behind him.

“ _Fuck_!”

Laurens angrily tossed his gym bag against the wall behind his bed.  His keys followed it.

“Did you lose?”

“We didn’t fucking lose,” Laurens slammed the door behind him and took off his freshly pressed blazer, sitting heavily at his desk and opening his laptop.  “We didn’t fucking have a game today.  Coach wanted me to talk to someone about my _excessive penalties_ and instead of getting the last one struck from the record I got banned for the rest of the season.”

“They can do that?”

“Yeah, apparently, it was right there on paper but Ben Walker miscalculated on our end,” Laurens snapped, “Von Steuben was trying to head them off before it got finalized since our counts didn't match up.  He knows people, he can pull strings, he told me to comb my hair and wear a tie and I’d be able to easily get the count reduced.  Excellent work on my part, making nice and smoothing it out, I did a _great_ job there.”

“It’s all right,” Lafayette said soothingly, at a loss for how to actually help. 

“No, it’s not.”  Laurens wasn’t talking loudly any more, but his words were hard.  “Fuck.”

Lafayette was silent for a little while.  “Is there anything I can do?”

Laurens was already typing.  “I need to tell my father.”

Lafayette nodded, even though he couldn’t see him.  He waited for a moment, then got up.  “I’m going to see if Alexander is free yet.  Do you want to meet us later?”

When Laurens didn’t respond, Lafayette showed himself out.

 


	3. Behind the Scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feeling People Out; Vine and Fig Tree; End of Semester

 

Hamilton stared at Lafayette and took a long drink from his thermos.  “Shit,” he finally said, lowering it and sending a puff of steam up into the cold air.  “He’s gotta be pissed.”

“He’s very upset,” Lafayette agreed, walking alongside him with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat.  “I tried to invite him out, but he was busy writing to his father and wasn’t interested.”

Hamilton winced and took another drink, then adjusted his scarf back over his mouth.

Lafayette continued.  “The exchange student organization is having an end of semester event this weekend.  Do you know if it’s any good?”

“I don’t, sorry.  Never made it to one of them.  Also too close to finals.  Also they’re crap by default,” Hamilton added as an afterthought.  “I checked, by the way, the version we’re stuck working with was initially composed in the 90’s, so there’s no real excuse.”

“You’re very…”

“Don’t tell me I’m hung up on it, it’d piss you off too.”

“I was going to say that you are very hard working,” Lafayette said smoothly. 

“Oh.”  Hamilton seemed a little confused by the compliment.  “Thanks.  Hey, cross your fingers I’ve got a slow day at work,” he added as the student union came into view.  

“Are you going to start on de Parny?”  Lafayette asked.

Hamilton laughed.  “At the end of the semester?  Some other time.  Besides, poetry is better when it’s warm out.”

 

Lafayette sat down on the table Laurens was using in the library, supposedly studying although how he could read with the bass up that high was a mystery.  His bag was in the seat opposite from him, apparently reserving it for someone else.  “Is Alexander meeting you?”

“No.  Friend from the team.” Laurens did not look up from his book or take his headphones off.  He did lower the volume.

“A good friend?”

“We go back a couple years.”

“A… very good—”

Laurens looked up, not amused, and Lafayette stopped trying to not-so-sneakily feel out the relationship.  Sloppy work, he chided himself, he could do better.

“So where is Alexander?”

“Studying.” 

“Why?”

“Because he wants to do well on the exams.”

“But he doesn’t need to study,” Lafayette complained.  “I had to switch to his section the other day and he practically quoted the entire chapter to the professor.”

Laurens shrugged. “He’s determined to get a perfect score on all of them.”

“He’s going to give himself a heart attack,” Lafayette said.  “Stupid _américain_ work ethic.”

“He’s not here, in any case.”  Laurens was sounding increasingly irritated.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in his apartment.”

Lafayette decided to cut his losses and look up the directions on the way.  Laurens had the music back up before he had walked away from the table.

 

> G. Lafayette:  I’m downstairs let me in.

> A. Hamilton: studying

> G. Lafayette: I brought you a sandwich

> A. Hamilton: put it in the mailbox downstairs, apartment 9B.

> G. Lafayette: I need the book you borrowed

 

“Is this your place?” Lafayette looked around after he was buzzed in and found his way to Hamilton’s door.  “Not bad!”

The studio was strewn with books and papers, and the epicenter, where Hamilton’s desk was, was piled high with even more.

“I’ve been really focused on my work lately,” Hamilton explained, talking faster than normal as he picked up a few books and handed one over as if that would make any difference to the overall chaos of the room.

“I only see a desk.  Do you have a bed?”

“Of course I have a bed!”  Hamilton gestured to a blue and gray floral print futon that was folded on top of itself in three segments in the corner of the room.  It looked like it had not been used for some time.

“I think you need a break,” Lafayette said, eyeing the thin foam mattress skeptically.  Not even a bed frame? “Why don’t you study with Laurens in the library? I just met him there.”  He decided not to mention the mood that he found him in.

“I can’t study with Laurens,” Hamilton said, too tired and his mind going in too many directions to really pay attention to what he was saying. “He’s too distracting, with his face and his everything.”

Lafayette raised his eyebrows then grinned.  “Maybe that is really what you need.  Some of his everything.”

“I… What?”

“You’re right,” Lafayette said, tucking the book under his arm.  “He is smart, like you said, but he is also very attractive.  I bet I could get him to be your benefits friend.  You did tell me to look out for him,” Lafayette added, not saying the part where he would be asking on Hamilton’s behalf.

“Haha.  Yeah, right.”

“Are you not interested?”

“The fuck have I ever been picky?  I just don’t think he’ll agree and I’ve got too much going on right now to experiment with—No, scratch that, that’s selfish.  Didn’t you tell me he’s having some kind of quarter-life crisis?  I’m pretty sure I walked in on his father forcing him to delay his graduation via strongly worded texts.”

“He wasn’t _forcing_ him.”

“Don’t split hairs.  You tell him anything and he’s gonna freak.”

Lafayette was watching him closely.  “You care a lot.”

“I’m nicer than I pretend sometimes.”

“You’re nice.”

“Depends who you ask.  Most people say I’m a pain in the ass.  Look,” Hamilton toyed with the edge of his collar, too amped up to keep his hands still for long.  “I’ve never had a group of friends before, I don’t want to wreck it.”

“I bet I could do it.”

Hamilton lifted an empty mug to look inside and put it back down under the coffee maker.  He hesitated.  “Knock yourself out.”

“Are you telling me to leave?”

“No, it means—give it a try.” 

 

“He really has been helpful,” Lafayette enthused, carrying a watering can as he walked, quickly in order to keep up with the older man he was talking to.  “I would have had a much harder time without him and he’s even worked with me on his own time.”

The man stopped walking, crouching down to check the moisture of the soil around one of his plants, pressing his dark fingers into the dirt and then rubbing it between them.

“Give this one just a little, Lafayette.”

Lafayette obliged, still talking.  “He helped me pick some things out and he told me about all the work he has done for his other job.  It sounds like he’s doing much more than they asked him to.”

“Hamilton is at the Registrar?”

“Student Union,” Lafayette corrected.  “But he helped them out as well.  Dr. Washington—”

“You can drop the title,” Washington told him kindly, getting back to his feet, taller than Lafayette and of a noble enough bearing that Lafayette actually felt short next to him.  Lafayette nodded enthusiastically, overly giddy at having both been invited to dine with the president of the school and his wife and to speak with him more informally.

“…Washington,” he couldn’t bring himself to call him anything other than his last name, “Alexander told me that he reorganized the—”

Washington laughed.  “I hear you.  He’s an excellent worker.”

“Would it be possible to get that in writing?”  Lafayette asked timidly.

“Finish helping me with my garden and I’ll look into what he has done,” Washington promised.  “Come around to the back, I want to show you my greenhouse.”

 

“Laurens,” Lafayette said the following afternoon when Laurens returned from the practice he still had to go to even though he wasn't allowed to set foot on the field on game day.  “You are single, yes?”

“Who’s asking?”  Laurens said suspiciously.

“I am,” Lafayette said.  He looked around the room, confused.

“It—it’s an expression.  Never mind.  Why do you want to know?”

“Just making small talk.  No pressure,” Lafayette assured him.  “But anyway.  Yes?  No?  Interested?”  
“In you?”  
“No, I am asking for a friend.”  He pulled out his notebook and flipped to the correct page.  “Fuckbuddy perhaps?”

“Uh, not really looking,” Laurens said, obviously uncomfortable now.  He put his bag down and stood awkwardly by his bed.  

“Oh, too bad,” Lafayette said sadly.  “He’s really into you and I know you’ve had such a bad month.  I thought you deserved something nice.”

“‘He’?”

“Is that not okay?  I told him I would ask.  He is very smart and good looking.”

“Well, I—Who is it?”

“So you are interested,” Lafayette said, trying to feign the appropriate amount of surprise.

“I didn’t say that.  I just asked who.”

Lafayette sighed and made a note.  “‘Maybe.’”  He waited for a few minutes while Laurens dug through his bag and took out his work and headphones.  “John,” he started again.

“What?”

“I miss Adrienne.”

Laurens looked at him and made the effort to be sympathetic.  “Yeah.  I’m sure you must.”

“If she were here and we just hadn’t met yet—or even if we had met but weren’t together—wouldn’t that be nice?”

Laurens nodded, confused but trying to roll with it.  “Yeah, it would be.”

Lafayette was looking up at the ceiling.  “Do you ever get lonely?”

Laurens didn’t respond and after a few seconds Lafayette turned his head back down.  Laurens was plugging his headphones into his laptop and scrolling through his playlists.

“John?”

“It doesn’t matter.”  Laurens sat at his desk, not looking at him.

“You’re my friend,” Lafayette said, genuinely a little surprised by the reaction.  “You’ve made living here much easier.  I know I’m not a very good roommate sometimes,” he continued.  “But you’re very patient.  I appreciate that.  I like to help my friends—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Laurens repeated.  “I’ve got a lot going on anyway.  I don’t have time for anything like that.  Besides, my—”  He cut himself off.

“Your father?”

“I need to work on this paper,” Laurens said, indicating the conversation was finished.

 

The day after finals Laurens returned to his dorm room after dropping off his books at the return outside the closed library.  He put his key in the lock, turned it, opened the door, and gave a yell of surprise as he accidentally walked in on Lafayette touching himself over Skype with his girlfriend.

“I’m sorry!”  He shouted, closing his eyes immediately and blushing bright red as he fumbled blindly on his shelves by the door.  “I just need—”

“Get out!”  Lafayette yelled, using his free hand to slam the laptop shut.  

“Sorry!  Sorry!”  Laurens stumbled out of the room without getting what he had wanted from it. 

Without thinking about it he began to walk, heading in the direction of Hamilton’s apartment, remembering the offer he had made him back at the start of the term.

He rang the buzzer for Hamilton’s studio.  There was a slight pause and then, crackily, “Hello?”

“Alex.  It’s John.  I’m sorry to bother you, but can I come up?”

A noticeably longer pause.  “Sure.”  The buzzer rang and the door unlocked.

It was only a minute before Laurens knocked on Hamilton’s door.  He had barely taken his hand away when Hamilton pulled it open.  

“Hey.”

“Hey—” Laurens looked up at the ceiling.  Apparently Hamilton had taken the extra few seconds to respond because he had been in the shower.  His hair was still dripping with water and he was only wearing a pair of jeans. Laurens couldn’t help but bring his head back down and trace his gaze over his body, thinking dimly that he looked as though all of his bragging stories about his sexual experiences were not only true but understated because how could anyone not be attracted to him?

“Sorry,” Hamilton said.  “Come in, I’ll just go change.”

“I can go—”

“No, don’t go—” He grabbed Laurens by the wrist.  Laurens stared at him a minute and Hamilton, throwing caution to the wind, kissed him squarely on the mouth.

Laurens stumbled backwards.

“S-sorry,” Hamilton said quickly.  “I just took a shot. I haven’t slept in a week, I was weak, I was awake, and I spent all day cleaning my apartment because it looked like some sort of book dungeon.  I had like three shots of expresso today and I’m not sure I had lunch and when you came over I thought—”

Hamilton was cut off by the sound of an incoming text message on his phone.

“It’s Lafayette,” he said, “he wants me to tell you that he’s done.  Did you say something to him?”

Laurens looked puzzled.  “I walked in on him jerking off over Skype with his girlfriend.”

Hamilton’s eyes widened.  “Oh, shit.”  He stared back down at his phone. 

“What?”

“I told him he could give it a shot.”  Hamilton looked guilty now.  “I didn’t think he was going to trick you or anything—he just said he could do it.  I didn’t realize he was serious.”

“That’s crazy,” Laurens said.  “Alexander, I really did just walk in on him and his girlfriend.  It was an honest mistake.”

“You don’t understand,” Hamilton argued, motioning between himself and an invisible Lafayette.  “ _This is how we think._ ”

Laurens shook his head.  “I’m going back to the dorm.  You should get some sleep.  I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, okay,” Hamilton said. “Uh, thanks.”

 

The first thing Lafayette said when Laurens opened the door was: “Adrienne convinced me to get an Instagram.  You should follow me, we can stay in touch that way over break.”

“Did you mean to set me up with Hamilton?”  Laurens asked as soon as the door closed behind him.

“What is that?”

“Did you know he was going to kiss me?”

“Oh, yeah.  I did.” Lafayette said, all traces of his formerly heavy French accent suddenly gone.

“I don’t understand you,” Laurens said in a mixture of frustration and awe.

Lafayette pushed his chair back to face him directly, “Are you mad at me?”

“No,” admitted Laurens.

Lafayette smiled broadly, his normal accent comfortably back.  “Excellent!  How did it go?”

Laurens turned a deep shade of crimson. 

Lafayette, accurately sensing that Laurens was desperate for a change of subject, returned to his new Instagram page.  “I wanted to make my ‘handle’ Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette,’ but it wouldn’t fit in the space provided.”  He sighed dramatically for effect.  

“Wait.”  Laurens raised a hand.  “Marquis?”

“Marquis, my title.  _Cur non_?”

“That wasn’t on the roommate form they gave me.  Is that your actual title or your made-up-for-fun title?”  Laurens would not have even thought it possible except that so many other things that he had previously not thought possible were apparently so.

“Of course it’s my actual title.  Why would I take someone else’s?”

“You’re actually a marquis?  Does Hamilton know?”

Lafayette considered this.  “ _Peut-être non_.  _Intéressant_.  Ah, well.”


	4. New Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up Again; Presents; Class

“Did you see Lafayette’s Instagram?”  Laurens asked Hamilton at the start of spring term.  The two of them were in the library where Hamilton was collecting all of his required reading for the semester.

“Of course I did.  He kept tagging me as his cats.  Do you know that after a while people started actually referring to his cats by my name?  I don’t know what’s weirder, that there’s now a white fluffy cat in France named Hamilton or that she eats better than I do.  I’m buying instant noodles and I’m pretty sure he’s got the cat added to the list of people their cook needs to provide for.  Seriously, between that and this weather it was enough to make me wish I’d taken him up on his offer to visit.  It would have been better than sitting on my ass all day wishing humans could just friggin’ hibernate and get it over with.  What did you do over break?” Hamilton asked, his words all coming out in one unbroken stream and standing on tiptoes to reach a book on the top shelf.  

Laurens came up behind him and reached for the book.  He was about four inches taller than Hamilton and could easily get it.  Hamilton looked up at him, remembering the last time Laurens had leaned over him not-quite-like this.  Laurens seemed to remember as well, because he quickly stepped back and answered the question.

“Not a lot.  Spent time with family. Did you know Lafayette is actually a marquis?” Laurens asked Hamilton as he handed him the book.

“Yeah, I did,” Hamilton said.  He glanced away, then back, wondering if the library was an appropriate place to hit on Laurens or ask him back to his apartment.  A simple yes or no, really, would suffice.  “He didn’t tell me though.”  God, did it suck not being told.

“It makes sense in retrospect,” Laurens said.  “This is my fourth year and the first time I had to jump through so many hoops after putting in my roommate request.  Do you know that I had to do two different in person interviews?  They took my fingerprints and a saliva sample, Alexander.  I thought someone on the team must have made some accusations.”  

Hamilton gave a short laugh and flipped through the book to make sure it was the right edition.  “‘De Lafayette’ is actually his title, and his real name is Gilbert du Motier.  He goes by Lafayette or the Marquis de Lafayette but yeah, that’s his inherited title rather than his given name.  I looked him up after I saw the pictures he was posting of his fucking _castle_ ,” Hamilton explained, glancing up. 

“Is Gilbert’s girlfriend a marquise as well?”

“Her father’s a duke.”

“Marrying up,” Laurens commented.

Hamilton shrugged.  “Gilbert’s the actual marquis.  He’s already inherited the title.”  He shot a glance at Laurens.  “It was all right there in the database.”

“Oh, shit.”  

“It’s not a secret,” Hamilton said, and then, to change the topic, “He earns over a million a year from his properties alone.  I raise the motion that drinks are on him save for select special occasions.”

“That’s not fair,” Laurens said.  “Besides, you’re both under twenty-one.  He can’t even purchase anything here.”

“I have to work twenty hours a week at the receptionist’s desk at the campus center redirecting calls and giving directions to lost prospective students and their parents on top of having to maintain a 3.0.”  Hamilton didn’t clarify for the sake of this argument that he had also yelled at the registrar until they had granted him special permission to take greater than a full load of courses even though his scholarship specifically discouraged it and that he was getting a 4.0 anyway.  “He’s being paid enough to send an entire village to college just for sitting on his ass.”

Laurens frowned a little and studied the shelf, feeling a little jab of guilt.  “Did you get everything you needed from the library?”  He asked, switching subjects again.  “Speaking of Lafayette, he said he brought us both some things from vacation.  Do you have time to come hang out for a while?”

Hamilton brightened, not actually bitter towards Lafayette in particular in spite of his argument.  “Sure.  Lead the way.  I considered buying a cat,” Hamilton continued as he and Laurens left the library, “but fuck that responsibility.  I can barely keep myself in order some days, I’m not subjecting an animal to that.  Besides,” he added as an afterthought, “I’d probably waste too much time doing shit like sitting it in my lap and then slowly turning the chair around every time someone came over.”

“Do you have people over often?”  Laurens couldn’t help but ask, remembering the state of the apartment.  Hamilton seemed to guess why he was unsure and he looked a little embarrassed.

“It’s usually better than that.  The end of the semester, I kind of let some things slide.  Look, it stops at the door, no one needs to know,” he said defensively, gesturing to himself.

Laurens glanced down and had to admit his point.  Even at the worst of it Hamilton had always shown up looking perfectly put together and even now—boots, dark jeans, coat…  Hamilton adjusted his scarf against the weather.

“I know people beyond you and Lafayette,” Hamilton continued, hackles still raised a little.  “You’ve got your teammates, I know people through the student council.  And other places!”

Laurens just nodded.

“They’re not all Aaron Burr,” Hamilton continued, rightly guessing that Laurens still wasn’t convinced.  “Don’t tell me you actually like everyone on your team.”

“…You’re right,” Laurens conceded.  

“I mean, okay, I don’t _actually_ invite those guys over for freakin’ afternoon tea, but don't think you and Lafayette are the first people to ever come over.  I got the place through a friend to begin with!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed emphatically.  “I know this guy, back when I first came to the city—”  He lost his train of thought as Laurens opened the door to his room and Lafayette put a heavy hand on his shoulder by means of greeting.  

“I miss Adrienne.”

“Uh,” Laurens started, not quite sure how much this was just an act for the sake of getting a reaction.  “You said you had something to give us.  Is this a bad time?”

“Oh, right!”  To Laurens’ great relief, Lafayette perked up and went over to his partially unpacked luggage.  He retrieved a large paper-wrapped bundle and handed it to Hamilton.  “Open it carefully.  It is breakable.”

Hamilton sat on his bed and slowly unpeeled the tape.  It had eight layers and he opened them painstakingly, trying to be as cautious as possible.  Lafayette was practically bouncing in his seat as he got to the last layer.

It was a ceramic cat.  Not just any ceramic cat, but a huge, life-size white persian with its fur sculpted in such a way that it looked like it was sitting in a wind tunnel.

“Since you are _Hamilton the Cat_ now,” Lafayette explained.  

“I’m not,” Hamilton said stubbornly.

“I wanted to make sure you knew what she looked like,” Lafayette said.  “In case you stopped checking my Instagram as well as responding to my texts.”

“You did say you wanted a cat without the responsibility of actually owning a cat,” Laurens pointed out.

“I’m not making it its own twitter account.”

“Were you going to do that if you got an actual cat?”

“Lafayette,” Hamilton said, smoothly moving away from the subject, “where did you find this?”

“Adrienne and I went on a trip to Belgium,” Lafayette explained.  Hamilton restrained himself from commenting on the fact that Lafayette went on vacation while already _on_ vacation.

“We found it in an antique shop.  I considered buying you a book or two instead, but this seemed funnier.  Laurens, I brought you something as well,” Lafayette said, reaching into his suitcase again, taking out and handing over an old book of botanical prints by Pierre-Joseph Redouté.  

“Redouté?” Hamilton asked as Laurens quietly turned the pages. 

“Because Laurens draws,” Lafayette explained.  “Haven’t you seen his work?”

Laurens looked up at Lafayette. “I don’t know what to say,” he said quietly.  “Thank you.”

Lafayette waved a hand at him.  “Enjoy it and I will be happy.”

 

When classes started, Laurens didn’t think much of the fact that he and Hamilton would be taking chemistry together.  That is, he didn’t think much of it beyond the fact that it was _chemistry_ and he would be taking it with _Hamilton_.  He was more interested in biology, but he had a knack for science, having once considered going into medicine as a career.  Anyway, he figured that even chemistry would be better than his problem class (African and African American Studies: Global Ethnic and Racial Relations), taught by Professor Jefferson, who Laurens found strangely abrasive even as he had heard other students praise his class.  To each their own, but he wished that it wasn’t a requirement for the major.  Laurens assumed Hamilton would be a good chemistry partner, so when they were told they needed to pair up for their lab work for the term he didn’t think twice before asking if he’d like to work together.

“I already did all the reading for the course,” Hamilton told Laurens proudly.  “Read everything over break.  We should ace class no problem.”

“Great,” Laurens agreed.  “I haven’t taken chemistry in a few years but I really enjoyed it in high school.  Actually, I considered applying to schools for pre-med.”

“Really?  Medicine?  Why did you change your mind?  Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

Laurens wasn’t quite sure if Hamilton was being flirtatious or if he was reading too much into his small-talk, so he just hitched up his backpack and kept walking.  “I decided I wanted to get a major more applicable to law instead.  It’s been the family career, after all.  Besides, I enjoy that as well.”

“Medicine and art…”  Hamilton mused.  “And law.  You’re a triple threat, John.”

Laurens laughed.  “I’m not sure what those three would all be effective against.”

Hamilton laughed as well, uncomfortably.  “It doesn’t matter.  This is my street, I’ll see you in lab tomorrow night.”

Laurens headed back to his dorm, where he read ahead in their chemistry textbook before getting started on the rest of his work.

 

As it turned out, Laurens quickly realized, there was an actual threat and that threat was _chemistry_ with _Hamilton_.  It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the material—in theory he understood it all perfectly and he did excellently on any written quizzes or answering questions in lecture.  It was more that his hands couldn’t keep up with his mind and he didn’t care quite enough about the topic to force himself to slow down.  Or something like that, anyway, Laurens couldn’t quite decide what the exact problem was.  Whatever the issue was, the result was that Hamilton would think ahead to step seven while still working on step five and as a result skip over six entirely.

“Look, it’s not—” Hamilton was frustrated, fuming.  “I did everything the instructions said.”  He tapped their page of printed instructions while Laurens frowned at his half of the experiment, which was behaving exactly as their shared worksheet suggested it should be.  “Reacting more vigorously in hydrochloric acid solution than in acetic acid my _ass_ ,” he muttered.  “At least that one gave a reaction at all.”

Laurens leaned his arms on the metal table, tipping his head to one side to look at Hamilton’s disorganized work space.  “You didn’t add it,” he commented.

“What?”

“Alexander, look.”  He pointed to the vial sitting, open, behind Hamilton’s stack of books.  “You opened it and moved it to the side so you could fill out Table 10.3, but you never actually finished, you just moved on to the next question.”

Hamilton reddened and his embarrassment met his frustration, causing him to snap at Laurens.  “Stop looking at me like I’m stupid—I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid,” Laurens said gently.  “You just need to slow down.”

Hamilton stared at him, unable to comprehend.

“I’m not trying to rush.”

“I know,” Laurens said, only because he knew Hamilton well enough by now--of course, it was the kind of obvious character trait that you didn't have to know him _too_ well to pick up on--not because it actually looked like he was paying attention to his work. “I make the same kind of mistakes too,” he lied. Hamilton scoffed, adding the acid and taking appropriate notes on the reaction.  “Okay, I used to make them,” he said, lying a little less blatantly.  “I had to train myself to really double check everything.  Cross things off as I did them, even.  It’s irritating, but less so than having to do everything all over from the beginning.”

Hamilton sighed.  “Fine.  You’re right.  I hate this,” he muttered to himself as he got back to work.  "You better be coming out with me and Lafayette after this because if it's just me and him and a million hours of whining about how Adrienne is all the way off in France I'm gonna lash him to that metal bull in the Financial District and tell him it's an American tradition."


	5. Filling in the Blanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beignets; Promotion

Hamilton woke up in the morning several hours later than normal to a headache and Lafayette’s altogether too cheerful voice.

“Good morning!  I made beignets!”

He tried to roll over and pull the blankets up over his head but could not, instead hitting the leg of his desk and knocking over a mug still filled with about a half inch of Jack Daniels.  Whiskey, Tennessee…  It took him longer than usual to piece the trail back together.  Tennessee, America, Lafayette.  Hold up, that was it, Lafayette had announced at the restaurant that he was transferring to their school permanently instead of leaving America for France at the end of the semester.  He sat up blearily.  None of that explained why his phone was dead but then he realized that Lafayette was sitting at his desk, offering him a tall black coffee and a paper plate of beignets.

“You actually made these?”  Hamilton asked, leaning forward and accepting both, rubbing at his eyes with one hand.  He’d fallen asleep with his contacts in and now that he was more awake it was contending with his headache for what was making him feel worse. 

“Of course!”  Lafayette took a sip from his own coffee.  “It’s an old family recipe.  I’ll show it to you sometime.”

Hamilton realized the sink in his bathroom was running, then it turned off and Laurens walked out, his face still wet.  “That from the cafe across the street?  I mentioned it to you last night.” 

“No,” Lafayette said defensively.

“These are good,” Hamilton said, offering Laurens the plate.  “Thanks for spotting us.”

“I’m not paying for them if you two aren’t going to go along with it,” Lafayette complained, taking the receipt out of his pocket.  “You both owe me five dollars.”

“It’s my birthday.”

“You can’t keep using that one!  It’s been over a month!”

Hamilton shrugged, sipping the coffee.  “It keeps working.”

“You look like shit,” Lafayette helpfully informed him.

“Are you really transferring?”  Hamilton asked, ignoring that.

“Of course, that’s what I said!”

“I’m surprised you remember,” Laurens teased, picking up the mismatched mugs from the ground and taking them into the bathroom to wash them.  “You’re a real lightweight.”

“Shut up, you’re just a giant.”

“Ha,” Laurens laughed from the other room, apparently not affected at all by the previous night’s festivities.  “Yeah, it’s not just you.  Our friend the soon-to-be American’s a tee-totaler too, maybe even worse than you.  Do you remember when we were coming back from the liquor store?”  He leaned out of the doorway to grin at the look of confusion on Hamilton’s face.  “I let you guys get started on the bottle while we waited for a cab?”

“Oh yeah…” Hamilton nursed his coffee, realization starting to dawn on him.  “That’s right… Did he—” he turned to Lafayette, “—did you get into an imaginary drinking contest with your brother in law?”

Lafayette took a long drink instead of answering.  “I need to turn in some paperwork,” he said with great dignity.  “I will accept your payment by cash or check.”

He left and Laurens waited around while Hamilton got dressed for work, straightening stacks of books they had jarred and talking to him though he closed bathroom door.

“Do they really keep you busy the whole time?” 

“It varies from day to day, but even when it is busy it’s so tedious.  It’s just answering the same questions over and over.  A dog could do it, if you trained him well enough.  I tried to convince them that they should just print up a list of answers to frequently asked questions and hand them out, but they said that was a waste of resources.”  Laurens could practically hear Hamilton roll his eyes.  “If you ask me, making me sit there is a waste of resources.  I could do so much more with my time, even if I still had to devote it to their projects.  Case in point, I reorganized the registrar’s filing system.  It’s much more efficient now.”

“You’re not their employee,” Laurens pointed out.

“Same boss.  Besides, they’re right next door.”  He neglected to mention that he was over there on a daily basis anyway arguing his way into various credit hour changes.  “Right,” he stepped back out into the other room, popping a couple of painkillers dry.  “Let’s go.”

 

There was a note for Hamilton at his desk when he got into work telling him to report to the president's office as soon as possible.  He picked it up and looked around.  There was no one else in his vicinity.  Did they really want him to abandon his post for this?  Was it that urgent?  He wasn’t sure what he could possibly be in trouble for—at least not in that much trouble for—, but frankly (he thought with a roll of his eyes) it did seem high time for someone to take him aside again and tell him he needed to sit down and remember his station.

Apprehensively, he put up a sign saying BACK IN FIVE MINUTES and, knowing it was likely to be a lie, the list of answers to frequently asked questions that he had typed up anyway.

 

Hamilton showed up at Laurens and Lafayette’s dorm close to midnight, but still as full of energy as if it had been noon instead.

“Check it,” he said, handing his phone, unlocked and open to his photos to Laurens.  “I show up hungover and late and this shit happens.” 

“Are these HR papers?”  Laurens asked, looking back at Hamilton.  He didn’t seem upset to have been fired (which was the only option that really made sense), so he enlarged the picture.  “Wait a minute.  Did you get promoted?”

Layafette snatched the phone to see.  “I show up late to class and the teacher calls me an indolent youth but you actually get to work with Dr. George Washington?”  When no one immediately responded, he continued.  “Do you get to be in his actual office?  Can you liberate a pen for me?”

“Don’t try to get Alexander to steal from the president,” Laurens scolded. 

“I’ll just get him a regular BIC and tell him Washington touched it,” Hamilton said over Lafayette’s sounds of protest.  “I saw them, half of them are just those free ones that get given out by boring student organizations.”

“Like your Council?”  Laurens teased.

“Ha ha, very funny.  I’ll have you know that it was my work there that got us improved lighting on campus walkways.  Actually, you should know that, I made you pick up the pamphlets I printed out, the ones on relative cost of lightbulbs and the diameter of—”

Lafayette cut him off.  “No one cares about that, Alexander.  Did you actually get to speak with him?”

“Yeah, I’ll introduce you if you want.”

“I already know him,” Lafayette said, a little sharper than necessary in response to just how smug Hamilton was sounding.  It was dawning on him that he might have had something to do with this and he was frustrated about not being able to say anything or risk ruining it.

“Then why are you pissing yourself over this?”  Laurens asked. 

“Because he’s _Washington_ ,” Lafayette spun to face him now.  “It’s very exciting!  Don’t you know anything about what he’s done?”

“Overhauled the administrative system.”

“One of the youngest to receive a full professorship or to become dean in the history of American universities.”

“Won the Presidential Medal for Excellence in Education.”

“I think he was on his college’s basketball team as well.”

“Well if you know that then you should understand why I am so thrilled—for Alexander, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I met with him just before the school year began as well, you know,” Lafayette said.  

Laurens laughed.  “Why didn’t you ‘liberate’ a pen then?”

“It was a state of emergency.  My paperwork didn’t go through.  They were threatening to deport me!”

“That’s no good.  They would have made John pee in a cup for nothing.”

“I said they took a saliva sample,” Laurens protested, then turned back to Lafayette.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know.  I had only just arrived the day before.  Adrienne’s father was going ballistic and it finally got late enough that he stopped calling and Washington stepped out to talk to someone about it.  He told me to wait in his office and I thought I would sit at his desk for just a moment to see what it was like but I was so tired… I fell asleep in his chair.  I used his jacket as a blanket.”  Laurens and Hamilton cringed.  “It smelled of his cologne.”

“Okay.  Right.”  Hamilton took his phone back finally.  “This is getting into a weird area and you need to stop.  I’ll look into the pen thing.”

“That’s all I’m asking for.”

“So,” Hamilton put his phone in his pocket and clapped his hands together.  “I’m starved.  I’ve just spent literally twelve hours getting everything straightened out and I think I gave an interview to the alumni newsletter somewhere in there but I didn’t check the kid’s ID.  Drinks later.  Let’s get dinner.”

 


	6. Merci Beaucoup, Jean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lancelot; *First Time; Dick Pic; Morning After

“Do you want to come over?” Hamilton asked Laurens quietly as they left the restaurant in the early hours of the morning. “I know it’s late but you don’t have to be anywhere until ten and, hey, maybe if I show up late again they’ll be so sick of me that they’ll just give me my degree this time.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, so don’t push it,” Laurens whispered back. “You don’t want to get fired as soon as they hire you.”

“I’m going on a lunch date with _mon cher coeur_ ,” Lafayette announced, having overheard them. “So in fact tonight would be very convenient for you to stay elsewhere. Otherwise I’ll just wake you up in four hours. Your choice.”

“Don’t you think you should ask her to meet you for dinner once in a while?” Laurens asked.

Lafayette shook his head sadly. “She has dinner with her parents. I want them to like me.”

“It’s just that… I know you put up a good show about how you like to see her, but you crash hard later in the day and you’re very difficult to move.”

“Why would you move him?” Hamilton asked.

“It’s not like he always falls asleep in his bed,” Laurens said. “He’s blocked the door before. I had to wake him up so I could get in!”

“Fine, fine, I will consider finding a different time,” Lafayette said. “But we have already made plans for tomorrow and a gentleman does not cancel on a lady at the last minute.”

Laurens glanced at Hamilton who was looking hopefully at him. “All right,” he agreed. It was already so late anyway.

“You know that she calls him her Lancelot?” Hamilton said, to break what was becoming too tense of a moment. “In her texts to him.”

Laurens laughed. “And on the phone. You forget that I still hear the conversations that they don’t schedule in advance.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Lafayette protested. “I am her knight in white armor!”

“That story doesn’t end well,” Laurens pointed out.

“And they’re British. I would have thought that you would have picked a more suitably national icon.”

Lafayette huffed. “ _Le Morte d’Arthur_ is a French work, _merci_ , and it happens to have been one of Adrienne’s favorites as a girl. It is not my fault if popular belief in this country has become so corrupted as to ignore its French roots. And regardless, Chrétrien de Troyes was the first to write about Lancelot, so he is a decidedly _French_ ,” he emphasized the word, “icon.”

“I heard that he was actually Irish or Welsh,” Laurens taunted.

“His very name is French,” Lafayette argued back, “ _L’ancelot_ , ‘the servant.’ That cannot be a coincidence! Your argument is outdated, stop trying to throw such slander in my face!”

“He calls her worse back,” Laurens said, turning his attention back to Hamilton. “I thought I would hear him say Guinevere, but it’s all ‘my dearest heart’ and ‘my life.’”

“‘Adrienne, my life,’” Hamilton mocked, dramatically putting one hand over his heart. “I must wake before the sun to be with you, regardless of how it affects my well-being and of the utter inconvenience it causes my friends!”

“Very funny.” Lafayette responded sulkily. “But say all you like, it doesn't matter to me.”

“It matters a little,” Laurens bent down a little to stage whisper to Hamilton.

“You matter little.”

“That’s not how the phrase goes.”

“I don’t care. I’m going back to the room to get my beauty rest so I can be in peak physical condition for my dear heart.” Lafayette enunciated the pet name in defiance. “ _Bonne nuit, mes amis_.”

 

Hamilton let them into his apartment and turned on the overhead light. “Sorry about the mess,” he said with the air of someone who always had to make that apology and only really meant it now that something potentially important had come up. “You know how busy I’ve been.”

“I know.” Laurens stepped inside and took off his coat, folding it over his arm. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Put that on the chair, or my desk, or the floor. It doesn't matter.” Hamilton took off his own coat, then looked at the paper-covered desk. “Actually, don't put it on my desk. The chair or the floor are fine.” He draped his over the back of the chair.

Laurens gave a short laugh and followed suit.

“So,” Hamilton began, rocking forward once onto his toes. “Now what?”

“Well…” Laurens looked carefully around the room, his hand straying to the bottom of his shirt like he was about to pull it up over his head but caught himself. “I think Lafayette is right.”

“He’s right?”

“Yeah.” He took his shirt off in one fluid motion and Hamilton’s gaze ran hungrily up over his body just after the fabric. “ _Cur non_?” He dropped the shirt to the floor and paused. “I wish I hadn’t just said that.”

“I’ll ignore it.” Hamilton stepped forward, slipping one hand into his back pocket. “Just this once, though.”

Laurens laughed, low. “Just this once?”

“Mm.” Hamilton leaned up, pressing their hips together. “You’re lucky you’re pretty,” he teased.

Laurens wrinkled his nose. “And I’m going to ignore that. Now we’re even.”

“Hardly. You were trying to be sexy and I was teasing you for it—”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Hamilton obliged, raising up to meet Laurens’ mouth as he leaned down into the kiss, parting his lips and darting out his tongue. Laurens put his hands on Hamilton’s shoulders, moving him back a step.

“Your shirt.”

“Your pants.” But Hamilton yanked his shirt off, motioning Laurens forward as he walked backwards towards the mattress. “I’ve got—shit, it’s all in the bathroom—hold on. You better be naked by the time I get back here.”

Laurens looked around the room once more then turned off the light. The room darkened, he sat awkwardly on the futon.

A moment later Hamilton returned, made the corner too sharply, and swore loudly when he walked into the chair, dropping what he was holding with a clatter.

“God _damn_ it! John, what the hell!”

“I got the lights.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Sorry.” Laurens got up, managing not to trip over anything before he turned the light back on. Hamilton, still wearing his pants, was crouched picking a bottle of lube and a wrapped condom off the floor.

“You’re not undressed yet,” Laurens commented.

“Ha ha,” Hamilton said dryly, still not amused at how he had crashed into his own chair. “And neither are you, technically. Do you mind leaving it on this time? I don’t want to be completely blind.”

“Sorry,” Laurens muttered.

“Forget it. Come on.”  Hamilton stepped closer, hesitating in spite of himself for a moment before standing just in front of him and reaching up to cup his face and draw him into a kiss.

Laurens kept his eyes open for a second before awkwardly realizing that he should close them.  He put his hands at his waist--was that a good place for them?--and stood perfectly, carefully still as Hamilton leaned a little into him.  He could feel his own heart beating nervously, knocking against his chest with anxiety, and he tried hard to clear his mind.

“Hey.”  Hamilton drew back and Laurens felt his pulse trip over itself for an entirely different reason when he looked into his eyes.  “You okay?”

Laurens nodded.  “Of course.”

Hamilton chewed on his lower lip.  He leaned away and Laurens noticed for the first time the freckles scattered over his shoulders and collar and how soft his skin looked over his narrow chest and torso.  “You want the lights off?”

“You said you wanted them on.”

“Yeah.  I mean,”  Hamilton practically launched himself into the words, “I can compromise.  I don't sit on that stupid committee all day without learning to make some deals, not gonna act like I like that part of it, but I do know how to do it and this one seems benign enough.  Make you more comfortable, I'm back in the room and hopefully I can manage to not trip over my own bag and fall flat on my face, that'll make me more comfortable--you, uh, you being comfortable, I  mean.  Not not falling on my face.  Although I'd like that too.  Fuck, you know what, I'm doing it.”  He crossed the room, already unbuttoning his pants, and turned off the lights again.  Laurens sat back down on the mattress.  “That better?  I think that's better.”  Laurens couldn't see him as more than a slightly darker shadow while his eyes were still adjusting but he heard him laugh.  “More romantic or some shit.  Mood lighting.”

“Isn't mood lighting just dimmed?”

“Yeah, okay, I don't got any candles, John.  You gotta make do.”  He sat next to him and tentatively put his hand on his thigh.  “We gotta make out,” he joked.

Laurens snorted and impulsively put his hand on his upper arm and pulled him in to a kiss.  He slipped his tongue past his lips, still uncomfortably aware of every decision he was making and trying hard to keep his mind in New York, in the apartment.

Hamilton breathed out slowly as they momentarily separated.  “John...”

Laurens felt the name rush through him like a jolt of electricity and Hamilton moved so he was practically straddling his leg with both his hands moving hungrily over his back and shoulders.  Laurens kissed him again, deeper, suddenly unable to see South Carolina over the way he was making his head spin.

Hamilton raised up a little higher and then moved away, grinning in the dark as Laurens reached for him automatically.  “I'm just--I gotta take these off, John.”  He pulled his pants down, then rolled onto his back to quickly yank them off the rest of the way and toss them aside.  When Laurens reached for him again his hand brushed his bare thigh and the edge of his briefs and jerked nervously away.  Hamilton caught it and put it back on the side of his leg.  “Hey.  Relax, I want you to do that.”

Laurens laughed nervously.  “Right.”  Here, New York.  “Should I...?”

“Come here.”

Laurens leaned over him and slowly pushed him back against the futon, kissing him and letting their bodies touch. He started when Hamilton--carefully, almost too carefully, almost as if he was trying to replicate something he had looked up and studied for reference--slid his hands up his legs to his ass.  Hamilton broke the kiss and nudged Laurens' head to the side.  When he whispered in his ear his voice was taut with anticipation and nerves.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Laurens was very aware of how hard he was.

Hamilton made a sound like he was about to say Laurens' name and then thought better of it at the last minute.  “You're down, right?  I...”  Slight hesitation.  “Thought it...  I want to try it,” he finished valiantly yet lamely.  “Got lube and a condom.  You know the drill.”

Laurens wondered if that was in fact the case.

“Hey.”  Hamilton kissed him, he forced himself to make it playful, and twisted out from under him, leaning to the side and feeling around until he managed to retrieve the two items in question.  “Here.”  He pressed them to Laurens' bare chest and Laurens, for his part, felt compelled to take them.  Hamilton paused, then kissed him again, assertively.  “I'm gonna take this off.  You probably, I mean, I don't want to tell you how to dress.”

Laurens couldn't help but stare as he sat back, his heart in his throat even as his body eagerly reacted and his hands seemed to finish undressing him of their own accord.  Belt undone, fly down.  He stood.  When he knelt back down on the mattress and ran his hand over Hamilton's back they were both completely naked.  He opened the condom.

 

Meanwhile, several blocks away, Lafayette was spreading dijon mustard on a slice of bread.

He had his long hair pulled back, although not as neatly as it would be for the actual date, and away from his face and he hid a yawn behind the back of his hand as he worked. Soon he would have his sandwich complete and he could pop it in a paper bag with a cookie bought earlier that day at the mess hall, throw it all in the mini fridge, and call it a night. He only had a couple of hours now before he had to get up and wash up for his lunch date with Adrienne, but as he looked at the time he got an idea that would keep him up only a few minutes more and that hopefully would win him some points.

As soon as his lunch was stored, Lafayette grabbed his cell phone and settled back on his bed, leaving the light on and not bothering to get under the covers.

“ _Merci beaucoup, Jean_ ,” he said aloud to the empty room as he adjusted the ties of his yoga pants, slid them down, and took a very artful and not at all tasteless photograph.

 

Laurens woke in the early morning to Hamilton, in a pair of gray sweats and an undershirt, shaking his shoulder.

“Hey. Not to kick you out, but I have to go soon and you’ve got practice.”

“Ah, yeah. Shit.” Laurens sat up and ran a hand through his hair. “What time… Are you wearing sweatpants? And glasses?”

Hamilton stood up. “We’re done here.”

“Hey, come back here.” Laurens grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back down. “I didn’t know you wore either of those.”

“I have one pair of each. And if you weren’t such a freaking blanket hog I wouldn't have gotten up at three in the morning to dig them out!”

“And the glasses?” Laurens reached out to touch the frames, decidedly unfashionable, round with tarnished gilding.

Hamilton jerked back and stood up. “I wear contacts, jackass.”

Laurens yawned and felt around for his clothes. By the time he was dressed in the same outfit he had shown up in the night before, Hamilton was ready as well, clean clothes and contacts.

“Right. Shall we go?” Hamilton grabbed his coat and bag. Laurens followed suit, uncomfortably aware that he was doing the walk of shame, even as Hamilton whistled cheerfully beside him.


	7. Lafayette Eats Chex Mix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sext; Fake Cats; Instafamous

When Laurens opened the door to his shared room after practice, he was surprised to find Lafayette very, very awake.

“John!” Lafayette grabbed him by the forearms, shaking him and then speaking in frantic slipping English. “Something bad is happened. Something very very bad.”

“What is it?” Laurens closed the door behind him, looking at him seriously.

Lafayette moaned despondently and shoved his phone at Laurens, dropping down on his bed and hiding his head in his hands. “I was trying to text Adrienne,” he said, muffled.

“Uh.” Laurens put his own hand to his mouth for a moment, biting back a laugh. “Did you sext Washington?”

“ _Oui_.”

“You asked the venerated George Washington… What color his panties are.”

Lafayette just nodded without lifting his head.

“Well, that was twenty minutes ago. You must have come on too strong because he’s not texting you back.”

Lafayette made an incoherent noise. Laurens sat on the mattress next to him, putting an arm over his shoulders.

“Look, that was clearly meant for someone else. Why don’t you just apologize if you’re that embarrassed about it? You said he’s a friend of the family, didn’t you? I’m sure he will understand.” When that didn’t seem to cheer Lafayette up any, Laurens continued reassuringly. “It could have been worse. You could have sent that to her dad.”

Lafayette stiffened and didn’t respond.

Laurens paused before asking, “Lafayette? You didn’t send something to her father as well, did you?”

“Not today,” Lafayette said, finally looking up. “Once I… I told him I loved him by mistake.”

Laurens couldn’t help but laugh at how tragic he made that sound. “That’s not a big deal. He must have been glad to hear that you were saying that to his daughter.”

Lafayette buried his face back in his hands. “He said ‘wrong number, Larry.’”

Laurens laughed harder.

“Larry isn’t even a French name!” Lafayette cried.

“I’m sure he was teasing you.”

“ _C’est si tragique_ , he is the one who likes me more. Her mother is still mad we are together, they almost got divorced when I made my intentions known!”

Laurens drew back a little to look at him better. “Are you serious?”

Lafayette straightened up. “It’s true. Her father is on my side. He says it is true love and, besides which, I am a good match for her. Her mother says she is too young now and was too young when we met and they got into such a big argument over it when I was fourteen that he actually moved out for several months.”

“Wait a minute… She was twelve when you started dating?” Laurens took his arm back. “I have to say I agree with her mother on this. That’s awfully young.”

“That’s not the point! I need you to help me figure out what to do with this—” He was cut off by his phone vibrating on the bed. Laurens grabbed it with quicker reflexes but handed it over, unable to speak from laughing.

 

> G. Washington: White.

 

Lafayette yelped and dropped the phone onto the floor as if it were hot.

“He’s fucking with you,” Laurens made out eventually. “There’s no way that he isn’t.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Trust me, the only way someone like him would respond to that at all is if—” Laurens cut himself off suddenly, digging his own, silenced, phone out of his pocket.

“What? Is if what?” Lafayette asked.

“Son of a bitch,” Laurens said, starting to laugh again, and showing Lafayette his screen. At the bottom of a chain of messages complaining (or bragging?) about all the work to be done reorganizing Washington’s files while the man himself was taking a lunch off of the grid (“I don’t care what you say, I don’t know how anyone can just disconnect themselves for two hours.”):

 

> A. Hamilton: lmfao wait until you hear what Lancelot misfired

 

After that, Lafayette switched over to Snapchat for his messages to Adrienne.

 

“It’s a good thing those things don’t get saved,” Hamilton commented as he walked back from the chemistry lab with Laurens. “How much do you want to bet that it’s a solid 75% dick pics?”

“50%,” Laurens countered. “He gets a lot of messages from her.”

“More cats I bet. Did he ever tell you that he has a favorite horse as well? Not just ‘a horse.’ ‘A favorite horse.’”

Laurens decided not to remind Hamilton that he grew up on an estate and his sister showed horses so that wasn’t actually all that strange to him. “No, he never mentioned it.”

“He named it _Jean le Blanc_.” He rolled his eyes. “How hipster is that?”

“You once told me you wanted to get a unicorn and name it Peacock.”

“One, fuck off, and two, that would be fucking awesome and you know it.”

Laurens laughed but didn’t push it. “Do you want to come up? Lafayette should still be awake.”

“I’ll help you force the door if he passed out in front of it again.”

Lafayette was, in fact, still awake, and had made a nest for himself on his bed with the screens of both his laptop and cell phone lit up. He was talking in rapid-fire French to Adrienne about something on his phone, eagerly showing her the screen.

“Hey, we’ve got a bet going and you can help us decide it. What proportion of your—”

“Look, Laurens,” Lafayette said, cutting Hamilton off and holding up his cell. “I’ve got a great picture of your ass sticking out of a cake box.”

“Right, forget what I was going to say, this is so much stranger. What?”

“It’s this new game he downloaded,” Laurens explained wearily. “Adrienne showed it to him.”

Hamilton looked at the phone. “Is that a cartoon cat?”

“Named ‘John Pawrens,’” Lafayette announced, looking over at Laurens to see his reaction.

Hamilton grinned. “‘Pawrens.’ That’s cute.”

“Don’t get so smug,” Laurens warned. “He made one of you as well.”

“Really? Do I have socks too?”

Lafayette showed Hamilton his cat (Hamewlton; personality: “insatiable”) while Adrienne on her end showed him the currently trending #catsofinstagram Hamilton and Laurens wondered what had happened to his life and why was it now some sort of weird ouroboros version of cat hell.

“You’re all going to shack up together and become weird cat ladies, aren’t you?” He asked.

“Stop being so jealous. _Il préfère les chiens_ ,” Hamilton explained to Adrienne.

“Cats are fine,” Laurens protested, but no one was listening to him. Lafayette was busy downloading the app onto Hamilton’s phone after explaining to him that it didn’t require him to actually devote any time out of his busy schedule.

“I considered leaving their names,” Lafayette said, “but then I realized I could name them after my friends and it was so much funnier.”

“Yeah, I’ll probably just name them all ‘Laurens’ since it really creeps him out,” Hamilton said.

“It does not creep me out!” Laurens protested again. “It’s just weird when he doesn’t give any context. ‘Laurens is sleeping in front of the heater,’ ‘Laurens ate all the cat food.’”

“Ooh,” Hamilton showed Lafayette and Adrienne his screen. “Laurens is playing with his ball!”

“ _Cat people_ ,” the actual Laurens muttered.

“We’re still friends, aren’t we?” Lafayette asked suddenly, looking up at Laurens. “I’ll change the name if it’s truly too uncomfortable.”

Laurens sat down at his desk. “It’s fine. Really.”

“Good, because I couldn’t think of anything better than ‘Pawrens.’ By the way,” he lifted up a bag of Chex Mix, “this is crap. Why is everything so heavily seasoned here?”

“First off, why are you eating that?” Laurens asked.

“I sent some to Adrienne so we could try American food together.”

“I’m afraid to ask what else you picked.”

Lafayette began counting off on his fingers. “Buffalo Ranch Doritos, buffalo jerky, buffalo wing kettle corn… And cheese in a can.”

“Why the pattern?” Hamilton asked, not looking up from his phone.

Lafayette shrugged. “It seemed _américain_ , non? These,” he held up the bag of Chex Mix again, “were for the cheese but…” He made a face. “That is not cheese.”

“It is spelled with a ‘z,’” Hamilton pointed out. “Hey, what do the gold fish do?”

“Give me that.” Lafayette took the phone from him and Laurens took the open bag with a shrug. Someone might as well eat it.

“John,” Lafayette said, looking up from the game after a minute, “You should visit with me in France this summer. You can practice your French and Adrienne has these nice big dogs, so you won’t be stuck with the cats all day.”

“I said I don’t mind cats. Thank you for the offer but I’m afraid I won’t be able to accept it.”

“Do you already have plans? It’s so far in the future!”

“He can’t go because his father won’t approve,” Hamilton said, breaking off his conversation with Adrienne and flipping back into English.

“I never said that.”

Hamilton shrugged, switching back to French.

“Is that true?” Lafayette asked, turning wide eyes to Laurens.

Laurens looked uncomfortable. “I always go back home and help him with things. There’s a lot of work to do. We don’t always agree, but…”

“But maybe this summer will be the one in which you change his mind.”

Laurens smiled. “Yeah.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes. “Hey,” he nudged Lafayette. “Say goodbye to your dearheart, she says that she has to go.” Hamilton started to get up, but Lafayette stopped him.

“And what about you? You’re invited as well, of course.”

Hamilton paused, remembering the huge amounts of fun he did not have staying in his apartment over winter break.

“I’d still have to pay rent…”

“It’s covered,” Lafayette said with a wave of his hand. “Please. You would be doing me a favor, I need a third to come along with me and Adrienne when we go out and having a pretty boy like you with me will confuse the crowd, which is always fun.”

Hamilton laughed. “I’ll think about it. If nothing else comes up.”

“Good!” Lafayette beamed. “I’ll let people know to expect you.”

“I said ‘if.’”

Lafayette waved him off, already busy saying his goodbyes to Adrienne.

 

“And those tiny wavy baguettes,” Lafayette complained the next morning. “Are they supposed to be baguettes? They were the best part and that is not saying very much. How can you even eat those dark brown pieces?”

“You cannot tell me that you don’t have similar snack food in France.” Laurens was mostly ignoring him as he packed his bag. “Party mix? Anything like that?”

“They tasted so _burnt_ ,” Lafayette continued, “and then you just ate them all while I was saying goodbye to Adrienne!”

“You say that as if it didn’t take you another twenty minutes,” Laurens pointed out. “Shit, I really need to work on this paper this weekend. I can’t believe I’ve been putting it off this long.”

Lafayette rolled his eyes and pulled off his shirt, tossing it to the side. “You need to calm down.  Have Alexander help you with the paper.”  He examined himself in the mirror on the inside of his closet door, first from the front, then turning to the side to better look at his body, lean with broad shoulders

“That won’t work and you know it.”

Lafayette ignored him. “This is a good angle for me. Take my picture from your monstrous height and I’ll post it with a nice filter. Valencia?”

“We're the same height. You’re just as bad as he is.” But Laurens took his phone. “There.”

“ _Merci_.” Lafayette sat down on his bed, working at getting the picture ready to post. “I try not to post too many selfies,” he continued, “although technically that wasn’t—ah, you understand. The point is that there is a fine line between enjoying the attention and making Adrienne jealous.”

“If she doesn't like it, shouldn’t you just not post them at all?”

“I never said she doesn’t like it,” Lafayette countered. “It makes me look good, all this publicity, and I know how to use it. If I look good, then so does she.” He waited for the picture to load and for the first couple of likes to appear so he could show Laurens. “See? I’m her status symbol.”

“That’s so shallow.”

Lafayette flipped a hand at him. “Whatever you say. It works. Let me know if you ever want to become famous on the internet.”

“I’ll pass,” Laurens said dryly. “Although you should run that offer by Burr.”


	8. Male Model

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life Drawing

“Shouldn’t you be done with that by now?” Hamilton asked, bored, draping himself over the back of Laurens’ chair so he could see the screen where Laurens’ cursor was still blinking sadly at the bottom of the second page. “You said you were working on it all morning and it’s only supposed to be six pages. Just spit something out and—” he laughed. “Okay, bad choice of words. Hurry up and finish already.”

“I’m not you,” Laurens complained. “I can’t just throw words on the page without thinking about it. It’ll get done, and it’ll be good, I just need more time.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes. “It’s just practice, John. Give it a shot, go on.”

“I’ll ‘give it a shot’ when it’s not counting for this much of my grade, thanks.”

Hamilton kissed his neck, just behind his ear, paused to see if that would get him a reaction, and when it didn’t, straightened up with a sigh. “Do you want help?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Alexander.”

Hamilton sat down on Lafayette’s bed, looking across to Laurens’ side of the room. “Do you actually paint?”

“What?”

“Flowers and shit. What Lafayette said.”

“Yeah.” He bent down, taking a large black sketchbook out of the bottom desk drawer and turning to hand it over. “You can look if you like.”

“Thanks.” Hamilton accepted it and began turning pages. “Ha. It’s just not what I expected, you know? From someone like you, I mean.”

Laurens, facing his computer again, smiled. “Someone like me?”

“You know.” Hamilton waved a hand vaguely. “Tall, dark, handsome, all that shit. You should be some meathead jock. No offense meant—you are a meathead jock and we all know it—what I mean is that this doesn’t go with the look and this—honestly, John, it’s pretty great.” He stopped on a watercolor of a small black and red bird on a branch. “Did you ever consider showing these anywhere? I bet you could at least display them on campus.”

“I got some published in a local nature magazine when I was in high school. They were having a contest.”

Hamilton whistled. “Congrats. I thought your dad didn’t approve of this sort of thing.”

Laurens shrugged, wrote a sentence, deleted it. “No, he’s fine with it as a hobby, it’s just not a proper career. I used to take art as my elective at school. There was this good anatomical drawing class. I wanted to be a doctor, you know that, so it seemed to combine both interests.” He laughed. “Of course, the year before I could take it, they switched to only female models. There was an incident with one of the men they hired and after that they could only bring in women.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s true.”

Hamilton turned the page finally as Laurens kept talking.

“Anyway, I still took it but it would have been nice to practice with a male model as well.”

Hamilton looked up abruptly from the sketchbook, but Laurens didn’t seem to have been paying attention to what he said. Putting the book to the side he went back to drape on him once more, sliding his arms across his shoulders and trailing one hand over his chest. “…Oh?”

Laurens stopped writing, lifting his head to look at him. “What?”

“You said you wanted a model.” If Hamilton was a cat he would have been purring as he traced the line of Laurens’ jaw with his other hand. “I’ll be your model.”

Laurens tipped his head back a little. “Mm…” His eyes closed. “Alex, I need to finish this.”

Hamilton sensed that the odds of the argument were tipping in his favor and he moved around in front of him, pushing the desk chair back so he could straddle him. “As a reward, then. When you’re done.” He leaned down, kissing him. Laurens slid his hands up Hamilton’s sides, wrapping one arm around his back and sliding his other hand into his long hair, letting out a startled upset noise when Hamilton abruptly pulled back and hopped down.

“I’m going to the library.”

“I… What?”

Hamilton smiled, that obnoxious smug I-just-won-and-you-haven’t-even-realized-it-yet smile. “You said you need to finish this, so we’ll do that when you’re done. Besides, there’re some books I want to check out. Give me a call when you’re finished and I’ll come back.”

“I hope they’re all on the top shelf,” Laurens growled, slouching down in his chair and glaring at the computer screen.

Hamilton just laughed. “It’s just six pages, John. I could do that in—”

“Go get your damn books,” Laurens snapped.

Hamilton flipped him off behind his back then, when that got no reaction, left.

 

By the time Laurens called, Hamilton was busy trying to flirt his way into a discount at one of the cafes on campus.

“Paint me like one of your South Carolina girls.”

“Shut it and get back here.”

 

Hamilton got back to the apartment, half expecting to have crossed some kind of weird line with his joke and to just be given a paper to proof read instead, but to his surprise Laurens had closed his computer and dragged in a stool and lap desk. He was sitting on his bed and motioned to the stool. “Have a seat.”

“There?” Hamilton asked, dropping his bag and taking off his coat. “I figured that the bed would be—”

“You said you were going to be my model,” Laurens said, cutting him off. “So take your clothes off and have a seat.”

“You’re really good at that pillow talk,” Hamilton said dryly as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Sexy.”

Laurens ignored him, testing the pencil off to the side of the paper. He looked up again once Hamilton was sitting.

“So,” Hamilton began, awkwardly, “am I supposed to pose or something?” He imitated The Thinker. “How long is this going to take?”

“Be quiet,” Laurens said, looking him over carefully. Hamilton couldn’t keep eye contact, not sitting exposed like that, so he turned his head away and stared at the door. “That’s good. Just relax and get comfortable.”

“Easy for you to say,” Hamilton complained, sinking down a little.

 

Laurens drew in silence for about ten minutes before—“Alex. Stop that.”

Hamilton forced himself to stop tapping his foot. “I can’t help it,” he complained.

“Yes, you can, you have marvelous self-control when you want to. Sit still.”

Hamilton thought about saying that willing himself to do something was very different from willing himself not to, but then forced himself to keep silent, thereby winning Laurens’ case for him.

Lafayette swung open the door, holding a new and unopened giant party mix bag of Chex Mix. “ _Bonsoir, mes amis!_ ” he began, before he saw Hamilton and the last word died in his throat.

Hamilton yelped and jumped up, grabbing the pillow off of Laurens’ bed and covering himself with it as Lafayette took rather too long to close the door to the public (if thankfully mostly empty) hallway.

“What are you doing and why wasn't I invited?” Lafayette asked, finally closing the door behind him.

“We’re not doing anything!” Hamilton said; “I’m drawing,” Laurens said.

“…Right. Let me see. No, not you, I’ve seen that already,” Lafayette said, flipping a hand at Hamilton, who was about to start talking again, and crossing the room to sit next to Laurens.

Laurens pulled the sketchbook away sightly. “I only just started,” he protested. “Seriously, Lafayette, if you had been here ten minutes earlier you could have seen him strip.”

“As sad as I am to have missed that,” Lafayette began, “I understand that this is a work in progress. I will be the gentlest of critics.” He tipped the sketchbook towards him. “A very good start. You’re a quick draw.”

“That’s not what that means,” Hamilton pointed out, sitting back on the stool, although keeping the pillow for modesty.

“He knows what I mean. Just the sketch, you’ve captured his energy very well, even without the details I could tell you who it is of.”

Hamilton leaned forward now, trying to see the picture, but Lafayette and Laurens in unison tilted it away from him.

“That’s not fair. How come he gets to see it and I don’t?”

“Because it’s of you,” Lafayette answered, “and if you know what it looks like you’ll start posing.”

“I’m already posing.”

“He’s right,” Laurens said. “It’s more natural this way. I’ll show to you once it’s finished. Drop the pillow, Alexander, and sit back like you were, put your right foot up on the bar, there. Thank you.”

“I bet Lafayette would pose,” Hamilton muttered.

“Of course he would, and that’s why I only draw him when he’s asleep,” Laurens joked, grinning when Hamilton laughed.

“Ha ha, very funny.” Lafayette didn’t seem too put out, however, and he opened the bag, settling in to watch Laurens work.

The three of them stayed like that in silence, until Lafayette’s phone went off.

“Ah, _merde_ , I completely forgot.” He answered it on video. “Adrienne!”

Laurens glanced up at him and then went back to his work. Hamilton lifted his head from his hand to stare, surprised.

“She can’t see you,” Laurens said without breaking focus again. “Put your head back down.”

“It’s weird,” Hamilton muttered, obeying.

“ _Excusez-moi_.” Lafayette put his hand over the screen for a moment. “Alex, I don’t want her to see you in this state, you have nothing to worry about.”

“What?” Hamilton didn’t move, but he did sound offended. “What’s so wrong with me?”

“It’s not decent,” Lafayette sniffed.

“This is _art_.”

Lafayette looked on the verge of telling Adrienne he would call her back later, but Laurens, now sounding annoyed, spoke up.

“Both of you, stop. Lafayette, it’s weird that you put her through to video while in the same room as us. Yes, I know she can’t see anything but you can understand why he’s reacting. Alexander, stop trying to provoke him just because you’re uncomfortable. Are you really trying to get into a fist fight with him while you’re naked?”

Lafayette blushed as Adrienne started talking to him again, and Hamilton snickered as he heard him trying to explain in hushed French that he was just sitting in on a life drawing class and wasn’t actually in the middle of a tryst.

“Stop moving around on the mattress. Get off,” Laurens complained, shoving him.

Lafayette, caught off guard, yelped and dropped his phone. It spun out across the floor of the room and, before he could do anything, stopped just in front of the stool Hamilton was still seated on.

“ _Ne le regarde pas!_ ” Lafayette shouted, diving on the phone.

“For Christ’s sake, Lafayette!” Laurens snapped. “Sit down and shut up or get out! You can text her all you want but keep your mouth shut and stop moving around!”

Cowed, Lafayette asked Adrienne if he could message her instead and took a seat on his own bed. “Hot,” mouthed Hamilton to him. Laurens glared at both of them and went back to work.

The sound of the pencil on paper and Lafayette typing away on his phone for a long time was all that filled the room, then Lafayette finally raised his hand without looking up from his conversation with Adrienne.

“Yes?” Laurens called on him.

“I’m sorry for the interruption. I have a question for your subject."

"Is this about this summer? I told you I don’t know if I can get away.”

“I talked to Washington this morning. He won’t need you here and in fact thinks it would be good if someone accompanied me.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Oh, no real reason,” Lafayette said, suspiciously evasive.


	9. This Is Why Laurens Doesn't Talk About His Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Request; Grade

“So can I see it yet?”

“I told you, I’m not done.” Laurens, ignoring Hamilton as best as he could with the aid of the busy mess hall noise to block out about half his pestering comments, took a bite out of his slice of pizza. “It won’t kill you to have a little patience.”

“That’s real rich coming from you,” Hamilton complained. “I saw you checking to see if your grade came back a half dozen times already today.”

“That’s different.” Laurens frowned. “I don’t know what he’s going to say. You, on the other hand… I know what you’re going to say already so I don’t mind waiting to hear you praise me.”

“God, and you complain about how I’m vain. You know what, you’re worse, because people don’t expect it from you somehow. It’s just, oh, John Laurens, he’s so good looking and he could kick your ass but he won’t because he's also so well-mannered and considerate,” Hamilton said, mocking… someone, Laurens wondered who it was exactly that he was trying to imitate. “But they don’t know that he’s also got an ego the size of the entire state of South Carolina and, ha ha, thanks for not telling me while I was talking about it the first time, _asshole_ , he also has his own personal favorite pony because _of course he does_.”

“I live on a farm.”

“You live on a fucking estate, don’t try to sugarcoat it like that.”

Laurens shrugged. “I’ll rename him Peacock for you, if you’d like.”

“Shut up, I’m not talking to you.”

“I have to admit,” Laurens said with consideration through a mouthful of pizza, “I didn't think you were going to say that.”

Hamilton was saved from having to figure out how to answer that with the appropriate level of snark without actually answering at all by Lafayette’s arrival.

“ _Bonjour, mes amis_ ,” he announced, sitting down next to Hamilton with a plate of meatloaf and rice.

“Trying more some American food?” Hamilton asked, scooting over to make him room. “Are you keeping track of what you’ve worked your way through? I can see if the office has a printout on regional specialities.”

“But of course! But this is more important than even that.” He leaned on the table to look Laurens directly in the eyes. “I would like to commission your talents. I need a portrait drawn.”

Laurens looked surprised, but he nodded. “You don’t have to pay me. You’re my friend, it will be a present. Is it of Adrienne?” When Lafayette nodded, Laurens continued. “That’s fine, but it’ll be hard for her to pose for it. It will be easier if you can give me a picture at the angle that you want.”

“Ah, anything you need!” Lafayette pulled out his phone. “This will be a surprise for her, so don’t say anything to her. Here, I want it done just like she is here.” He held up the screen and Laurens turned red, moving away slightly before he caught himself and tried to recover.

“All right. I, ah, yeah, there’s no problem. I can do that.”

Hamilton, watching this reaction, tipped the phone towards himself. “Let me see—whoa, nice. I forgot you guys do the topless beach thing.”

“She is very pretty, _non_?” Lafayette let Hamilton take the phone from him then started talking to Laurens again. “I want her like that, but with softer lighting and instead of sand, flowers. Are you sure you do not want me to pay you? It’s a lot of work.”

“No, no, please don’t pay me. I said I’d do it as a present, and, honestly, accepting money for this would be even worse somehow.”

“Because then you’d be a porn dealer,” Hamilton commented, flicking through Lafayette’s photos.

“ _Give_ me that,” Lafayette snatched the phone away indignantly. “Did I say you could scroll?”

Hamilton looked to Laurens to try to get him on board with the claim that he wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, but laughed. “John, you’re as red as your shirt. You can't even see anything with that angle. Besides, I thought you said you had female models before?”

“That was different,” Laurens protested, reddening further until Hamilton’s exaggerated claim was actually true, “those were professionals. I’ve talked to this girl before. I know her! She’s my roommate’s girlfriend!”

Hamilton laughed again. “God, sometimes you’re so—”

“Shut up,” Laurens snapped.

Lafayette frowned. “This is…”

“You don’t like it?” Hamilton asked, turning his attention to him instead.

“When you first arrived you told me that you like all things American,” Laurens teased.

Lafayette shook his head. “That’s not it. It’s so… so brown, and so tough, and I think this layer on top is just ketchup, and in general the display of it is very poor.”

“And?”

Lafayette paused, taking a other bite. “…I am thinking I need to find a way to let Adrienne have this. Hamilton—”

“I don’t know how to make it and I’m not cooking it for you in France.”

“Damn. I’ll just have to think of something else.”

“Don’t you both have cooks?” Laurens asked. “Just find the recipe online and send it to her.”

“Yes, I will try that,” Lafayette said, taking a picture of his plate and sending it to Adrienne for her approval. Hamilton leaned to the side, out of the way of his elbows. Lafayette looked up once he was done. “Ah, Laurens brought me small mittens.”

“Look, when you’re talking about the cat instead of me can you at least call him ‘Pawrens?’”

“I do,” Lafayette protested, “just not in front of you.”

 

Hamilton was leaning over Laurens, seated at his desk, reading with wide eyes the comments on his computer screen.

“Uh,” he finally said, “not that I am not in complete agreement with you and we all know what I think about that dickhead, but, damn, John, I can’t believe you used that assignment to call him out on being such a jackass. That’s the kind of blindly reckless thing that _I_ do.” He took a step back, looking impressed.

“I couldn’t help it,” Laurens said, scrolling up and down through the returned assignment again. “I just..." Laurens pushed his seat back, hands on the desk still like he couldn't stand to be close to the document but couldn't bring himself to really move away. "We had a class," Laurens admitted finally, "and, I don't know why it bothered me so much. I know he wasn't targeting it at me, I mean, he doesn't even know who I am and it's not like I volunteered anything. I'm probably just on edge because I should be—If I hadn't messed up last semester, I'd be—" 

"John."

"There was nothing _wrong_ with it, he was just covering theory, the idea of having to pick a side. But, Alex," Laurens looked up at him, "do you know what it's like to not—fit in anywhere."

Hamilton didn't say anything to that.

Laurens sighed. "I know the diplomatic thing would have been to—"

"You can't always be diplomatic." Hamilton cut him off, arguing. "You were in the right, and—"

"And I need the grade," Laurens said with finality. "Especially since I'm not graduating in the spring. It just sucks. I don't know. I'll deal with it."

Hamilton was silent for a moment. “I can ask around, but he explained why he docked points, and it all makes sense. You can see if you can prove that he was harder on you than on other students, but unless you can show some kind of pattern it’ll be difficult to do much. ‘Galley.’ Is there really an ‘e’ in there?” He tipped his head to one side, trying to spell it out. “‘Gally'? Whatever. Did you ask Lafayette?”

“No, even if he could I don’t want him to just step in and pull some strings. That’s not the point.”

“You’re right.” Hamilton sat on his bed. “You’re sexy when you get all rebellious and devil-may-care, you know that? Social justice is a good look on you.”

“I’m not in the mood, Alexander.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes and flopped backwards, leaving his legs off the side of the bed. “Is the picture done yet?”

“Of you? No.”

“What about of Adrienne?”

“I’m still working on it, but you can see it.” Laurens passed him the sketchbook, opening it to the appropriate page. Hamilton whistled, holding it up above his head.

“Damn. If you flunk out you should just support yourself making pin ups. You think you can make her tits a little bigger next time?” He teased.

“Stop trying to make it weird.”

Hamilton laughed. “But it’s so easy! Seriously though, this is really good.”

“Thanks," Laurens said, almost shyly. "I think she’ll like it.”

“If she’s anything like him,” Hamilton agreed, passing it back.


	10. A Clarification on Vocabulary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pin-up; Custody; *J; Jack

“It’s really weird,” Laurens complained. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“I think you should be flattered,” Lafayette responded, crossing his arms behind his head where he lay on his bed. “It’s a testament to your skills as an artist.”

“I’m not going to draw anything for you ever again.”

“You’re being such a prude.”

“You taped it to the wall!”

“Yes,” Lafayette said with a soft smile, reaching up and stroking it, putting on a bit of an act to prove his point. “Now she will always be by my side.”

Laurens sighed. “Okay, fine. But if I ever catch you touching yourself to it…”

“I would never!”

Laurens looked skeptical.

“Fine, fine. I’ll be careful.”

“I suppose that’s all I can ask for. Are you really not going to mail it to her?”

“It’s so lovely, I would rather give it to her in person when I see her this May. If you manage to get away, you are still welcome to join us. Always, even if I was not to be there, you could stay with her as a brother.”

Laurens smiled. “Isn’t that a bit presumptuous of you?”

“She wouldn’t mind,” Lafayette promised. “Alexander, however, I might need to put a, how you say, a monitor on him first.”

“Like an ankle bracelet?”

“If he was there without me to rein him in.”

Laurens laughed. “I’d be offended that you don’t think I’m a threat, but there’s no use arguing this. Alexander is the worst. I don’t think he can help himself if he sees the green flag being given.”

“Adrienne, of course, I trust her. But I can only imagine the chaos he would cause in the household…”

“You’d have a lot more defectors to America,” Laurens agreed. “Why did Washington want him to go to France, anyway?”

Lafayette turned away from Laurens so he could focus his attention on the drawing.

“Lafayette?”

“He thinks I am too naive,” Lafayette muttered. “Alexander is more street smart.”

“Oh.”

“I can hear you smirking at me,” Lafayette complained, his back still turned, “that’s not very American of you.”

Laurens decided not to debate whether or not that was true. “You're a marquis. Don’t you have, I don't know, security? Didn’t you tell him?”

“I do!” Lafayette rolled over to face him. “I told him that! I said to him, ‘Sir, it’s not that I don’t want him to come with me, but I don’t need him. I can take care of myself and were anything to happen, we have professionals whose jobs it is to deal with such matters.’ And then he said to me, ‘Lafayette, I want you to listen to my desires because I think of you as my own son and have your best interests at heart.’ How could I say no to that?”

“Did you get me to draw that out of you just so you could slip that in there?”

Lafayette shrugged as best he could in his position. “All right, I'm paraphrasing, but it’s all true. He and his wife had me over for dinner last Saturday.”

“That’s right, I was wondering where you were.”

Lafayette’s phone rang and he checked it. “Ah, it’s Adrienne!” He sat up. “Quick, toss me the tape.”

“You know how I said that it’s weird that you keep it up? It would be less so if you actually let her see it.”

“But then it would not be a surprise, _non_?” Lafayette quickly taped a handout from class to hang over the picture, then settled back against the wall, accepting the call.

“I feel like you’re just hiding your porn from her,” Laurens complained, loud enough for Lafayette but not Adrienne to hear. “Which is fine except that now I’m a part of it somehow.”

“— _oui, le plus—un moment, s’il vous plaît._ ” Lafayette tipped the phone down to address Laurens. “How you say… Bros before hoes.”

Laurens raised an eyebrow. “Are you actually calling Adrienne a whore?”

“I’m just trying to speak American.”

“You’re being disrespectful,” Laurens teased.

Lafayette turned red. “ _Excuse me_ , I’m on a private call.” He turned his attention back to the vidchat.

“This is like your ‘fuckboys’ thing,” Laurens continued as Lafayette was obviously failing to tune him out. “You should look up what some of these things mean before you say them.”

“You’re a fuckboy,” Lafayette muttered.

“Alex is a fuckboy,” Laurens corrected.

Lafayette considered this. “True. But what does that make you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are his friend with benefits now?”

“Ah… I guess so.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, looking back at his phone, “I have friends who have friends with benefits.”

“I’m going,” Laurens announced, getting up at that. “Enjoy making fun of me while I’m not here to defend myself.”

“We are happy for you,” Lafayette protested. “You’re such a hard worker and you had a bad year, it's like your reward!" 

 

Hamilton almost choked on his drink when Laurens told him about his morning.

“Well, he’s not wrong,” he said, still laughing as he wiped coffee from the counter they were sitting at inside a busy cafe. “I mean… Yeah, he’s not wrong.”

Laurens shrugged, not really sure what other reaction he had expected. He continued, his voice unlike Hamilton’s getting lost in the din so that Hamilton had to lean in a little to hear him clearly. “You’re right. And of course he didn’t mean anything by it.”

“What, did you think I would be offended?” Hamilton smiled cheekily. “I’m just glad he finally got to use all that in a conversation. I know he’s been waiting for an opportunity.”

“You two should have been roommates,” Laurens said. “You’re so alike.”

“Nah, we’d just fuck all day and never make it to class.”

“Yeah, right, the only thing stronger than your libido is your need to prove yourself.”

Hamilton laughed again. “Got me there. So is he really not sending it?”

“No, he sounds pretty set on delivering it with you this summer. Oh.” Laurens took a sip of his coffee. “Speaking of which, you’re supposed to go with him because Washington thinks he’s too naive and needs someone to keep his head on straight.”

Hamilton snorted with laughter again and spilled his coffee down the front of his jacket. “Damnit John! You’re not supposed to just go into it, you need to warn me first!”

“Sorry.”

Hamilton waved him off. “At least my shirt’s clean. But he really said that?”

“Sound less pleased with yourself. It’s not hard to find someone less naive than the marquis.”

“You’re just jealous Washington didn’t say that about you.”

“And who’s the one actually living with him? You get him for the summer, I’ve got him for the other nine months.”

Hamilton balled up the dirty napkin he had used to clean himself up with. “This is the weirdest custody battle. I’m not paying you any child support.”

“So we’re divorced now? I guess I better cancel on Saturday.”

“Nah, you’ve got a real hot date. Go make your baby-daddy jealous.” Hamilton leaned forward, sliding his hand up Laurens’ leg and resting it high on his thigh.

“Right.” Laurens shook Hamilton off and stood up, going to toss out his empty cup. “This analogy is starting to make me uncomfortable and I’ve got class.”

“I bet that’s not the only thing making you uncomfortable,” Hamilton called after him as he left.

 

Saturday rolled around and Hamilton was pleased to find himself pushed up against the wall of his apartment, flushed and breathing heavily as he and Laurens scuffled for control.

“This isn’t fair,” he said, not really sounding put out even with one arm pinned up above his head. “You caught me off guard.”

Laurens grinned, looking down at him. “Oh? Is that really the only reason?”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Hamilton ran his free hand between Laurens’ legs, rubbing him over his jeans, and grinned as Laurens, already getting hard, moved automatically into him. He took his hand away for a moment to deftly pop the button and undo his fly, slipping his fingers just inside, then stopping without touching him.

Laurens kissed him aggressively, then grabbed his upper arm and tried to direct his hand, letting out a frustrated noise into the kiss as Hamilton twisted away.

“On my own time,” Hamilton said, sliding his hand back to where it had been a moment before.

“Yeah?” Laurens released his wrist only to pick Hamilton up off the ground entirely, pressing him against the wall to steady them as Hamilton grabbed his shoulder in surprise and put his legs around his waist. “What about now?”

Hamilton laughed, breathily, and kissed him hard, his hand moving from his shoulder to behind his head. “J.,” he said when he pulled away. “This only works if we’re already undressed.”

“J.?” Laurens carried him the all of three feet to the mattress on the floor then let him down. “I like that.”

Hamilton was already undoing the buttons on his shirt. “Good, I like it for you, too.”

Laurens pulled his shirt up over his head and kicked his pants to the side. “There are some other things I like as well.”

“Hmm… I’ll see if you can persuade me.”

“It’d be harder to talk you out of it,” Laurens said, tugging Hamilton down onto the mattress.

“There you go again, and people think I’m the mouthy one. How is it that you have a better reputation than I do and yet you're just as bad?”

“Talk less,” Laurens suggested. Hamilton hit him.

 

“Your dad calls you Jack?” Hamilton asked later that night, handing Laurens his phone from the pocket of his discarded pair of pants and reading the message on the screen.

“Hm?” Laurens took it with his free hand—his other arm was trapped once more as Hamilton’s pillow—unlocked it, read it. “Not all the time.”

“Jack’s not the diminutive for John.”

“Yes it is.”

“Bullshit.”

Laurens showed Hamilton the Wikipedia page.

“I’ll be.” Hamilton reached up over his head, feeling around until he found the book he wanted. “What does he say?”

“I asked him to send me some things. He also says the spelling is g-a-l-l-e-y.”

“Shit,” Hamilton half-laughed as he opened his book and held it up. “I can’t believe you actually asked him.”

“You made me doubt myself.”

“You could have just looked it up, we’re not stuck out in the wilderness.”

“Are you sure? Because I’ve done a lot of camping and I swear I’m lying on a root.”

“Funny, I could say the same thing.”

“This wouldn’t be a problem if you’d get a second pillow.”

“Ask your dad to send you one.”

“Ha ha,” Laurens said dryly. “That’s not happening.”

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes, Hamilton reading and Laurens checking his other messages.

“I should go,” Laurens finally said, sliding his arm free and getting up stiffly. “I’ve got to hit the gym in the morning.”

“My boyfriend’s such a beefcake,” Hamilton teased, putting on a falsetto and not looking away from his book. “Knock yourself out, Jack,” he added in his regular voice.

“Stick with J.,” Laurens advised as he got dressed.

“Right.”

Laurens crouched back down and moved the book to the side. Hamilton let him, sitting up a little into the kiss. “See you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Hamilton agreed, going back to his book once Laurens had closed the door behind him.


	11. (Orange Blossom Isn't Actually the Main Note)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> G-Wash; Caswell-Massey Number 6; Chemistry Review

“I’m surprised you’re not panicking more about finals this semester.”

“Why would I panic?”

Laurens shrugged, leaning back against his desk. “You did last year.”

“I don’t know what to tell you," Hamilton said loftily, "I’m just in a better place this year.”

“Apart from your chemistry class they are all final papers and he’s already handed in drafts for them,” Lafayette explained.

“Ah, that makes more sense.”

“Hey! Whatever,” Hamilton closed his book and put down his pencil. “I’m going to get all perfects again, just you wait.”

“I’m sure you will,” Laurens said truthfully.

“I mean, they’re solid. It’s just a matter of seeing how much they actually want me to edit them down. You see, using my history class as an example, the syllabus says eight to ten pages, but is that a hard rule or is twenty okay? I already messed with the margins, so I’m hoping she’ll cut me some slack.”

“You know, Alexander, when most people use that trick it’s to make their paper seem longer than it actually is.”

“I’m not ‘most people.’”

“Hallelujah.”

“Excuse you.”

“You’re going to piss people off if you write like that.”

“And what about you,” Hamilton began, but stopped himself short when Laurens tensed and glanced at Lafayette. “…I mean,” he turned to Lafayette, looking between them quizzically. “Did you know this guy actually wrote to his dad just to find out how to spell a word? Talk about wasting people’s time.” Lafayette laughed and Hamilton smiled. “Going to work.” Hamilton stood up from Lafayette’s desk. “Anything you want me to ask G-Wash today? You already know the color of his panties, but I could hint around and see if he’d prefer chocolate or flowers.”

“Are we actually calling him that now?” Laurens asked. “Because I sort of like it.”

“I’ll run it by him and see what he thinks.”

“You’re both so disrespectful,” Lafayette complained, “but I still want that pen.”

“Got it.”

 

> A. Hamilton: [image loading]  
> A. Hamilton: [image loading]  
> A. Hamilton: [image loading]  
> A. Hamilton: Shit it’s not sending  
> A. Hamilton: Reception in here sucks  
> A. Hamilton: [image loading]  
> A. Hamilton: I’ll find you after ttys

 

Lafayette wasn’t sure what to expect when he walked out of his American Studies class to find Hamilton waiting for him in the hall.

“You’re not working?”

“I get a fifteen minute break. I usually don’t bother but this is important.” He was grinning and Lafayette couldn’t help but be curious. 

“What is it?”

“So I asked G-Wash—”

“It’s very strange that you call him that—”

“—whether he was more of a flowers or a chocolate guy—”

“—and please tell me you kept my name out of it—”

“—and take that stick out of your ass because he thought it was _hilarious_ and by the way the answer is flowers, I’m surprised he didn’t show you his garden when you were over because he talked my ear off about it.”

They had already started walking, heading back towards the building Hamilton worked in. Lafayette looked at him quizzically. “You took time out of your schedule to tell me that? I cannot believe it.”

“Actually,” Hamilton was obviously trying hard to contain himself, “as you know, one of my tasks is to go through his mail, sort it into different categories, draft responses, and discard anything that does not require an answer or filing away. So there’s this envelope, bigger than usual, tan, stiff, some kind of fancy coat of arms embossing. I ask him, ‘Sir, what is this? It doesn’t look like official correspondence and it feels like there’s something inside.’ He tells me that it’s junk, basically, but to open it and see if I want it. Now that’s strange, isn’t it?” Finally unable to hold back any longer, Hamilton took the opened envelope out of his messenger bag and handed it over. Lafayette looked inside, then with wide eyes took out a vial. “Caswell-Massey Number 6. A deluxe sample of your idol’s favorite cologne.”

“And he didn’t want it?” Lafayette asked in hushed tones.

“He’s got like two cases apparently. Anyway, I have to clock back in but I thought you needed to have it ASAP.”

Lafayette pulled him into a tight hug. “Thank you,” he said, his face buried in Hamilton’s hair and shoulder.

“Uh, yeah.” Hamilton awkwardly patted him on the back. “What are friends for if not enabling creepy hero worship?”

Lafayette let him go. “If there is anything you want…”

“Oh,” Hamilton snapped his fingers. “John says he wants the picture to come down. Personally, I think it should stay because whenever he wants to disagree with me on something all I have to do is mention it and he gets so awkward he immediately drops it, but…”

“I’ll tell him that you tried your best and should not be blamed for failing to persuade me.”

“Thanks.”

 

> J. Laurens: Fuck you.  
> A. Hamilton: k  
> J. Laurens: Seriously, why did you have to give him that?  
> A. Hamilton: for christsake j hes our son and it makes him happy  
> J. Laurens: Ok  
> J. Laurens: 1) That’s weird. Stop that.  
> J. Laurens: 2) You don’t live with him. Everything smells like orange blossom now. It’s like he bathed in it. It’s like he washed down the walls in it. I get a headache being in here for more than five minutes!  
> A. Hamilton: 1) he’s french, that’s the style, don’t be racist  
> J. Laurens: I’m not being racist, Alexander.  
> A. Hamilton: 2)

 

Laurens rolled his eyes at the picture Hamilton sent of himself, shirtless, gesturing suggestively to the empty space next to him on his mattress. “Maybe I should just buy a damn pillow,” he muttered under the collar of his jacket, zipped up all the way to cover his mouth and nose.

 

“Okay,” Laurens admitted, finally, much later in the semester than Hamilton thought he should have, “You were right.”

“I told you so.”

“You’ve been waiting to say that. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Of course.”

Laurens didn’t say anything to that, just kept lying on his back on the futon, one hand tucked under his own, just unpacked, pillow.

“You should get a pillowcase for that,” Hamilton said, covering a yawn with the back of his hand and then propping himself up on one elbow. “Then you’ll be properly domestic.” He paused for a moment, working a crick out of his neck, then stood up and started dressing. “You want coffee?”

“Coffee? Alexander, it’s after midnight.”

“That’s not my fault. I told you to come over here so we could study chemistry.”

“It’s kind of your fault,” Laurens muttered, rolling over and burying his face in the pillow.

“What was that?”

“Yes, please.” He sat up, pulling the blankets around his waist. “You know that you’ll ace it, don’t you?”

“Don’t jinx it, J.”

Hamilton came back with two mismatched mugs. “Do you want anything in it?”

“Are you admitting that you don’t know my order yet? There’s something that got by even you,” Laurens teased, taking one of them with both hands. “Black is fine, thank you.”

“Ha ha,” Hamilton said humorlessly, taking a sip from his mug and grabbing their textbooks before sitting down on top of the sheets not wrapped directly around Laurens. “Right, let’s get to work. Chapter one.”

Laurens flipped to the review questions at the back of the chapter but Hamilton grabbed his wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“Reviewing chapter one?”

Hamilton tapped his own book, opened to the title page of the chapter. “That’s not where it starts.”

Laurens groaned. “Alex, come on, we both know this.”

Hamilton kissed him. “You knew what you were getting into.”

“Did I really?” Laurens wondered, turning back to the start of the chapter.


	12. On Peut Se Tutoyer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FMK; *Three Things

“How was I supposed to even get there?”  Hamilton asked, leaning in the doorway to Lafayette and Laurens’ dorm room.

Lafayette, at his desk with his hair pulled tightly back and out of the way, answered, distracted as he packed his bag. “It’s in the Caribbean.”

“It’s in Orlando, so I’d have to buy two tickets, one to fly up there and one to get in and honestly I don’t know which one would cost more.”

Lafayette shrugged. “You’re an economics major. Do I need a second pen?”

“That doesn’t mean I can just pull money out of my ass.  I got a scholarship to come up to New York, what am I supposed to do, pass a plate around and ask total strangers to send me to Disney World?”

Lafayette made an affirmative noise.

“Not to engage with stereotypes, but as a Frenchman aren’t you, like, contractually obligated to disapprove of that sort of thing?  I thought it was right there in the Marseillaise, just after the part about your enemies ripping out their mothers wombs.”

“I have a pass.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“A yearly one,” Lafayette confirmed.  “I go with Adrienne.  We’ll take you this summer,” he promised.

“That’s all right,” Hamilton said, checking his watch—an actual one, he didn’t have the patience to constantly wake up his phone during finals, even if he only had to show up at a set time for one.  “I hear there’s an animatronic Johnny Depp and that I’d probably get kicked out for chucking my Mickey Mouse shaped pretzel at his head.  Ready to go?  We should head over.”

“We don’t go on any of the rides,” Lafayette assured him, throwing his bag over his shoulder.  “We just walk around.”

“Fucking rich people.”

“You would do the same thing if you could.”

“Nah,” Hamilton waited for him impatiently out in the hall.  “I’d buy my very own pony.  I feel a little left out being the only one without one.”

“Do you know how to ride?”

“‘Course I know how to ride.”

“I’ll teach you,” Lafayette reassured him once more, “after we go to Disneyland.”

Hamilton laughed as they set off.  “Okay, quick.  Fuck, marry, kill, Disney princesses, go.”

Lafayette looked momentarily taken aback.  “What?”

“I think I’d fuck Elsa,” Hamilton said, answering his own question.  “Wait, scratch that, if I kill her and marry Anna does that mean I’m automatically king?”

“Stop being Hans!”

“I bet Belle is secretly a beast in the sheets.  Oh, damn, but what about Jasmine?”

“Oh my God,” Lafayette said to no one in particular as they left the building, “you are Hans. I never thought about it before but you are so Hans. I think you even have his nose.”

“Right,” Hamilton concluded, ignoring him.  “Fuck Jasmine, marry Belle, kill John Smith.”  He looked up to see if Lafayette was going to contest that.  “I just hate that guy.  Your turn.”

“Fuck Elsa—”

“Nice.”

“—marry Aurora, kill Ariel.”

“Aurora?”

“Oui.  Sleeping Beauty.”

Hamilton laughed.  “You’re not Prince Charming.  Fuck, you’re more like Ariel.  Is that why you don’t like her?  Too close to home?”

“It’s Prince Phillip,” Lafayette corrected him.  “And what do you mean I’m like Ariel?”

“You’re totally Ariel,” Hamilton said, agreeing with himself and taking out his phone to text Laurens.  “You’re both fish out of water and obsessed with another culture.”

“I’m not obsessed,” Lafayette protested.

Hamilton rolled his eyes and kept texting.

“Isn’t it too close to his exam?”  Lafayette asked, craning his neck to look at the screen.  “I don’t think he will respond.”

“Whatever, he can read it after.  I just need to tell him that you’re the freaking little mermaid before I forget.”

“If only you’d forget,” Lafayette muttered.

“Adrienne can be Prince Eric.  They’ve both got dark hair and we know they both like the beach.”

“Who would John be?” Lafayette asked, changing the topic a little.

“I don’t know.” Hamilton started texting him again. “You were so right, though. From first semester. Now that I know him better I can’t believe I never saw it. We couldn’t ask him to play this game, we’d have to make it all princes.”

“Pretend he is here right now. Who do you think he would answer?”

“Kill John Smith,” Hamilton said immediately. “We’re in agreement there. I think he relates to Pocahontas. Fuck, I don’t know, who was the one you said was like me? Hans? Does he count? I’m going to say that he counts.”

“And marry?”

“Shit,” Hamilton looked up, thinking as they walked. “I can’t remember all of them. Which one is the biggest stud? That guy from Mulan? They can get a couple’s gym membership pass.”

 

Laurens exited his test to forty-two missed messages from Hamilton and one, confusingly, from Lafayette explaining in depth why if he was a mermaid he would be the Hans Christian Andersen one. Reading and answering all of them seemed like too great a task after three hours of writing on constitutional law, so he just called Hamilton instead, starting his walk back to the dorm. Irritatingly, the call rang for a minute and then went to voice mail. Laurens tried once more with the same result, then resigned himself to skimming through the texts.

 

He was still reading when he unlocked the door to his room and therefore it wasn’t until he was halfway to his bed that he realized three things at the exact same time.

 

1) His laptop was open and playing music, even though he had definitely closed it before leaving.  
2) That overpowering orange blossom scent was finally gone.  
and 3) Hamilton was lying naked on his bed.

 

“Hey, J.”

 

Laurens dropped his bag and his jaw. “What are you…”

“Lafayette’s having dinner with the prez and his wife tonight, which conveniently means that I am also off the clock and since we’re both done with finals…”

He let his words trail off suggestively and stretched his arms up above his head, arching off of the navy sheets. For a moment Laurens wanted to ask one of the many questions he still had, but…

“Fuck it.” He yanked his shirt off and tossed it against the door. “You better turn the volume up.”

 

Laurens leaned over and kissed him slowly. Hamilton let him, sliding his hand south again. Laurens started, breaking the kiss in surprise.

“Do you actually want more? Music or not, I think we’re going to get complaints soon.”

“Sorry.” Hamilton took it away. “I never know what to do with my hands.”

Laurens kissed him again then lay back down, yawning. “Don’t do anything with them. I’m tired.”

“Wuss. I could go again.”

“Liar. You’d fall on your face if you tried to get up.”

“Who said anything about getting out of bed?”

“We’re going to have to get up eventually,” Laurens pointed out. “I don’t know about you, but I never got dinner.”

“I thought you said you were tired.”

Laurens yawned again, longer. “Later.”

Hamilton put his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. “Are you sure you can’t come this summer? It’s not like you can’t afford it. Maybe you can convince your father it’s some Grand Tour thing.”

“I don’t know, Alex.”

Hamilton glanced over at him, but Laurens was also staring at the ceiling.

“Whatever.” Hamilton half-shrugged. “Do whatever, but you have to admit that it would be fun. See the sights, hit up the bars, bang _à la française._ ” He grinned, encouraged, when Laurens laughed. “‘ _Oui, oui… S’il vous plaît, Laurent…_ ’”

Laurens hit him. “The hell is that?”

“I’m trying to make your name French.”

“ _Jean_ wasn’t good enough?”

“ _Jean_ , I knew I was forgetting something.”

“And aren’t we at the _tu_ form by now? _On peut se tutoyer?_ ”

“Hah, I sure hope so. So you’ll think about it?”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed. “I’ll think about it.”


	13. Bienvenue!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flight; Surprise; *Giving Laurens a Show

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point the rating is being bumped up to explicit.

For all the noise he had made about not being able to get away, all the work that he could be doing but wouldn’t be, Hamilton was obviously excited to be setting off.

Lafayette stole Hamilton’s arm rest and watched as his friend rifled with interest through the items in the pocket in front of him, finally taking out the in flight magazine and flipping its pages, distracted by every person who made their way down the aisle to his immediate right.

“I’ve never flown first class before,” Hamilton commented, putting the magazine down in his lap for the time being. “These seats are great. I can’t wait until we hit cruising altitude and I can finally see what the big deal about those footrests is.” He pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and checked the time. “Did you already set your watch for France?”

Lafayette tipped his wrist towards him, showing him the sleek black square. “It’ll update automatically.”

“Right.” Hamilton opened the magazine again, this time to the back. “I didn’t know we get complimentary wine. That’s some classy shit.”

“Ah, do we?”

Hamilton showed him the page. “It’s not a new thing, is it?”

“I don’t know.” Lafayette said, bending over and pulling his bag out from under the seat in front of him. “I try to sleep through it all.” He took out a magnetic bracelet and slipped it on his free wrist.

“Can I get your glass?”

Lafayette opened a TSA-approved bottle of ginger ale, swallowed a couple of pills, and leaned back in his chair. “Whatever you’d like.”

Hamilton put the magazine down again, more decidedly this time. “Are you okay?”

Lafayette, preemptively slipping back into French, muttered something along the lines of “I don’t travel well.”

“At least the bathroom up here is probably nice,” Hamilton teased gently. “Did you know that when I came to New York someone tried to smoke in ours? Not only did he set off the smoke detector, he panicked and somehow managed to light the seat covers on fire. I’m serious,” he continued, encouraged by Lafayette’s smile and turning his chair to face him better, “Maybe half an hour before we landed. I was waiting in the aisle because I needed some excuse to stretch my legs after being crammed in—I think I had about an eighth as much room back there as I’ve got now—and suddenly there’s a flight attendant knocking on the door and this muffled swearing and he comes out in a real hurry. I passed her the fire extinguisher and she put it out in a hot second,” he added quickly, realizing this story needed to be wrapped up and without any risk of bodily harm before they left the gate.

“Was that the first time you were on a plane?”

Hamilton shook his head. “It’s the first one I can really remember, though. I flew once before, but just between islands. The plane seemed giant to me, but I’m sure it was one of those tiny things, just two rows of seats.” Hamilton looked across the plane, five seats and two aisles separating him from the other window. “Nothing like this.”

“I don’t like small planes,” Lafayette said, still looking straight ahead and fiddling with his bracelet as they started to move backwards away from the building. “You can feel them getting buffeted about by every gust of wind.”

“You must hate boats.”

“We’re not friends.”

“I’m surprised you went back to France in the winter,” Hamilton said. “It wasn’t that long of a break.”

“It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not,” Lafayette explained. “That part… It’s only temporary. Returning to France and coming to America—I could not have done otherwise. When there is something that you want, that is that important, you will do whatever it takes to make it happen.” He closed his eyes. “I’m taking something new. Hopefully I’ll be just waking up when we land.” 

 

Lafayette was jolted awake at one point high over the Atlantic, just long enough to hear Hamilton bantering with one of the flight attendants, asking for another glass and about her job, flattering her about her work ethic needed for the long hours and ungrateful passengers, and telling a story about his move to New York City that seemed like it was building up to a genuinely funny ending—when he dropped off again, waking up to that same flight attendant going down the aisle and telling people to prepare for the descent. 

Hamilton was looking past him and out the window with great interest, watching as the land below dipped into view.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

Lafayette rubbed at his face and tugged on his bracelet again. “I heard right? We are landing soon?”

“Any minute.”

“Not quite that quickly, I am afraid.” Lafayette looked out the window, gauging how far they still were from solid ground.

“We’re going to Adrienne’s, right? Are they picking us up?”

Lafayette bit his lower lip. “Mm. Non. We will take a cab.”

Hamilton nodded, still looking through the window. “All right. It’ll be just like being back in New York, assuming I could afford to catch one there, which I can’t.”

Lafayette noted that it wasn’t a real complaint—in fact, he sounded like he was in an incredibly good mood and just barely keeping a veneer of calm over it. He wondered how much of it was from the alcohol and how much was— The plane dipped in its otherwise smooth descent for a moment and he blanched, snapping his eyes back to the seat in front of him. How wonderful it would be to stand on French soil.

 

“Okay, not that this is a bad thing,” Hamilton started, “but when you said ‘we’ll take a cab’ I thought you meant an actual cab.” They were sitting in the back of a shiny black car, all of their luggage stored away in the surprisingly spacious trunk, the airport quickly vanishing into the distance.

“Did I say that?” Lafayette had been looking out the window, but turned back to him. “It doesn’t matter, the point is that we will get there.”

“These are leather seats,” Hamilton commented. 

“Yes. It’s a bit of a ride, so we might as well be comfortable, non? I hope they’re there,” he added, more to himself.

“Hold up, you don't know if anyone is going to be there?”

Lafayette glanced back out the window. “I wanted to surprise Adrienne. I told her I was going to come next week.”

“Right,” Hamilton said, “I’m not sure if that is more romantic or stupid. You can’t just show up places, Lafayette, you have to tell people where you are going.” He paused, sitting forward a little and looking at him. “Why do you look guilty? I’ve spent enough time around you, I know you’re trying to hide something.”

“Ah, no reason.” Lafayette checked the time on his watch. “What did I tell you? It set itself for me.”

“Lafayette.”

“Do you see, here, let me fix yours for you.”

“I moved it ahead on the plane. What’s going on?”

“Nothing is ‘going on,’ it’s fine. I just did not tell people I was going to be transferring schools the first time and they were a little upset with me when I got back in winter. It’s fine,” he repeated, more assuredly this time. “I wasn’t in that much trouble, but it’s a little embarrassing.”

Hamilton laughed. 

 

Pushing an hour of sitting with their luggage outside the wonderfully large and picturesque summerhouse, however, Hamilton was growing less amused.

“We could have gone into the city first,” he complained. “My first day in France and I’ve seen an airport terminal and some front steps. Are you sure they’re going to be coming back?”

“Positive,” Lafayette assured him, although he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “Eventually, that is.”

Hamilton stood up and began to walk back and forth in front of the door. The cat sitting in the front window watched him suspiciously. “Did you get through to them?”

“I left a message with her mother—” Lafayette stood up as well as a silver car came into view around a bend in the road.

“Is that them?”

Hamilton didn’t get a reply. Lafayette was already running to the open front gate, waving at the vehicle as it got closer. It stopped just in front of him and after a moment the back door opened and Adrienne—Hamilton recognized her from the many bits and pieces of conversation they had had on one screen or another—got out. He couldn’t see from where he was standing if she leapt at him or if her legs gave out beneath her, but then it didn’t matter much because he had caught her and they were spinning.

“I can’t believe you are here so soon,” Adrienne exclaimed in heavily accented English after the initial flurry of rapid French, looking back over Lafayette’s shoulder at Hamilton, who lifted one hand in greeting. 

They were ushered inside, up the stairs, to bedrooms at the end of one of the long wings. Hamilton caught a glimpse of Lafayette’s room—apparently he spent enough time here that he had his own room—before he was left in a guest room about the size of his studio apartment back in New York. Putting his carry-on on the bed, he pulled open the curtains and looked down onto a broad lawn he was familiar with as the backdrop for many of Lafayette’s pictures. His phone, now connected to the house’s wifi, suddenly lit up as a backlog of messages came through.

 

> J. Laurens: You too. Have a good flight.  
> J. Laurens: I’m going to install a French keyboard since I know two days in and you’re going to insist on pretending you’re a native speaker.  
> J. Laurens: Hey  
> J. Laurens: Did you guys land yet?  
> J. Laurens: Alex?  
> J. Laurens: I’m going to the gym, give me a call when you’re free.  
> J. Laurens: Hey  
> J. Laurens: okay seriously  
> J. Laurens: what the hell

 

Hamilton sat down on the bed, grinning a little as he wrote back. Laurens must have had the phone nearby because he got a response almost immediately.

 

> A. Hamilton: only three missed calls? I’m offended  
> J. Laurens: What happened? I was starting to think you’d left it on the plane.  
> A. Hamilton: long story. just got on wifi now, didn’t have reception before. Did you know that Lafayette didn’t tell anyone we were showing up today? We got here and had to wait for them to get back so we could get in the house.  
> A. Hamilton: which btw is killer, I’ll vidchat you later so you can see it  
> A. Hamilton: I’ve got my own tub  
> A. Hamilton: it has JETS

Hamilton looked up from his phone at a knock at the door. Lafayette opened it.

“Alex, did you still want to go into the city? You should wash up and then Adrienne’s brother-in-law will drive us. Ah,” he noticed the phone. “Did you get in touch with Laurens? He called me a half dozen times.”

“That jerk,” Hamilton said, putting the phone aside and getting up. “That’s twice as much as me. Yeah, I’d like to go. Let me shower and change and I’ll come find you.”

As soon as Lafayette left, Hamilton closed and locked the door. 

“Hey, video works,” he said, propping the phone up on the night stand as Laurens picked up. “You’re a little fuzzy. Can you see me?”

“Yeah.” From what Hamilton could make out of the background it seemed like Laurens must be in his childhood bedroom in South Carolina. He could just see a bedpost and part of a faded team banner hanging on the wall. “Are you going to show me the place now?”

“Nah, not enough time. We’re going out in a little bit.”

“All right… So why did you—” Laurens didn’t bother to finish his question as Hamilton pulled off his shirt and tossed it onto the bed.

“No reason.” Hamilton held his right wrist and pulled his arm behind his head, stretching it out and arching his back, working out the stiffness from the flight even as he posed for the camera. “It seemed like you missed me.”

Laurens glanced over the top of the video, presumably checking that he had privacy. “Yeah.” He looked back at the screen, his desire apparent even with the poor quality picture, and his voice low and quiet. “Are you going to make it up to me?”

“I figured we had enough time to catch up a little.” Hamilton undid the button on his jeans, then his fly. 

“Just a little? Hold on.” Laurens moved out of the frame and Hamilton waited impatiently until he came back, headphones on. The screen shook as he plugged them into the phone. “Sorry about that.”

Hamilton laughed, dipping his fingers just into the waistband of his pants. “I’m the one in the guest room and yet you’re that worried about being caught?”

“Don’t ruin it, Alex.”

“Fine.” Hamilton tugged his jeans down a little, just enough that he had room to slide his hand inside and stroke his cock over the fabric of his briefs. “It’s too bad you’re not here,” he said, for just a moment sounding more genuine and less seductive, but then his voice lowered and he rocked his hips forward a little into his own hand. “There’s so much that I’d like to do to you.” Hamilton made eye contact with Laurens and, with a smirk, took away his hand and lightly kissed it before undressing the rest of the way in one fluid motion. His cock was already stiffening from the knowledge that even across an ocean he had Laurens’ undivided attention and he wrapped his hand around it, pumping it slowly.

Laurens felt himself growing aroused as he watched Hamilton’s cock harden and he turned the volume up higher. “I miss your voice.”

“You told me to stop talking.” Hamilton ran his thumb over his head.

“I told you to not to ruin it. I miss the way you sound.”

Hamilton laughed. “Is that how it is?”

“Don’t threaten to keep quiet, we both know that you’re not good at that.”

“Mm…” Hamilton was moving his hand faster, more deliberately. “Give me something to look at. At least take your shirt off.” Hamilton grinned at how quickly Laurens complied, hurriedly undoing the buttons and tossing it to the side. He was still wearing an undershirt, but the white material was stretched tight over his chest and abs, highlighting rather than obscuring his body. “Better—” he let his eyes flicker shut for a moment, tipping his head up as he teased his slit with his free hand, rubbing his fingers together so Laurens could at least infer if not see that he was starting to get wet. “Hold on.” He grabbed the phone, taking it into the adjourning bathroom and swearing under his breath as he struggled it get it propped up somewhere he could still be seen.

“Didn’t think this through?” Laurens teased.

“Got it.” He stepped back and Laurens shut up, watching as Hamilton leaned back against the wall and took his shaft in his hand again, working it quickly, impatiently. Hamilton put his head back again and let out a soft moan as if inviting Laurens to imagine himself up against him, pressing him back against the wall and biting at his exposed neck. 

Laurens made a low frustrated noise at his inability to do more than watch and Hamilton tipped his hips forward at that, rocking his cock into his hand. He was getting louder, for Laurens’ benefit not stopping himself from giving little groans with every breath until he suddenly leaned forward and grabbed a tissue with his free hand, barely managing to catch himself as he came.

Laurens didn’t say anything, just listened to Hamilton’s heavy breathing as he cleaned himself off and straightened up, face flushed.

Hamilton grinned at him—not at all embarrassed, Laurens noted with fond amusement—and pulled his hair out of its messy ponytail. “I need to jump in the shower. I’ll text you when we’re back.” He blew him a cheeky kiss as he picked up the phone and ended the call.


	14. Hypothetical Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weak Spot; Quartier Latin; Checking in

Hamilton was still grinning to himself when he met up with the other three downstairs.  Adrienne’s brother-in-law, a tall, good looking young man with dark hair and eyes, stood up from the chaise in the main room as he entered.

“Are you ready?”  Like Adrienne, he spoke with a heavy but understandable accent.  

Lafayette stood up a moment after him, a calico jumping from his lap to the ground and sauntering away.  “It will take a little while to get there, so Louis suggested we get something to eat once we arrive and then he’ll take us on a tour.”

“Sounds good,” Hamilton agreed and then switched into French as they headed out, watching the flicker of surprise in Louis’ face with enjoyment.  “Lafayette must have told you that this is my first time in France.  I’m looking forward to seeing as much of it as possible during my stay here.”

"I'm glad to hear it," Louis replied, sounding pleased.  "Lafayette told me a little about you.  You were assigned to him, weren't you?"

"That's right."

"By that organization to help foreign students," Louis continued.  "It's a good thing something like that existed.  It made us all feel much more secure about his decision to live abroad.  You were in the foreign exchange program, too, weren't you?  Now, what are you?"

"An economics and political science major," Hamilton said without missing a beat.

Louis looked puzzled.  Hamilton must have misunderstood him.

"I'm going to start my third year in the fall," Hamilton continued, knowing full well that he hadn't answered the question correctly.  "But I'm going to finish a year early."

"Ah," Louis said, seeing no way to get back elegantly to his actual query.  "Is that so?"

 

Several hours, a meal, and a bottle of wine later, Hamilton had decided he quite liked his tour guide.  It wasn’t just that he was intelligent and friendly, but that he had known Lafayette for many, many years. 

“You fell on your face?  At a fucking _ball_?”  Hamilton asked, turning behind him to look at Lafayette as the four of them walked, two by two, down the well-lit street.  “When I found out that you were a Marquis, I assumed that meant you would have taken some kind of etiquette lessons.”

“I tripped,” Lafayette protested, taking Adrienne’s hand.  “It was very crowded in there!”

“He was only a boy,” Louis said, in an amused attempt at keeping the peace.  “He was only sixteen.”

His good intentions backfired as Hamilton laughed and Lafayette looked away, pointedly staring into the store windows as they passed.  

“Right, so maybe three years ago.”

Lafayette shrugged sullenly. 

“Your friend isn't coming as well, is he?”  Adrienne asked the two of them, attempting a smooth change of topic.

“John?”  Hamilton shook his head.  “He’ll have to be satisfied with pictures of Paris instead.”

“That’s right,” Lafayette said abruptly, turning back from the window displays to finally make eye contact with Hamilton.  “You are absolutely right, Alex.  It is such a shame that he can’t be here with us.”  He casually put his arm around Adrienne’s waist.  “What a pity, I know he would enjoy himself _so_ much if he were here.”  He tugged her to him a little.

Hamilton frowned, just a little, and turned forward again.  Point taken.

“It’s too bad he wasn’t able to join us.  As is said, traveling forms young men,” Louis said, unaware of the unspoken argument he was furthering.  “Although I’m sure Adrienne told you about the renovations that are going on at the house.  At least this way you don’t have to share a room.”

“That’s _right_ ,” Lafayette said, trying and failing to hide how much he was enjoying this turn of events.  “I completely forgot about that.  It’s much nicer to not have to bunk with him, isn’t it, Alex?”

Hamilton looked back, annoyed.  “Hey, he could have gotten stuck with you, you know.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Lafayette continued lightly.  “He’s with me all year, in that tiny room.”  He waved his free hand in the air.  “I’m sure he would have asked to stay with you for a change.”  He ducked his head and whispered something—Hamilton was sure it was something not-quite-as-dirty as he wanted him to believe, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t help but feel that stab of jealousy anyway—into Adrienne’s ear.  “Just take him plenty of pictures,” Lafayette said, glancing up at Hamilton.  “I’m sure that will be almost as good.”

Hamilton cleared his throat and admitted defeat.  “So, Louis…  What do you recommend that I see while I am here?”

 

It might have started off as a taunt or a warning, but Lafayette quickly forgot that Hamilton had anything to do with it and just fully slipped back into his relationship as if he had never been across an ocean, but with the added knowledge that they had to fit half a year’s worth of affection into a matter of weeks.

“I missed you,” he said as Adrienne quietly closed the door to his room behind her that night.  “I know I just saw you a few minutes ago, but I missed you anyway.”

He put his hands on her waist and kissed her softly on the lips.  She smiled a little into the kiss and leaned into him, her arms over his shoulders. 

“I missed you too, Gilbert.”

He picked her up suddenly, her knees bent over one of his arms, and carried her to the bed as she gasped in surprise and then kissed him again.

“My Lancelot.”

“Dearheart.”

He was on top of her, kissing her neck playfully as he lifted up the skirt of her nightgown and slid his hand between her legs.  She spread them for him with another little gasp and he felt her grow warm and wet, and he tugged the cloth to the side, unable to go any longer without touching her.

 

“This better not be a nightly thing,” Hamilton muttered as he closed the window in his room, just a wall separating him from something that sounded a hell of a lot more fun than checking next semester’s required reading against the library catalog. 

 

“I feel like I can’t take you anywhere,” Hamilton complained in English, “which doesn’t even make sense because this is your country!”

“ _Madame_ is my country,” Lafayette answered, only half paying attention as he nuzzled his nose against Adrienne’s and tipped them backwards until they went from sitting to lying on the couch.

“Okay, see?  That!  It’s stuff like that!”  Hamilton was ignored as Lafayette started whispering half stanzas and promises into Adrienne’s ear.  A siamese stretched languidly and then sunk its claws deep into the chair Hamilton was sitting in.  “Cut that out.”  

He wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to and they both paid him the same amount of attention.  

“Calm down,” Lafayette said (surfacing for breath, Hamilton thought).  “The two of us will go to the _Quartier Latin_ in an hour or so.  You’ll like that, that’s the—”

“I know what the _Quartier Latin_ is, I’m not an idiot.”

“Then you know that you will enjoy yourself.  There will be plenty of people for you to, how do you say, practice your French on.”

 

Lafayette noted that he was, as usual, right.  They had barely reached the outskirts of the college district when Hamilton had perked up, his attention caught by the conversations and the energy and, of course, the people.  

“I wonder if I should have brought a leash for him,” he wondered to himself as he watched over the top of his dark sunglasses as Hamilton chatted up a young man waiting for his bus, staying just on this side of extroverted visitor.  He was distracted from that thought by a couple of students at a table nearby who obviously recognized him and were talking about him.

“May I help you?”  He asked, with the smoothest charm he could manage as he walked up and took off his sunglasses.

“I told you it was him,” one of them laughed and nudged the other.  “I told her,” she repeated to Lafayette.  “I’ve seen your pictures—you’re just visiting, aren’t you?”

“Only for a few weeks, unfortunately.  However, I brought my dear cat with me and I’m sure he would like to—” Lafayette turned back to the bus stop.  The man was still there, but Hamilton had vanished.  “ _Merde_ ,” Lafayette muttered.  “I really need to get him a collar with a little bell,” he apologized as he excused himself and went off.

 

Lafayette finally found Hamilton not charming France’s best and brightest but checking his long receipt outside of a bookstore.

“Do you mind not wandering off like that?”

“I wasn’t lost.”

“You don’t know the city!”

“I speak the language,” Hamilton said dismissively, even though their conversation was in English. “How do you think I got here?  Shit, I didn’t mean to spend that much…”

“I thought economics majors were supposed to be good with money.”

“I’m more of a theorist.  Too bad, right?”

Lafayette took the receipt from him.  “Twelve books?  Do you even have room for all of this in your suitcase?”

“I’ll leave some clothes.”  He picked up the heavy paper bag at his feet.  “Let’s find a place to sit.  I can’t get my cell to connect out here anyway.”

“I knew you were lost,” Lafayette said as they set off in the direction of the nearest cafe.  “This is why you can’t just leave, there’s no way for me to get in contact with you.”

“I wasn’t trying to call _you_ ,” Hamilton argued, putting slightly more emphasis on that last word than he had meant to.  “Look, forget it.  Let me show you what I bought.”

“Fine.”  Lafayette directed them to a cafe and got them a table outside.  “Do you know that if you hadn’t gone off we would be sitting here with two pretty girls right now?”

“Aren’t you…” Hamilton changed his mind about what question he really wanted to ask.  “How pretty?”

“See?  You should have stuck with me.”

“Okay, okay.  I’m here now.”

“Good.”  Lafayette scanned the cafe and street but before he could say anything, Hamilton nudged him.  

“Bet I can get the waitress’ number.”

“You don’t even have a working phone.”

“So?”  He smiled brilliantly at the young woman who came up to their table and slid smoothly back into French to ask for directions.

“I know my way around,” Lafayette started to complain.

“He wandered off to talk to some girls while I was at the bookstore,” Hamilton explained.  “It was my fault, really, I found this fascinating old copy of La Fontaine’s _Cupid and Psyche_ and didn’t even realize I was alone until I was halfway through.”

“Oh?”  Lafayette sounded irritated that Hamilton had taken over his game and then turned the previous events against him.  “Where, exactly?”

Hamilton responded immediately.  “‘ _Fair Psyche yield to Cupid’s sway; the boundless world revers his name: him even the deities obey, their power less soothing than his flame._ ’”  He smiled triumphantly at Lafayette, then, continuing, turned back to their waitress, lowering his voice slightly as if in a more intimate conversation.  “‘ _In youth no charm like love we find: all pleasures are in love combined_.’  I’m sorry,” he laughed, not really sorry at all, “Back home—I’m from the Caribbean—I would hate it if some tourist took up my time like this.  I know you’re busy, thank you so much for helping us.  If you get the chance, do you think you could help me figure out some suggestions for things to see in the area later?  I’d love to buy you a drink once you’re on break to thank you for your recommendations.”

“You’re the worst,” Lafayette muttered once she had left and Hamilton, smugly, had tucked her number away in his pocket.  “I hope you are actually going to buy her that drink.”

“Of course I am.  I’ve still got just enough money to make good on that.”

“All right.  Let me pick—”

Hamilton was already across the street helping a tourist with her guidebook. 

 

“I have a question,” Lafayette said later as they walked back to the metro.  “What would Laurens think about your flirting with so many people?”

“Psh, he wouldn’t care,” Hamilton said, putting the latest number he got in his pocket.  “It’s not like we’re dating or anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll prove it to you.  Give me your phone.”  Hamilton took it from him as it was offered up.

 

> G. Lafayette: this is Alex

> G. Lafayette: we’re having a conversation and need your opinion

> G. Lafayette: hypothetically would you mind if I hooked up with someone else

> J. Laurens: “Hypothetically”?

> G. Lafayette: yeah or hit on them

> G. Lafayette: whatever

> G. Lafayette: broad range of interpretations

> J. Laurens: Hypothetically, yes.

 

“Oh.”

“I told you so.”  Lafayette took his phone back.

“I didn’t think it mattered,” Hamilton offered in meager defense.  “Do you think I should toss the numbers?”

“You should consider it.”

“You didn’t want to tell me this ahead of time?”  Hamilton complained as he started to pull pieces of paper out of his pocket.  “You were the one who wanted to be my wingman in the first place!”

“It’s harmless if nothing comes of it,” Lafayette argued.  “You never know when you are taking things too far.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything as he balled up the papers and tossed them away.


	15. Third Wheel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disney Paris; Long Distance; Another Hobby; Cat Hell; French Salon; Yes, He's Cosplaying Himself

There was a problem, Hamilton realized as he sat, bored, on a bench in the shade off to the side of _le carrousel de Lancelot_ , with being an ocean away from the one person he was apparently allowed to flirt with.

He watched as the horses and carriages moved around and took his phone out of his pocket to check it futilely since he knew that he had no connection anyway.

He glanced up in time to see Lafayette and Adrienne pass by, holding hands on their respective horses.

“This is bullshit,” he muttered, checking on his fake cats.  At least that app didn’t need an internet connection.

The rest of the day went much like that.  Hamilton tagged along as Lafayette and Adrienne shopped on Main Street.  He took pictures for them as they posed in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle.  He firmly drew the line at them getting a carriage ride and bitched about how the Indian Village was just an animatronic volkerschau until Lafayette suggested they get something to eat instead.

“Do you want to go on any of the rides?”  Adrienne asked him finally as the three of them sat at a table outside one of the overpriced restaurants.

“Might as well.”  Hamilton looked around.  “That line looks like it’s the shortest.”

“All right.”  Adrienne got up.  “I’ll go with you.” 

“I’ll watch your things,” Lafayette offered, taking her purse from her as she kissed him on the cheek.

“He doesn’t want to come?”  Hamilton asked as they made their way to the back of the line.  “I thought he’d be all over _It’s a Small World_.”

Adrienne shook her head.  “He really doesn’t like boats.”

Hamilton didn’t realize exactly how pathetic that statement was until they had been loaded into the ride.

“We’re on a track,” he commented, keeping the conversation in French but dropping the occasional word in English for convenience.  “This thing doesn’t even rock.”

Adrienne shrugged and he sighed.  “Whatever.  Let’s take a selfie and when you upload it you can tag him as one of those creepy American puppets in the background.  If you lean back a little I think I can get your mouse ears in the frame.”

Adrienne obliged and smiled for the camera.

“How is he doing in America?”  She asked after the picture had been taken.  “We talk, but I don’t know how much is him putting a spin on things to one end or another.”

“He’s doing well,” Hamilton said truthfully.  “Hell, my boss practically adopted him.  The guy cries in his office one time and now he has dinner with him and his wife every weekend.”

“Good.  I’m glad to hear it.”  Adrienne sat back in her seat, paying more attention to Hamilton than to their surroundings.  “I was worried when he left…  Did he tell you that he hadn’t said anything to us beforehand?”

“He mentioned something about that.”

Adrienne nodded.  “He had been going to school in Paris and my father has always liked him, so he told him he could stay with us instead of having to make his own arrangements.  His grandmother and aunts are in the south, so was more or less on his own.  He moved in and at first everything was going well.  We were supposed to take an end of summer trip, all of us, as a family, and then suddenly he had vanished.”  She took off her headband and toyed with it in her lap.  “Even I didn’t know where he was.”

“He didn’t tell you?  I knew he kept it secret, but I thought…”

Adrienne shook her head.  “I only found out when he had already boarded the plane.  My father was furious.”

“I bet.”

“He wanted to have him sent back, but,” she gave a little half-smile and Hamilton wasn't sure in the poor light if it was genuine or not, “your boss convinced him otherwise.”

“It’s not just you,” Hamilton said after they had both been silent throughout the entire tableaux of central and east Asia.  “We knew he did something but he can be very evasive. He doesn’t tell us things either.  Well,” he qualified, “not some of that important shit that you’d think he would know to mention.  He talks way too much about other stuff.”

Adrienne laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“No, I’m sorry…  Don’t take this the wrong way.  It just reminds me of what he says about you.”

Hamilton wasn’t sure what to say about that at all, so he took his phone back out.  “Hey, there’s France.  Lafayette may be an americanophile, but I want a picture with you in front of that ridiculous tower.”

 

“You’ve been busy.”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton sat on the edge of the bed, watching Laurens walk around his room in just a pair of gym shorts, a towel over his shoulders and his dark hair damp.  “Your hair’s getting longer.  Better than Lafayette, though, I don't know what he and Adrienne have planned but you should have seen the amount of product they came back with. I swear they bought an entire salon. Everything reeks of coconut oil now.”

“Ha. I know, though, I need to get it cut.”

“Don’t.  Be like me, grow it out like a damn hippie.”

“Please.”  Laurens glanced back at the phone on his desk then pulled open one of his dresser drawers.  “You’re more of an aspiring yuppie.” 

“Hey, I’m all for free love.”

“You’re too much of a greedy capitalist, Alexander.  Don’t lie, you’d like to see your face on the dollar one day.”

“Nah, something bigger than that.”  

“There you go again with the greed.”

“Fine, fine.”  Hamilton yawned and drew his legs up onto the bed, lying down. 

“Are you going to bed?”

“Yeah, I’m beat.  I think Lafayette stole the books I bought myself.”

“Do you mean he’s forcing you to actually relax while you’re on vacation?”  Laurens teased, taking out a shirt.  “How cruel of him.”

“He can be pretty mean when he wants to be.  He’s just one room over, you know.  I have to listen to him fucking every night.  I think he’s trying to prove a point.”

Laurens gave the phone a puzzled look then stepped out of the frame to get dressed, raising his voice a little so Hamilton could still hear him clearly.  “So?  He missed his girlfriend.”  Hamilton didn’t respond and Laurens, fully dressed now, walked over to his desk and picked up the phone.  “Alex?”

“Mm?”  Hamilton had been staring up at the ceiling.  “Oh.  Forget it, I’m not making sense.  Good night, John.”

“Night.”

Hamilton hung up and put his phone onto the nightstand to charge.  It wasn’t until he heard faint laughter and Lafayette’s voice raised playfully that he rolled his eyes and slipped under the covers, turning away from the adjourning wall.

 

Lafayette woke up when the sky was just getting light.  At first he couldn’t tell why, exactly, he was awake.  Adrienne was sleeping at his side, curled into him and breathing softly, his alarm was not set to wake him for several hours, and the only noise was… 

“Shit.  _Shit_ ,” Hamilton muttered, shaking his hand where the zipper on Lafayette’s bag had pinched him.  “The hell are they…”

“Alex,” Lafayette said in a loud whisper without moving.  “You are the worst robber I’ve ever heard of.”

Hamilton started, then went back to his search.  “I’m trying to find my books.”

“Why?”

“Can’t sleep.  No, that’s not true, I slept a little.  I’m up again and it’s too early to call John and you’ve got a girl on you.  Just let me read my book, Lafayette.”

Lafayette sighed.  “I was trying to do you a favor.  They’re on top of the shelf across from the door.”

Hamilton got up.  “Thanks.  Think you can keep it down in a couple hours?  I might be up but I don’t really want to associate that with Grotius.” 

Lafayette groaned quietly.  “Alexander, you need another hobby.”

“Left it in America.”  He grabbed the book and left, closing the door behind him.

 

> A. Hamilton: Day seven and the natives have started to accept me as one of their own.

> A. Hamilton: While they still look at me with thinly veiled distaste when our paths cross, they no longer whisper of my death as I pass out of sight.

> A. Hamilton: I pray to god that this is not a trick, an attempt by a foe more cunning than I imagined, more intelligent than I dared fear, to lull me into a false sense of security before springing some as yet unknown trap.

> A. Hamilton: Sometimes in the quiet still of the night I hear soft footsteps down the hall outside my room.  If I get up to investigate, there is nothing more suspicious than one of them strolling past on some innocent errand.   If I remain in bed I hear the steps slow and then halt outside my door.  Up to a minute might pass before they continue on their way.

> A. Hamilton: seriously j i wrote you some cat hell horror story the least you can do is ask me how my meeting with my persian doppelgänger went

 

“I think he’s bored,” Lafayette explained to Adrienne as he sat in the empty tub in their adjacent bathroom.  She knelt on the ground outside of it, her dusty brown-black hair pinned up neatly and a pair of plastic gloves on her hands.  “No, that’s not it, I think he’s homesick.”

Adrienne ran her hands through Lafayette’s long hair, working in the purple toner.  “It hasn’t been all that long and he seemed so excited when we went out.”

Lafayette tipped his head back to make it easier for her.  “I know.  I don’t think he’s ever been on a vacation before, and I wanted him to actually treat this as one.  I still cannot believe he went to buy books when I took him out for a little action.  And they weren’t even fun books, Adrienne!  _The Wealth of Nations_ , _The Art of War_ … He woke me up just so he could take back his copy of _Mare Liberum_!”  

“I’m sure he’s enjoying himself, Gilbert,” Adrienne said reassuringly.  “He must just be the kind of person who always needs something to do.”

“He is,” Lafayette agreed emphatically.  “You should see him during the semester.  He’s always writing like he’s running out of time.  But this is a vacation.”  He leaned back a little more so he could look up at her.  “It wasn’t easy to convince him to come here and I want him to enjoy himself.”

“Stop that.”  Adrienne moved his head back.  “You’re a good friend.  But maybe he _needs_ his hobbies, like his books.  You might find them dull, but maybe they relax him.”

Lafayette frowned, her wording reminding him of something he couldn’t quite place.  “No.  Reading engages him, he gets caught up in it, it just creates more noise inside his mind.  What he needs is…”  He trailed off, looking at the tiled wall in front of him.

“Yes?”

“…Quiet.  Are you done?”

“It should be just about worked in.”

“Good.”  Lafayette turned and kissed her carefully.  “Thank you.  Do you think you can put a little lilac in the ends?”

“Gray isn’t enough? We've been at this for hours, Gil.”

“Or periwinkle.  Since we are doing this much.”

She laughed.  “You’ll look like you’re from the 1700s.”

“Why not?”

 

“You guys have too much time on your hands,” Hamilton declared, backing up to take their photo.  “Hold on, the cat isn’t looking.”

Lafayette, his hair now silver and light purple, pulled back in a loose ponytail, clicked his tongue to draw the attention of the fluffy white cat in Adrienne’s lap.  

“I’ll do yours too if you’d like,” she offered, her own hair curled and dyed to match.

“No thanks, I’d rather not look like some old dead white guy.”  Hamilton took the picture, not bothering to respond to their French in the proper language.  “What filter do you want on it?”  He glanced up.  “Don’t get me wrong, you’re both very, uh, on fleek, as the kids say, but I’ll look like a moron when it starts to grow out.”

“I have chalk!  I can use that instead!”  She had already gotten up before Hamilton could answer one way or the other.  “Gilbert!”  She spun back around at the door.  “This will be a perfect time to take the photos I wanted.  I’ll bring the clothes for you two to change into!”

“What’s going on?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette as Adrienne vanished.

“Ah, she is studying costume design,” Lafayette explained once he detached the siamese’s claws from his pants leg.  “I told her that I would help her to showcase some of the things she created.  Don’t worry, she is very good.”

“He’s flattering me,” Adrienne said with a little laugh as she came back into the room, her arms full of blue and white fabric.  “Here, Gilbert, this is yours.”  She handed him a suit on one of the hangers and then turned to Hamilton.  “I think this will fit you.  You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.”  Hamilton took the costume from her.

“I’ll change in my room and I’ll fix your hair after you’re dressed.  We can go out onto the grounds, maybe I can find Louis and ask him to help…”

Hamilton went with Lafayette back to his room.

“I have no idea what order this all goes in,” he muttered.  “Stockings first, then pants, right?  Did she actually make all of this?”

Lafayette was already partially dressed, shirtless but with stockings and beige breeches, bent over as he adjusted the buttons on the legs.  “Yes.  Put those on and the shirt and I’ll help you with the rest of it.”  He pulled his white shirt on as Hamilton changed, and then a vest cut from the same fabric as the pants.  “The cravat is always the hardest part,” he complained as he adjusted the clothes in the mirror.  “There.”  He pulled on a jacket, blue with trim and buttons to match the vest.  “How do I look?”

Hamilton looked up.  “Like an old dead white guy.  Very nice.”

"I have family on both sides that wore clothes like this," Lafayette pointed out. "Although," he mused, "they _are_ old and dead."

"Turn of phrase, Lafayette. I'm not actually the son of a bitch either, no matter how often that gets bandied about."

Lafayette helped him put on a richly embroidered cream vest and then a long coat, navy like his breeches, with a thick floral band stitched along the edges and at the folded back cuffs.  The lace trim from his shirt stuck out past them and Hamilton glanced down as Lafayette adjusted the effusion of lace at his neck.

“…This is a lot.”  Hamilton sounded uncomfortable, more from the elaborate display than from the fit.  “How come it’s so much fancier than yours?”

“They’re just different styles,” Lafayette said airily as he stepped back to tie on his red sash and put a three-cornered hat jauntily on head.

Hamilton frowned.  “Hang on.  That’s a military uniform.  No, that’s an _American_ military uniform.  I’m the one actually from America, how come you get to be a major general in the Continental Army?”

Lafayette was turning to admire the figure he cut in the mirror.  “It just suits me.”

"Yeah, I bet it'd suit me too."

"Do you know," Lafayette began in a tone that led Hamilton to believe that, no, he didn't know and he was quite alright with that for once, "that one of my ancestors was a major general in the Revolutionary War? That's why I wanted this one."

"Fascinating."

"I know."

“Let me try it on.”

“It won’t fit you, she made this one to my measurements exactly.”

Hamilton gave him a skeptical look.  “Then who was this one made for?”

“I have no idea,” Lafayette lied, perhaps wisely choosing not to point out that Adrienne had a younger brother.  “Maybe one of her classmates.”


	16. The Drinking Stories Are True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Surprise; Dogs; Too Close to Home

Half an hour later Hamilton was being adjusted into frame on the front steps of the manor, a more difficult task than it should have been because of the wide panniers under Adrienne’s dress, light blue and ribboned with roses.

“Stop touching your hair,” Lafayette scolded him.  “You’ll get the powder all over your jacket.”

“One of the stranger things I’ve done,” Hamilton remarked to Adrienne as he forced himself to stop adjusting the ribbon holding back (rather tenuously, he thought) his whitened hair.  He’d gotten more into the part once his initial embarrassment had worn off, and had to admit that he was enjoying dressing up like some kind of prince of fashion.  “And I’ve…”  He trailed off as a cab pulled up outside the front gates and Lafayette turned around, lowering the camera.

“Oh,” Adrienne said, then immediately glanced away from Hamilton with her hand over her mouth as if to prevent herself from saying anything more.

He meant to ask her about that reaction, but then the door opened and Laurens stepped out, carrying a small suitcase.

“John,” Lafayette said happily (in English, Hamilton noted, and not sounding nearly surprised enough), crossing the lawn to greet him.  “I hope you had a good flight.”

“Very nice, actually.  Good to see you.  Adrienne,” he added, dipping his head briefly in greeting.  She curtsied. “Alexander.”

“Hi.”

Laurens set his bag down on the stairs.  “Pardon my French, but what the hell are you doing?”

“We were taking some pictures for Adrienne, but I don’t think we need Alexander here anymore.  Why don’t you take John upstairs?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Right. Uh, right this way.”  Laurens picked up his suitcase again and followed, looking around.

“It’s even bigger than I thought it would be, somehow, but the light covering of cats seems about right.”

“Yeah, you get used to that.  What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Lafayette invited me back in spring, remember?”

“Bullshit, you said you wouldn’t be able to come.  I’ve been talking to you for weeks and you never mentioned it, so what changed?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I made time and my father decided it would be a good experience.  Are you really so upset?”

Hamilton let him into his room, motioned towards where his open suitcase was spilling out onto the ground.  

“I missed you, all right?”  Laurens put his suitcase down, his tone becoming less formal now that they were in private.  “Both of you.  You can’t really blame me for wanting to be in France rather than South Carolina, especially with the heat we’ve been having.”  He took off his jacket, putting it on top of his bag.  “You look good.  I mean it.”  Suddenly there was very little distance between them.  Laurens nudged Hamilton’s face up with his hand.  “Even with that ridiculous hair.”

“Shove it.”  Hamilton grabbed his wrist and pulled it away, pulled him down, pressed their mouths together and smiled in spite of himself as Laurens moaned softly into the kiss.  “Take this off,” he said, stepping further back into the room and running one hand up underneath Laurens’ shirt.

Laurens obliged, discarding it quickly and half-helped, half-hindered as Hamilton dropped his jacket to the floor.  He tried to kiss his neck as he undid the buttons on the vest but wasn’t able to make contact with his skin and after a few seconds gave a frustrated growl.  Hamilton laughed and turned his face to his so he could kiss him again, pressing his tongue into his mouth and sliding his hand back along his jaw and through his dark hair.  He ran his other hand up along Laurens’ bare torso, feeling his muscles tense at the contact, teasing him as Laurens gave up momentarily at undressing him and put both his hands on his hips, pulling him closer.

The corner of Hamilton’s mouth quirked up as their hips touched and he rubbed against Laurens’ cock and was rewarded by Laurens’ grip tightening and his pressing them even closer.  

“All right, I forgive you,” Hamilton said, pulling away just enough that he could finish undoing the vest while keeping their hips pressed together.  “You really did miss me.”

“I can’t help it.”  Laurens moved his hands up along Hamilton’s body, drawing them up to his neck where he refrained from ripping through the fabric and instead carefully untied it and dropped it to the floor.  He leaned down, finally able to kiss and bite at his neck and Hamilton tipped his head back to make it easier, slipping his hands into his back pockets.

“Yeah—?  Why’s that?”

Laurens was having an easier time with the shirt and his mouth moved down as he pulled it open and exposed his chest.

“It just wasn’t the same.”  He flicked his tongue over Hamilton’s skin, feeling his hips twitch against his own.  “No one to run circles around me.”  He took a half step back and knelt to the ground, letting his mouth graze over the light trail of hair leading to the top of Hamilton’s breeches.

Hamilton put one hand on Laurens’ shoulder, hard, and ran the other over his face, pressing it to his mouth.  “The door isn’t locked,” he muttered.

“I don’t think they’ll disturb us.”  Laurens moved one hand up between his legs, rubbing there as he talked.

Hamilton decided against arguing and tightened his grip on Laurens’ shoulder, muffling a soft noise with his hand as Laurens held him firmly and started undoing the buttons on one side.

Laurens bit the top of the fabric carefully and pulled it open, sliding his hand inside then putting it on the small of Hamilton’s back when he felt his legs threaten to buckle.

“Hey.”  He glanced up, but Hamilton had his eyes closed, and he took his other hand off of him to finish unbuttoning his breeches and then tug them down along with his briefs to expose Hamilton’s erect cock.  Leaving his other hand on his back, he slowly took the head into his mouth.  Hamilton moaned and moved his hand up to Laurens’ head, entangling it in his hair.

“J.—”

“Do you want to sit?”  Laurens didn’t wait for an answer, instead taking as much of Hamilton in his mouth as he could and taking the rest of his length in his hand, moving over his shaft slowly.  Hamilton made a little frustrated noise and Laurens pulled away.

“Don’t pull my hair.”

“S—sorry.”

Laurens put his mouth back on him and Hamilton put his hand back to his shoulder.  Laurens felt his nails bite in as he moved over him and the pain urged him on faster, until Hamilton was bracing himself on his shoulders with both hands and either not noticing or not caring how loud he was.

“John, stop, I—”

Laurens ignored him, distracted by his own arousal and how even as Hamilton said that he moved one hand behind his neck to keep him from pulling away.  He regretted his lack of foresight a moment later when Hamilton came and he slowly sat back as Hamilton, panting, leaned on him heavily.

Laurens patted his arm and stood up.  Hamilton sat down on the ground, leaning back against the wall, and then laughed as he heard Laurens spit in the bathroom sink.

“I told you.”

The water ran.

“You also had your hand on my head.”

“Not that hard.  You could have stopped.”

Hamilton got up, fixing his pants, and went to join Laurens in the bathroom.  He leaned on the counter, checking his hair.  “Look at that.  It actually stayed up.”

Laurens spat water into the sink and turned off the faucet. 

“What did they use on it? It’s getting a little uneven.”

Hamilton turned to the side, examining his reflection.  “It’s not that bad.”

Laurens came up behind him and put his arms around his waist, kissing his neck.  “No, it’s not.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton turned around, unfastening the button on Laurens’ jeans and sliding his hand inside.  “I’m glad you’re here.  Did I say that before?”

“No,” Laurens said, leaning back against the wall.  “You just, ah, you swore at me and then got distracted.”

“That sounds about right.”

There was a knock at the bedroom door.

“Alexander?”

“Shit,” Hamilton swore and stepped away as Laurens hastily did his pants up and went to grab his shirt.  He had barely pulled it on when Hamilton opened the door for Lafayette.  “Yes?”

“Adrienne needs the costume back.”  Lafayette narrowed his eyes at the two of them, Hamilton only partially dressed and his hair disheveled and Laurens looking guilty in the background.  “Did you fornicate in that?”

“No,” Hamilton said immediately while Laurens looked away.  “We didn’t ‘ _fornicate_.’  Besides, I bet that uniform of yours has seen some action in the line of duty.” 

“Be that as it may, I expected better from you, John,” Lafayette scolded.  “We both know Alexander is a lost cause.”

“Hey!”

“Just change out of that,” Lafayette instructed him.  “I’ll get it dry cleaned.”

“If you’re going to clean it anyway…”

“ _No_.”

 

“Where’s _Jean_?”  Adrienne asked the next day, noticing Lafayette and Hamilton talking to each other without the third member of their group.

“He’s outside,” Lafayette said as Hamilton tried not to laugh at the name.  “I promised him that if he came he could play with your dogs.”  

Lafayette and Hamilton both pointed to the bay window behind them and Adrienne looked out to see Laurens literally rolling in the grass with two giant white dogs.

“What are they called again?”

“Great Pyrenees,” Lafayette said.  “They suit him, _non_?”  He glanced over at Hamilton.  “You’d be a terrier.”

“Scottish terrier,” Hamilton agreed without taking offense.  “What about you?”

Outside Laurens was temporarily and completely hidden from view under the massive white dogs licking his face.

“I’m a grand bleu de Gascogne.”

“You made that shit up.”

“I did not!”  Lafayette took out his phone to show Hamilton a picture.  “They’re hunting dogs.  My grandmother still owns a few.”

Hamilton shook his head at the screen.  “I don’t see it.  You’re more like a basset hound.”

“ _Excusez-moi!_ ”

There was a loud bark from outside and all three of them looked out the window again.  Laurens was back on his feet and teasing one of the dogs with a ball.

“You are,” Hamilton continued after a pause.  “Back me up, Adrienne.”

“There is a basset hound named Lafayette in _The Aristocats_ ,” she pointed out.  

Hamilton laughed.  “Yeah, exactly.  I knew that.  That’s you.”

Lafayette looked less than amused.

“I’ll be that orange tom cat,” Hamilton continued, turning to Adrienne, “and then I suppose that makes you Duch—”

“ _I_ think I would be a grand bleu,” Lafayette said, cutting him off as the persian jumped up onto the back of the couch to disdainfully watch Laurens and the dog outside.

 

They stayed at Adrienne’s family’s home outside Paris for another week, and Hamilton marveled at how much nicer it was to explore the grounds and the city with Laurens for company.  He shouldn’t have been too surprised, he reasoned with himself, since after all now that there was a fourth he wasn’t relegated to playing the part of third wheel.  Laurens, for his part, hit it off with Louis immediately and Lafayette soon found himself wishing that he hadn’t reminded Laurens of his offer to stay with them.

“You are kidding,” Louis laughed over his glass of wine as the four of them, Adrienne off visiting with her married sister, sat outside _L’Épée de Bois_ , a bar in the city.  It was evening but still warm out and they were enjoying their last day before traveling south to visit Lafayette’s relatives.  “I never knew he was such a lightweight!”  He leaned over and ruffled Lafayette’s hair affectionately as Lafayette wished for the umpteenth time that Laurens had missed his flight.

“I don’t know that I would say that,” Laurens said, taking another drink from his own glass, his tongue noticeably loosened and his southern accent coming out more strongly than normal.  “But I did have to help him stumble into the cab at the end of the night.  Do you remember, Alex?  Christ, what was it that he was saying?”  He nudged Hamilton, then snapped his fingers.  “How he wished you,” he tipped his glass to Louis, “would have been there to see how drunk he was.”

Louis roared with laughter.

Lafayette put his face in his hand.  “Alexander…”

Lafayette’s plea fell on deaf ears.  “That’s right,” Hamilton added, finishing his glass, “he wanted us to make sure we told you that.  I completely forgot.”

“ _Alexander_ ,” Lafayette repeated.

Hamilton slung his arm over his shoulders.  “We finally told him for you, aren’t you happy?”

“We should never have gone to get drinks,” Lafayette complained.

“Speaking of drinks,” Louis took another and then put his glass down.  “Did he ever tell you about the time he got in a fight?”

Laurens and Hamilton both perked up (which in Hamilton’s case meant that he slid Lafayette into a headlock a little).

“It’s true!  It was during a party, he got into a drunken argument with, ah, what is his name… Gilbert, your friend…  De Ségur, that was it.  This moron,” he said with affection, “tried to challenge him to a duel over a girl that neither of them had any claim on.”

Lafayette slipped out of Hamilton’s grip to bury his face in his arms as his friends cracked up again.  “Someday I’ll come to your homes and talk to your relatives,” he threatened in a muffled voice.

“Not likely,” Hamilton laughed.  “How would that work?  ‘Hey Mr. Congressman, tell me something funny about John, you know, that almost-perfect-but-not-quite oldest son you use as a prop for your own glory.  Do you have any stories about him?’”  

Louis quieted and Laurens froze.

“ _Bull_ shit,” Hamilton continued, gesturing with a little more aggression than he probably realized.  “And do you even know where you would go for me?  Because if you do, please, let me know, ‘cause I’ve long lost track.  Who the fuck would you even ask?  Can’t ask my mother, sure as hell can’t ask my father, and I don’t got this honorary family built up around me, piece by piece, better even than the real thing because they don’t _have_ to stick around when I run off to America without giving two weeks notice, or remember the details about what party I went to as a kid or why I threw down with my friend.” 

“Alex,” Laurens said, quietly.

“Fuck that, you could have at least left a note before you jumped on the wrong plane.  Whatever.”  He stood up abruptly as his mind caught up with his mouth.  “Sorry I yelled.  Next round’s on me.”  He went into the bar.

Laurens put down his drink and followed him.

“Alexander?”

Hamilton was standing at the bar, drumming his fingers on it as he waited for their drinks.  

“What was that about?”

“I don’t smoke,” Hamilton said instead of answering the question, “too expensive, never got into it.  Could go for a cigarette right now.”

“Calm down.”

“We’re in France, at a bar.  It’s practically customary.”  He made a fist and brought it down, deliberately, slowly, on the counter.  “You calm down, J., we’re not in some DARE after school special.  Besides, I only have enough cash for the drinks.”

“I can get them.”

“I said it was on me.”

“I can get them.”

Hamilton relented and let Laurens get out his wallet. 

When they came back out with drinks Lafayette and Louis stopped talking.

“I completely forgot,” Hamilton said brightly as he sat down and passed Lafayette his glass, “did I tell you about the time Lafayette accidentally sent a dirty message to Washington?  I happened to be working and I intercepted it, but seriously, I’m all for technology but sometimes I think it would be better to go back a couple hundred years.”


	17. You Simply Must Meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chavaniac-Lafayette; Obligatory Turtle Reference; Not Today, Tjeffs

Chavaniac-Lafayette was between Brioude and Le Puy, or as the less detailed map Lafayette had first pulled up to explain showed it, south-west of Lyon.  The town itself was quite small and surrounded by fields on three sides, forest on the other.   The castle Hamilton had mentioned seeing in the background of Lafayette’s instagram photos was on the outskirts of the town, a large stone building that looked as if it had been stitched together from several different centuries. 

They were greeted warmly by Lafayette’s grandmother and two aunts, who seemed delighted not only to see Lafayette and Adrienne (whom they adored) again but to be able to meet Laurens and Hamilton, about whom they professed to have heard much.  Hamilton was prodded and Lafayette was scolded for not feeding him enough up north, to the former’s great embarrassment and the latter’s amusement.  Laurens, on the other hand, his aunt declared to be handsome and charming, especially after a short conversation proved that he did in fact know his way around a stable.  He was encouraged to take advantage of their remaining time in France and to explore the grounds and the surrounding countryside, an invitation he welcomed.

 

“You’re such a country boy.”

“I am not.”

Hamilton laughed, pushing his chair back from the desk in the room he had been given.  “John, it’s nine in the morning, you came to ask if I wanted to go for a ride, and you’ve already got mud on your face.”

Laurens rubbed at his cheek ineffectually.  “All right, so I like the outdoors.  I might as well take it all in before we go back to the city.  What’s the matter with that?”

“Your drawl has been coming out more ever since we got here.  I thought you only let it slip out when you were drunk.  I bet you’re incomprehensible back home.”

“I wouldn’t figure it.”

Hamilton laughed again and got up.  “Right.  Where are we going?”

“Just around the grounds.  Lafayette’s already at the stables.”

Hamilton frowned.  “He’s coming too?”

“He said something about how he promised you that he would teach you how to ride.”

“I know how to ride,” Hamilton insisted, stubborn.

“Ride well.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything to that.

 

“Sit up straight.”

“I _am_ sitting straight.”

“You’re not straight.”

“What do you know about being straight, John?” Hamilton snapped, tilting to the side a little.

Lafayette laughed, literally riding circles around the other two out on the broad field.  “Be easy on him, John.  He’s just learning.”

“I’m trying to help,” Laurens protested.  “Alex, you’re listing to the right.”  

Hamilton finally adjusted his stance.  

“There, better.”

“You remember how to direct the horse, don’t you?” Lafayette asked, demonstrating as he turned first one way and then the other.  “Let’s go, there is a path not far ahead, and it is wide and flat.”

The other two set off without another thought and Hamilton followed, nudging his horse until it caught up and he could ride alongside Lafayette.  

“Okay, you kept your promise.  Disney first, then horses.  About the other day,” he continued as Laurens rode ahead, “I was just talking shit.  You didn’t say anything wrong.”

“Alex—”

“Seriously.”  Hamilton looked up at him.  “I let my mouth run off sometimes, that’s all.  I shouldn’t have implied that you haven’t been shat on too and I don’t want your pity.”

“I know.”

“All right.”  Hamilton turned his attention back to the field in front of them.  “So how do I make this thing go faster?”

Lafayette nudged his horse gently into a trot.  “ _Allons-y, Jean le Blanc_.”

Hamilton decided not to remind him of how dumb he thought the name was and mimicked him, following after.

They turned onto the path where, to their surprise, Laurens was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s not going to ambush us, is he?”

Hamilton rode a few yards down the road while Lafayette rose up in his saddle behind him and scanned the area. 

“Ah, Alexander.  To your left.”  Lafayette led the way a little further down to where the hedges at either side of the path thinned out and a pond stretched up almost to their roots.  Laurens had turned off there and his horse was tied loosely to a bush, just out of easy sight from the road.  He had dismounted and was crouched in the wet grass at the edge of the pond, a small notebook and pen in hand.

“John?”

“Shh.”  Laurens put up the hand with the pen for a second, motioning the other two to quiet.  They dismounted, Lafayette gracefully and Hamilton decidedly less so, and left their horses near Laurens’.

“What are you doing?”  Lafayette asked in a whisper as they carefully walked down to join him.

“I’ve never seen one of these before,” Laurens said as he sketched a small gray turtle with abundant yellow spotting and a rounded shell that was sitting on a half-submerged branch.  “I thought I’d take a look while I was waiting for you two and at first I assumed it was a red eared slider, but once I got closer I immediately realized my mistake.”

Lafayette and Hamilton exchanged a surprised look.

“That is a _cistude d’Europe_ , a European pond turtle,” Lafayette explained.  “They’re one of two native freshwater turtles,” he went on as Laurens quickly turned to a new page and scribbled down notes.  “Their population has gone down quite a bit and they’re rare in this area.  We know they're on the property,” he added to answer Hamilton’s incredulous look at his seemingly out of nowhere turtle knowledge.  “Once a year university researchers come down here to tally up the population.”

“Are they endangered?”  Laurens asked, back to his sketch.

“Vulnerable.”

“Can you find the other species in this area?”

“No, it’s only in Languedoc-Roussillon.”

“Languedoc-Roussillon…”  Laurens repeated the place name, then turned the page back again to copy it down for later.

Hamilton knelt down carefully next to Laurens, tipping his head to one side as he looked at the drawing.  “So… Turtles, huh?  I thought you were into birds and flowers and shit.”

“I like nature drawing.”

“You’re cute.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“You’re almost putting more effort into that picture than you did into the one of me—still waiting to see it, by the way.”

“I’ll get it to you.”  

The turtle decided it had finally had enough of all of the attention and it slipped back into the water with a splash.  Laurens stood up, stretching out his upper back and putting the notebook and pen in his pocket.

“I’ve got a turtle as a pet back home, all right?  It’s not that weird.”  He looked at the other two, both giving him matching skeptical looks.  “What?  It isn’t!”

 

A couple days before they were to return to America, Lafayette informed the other two that an acquaintance was in town and would be joining them for lunch.

“Actually, you already know him,” he commented as he opened his laptop.  “It’s Professor Jefferson.  What do you think about these pictures?  Adrienne wanted to make sure you didn’t mind her using them for her class.”

Hamilton, who that last part had been directed to, took a moment to make sure that Laurens wasn’t choking on his coffee before answering.

“Uh, yeah, sure they look great.  What was that again?”

“Thomas Jefferson.”  Lafayette looked up, oblivious to Laurens sitting very still at the other end of the table.  “He teaches at the university but I met him through Dr. Washington.  They’re old friends.”

“Of course they are,” Laurens muttered, then covered the noise by putting his mug down on the table.

“He’s here on vacation so I invited him to come by since we didn’t have any plans for today.”

“Right… Right.”  Hamilton glanced at Laurens.  “I guess we’re having lunch with the professor and no one is punching him out even though grades are long in and we’re not on school property because that would be a quick way to get expelled, am I right?”

Lafayette looked confused.

“It’s a joke,” Hamilton clarified.  “Obviously.”

 

Noon saw the three of them sitting around the same table, plus Adrienne and Jefferson, a tall and gangly man wearing a suit with bright red pants.  It was the sort of thing that one might find endearing if it weren’t for the incredibly uncomfortable situation.

“Sweet tea, thank you,” Jefferson said in to Lafayette in response to his question, his voice a disarming drawl.  “It’s so nice to finally be able to meet your Adrienne.”  She smiled, a little embarrassed.  “He’s told me so much about you,” he continued, “and about the two of you as well, of course.  I didn’t catch your last name when he mentioned it before and didn't realize it was the same John as the one in my class.  You know, I never said this before, it didn’t seem _appropriate_ when you were my student, but your father and I go way back.”  He laughed a little when Laurens stiffened in his chair.  “Unfortunately we’re not exactly on Christmas card terms anymore, but there was a time not too long ago when your old man and I rubbed elbows down in DC.  Maybe I should call him up and let him know that I ran into you, I like to tell him what a head you’ve got on your shoulders.  I’m sure he’d be _proud_ to hear about what you’ve been up to.  The Henry Laurens that I remember would be sure to keep real close tabs on y’all, _real_ close, but I’m sure some things just get lost in translation.  _Merci_ , son,” he said as Lafayette came back with a pitcher of sweet tea, clearly prepared ahead of time and poured him a glass.  “Now how have you been doing since semester got out?  I bet you’re glad not to have to bother about any more papers.”

“I’ve been well, thank you very much,” Laurens said stiffly.  “I didn’t know that you knew my father.”

“Of course not,” Jefferson said after taking a drink.  “As I said, I didn’t want to tempt any _biases_ or pandering.  We’re all equal in the hall of learning.”

Laurens looked over at Lafayette, who seemed unaware of the tension and the second conversation going on at the table.  He glanced at Hamilton who was clearly ready to disregard his own advice and throw caution to the wind as soon as one foot was set out of line.

“My father knows about my grades, professor,” Laurens said calmly, pouring himself a glass.  “I know how privileged I am to have his financial support, and I’ve waived my right to confidentiality.  He sees as much of my transcript as I do.”

“How filial of you.  And how’s Miss Martha doing?  The last I heard, your father was preparing to add her name to your holiday card.  But like I said,” he added as Laurens failed to take a drink from his glass.  “It’s been a while since I received one of those.”

“I’m not sure that is any of your business,” Laurens said, forming each word with great effort, as Hamilton’s always expressive face went from thinly veiled dislike to amusement to “what the fuck, John.”  Laurens didn’t look at him.

“I didn’t mean to touch on a sensitive subject,” Jefferson lied, bending down and picking up a tabby cat.  It settled in contentedly on his lap. “She’s a pretty girl; you two made such a handsome couple.”

“They were dating?”  It was obvious that something was wrong in this conversation, but Lafayette’s attempt to change the subject didn’t go far enough.

“I’m surprised he never mentioned it!”  Jefferson took out his phone.  “Let me see if I’m still friends with Manning on Facebook.  I don't think he ever took down their prom picture.  Like I said, handsome couple.  Did y’all make king and queen as well?  I think I remember seeing a crown in that picture—let me scroll, I’ve got to go real far back on this—Your daddy’s got the picture framed in his office, too, if I recall, a good sized print, right there on his desk.”  He laughed to himself.  “Well, I suppose it’s not up anymore.  Here we go.”  He turned his phone around. 

 Laurens didn’t move but Lafayette and Hamilton both leaned in on either side of him to see.  Jefferson had not been lying, the two of them had made a good couple.  Laurens, younger and carrying more baby fat but clearly recognizable as the same person, was posed with his arms around a girl with a cute round face and sandy blonde hair pinned up in a bun.  One stylized ringlet curled down onto her cheek from under a silver crown.  They were dressed to match, his powder blue suit jacket the same shade as her full satin dress.  

“My memory was correct,” Jefferson commented after the others had stared at the photo for long enough.  “Look at that,” he tapped the screen.  “Y’all were royalty.  Love the baby rose corsage,” he added as he put his phone away.  “Very sweet.”

Lafayette looked at Laurens’ stoney face.  Hamilton chewed his lip for a moment but, for once, was silent and still.

“Did you hear back from the university?”  Adrienne finally asked Jefferson, unlike Lafayette finding a topic farther away from the fight at hand.

“Did he mention that to you?  How kind of you to ask!  Yes, darlin’, I did hear back, and you’ll be happy to hear,” he directed this to Lafayette who looked desperately grateful for conversation that was not about his friends, “that they’ve accepted my request and I’ll be moving full-time into the political science department.  That’s right,” he laughed, “no more bouncing around taking on odd classes between there and that Africa studies, I don’t know _who_ they’ll find to work there, with the lack of funding it’s been getting, but thankfully that’s not my problem.  My published work has always set me up for that position, of course, it was just a matter of waiting for the stars to align.”  He smiled at Laurens and somehow it was even worse that it reached his eyes.  “Like your daddy, I’ve seen your transcripts, too.  I understand that you never finished your senior project, what with that incident on the team and all of that hassle with the paperwork to get your classes in order.  Fortunately now you’ll have someone who already know your name when it comes time to turn that in.”

The cat clock on the wall meowed once and Jefferson checked his watch.

“Is that the time already?  You’ll forgive my eating and rushing, but I have another engagement to attend to.”  He carefully let the cat down before pushing back his chair and standing up, taking on a more genuinely congenial tone.  “Adrienne, it was a pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure.  Lafayette, I look forward to seeing you at George’s again when we’re both back stateside.”  He took her hand in both of his for a moment, then shook Lafayette’s when he got up.  “And it was a delight to see the two of you as well,” he added, leaning over to table to shake hands with them.  Laurens stood up and offered his hand on instinct, although his lips were thin and he didn’t respond.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton stood up, took his hand, shook it, waited until they were making eye contact like that, and then, finally, opened his mouth.  

“Congratulations on the position.  I’m in the department as well.”

“Are you?”  Jefferson drawled.  “Just like John.”

“Yeah, just like John,” Hamilton agreed, “Except I don’t got any overbearing father to keep me from running my fucking mouth off.”

Jefferson looked surprised for a moment, as if he genuinely had not expected anything more than a handshake and a polite farewell, but then he laughed.

“Oh, we _will_ have fun this year, won’t we?”  He released Hamilton’s hand.  “I look forward to seeing all y’all’s final projects.”


	18. Confirmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throwing Rocks

“Uh,” Hamilton said, closing the door to his room (well, his room, and the room that Laurens had been basically living in), “You want to tell me what just happened out there?”

“God damn it,” Laurens said, enunciating each word individually and rubbing his face with his hand.  “That was rough.  You almost got through the whole thing without putting your foot in it.”

“Yeah, rough, sure, that’s one word for it.  So were you ever going to tell me you almost had a shotgun marriage?  We’ve only been friends for, oh, three years now, only been fucking for one.”

“Less than that.”

“Is that _really_ the hill you want to die on?”  Hamilton looked almost more incredulous than angry.  “Seriously, what the fuck, John?  It’s not like I’m some fucking paragon of virginity but we both _know_ that!  It’s right out there in the fucking open. I kind of figured you’d mention shit like that!”

“Why should I?”  John snapped, his voice raising.  “I was a kid, I made a mistake.  And don’t try to take the moral high ground here, no, shut up, I’m not talking about however many people you’ve stuck your dick into.  I know shit about you before we met too, so don’t try to shame me into telling you about a bottle of champagne and a broken condom.”

Laurens had been looking for anger; he hadn’t expected the hurt that flicked briefly in Hamilton’s eyes, like for a moment the wall in front of it cracked.  But it was just a flicker, and just for a moment, and then it was gone.

“Whatever.”  Hamilton turned away, opened his laptop, sat down at the desk.  

Laurens, not sure now what was happening, didn’t say anything.

“I have work to catch up on, John.”

“Alex.”

Hamilton didn’t respond, picking a document off the desktop and then beginning to type. 

Laurens left.

 

The afternoon faded into evening.  Hamilton told Lafayette that, no, he didn't want dinner when he knocked on his door to ask.  He was fine, he was working on something, he couldn’t stop writing, he knew where the kitchen was and would help himself to something later.  Lafayette relented and left him alone because his time in France was fast drawing to a close and if the choice for the evening was to spend it with Adrienne or trying to convince Hamilton to take a break, well, like he said, he knew where the kitchen was.

Hamilton was so absorbed in putting the words onto the page that he didn’t notice the noise until he finally stopped, irritated and not sure what it was that kept breaking his concentration.  Then he heard it again, a little louder than a tap, then a pause just long enough for him to start to get his focus back, then another one.

He sat back from the screen and looked around just as he heard it again, like something was knocking against the window.  

Hamilton gave a frustrated sigh and got up, going to fix the curtain rod so it would stop tapping against the glass, but just as he pulled it to the side a piece of gravel bounced off the windowpane.

He froze in surprise. 

Another one.

Hamilton yanked the curtain all the way open.  There was a brief pause, then a whole handful of gravel clattered against the window.

“ _John!_ ”  He slammed the window open and leaned out.  “What the hell?”

Laurens was standing down below, one hand drawn back like he was about to let loose another barrage.  He dropped his hand and surreptitiously let the rocks fall to the ground.  “…You have my book.”

“You’re a fucking moron.  Why not just use the door like a regular person?”

Laurens looked embarrassed, like he hadn’t really thought this plan through.

“Did you really just grasp at the first cliché you thought of?  Neither of us even live here, what if you had damaged the glass?”

“Hey,” Laurens said defensively, his voice now lowered to a loud whisper.  “Just toss me my damn book and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Come up and get it yourself.”

The widow and curtains closed.

 

When Laurens knocked on Hamilton’s door he half expected him to open it just wide enough to shove his book at him then slam it in his face.  Instead Hamilton opened it and then stepped back, his laptop closed and the book still where Laurens had left it on the nightstand.

“I should have realized you of all people weren’t going to throw it down,” Laurens said after an awkward pause.

“Ha.  Yeah.”

Laurens looked between the book and the door.  “I think they left your dinner in the fridge.  You should get it.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton repeated.

“Come on.”

Laurens went back out into the hallway and to his relief Hamilton followed him.

“Did you get a lot of work done?”  Laurens asked as they walked to the kitchen.  

Hamilton shrugged.  “I could have kept going if you didn’t break my concentration.”

“I’m surprised I managed that.”

“ _I’m_ surprised you actually tried to pull some rom-com bs.  Does that mean we’re dating?  Because if we’re not that’s even weirder.”  Hamilton turned on the light in the kitchen and opened the fridge.

“The plate on top.  That’s not what we had, she must have made it special for you.  I don’t know.”

“I yelled at you when you didn’t tell me about your ex—by the way, still kind of pissed you never brought that up, would be even if we weren’t—and you made a grand if poorly-thought-out romanic gesture in order to get me to talk to you again.”  He took out the plate, a piece of plastic cling wrap over a sandwich and a teabag with a note from Lafayette’s grandmother hoping that he felt better.  Hamilton crumpled up the note before Laurens could read it but got a mug and hot water from the spigot.  “Also you told me I couldn’t hit on people even on vacation.  I think we’re dating.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Sound more enthusiastic.”  Hamilton took a bite of his sandwich and added through a mouthful of food, “I’m a fucking catch.”

Laurens laughed, caught somewhere between bemusement and relief.  

“This is good,” Hamilton commented.  “Want some?  I think it’s lamb.”

Laurens shook his head and leaned back on the counter.  “She must have made it with our leftovers.  They like you a lot.”

“ _I_ like _you_ a lot, so don’t ruin it by telling me that rocks at the window thing is actually South Carolina for ‘sorry I knocked you up, let’s see if there’s a rush deal on marriages down at the local megachurch.’”

“Are we still on this?  Her father had attack dogs and an unlocked gun collection, if I was ever on their property it was in well-lit areas and with his full consent.”

“Sounds like you made a mistake, J.  He was the real catch.”

Laurens sighed, sensing correctly that the quickest way to get Hamilton to let it go was to just give him the information he wanted.

“Her father managed some investments for mine and we went to the same school.  I was friends with her brother, we were both on the team together.  I asked Martha to a school event in my junior year.  By the time prom came around, I, you know, I figured I’d seal the deal.”

Hamilton was still holding the plate but he had stopped eating.

“It was at an afterparty.  A bunch of us rented a couple rooms in a motel just outside the city—we both lied about where we were, of course—and we were drinking, I was drinking… It wasn’t a good year for me.”  Laurens had been making eye contact with Hamilton when he started talking but by now he was looking out the window in the kitchen even though it was impossible to see anything outside.  “When one of the rooms was empty, I broke her away from her friends and we did it.  It wasn’t…  You know?  And then we were back at the party and both of us trying to act like it hadn’t happened.  I don't know what would have happened after that if she hadn’t missed her period, we probably still would have been dating when I left for college.  I didn’t do anything with anyone else.”

Hamilton put the plate down.  “Your dad must have been pissed.”

Laurens laughed, hollowly.  “I didn’t tell him until after I had told her I’d marry her.  If I could have said it in a letter, I would have.  It was kept quiet enough but in the circle our parents ran in, it was known that wedding plans were being made, and without the kind of pomp and expense that you would expect.”  He paused.  “But then she wasn’t pregnant.  I don’t think we ever officially broke up, it was just understood by everyone involved, especially us, that we were no longer together.  That part at least was a relief.”

“I’m sure.”

Laurens ran a hand through his hair.  “There.  Are you satisfied?”

“Of course not.”  Hamilton came over to him and put his hand on his cheek, turning his face down to his and kissing him, long and slow.  “Sorry I’m an ass.”

“I knew what I was getting into.”

“Did you?”  Hamilton wondered, picking up the plate and mug.  “Let’s go back.”

“Isn’t it late for tea?”

“Nah, it’s just a tisane.  There’s no caffeine in here.”  Hamilton stepped to the side and let Laurens get the door for them, going in and putting it all down on the desk.  “Hey.”  He hooked his finger on one of Laurens’ belt loops, playfully pulling him closer and looking up at him with a soft grin.  “I’m glad you stopped kidding yourself, even if you almost set off an honor feud to do it.”

Laurens ducked his head for a moment, embarrassed.

“It made my job a lot easier.”

“What job?  As I remember it, Lafayette did all the work.”

Hamilton laughed, backing them up towards the bed.  “Yeah, all right. I owe him one.”


	19. New Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to School; Post-Colonialism; Whipped

“I can’t believe you sprained your ankle before the season even started.”  Hamilton was sitting, his own right ankle over his left knee, and his head propped up by his arm on the table, a complete display of bored nonchalance that was ruined when you noticed (as Lafayette did at a glance) how he was tapping his foot on the ground.

“It’s fine.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t fine, I said I can’t believe it.”

Laurens didn’t respond to that, sitting a little sullenly across from the other two at the table in the dining hall.

“You will be able to play later games, won’t you?”  Lafayette asked.

“Yeah.”  Laurens opened his water bottle and took a drink.  “Alex, calm down, I’ve twisted my ankle before, it’s not a big deal.”

Hamilton stopped tapping his foot, looking defensive.

“It’s a pain in the ass, but that’s it.  Can we not talk about this anymore?”  He got up, putting his weight gingerly on his left foot, the wraps around his ankle hidden under the leg of his jeans and the high top of his shoe, and went to throw away his rubbish from lunch.

“He’s right,” Lafayette commented as they watched him cross the room.  “If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t see it.  I don’t think it bothers him.”

“That’s not it,” Hamilton said irritably as he started bouncing his foot again without realizing it.  Even shit like this, he’s defending himself to his father when he talks to him.  I don’t know if he even notices it, but it’s annoying.”

Lafayette doubted whether “annoying” was the right word, but he didn’t question it.  “I see.”

“Like, I get mentioning it, but the entire conversation it was like he was trying to put just the right spin on it so that he’d come off as the perfect mix of machismo and team player.  It’s like I’m dating a stock photo, except, hold up, we both know I’m not on that checklist of attributes for the perfect son.”

Lafayette waited a moment to see if Hamilton was done complaining.  “Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think it is very weird to hear you talk about dating.”

“You’re the one who hooked us up, mostly!”

“I don’t mean dating John Laurens,” Lafayette clarified.  “I mean dating anyone at all.  I always thought you were more of a one night stand sort of person.  Is that the right term?”

“Yes.  And are you calling me a slut?”

“I never said that.”  Lafayette delicately opened his candy bar.  “Reese’s?”

“You’re going to get fat if you keep trying to eat your way through America.”

“Yeah, you need to save it for when you come down south.”  Laurens sat back down at the table.  “We put butter on everything, it’s great.”

“Is that an invitation?”  Lafayette asked as Hamilton took the candy bar from him.  “I put you both up in France and I’d like to see more of the country.”

Laurens shrugged.  “Sure.  It’s not as interesting as Paris, but you might enjoy spending a few days there.”  He looked over at Hamilton as he finished saying that.  Hamilton glanced away.  “Are you working today?”

“Yeah, I should head over.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to, it’s off your route.”

“I told you, it’s fine.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes exaggeratedly but stopped arguing.

Lafayette was still sitting, staring at Laurens’ ankle and clearly trying to remember something.

“That’s it,” he finally said, getting up as well.  “Don’t you have a cast?”

“What?”

“It’s not a cast.”

“You’re supposed to be wearing a _cast_?”

“It’s not a cast,” Laurens repeated, “Christ, stop blowing everything out of proportion.  It’s just a brace.”

“And you’re supposed to be wearing it.”

“It gets in the way and I don’t need it,” Laurens argued.  “I told you, I’ve twisted my ankle before and it’s fine.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have such weak ankles if you actually did what you were supposed to, but whatever, it’s fine.”

“Hm…”  Lafayette tipped his head to the side, his silver hair falling over his shoulder.  “No, I take back what I said before.  Alex, it’s not strange at all.  You’re—”

“Lafayette, so help me if you finish that sentence I am going to put that brace to a better use by beating you over the head with it.”

Lafayette clicked his tongue.  “So touchy.”

 

“It’s a little hypocritical that you would make such a big deal out of it.”  Laurens was lying, naked except for a light sheet, on his back on Hamilton’s mattress.  “That’s all I’m saying.”

Hamilton, not bothering with a sheet, leaned out of his bathroom door, toothbrush in mouth and making a disagreeing noise.

“It is,” Laurens insisted.  “You don’t take the best care of yourself either, Alex.  How many hours of sleep did you get last night?”

Hamilton held up four fingers, then shook his head and ducked into the bathroom.

“Not a good example and not the same,” he said a moment later, going back over to the mattress.  “I would have slept in later but it’s so hot, I had the window open and the friggin’ garbage truck woke me up.”

Laurens looked skeptical.  “On average, then.”

“It’s still not the same,” Hamilton insisted, sitting.

Laurens pulled him down, running his thumb over his high cheekbones and then his fingers through his hair.  “You’re gonna get wrinkles,” he teased, “you’ll turn gray.”

“I’d be a silver fox,” Hamilton replied.  “All the girls’ll be lining up at my door.”

“‘Girls’?”

“Yeah, I banned you after you made fun of my hair.” Hamilton rolled away from Laurens onto his back.  “It’s like a sauna in the city at this time of year.  I’m melting.”

“I thought you’d be used to it.”

“Trade winds.”  Hamilton waved one hand dismissively in the air above his face.  “And not all of this cement for the heat to just _bake_ you in.”

Laurens propped himself up on his elbow, watching Hamilton’s face.

“I bet winter was a surprise.”

“Ha.  Yeah.  I stepped off that plane and—d’you know what, John?  I saw autumn leaves for the first time in my life.  Squirrels.  CVS, for chrissake.  All this shit that I had this image of in my mind because of course I knew about it, I’d seen it everywhere, and that’s the thing, isn’t it?  No one in New York cares if I went to Gore’s of St. Croix, but I’ve got CVS already engrained somewhere in me and it’s beautiful, the flow of power.  Soft power, John, recognize our maps and naturalize our flora and fauna and without even realizing it your center of balance is off.” 

Laurens was quiet and Hamilton tucked his hands behind his head.

“You know what?”

“What?”

“You’re right, four hours isn’t enough.  I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“That’s not true.”

Hamilton closed his eyes.  Laurens waited for a minute to see if he would say anything else, then lay down once he heard his breathing slow, putting one hand on his shoulder in spite of the heat.

 

“John, what is ‘whipped’?”  Lafayette was sitting on his bed, laptop open in his lap and notebook in front of him.

“You mean…”  Laurens turned at his desk, the action made a little awkward by the brace on his ankle, frowning, and imitated the movement in the space between them.

“I don’t know.”  Lafayette cocked his head to the side.  “I mean in slang.”

“Oh.”  Recognition dawned on him and he nodded.  “It means like, if two people are in a relationship and one of them always does what the other one wants.”

“I see.”  Lafayette leaned forward, writing down the word and its definition in his notebook.  “John, you are whipped.”

“Ex _cuse_ me?”

“It’s true,” Lafayette said, closing his notebook.  “Alex says, ‘take off your shirt,’ you take it off.  Alex says, ‘tell me about your past,’ you tell him.”

“Okay, that first one is not being ‘whipped,’ that’s getting a good thing coming.  And the second one, Lafayette, that’s called good communication.”

“Mm, yes.”  Lafayette looked down at the brace.  “I was wrong, it’s not at all because he makes you feel guilty.”

“Drop it.”  Laurens turned back around in his chair.  “He was right, it’ll heal faster this way.”

“I don’t think it is a bad thing,” Lafayette said, getting up and going over.  “We are just romantics, the two of us.”  He leaned on the desk so Laurens couldn’t ignore him.  “Alexander is too,” he added, “but in a different way from you.  Although you may be new at this—” Laurens pointedly looked away, “—you are more secure somehow.  I don’t know, I think that you might just be more comfortable with yourself as a person.  Alex is too insecure and he needs the reassurance, in spite of what he might say.  Do you know what I think?”

“I think I’m coming to really hate that you’re in that pop psychology class.”

“I think that Alex is putting himself out on a limb by agreeing to be with just you and he wants to see you do the same in return.”

“I am doing—”

“He wants to _see_ it,” Lafayette persisted, cutting him off.  He waited until Laurens didn’t look like he was about to protest anymore, then continued.  “Like with the brace.  Wasn’t he happy to see you put it on when he asked?”

“No clue.”  Laurens looked back at his laptop.  “I showed up at the gym without it and coach bitched me out until I agreed to put his spare one on.”

Lafayette straightened up in a huff and went back to his bed.  “I take back everything I said.  You two are both horrible at this and perfect for each other.”


	20. Probably Too Late to Switch Majors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Present; Plans; Magic Number

“You got me something for my birthday?”  Lafayette sounded genuinely surprised and touched.  “You didn’t have to meet me before work, Alex.”

“No, I know, but you have class all day after this and I wanted to make sure I could give it to you.”  Hamilton shifted his heavy bag on his shoulder as it started to slide down.  “I didn’t get the chance to wrap it, but I put a lot of work into it.  I want you to know that you mean a lot to me.  This time last year I barely knew you and we didn’t mark the occasion and besides, you only turn twenty once.”  He pulled his bag up again.  “Right, that’s enough of that.  Let me give this to you as a sign of how much our friendship means to me.”

Hamiton lifted the flap of his bag and as Lafayette watched with anticipation he took out a large white porcelain cat with a gaudy violet bow tied around its neck.  Lafayette had reached out to take it automatically but Hamilton still had to put it in his hands.

“Is this…?”

“You’re welcome.  It took me ages to find that bow.  And by ages I mean I went on Ebay and did a search for ‘tacky af ribbon.’  I like this one, though, it matches your hair, although I glued it on so you can’t borrow it.  I splurged the extra two dollars to get this one instead of the cheaper Christmas print one, so I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get lost.  Anyway,” Hamilton glanced up at the clock on the hall.  “I’ve gotta get to the office.”

Lafayette looked between Hamilton and the door to his class.  “You can’t leave me with this!  I don’t have time to go back to the dorm until five!”

“Hey, me too, talk about full schedules.  I’ll see you later,” Hamilton laughed as he waved and quickly vanished into the crowd of students coming out of the classrooms into the hallway.

Lafayette could see people looking at him curiously and he set his jaw and tucked the cat under his arm.  “Perhaps ‘as a friend’ I should make sure that Alex has a very _joyeux Noël_.”

 

> A. Hamilton: free sat?

> A. Hamilton: 7ish

> J. Laurens: Are you asking me out?

> A. Hamilton: nah

> A. Hamilton: well, maybe.

> A. Hamilton: house party

> A. Hamilton: Does that count?

> A. Hamilton: i’ll go dutch on beer with you

> J. Laurens: Since when do you go to parties?

> A. Hamilton: uh since always literally i have been at the same party as you before and also I know the guy and told him I’d show up and bring something, so are we doing dutch or nah?

> J. Laurens: I’ll pick it up

> A. Hamilton: score!

 

“Brazilian.”

“Eugh, no.”

“Seriously?  That shit’s hot.”

Laurens paused in his doorway, looking with confusion and suspicion at Hamilton and Lafayette sitting on the latter’s bed, hunched over something.  “Do I want to know or should I come back later?”

Hamilton glanced up over his shoulder at him.  “Be the tie breaker, John.  Is waxing hot?”

Laurens made a face at him and dropped his bag by his desk.  

“Come on,” Hamilton pleaded, “pretend for a second that you’re into that.”

“Why are we talking about this?”

“Lafayette got someone’s _Cosmo_ in his mail by mistake.”

Lafayette held up the magazine, open to a page of stylized diagrams.

“We were having fun with it.  Sorry, turns out that I prioritize career over relationships, but your September horoscope is good.”

“I think it’s better to go au natural,” Lafayette said.  “It is more liberated that way.  No one wants to sleep with someone who looks like a child.”

“What kind of prepubescent pubes do you think grow into the shape of a landing strip?”  Hamilton argued.  “That kind of commitment says DTF and argues for some serious practice time put in.  _Trust me_.”

“What do you think, John?”  Lafayette asked in a cajoling voice.  “I’m right, aren't I?”

Laurens sat on his own bed.  “I’m going to have to go with Lafayette on this.  Don’t look so put out, Alex, it’s not like you wax.  Or even trim, for that matter.”

“You both suck,” Hamilton said without any bite, distracted by the magazine again.  “Whatever, more for me.”

Laurens raised a brow and Lafayette shrugged at him.  

Hamilton, not looking up or paying attention, turned the page.  “I swear, this thing is like three fourths ads.  Screw political science, my other major should be in communications.”

“You have to admit that putting it into shapes is strange,” Lafayette pressed the point.  “You say you like something simpler, but what about the heart or star?”

“I slept with a girl who had hers in a heart once,” Hamilton said.  “I mean, that’s not _why_ , obviously, it’s not like that was the selling point, but it was a neat surprise.”

Lafayette clicked his tongue.  

“Get the stick out of your ass.  So I’ve been with more than one person.”

“So have I,” Lafayette protested.

“Adrienne, and your hand doesn’t count as your number two.”

Lafayette scowled.  “I’ve been with three girls, thank you.”

“Right.”  Hamilton briefly looked up at Laurens with a grin, not quite registering that he was the only one who was really enjoying this conversation.  “What’s the rule?  Divide that by three, you’re back to one, Lafayette.  Let’s do it this way: you’ve got one, so you get one vote.  John, all right, I know you’re not lying, so you get two.  Sorry boys,” he got up and handed the magazine back to Lafayette dramatically.  “ _I’ve_ got eighteen and I’m going to class.”

“Does that bother you?”  Lafayette asked once Hamilton had left.  “I’ll tell him to cut it out if he does.”

Laurens was digging through his bag and didn’t look up to answer.  “Of course it does, but it was supposed to.  He was being an asshole and looking for a reaction.  From both of us, that is, trust me, if he had been aiming that at me he wouldn’t have said it in front of you and he would have waited for a response.  Remind me to grab a couple of six packs after class,” he continued, taking out the book he had been looking for.  “Are you coming this weekend?”

“Yes, of course.  I’ll help you make sure our Alex doesn’t get closer to twenty.”

Laurens shrugged.  “I trust him.  He didn’t try anything in France, and I wasn’t even on the same continent.”

“Yes,” Lafayette agreed carefully, deciding that in this case discretion was the better part of friendship as well as valor.  “Nothing happened.”

“You see?  It doesn’t matter how much he runs off at the mouth.  Between you and me,” he added, “I wonder if we shouldn’t be taking that ‘eighteen’ as the number to be divided, not the final sum.” 


	21. House Party Number One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loco Parentis; Learning Curve; *Afterparty

The party itself was being held in an apartment in the Heights.  It was split between three guys, two of them only a year or two older and then Hamilton’s friend Hercules Mulligan.  Mulligan’s younger brother was one of the other two in the apartment and Mulligan himself was about a decade their senior and worked at JFK although he sometimes managed to get himself sent to London on business.  Hamilton had met him in his first semester in New York City, had actually gotten him to show him around and the ropes—how to get a fake ID, which bars wouldn't check it too carefully—and he’d helped him when his suitcase of books showed up but his suitcase of clothes did not.  He was a sort of mother hen, if chickens laid mixers and scolded you for not remembering to bring your coat.

The apartment was pleasantly full, not overcrowded, when they arrived, with drinks and food set on a table pushed up against the wall and music playing off someone’s computer.

“Hamilton!”  Mulligan draped an arm over Hamilton’s shoulders as he entered with Laurens and Lafayette, leading him in.  “It’s been too long!”

“You were off in England for ages this time,” Hamilton pointed out.  “Is this mine?”

“It’s yours now,” Mulligan said, handing him the closed can in his hand and stepping away.  “And you brought people, great!”

“Lafayette,” Hamilton said, gesturing back at them, “and John Laurens.  Lafayette transferred here from France.”

“ _Bonsoir_ ,” Mulligan said, poorly, and then to Laurens, “Hey, thanks.  You can put the drinks down wherever there’s room.”

Laurens put them on the table and poured himself a drink from one of the tall pitchers.  Hamilton and Lafayette were both at the other end of the room by the time he got back, talking animatedly to a mixed group sitting on the couch.  He took the moment to look around the apartment.  It was very clearly lived in by several young men, from the “SONS OF THE REVOLUTION” scrawled above the door to the generally scuffed up furniture (somehow there was a shoe print on the arm of the sofa that Hamilton was leaning on).  Oddly enough there was also a sewing machine stuck under the table.

“From my old job,” Mulligan explained, coming back over to Laurens as he mingled.  “It’s a useful skill to have.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. 

“Laurens,” Mulligan said his name out loud to himself.  “Hamilton said something about you… You’re his roommate?”

“Uh, no.”  Laurens shook his head.  “He’s got his own place, I’m in the dorms with Lafayette.”

“Ah, maybe that was it.”

Laurens wondered if that really _had_ been it, but Mulligan was still talking.

“He’s a good kid, have you known him long?  Me, I met him right when he got here.  He told you about his shirts, right?”  Mulligan laughed, loudly but not unpleasantly.  “Damn, _literally_ shows up with thirty-four books and the clothes on his back.  I thought to myself, this kid’s the biggest Goddamn nerd I’ve seen in my life.  What a nerd,” he repeated with clear affection.  “He’s smart as a whip, isn’t he?”

Laurens cracked a smile.  “Yeah.  His spelling is only okay, though.”

Mulligan laughed again.  “So what’s your deal?”  Once again Laurens tensed a little, only to relax when Mulligan clarified, “You graduating soon or what?”

“Fifth year senior.  I’m on the football team,” Laurens explained, taking a long drink.  “But I’ll be applying to law school after this.”

“Shit, if I had a kid looking at that, no way I’d let him get tossed around on the field.  You sure you don’t want to switch to something a little lighter weight?  Basketball?  Volleyball?  You got the height for it.”

“Nah, I’m a lost cause.” He took another drink.  “This is excellent, by the way.”

“Thanks, man.  You like whiskey?  That’s the Scotch-and-Irish, I got them both when I was overseas.”  He motioned him back over to the table, picking up the bottles and handing him the Scotch to admire.  “What are you, defense?”

“Runningback,” Laurens answered automatically as he examined the bottle then put it back on the table.  “I’m hoping we make it to championships again this year.”

“Your last shot, sure.”  Mulligan was opening a bottle of Kahlùa.  “You like Irish Car Bombs?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.  Shit, remind me to tell you after about the first night I took Hamilton out on the town.  We fucking ended up down at the harbor and that idiot—”

There was a roar of laughter from the other end of the room and Laurens looked up and through the people could see Hamilton on the couch with his arm over the backrest behind a pretty girl with dark eyes, leaning just a little too far into her and talking animately about something on his phone.

“—fucking stolen cannon.  _Jesus_ Christ and bottoms up!”

Laurens snapped back to the conversation just in time to see Mulligan drop the two shot glasses into the larger cups and he grabbed his, drinking it quickly before it curdled.

“Shit,” he swore as he put it down.  “Thanks.  Hey, can I ask you something?  It’s a long story,” he said as he watched Hamilton put his hand on her thigh.  “It’s a long… Anyway, we were fucking around the other day and I’ve got a bet going—”  She took his hand off playfully and he laughed and put it back.  “—with Lafayette.  Do you know about how many people Hamilton’s slept with?  Six?”

Mulligan laughed, for too long, Laurens thought.  “Yeah, maybe when he was fuckin’ fifteen!  I told you that you needed to hear the full story of the first time we went out on the town.  I thought he was just some scrawny little nerd and I was gonna show him the ropes, you know, teach him how to doggy paddle before he tries to go off on his own and jump in the deep end, but that jackass ditched _me_ in the first bar we hit up!  He’s a Goddamn tom cat!”

Laurens watched as Hamilton played with the girl’s hair.

“He even had the balls to bring some girl, Kitty, I think, back when he was crashing here.  I found that out later,” Mulligan said, leaning in but obviously not caring if anyone else overheard, “when I brought her back here myself and she’d already seen my bed.”

“Right,” Laurens said calmly.  “I’ll tell Lafayette I owe him ten dollars.  Excuse me, I just remembered that I need to make a call.”  He ducked out of the party and then, a minute later, Hamilton untangled himself from the crowd and followed.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to make a scene and I know you’re enjoying yourself, but would you mind not hitting on the entire room?”

Hamilton tipped his head to the side for just a moment, confused, then his eyes widened.  “Oh my _God_ , you’re jealous!”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You’re _so_ jealous!”  Hamilton was obviously resisting the urge to either pull out his phone or go back inside to find Lafayette in person.

“I’m not,” Laurens repeated, a little louder, frustrated.

“How about this,” Hamilton said with a smug grin, leaning in close and drawing one hand up Laurens’ side.  “We’ll go back in there and I’ll make sure the _entire room_ knows I’m off limits.”

A burst of laughter could be heard from under the door, and someone knocking up against the wall.

Laurens pushed Hamilton’s hand away and took a half step back.  “Don’t.”

Hamilton slowly lowered his hand, his eyes narrowing slightly.  “Right.  I see how it is.”

“Alex—”

“Go fuck yourself, John.”  

And then Hamilton was back inside and Laurens could hear, or at least imagined that he could hear, him asking what he missed while he was gone.

 

It was some time after two when Hamilton and Lafayette left Mulligan’s, Lafayette giving him a drunken hug and kiss on each cheek to say goodbye.  Hamilton was laughing as he bumped fists with Mulligan and let Lafayette sling an arm over his shoulders, both of them still talking animatedly as they headed down the stairs.

“No, no way,” Hamilton said as he took the phone from Lafayette’s hand and put it in his pocket.  “You’ll thank me later, believe me.”

“But it’s such a long walk back and I’ll miss her between now and then,” Lafayette protested, slipping back into French and missing the last step.

“I’m saying this,” Hamilton started to crack up again and switched languages to match, “I’m saying this as a friend.  You trust me, don’t you?”

Lafayette grabbed his shirt collar, suddenly serious.  “I trust you with my life, Alexander Hamilton.”

“Good, good…” Hamilton patted his hand and gently detached it.  “Please tell me if you’re gonna hurl.”

It wasn’t until he had Lafayette pointed the right way again that he saw the figure sitting on the floor by the door, and it wasn’t until several seconds after that that what he was seeing filtered through the fog of alcohol and he realized it was Laurens.

“What the fuck,” he started as Laurens yawned and stood up.  “John, seriously, what the fuck?”

“Let me help you with that,” Laurens said, coming over and switching Lafayette’s arm off of Hamilton’s to his own shoulders.  They were significantly closer in height and even with the ankle brace Laurens had an easier time directing him out the door and into the street.  “Warm night.  He’s okay, right?  Better or worse than the Louis-Cab Incident?”

The shock of seeing him there all of a sudden had cleared Hamilton’s head for the moment at least and he fell into step on Laurens’ free side.

“Not worse.  He was fine until a little while ago.  I took his phone.”

“Yeah, good idea.  We can use it to call China.”

“John.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously.”

“I didn’t feel right about leaving you guys.  I know, I know, you can take care of yourself, it’s not a long walk to the subway, you’re familiar with the area.  This guy’s dead weight, though.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything at first and Laurens didn’t continue.

As they waited for the crossing light to change Hamilton spoke up.  

“I wasn’t going to take her home with me.”

“I know.”

“I wasn’t even going to kiss her.”

“I know.”

“Do you really?”  Hamilton looked up at him, skeptical.  “Then what’s the problem?  Because it sounds to me like you don’t trust me to keep my word and that’s bullshit, John.”

“I know,” Laurens repeated once more.  The light changed and they started to walk again.  “I didn’t want you to, I don’t know, be draped on me like Lafayette is now—”

“I’d be a hell of a lot sexier than that.”

“—but I don’t like seeing you act like that with other people, either.  I mean, what am I supposed to do?  Just stand there and let you emasculate me?”

“I’m not _emasculating_ you, John.”

“Or pick a fight?  Defend some kind of territory?  I _don’t_ know, Alex.  And I kept thinking about it while I was waiting downstairs and I don't know.  What do you want?  What reaction are you looking for?  I can’t say that I’ll give it, but I’d at least like some kind of idea about what the rules are.”

“Okay, first of all, not doing it for you.  I like people.  I like talking to people.  Secondly, John, why are you asking _me_ about rules?  I guess you weren’t listening, so I’ll say it louder, this is uncharted territory for me.  Twofold: I’ve never done anything with a guy before—” Hamilton saw that Laurens was about to say that the same went for him, and he made a shushing gesture.  “—and _unlike_ you, I’ve never been in an actual relationship before, either.  I know, you say that didn’t really count, but a year’s gotta give you some kind of practice, even if it’s just a shitty dress rehearsal.  I mean, like, this.”  He gestured between them, dodged a street pole, and then came to a stop.  “Do I gotta change my Facebook status, or what?  I know _shit_ , J.”

The corner of Laurens’ mouth quirked up at the corner and he ducked his head, kissing Hamilton slowly.  

“I’m not worried.  You’re a fast learner.”

“Yeah, you're only so-so,” Hamilton teased, after a pause that went on a little too long for the joke to not be awkward.

“At least I didn’t think to come to New York with a bunch of books and no spare clothes.”

“Shit, he told you that?  That wasn’t my fault, my suitcase got lost!”

“Uh huh, sure.  I don’t know, it sounds an awful lot like you to prioritize like that.”

“So if you don’t get jealous, why’d you come to France?”

Laurens turned red, embarrassed that Hamilton, even drunk, even weeks after the fact, even in the middle of a different Goddamn conversation had made the connection anyway and recognized it as his trump card.  “Get Lafayette’s metro card out of his pocket,” he muttered as they headed down into the station, his lack of response giving Hamilton just the answer he wanted.

Through sheer luck the line they needed pulled in a minute after they got through the gates and the car they got into was mostly empty.  Laurens sat with Lafayette and Hamilton held onto a pole, opting to stand even though there was plenty of space.

“Come over later.”

“What?”  Laurens resisted the urge to look down the car to see if anyone was paying attention

“He’ll be fine, just drop him off and then we can go back to my place.”

“Alexander—”  Laurens looked suddenly down at Lafayette.

“What?”

“He’s talking—it’s so fast he’s basically _rapping_.”  Laurens leaned down a little, trying to listen over the noise.  “It’s… I can’t tell if he’s actually freestyling or not.  He’s good,” he added, surprised.  “Get a video of this, he’s _really_ fast.”

“I’ll send it to Louis and Adrienne,” Hamilton said, crouching down with one hand still on the pole so he could shove the phone in Lafayette’s face.  “Do you think he’ll kill me even if they like it?”

“Maybe, but do it anyway.”

“ _Obviously_.” 

Hamilton sat down on the floor of the car as they rattled along, legs bent in front of him and using his knee to support his hand as he filmed.

“You’re drunk too,” Laurens commented once Hamilton had finished shooting and let the screen tip down.

“Nah.”

“The floor’s filthy, Alex.”

“So?”  Hamilton leaned back against the pole, letting his eyes close.  

“You’re going to get your clothes dirty.”

“Yeah…?”  The rocking of the car and the relative calm now that they weren’t walking or arguing was making him tired, making his head foggier again without his really realizing it.  “Doesn’t matter.  I’m just going to take them all off anyway.  Make you take them off for me.”

“How did I get stuck as d.d.?” Laurens complained.  “I’m even the oldest!”

“Yeah, but it was my party and Lafayette’s French.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Hamilton shrugged and opened his eyes as the car came to a stop.  “This is it.”  Laurens turned, looking out the window behind him.  “You don’t need to check, I was counting.”  Hamilton put his phone away and got up. 

Laurens shook his head, impressed in spite of himself.

 

Hamilton was taking his shirt off before Laurens had even closed the door to his studio behind him, dropping it to the floor and kissing him hungrily, his hands on the side of his face and his weight leaning into him.

Laurens put his hands on Hamilton’s waist, felt him shiver at the contact, felt the sudden need build within himself and he bit at Hamilton’s lip, pressing his tongue into his mouth, and was rewarded with a low uncensored groan.  He turned them, pinning Hamilton up against the door and pressed his hips against his for a moment, feeling Hamilton already getting hard.  He undid his fly and slipped his hand in, rubbing him a little roughly and Hamilton tipped his hips forward, tightening one hand in Laurens’ shirt and then with a tug indicating that he should take it off.  Laurens did so, taking his hand away and breaking the kiss only for a moment as he yanked it over his head, then resumed, feeling a rush from holding Hamilton a willing captive and from how he could hear his breathing quicken.

Laurens put his free arm up to lean over him and get a better angle with his hand and Hamilton moaned into the kiss.

Laurens responded by nipping again at his bottom lip and growling low in his throat.  

Hamilton made a soft, needy noise, running his hand repeatedly over Laurens’ cheek—rough by this early hour, he’d have to shave in the morning—and back through his hair.  “J.,” he repeated in a murmur, his lips brushing over Laurens’.  “Please.”

The world seemed to turn upside down for a moment when Laurens stepped away and Hamilton had to brace himself against the door until he caught his breath.  By that point Laurens was coming back out of the bathroom and tugging down his pants.  Hamilton beat him to it, undressing quickly, his cock hard and red, and kissed him again as he pulled him down onto the futon.  Laurens bucked his hips, just a little, as they hit the mattress and Hamilton’s shaft rubbed over his leg.  

Hamilton put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him, rolling him over onto his back and straddling his waist, looking down for a moment at Laurens—thick chest, broad shoulders, strong jaw, aquiline nose—and then leaned down and pressed their mouths together again, one of his hands intwining with Laurens’ next to his head.  Laurens brought his other hand up over Hamilton’s bare back, tangling it in his long hair and keeping him down until Hamilton finally pulled back an inch.

“You got the lube?”  He laughed just a little as Laurens tried to tug him back down.  “Put it on yourself.”

Laurens fumbled one handed and blind to open the bottle until Hamilton took pity on him and released his hand and bit at his neck, harder as Laurens turned his head to see what he was doing and exposed more skin.  Hamilton’s mouth was still against his throat as Laurens put his hand on his shaft and Hamilton felt him moan more than he heard it.

“Don’t get too carried away.”

Hamilton sat up, lifting off of Laurens a little and noting with a pleased glance the red mark on his neck.

Laurens, a little frustrated, put his hand between Hamilton’s legs and then, when he leaned into it and let his eyes close, slid one finger inside him, then another.  Hamilton clenched one fist against Laurens’ chest, arching his back, as he moved slowly in and out.

“Wait,” Hamilton commanded after a minute and Laurens took his hand away.  He expected him to get off of him and he was already starting to lift himself up onto his elbows but then he sunk down, his head falling back, as Hamilton lowered himself onto him.  For a second the rush of excitement and arousal was so strong that he thought he might tip over the edge already, but then he regained control, his heart pounding but not sending any blood to his head.  “God, Alexander,” he found himself saying without meaning to.  “Alexan—”  His voice broke and the words turned into a loud moan as Hamilton rose up and moved back down on him.  Laurens put his hands on his thighs, helping him rise and fall and his hips jerked as Hamilton took his cock, drawing the movement out so slowly that he would have complained about it if Laurens had tried to set that pace like that normally.  Laurens heard a short whimper and wasn’t sure if Hamilton had made it or if he had, but then Hamilton gave just the breath of a laugh and if he had any blood to spare it would have gone to his cheeks. 

Laurens thought it was a bead of sweat that had fallen onto his chest but realized his mistake when he wrapped his hand around Hamilton’s cock and found it slippery with a trail of precum.  He moved his hand over him, urging him on to a faster speed, raising himself off of the mattress to push as far into him as possible.  He thrust again, feeling his orgasm start to wash over him, and came, almost shouting his name and clutching at his leg.

Hamilton wrapped his own hand around his shaft, unable to hold back any longer, and with a few quick movements came onto Laurens’ chest and neck, then moved forward to straddle his waist again, tipping Laurens’ face to him with one hand and kissing him hard.  There was a drop of salt against his lips and when he pulled away he flicked his tongue over it, both of them panting and flushed. 

“I didn’t realize you’d like that so much.”  Hamilton kissed him again, playfully, then rolled off and onto his stomach, lying against the wall and folding his arms under his pillow.  He watched Laurens get up and touch his mouth and then his collar.

“Shit,” he muttered as he drew his hand away, wet and sticky.

“Go wash up,” Hamilton said with a yawn, taking his contacts out and discarding them gracelessly onto the floor before tucking his head down and closing his eyes, the alcohol hitting him again and pulling him down hard into sleep.  He was dimly aware of the light going on in the bathroom and Laurens turning on the shower.  He came to when Laurens lay back down beside him.

“I used your towel,” Laurens said.

“Mm.”

“You asleep?”

“Yes.”  Hamilton turned onto his side, facing him.

Laurens shifted closer and draped his arm over him, sliding his fingers into his hair, loose and tangled.  “Good night.”


	22. Mornings After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Shower; *Hangover

It was early afternoon by the time Hamilton, disoriented, opened his eyes.  

For a moment he thought he was back in the Caribbean, lying in bed in the room he had shared after he had moved in with his landlord’s family, the summer heat cut by the cross breeze through the house.  But the air wasn’t soft enough and there wasn’t that faint indescribable scent—something like plant matter and cooking food and pure salt water—and after another moment he recognized the whirr of a fan.  

He sat up, the room still more or less a blur, and got his glasses and a pair of sweatpants from the bathroom and the floor.

He was alone.

Why was there a fan?  He didn't own a fan.

His attention was caught by a note on his desk, written in Laurens’ handwriting.

 

_Alex,_

_I took your keys when I went out, sorry.  There’s a sandwich on the desk for when you wake up.  Don’t lock yourself out, I’ll be back around 2._

_J._

_Lafayette sends his regards._

 

Hamilton looked between the letter and the plastic bag he now noticed next to it.  His stomach growled in anticipation and he opened it, taking out a store-bought turkey sandwich.  He sat back down on his mattress to eat it while he read.  He had to admit that the fan was a nice touch; he probably would have woken up long before without it, either from the noise of the street or the heat with the window closed.

He had only just finished when he heard his key turn in the lock and looked up to see Laurens come in.

“When did you get up?”

“Not long ago. Maybe thirty minutes.”

Laurens put Hamilton’s keys on the desk.  “You know you slept about ten hours?  I was starting to worry.  You were right, by the way.  It gets sweltering in here with the window closed once the sun starts coming in.  I can’t believe I never noticed before.”

“It’s not bad in spring.  Besides, you always left early.”

“Yeah.  It’s Sunday, though.”

“Don’t tell me you went to church.”

“Just the nearest department store.  I’m not staying over if you don’t at least have a fan.”

“You’re a practical sugar daddy.  I like it.”

“Seriously, Alex, how did you survive here for three years without one?”

“I didn’t move in until it was already cooling off.  And I _did_ have one,” Hamilton added, “but it crapped out and I tossed it.”

Laurens was going to ask why he hadn’t bought another, but Hamilton’s laptop and smart phone were sitting on the desk, a nice if well-worn leather jacket was hanging on the back of the chair, and he figured he already knew the answer.

“You’re so vain,” he said, sitting next to him.

“Because I didn’t buy a fan?”

“Because you knew no one was going to see it.”

“You noticed.”

“It took me three years to find out you wear glasses, too, and I’m pretty sure that was a mistake.”

Hamilton, still shirtless and in sweats (unwashed, hair down and uncombed—his mind continued to add descriptors), took off his glasses.  “Teach me to sleep in,” he muttered as he got up.

“Hey, come on,” Laurens grabbed his wrist and pulled him down just enough to kiss him.  “You’re the one who said we’re dating.  I get to see you before you put your face on.”

“You’ve got something on your neck,” Hamilton said lightly over his shoulder as he stood up and went into the bathroom.  

Laurens put his hand over the mark on his neck, turning red, and chased after him.  “I thought this collar was high enough!”  He tugged it down and twisted to look at himself in the mirror over the sink as Hamilton stripped and hopped in the shower.  “Dammit, Alex!”

“Who’s vain now?”  Hamilton asked over the sound of running water.  “Were you going around with it popped all day?  You look like a tool.”

Laurens turned on the sink as if he could wash the dark purple hickey off and Hamilton yelped.

“Hey!”

“—Sorry.”  Laurens turned off the water again and Hamilton yanked the curtain aside, letting out a billowing cloud of steam, and leaned out of the shower stall, his hair in his eyes and glaring.

“You wanna make that up to me?”

Laurens stared, forcing with what felt like actual physical exertion to pull his eyes up from his bare chest to his face.  “Are you serious?”

Hamilton was grinning now—Laurens realized for the first time how his canines were just low-set enough that when he smirked like that with his teeth showing he looked almost feral—and pushed his hair back out of his face.

It took him a moment to realize he was still just staring, not saying anything, feeling his jeans start to get uncomfortably tight.

Hamilton looked down slowly, pointedly, at him and then pulled the curtain closed.  It was only a few seconds before Laurens was stepping into the shower after him.  Hamilton was going to make a crack about how quickly he undressed but it died in his throat when he turned around and saw him just a couple of inches from him and his eyes dark with hunger.

Laurens kissed Hamilton slowly, water running down his face and into Hamilton’s mouth as they separated, Hamilton stepping back and up against the wall, behind the spray that soaked Laurens’ hair and then hit his shoulder as he leaned down and slid his tongue into Hamilton’s mouth again.  Laurens ran his hands over his slender body, feeling the tight muscle just beneath the surface, his skin made softer and more slippery than usual with soap and water.  He felt Hamilton’s cock, hot as it pressed into his thigh, and he bit at his tongue as Hamilton pushed it past his teeth.

Hamilton groaned—Laurens had learned by now that he was always incapable of keeping quiet—and shifted so he was leaning back against the corner of the two walls where he could better brace himself.  Laurens frowned against his mouth, made an uncomfortable noise, stepped back.

“Your shower’s too small for this.  I’m going to hit my head.”

Hamilton’s heart was beating in his throat, the heat of the water speeding it up and making his head spin a little and cloud with desire when Laurens pulled away.  “So duck,” he said inarticulately, the two words threatening to jumble together.

“Turn around.  Get under the shower head.”

Hamilton mutely did as he was told, spreading his legs a little and leaning heavily against the wall, his forearms pressed against the slick tile and his head ducked between them.

Laurens bent down behind him and Hamilton whined a little in anticipation as he placed one hand on the wall next to his arm.  He wrapped his other hand around Hamilton’s shaft, pumping it slowly and running his thumb over his head until he was rewarded with a sudden slight warmth and a low needy moan.

Laurens bit Hamilton hard where his shoulder curved up to meet his neck and traced his fingers over his mouth, pressing his cock harder against his thighs as Hamilton licked and sucked at them, tasting his own precum and flushing at how much he liked it.  He slid his cock between Hamilton’s legs, ducking down a little further until he found the angle he was looking for, and pressing his forehead between Hamilton’s shoulder blades.  The fit was tight but wet from the running shower and he thrust slowly at first, then faster.

Hamilton was breathing in short pants, his arms starting to shake as he leaned his weight forward and he felt lightheaded from the steam and the overwhelming desire for contact.  Laurens’ hand was still by his mouth and he bit lightly at one of his fingers to get his attention but Laurens just took it away and tugged at his hair as if chiding him before gripping his shoulder tightly.  Hamilton wanted to touch himself at least, to put his own hand on his shaft and pretend it was Laurens’ but his knees buckled for a moment at the thought and he was afraid he’d fall to them if he wasn’t supporting himself against the wall.  He was rocking his hips, desperate for Laurens to rub up against him, even accidentally, or to suddenly slam into him.  Pain seemed preferable to this taunting and he was whimpering, each gasp ending in a small desperate cry, and Laurens’ name was tumbling off of his lips mixed in with obscenities and praise.

Laurens dug his nails in harder on Hamilton’s shoulder, kissing his back, and came as he thrust again, shoving Hamilton forward and up against the wall.  He held him there and Hamilton pressed his legs together while Laurens breathed heavily against him.

The hot water ran over them and after a solid minute Laurens slowly drew out and straightened up, moved his hand from the wall and draped that arm over Hamilton’s shoulder, moved his face up to press against the small of his neck, and only then brought his other hand down to Hamilton’s cock.

Hamilton bit his lower lip, trapped between Laurens and the wall, his legs shaking uncontrollably by this point, especially once Laurens had him in hand.  Laurens was almost nuzzling his jaw, lazily kissing the start of his collar, and his hand was moving over him slowly and so much at odds with what Hamilton was craving.  He pressed his hips into him, trying to fuck his hand, but didn’t have the space he needed to move.  He felt Laurens bite and suck at his neck, but as if in a dream as the world spun headily around him.  He felt his lips move, but there was a ringing in his ears loud enough to drown out whatever it was that he was saying, if it was even comprehensible (which some very dim distant voice in the back of his mind doubted), and then suddenly his own orgasm was rushing hot through his body and he felt his legs finally give way.

 

“Fuck— _Fuck!_ ”

Everything was white.

Then there was a darkness around the edges of his vision and dim spots and shadows that coalesced into shapes that turned into Laurens, leaning over him.

“Alex?”

Hamilton was surprised to hear the note of panic in his voice but it felt too much like he was swimming through cotton to respond.  He raised his hand just an inch out of a shallow pool of water and then another question dawned on him, why was he lying (well, mostly, his back was pressed up against a wall) on the wet ground—wait a minute, his brain was starting to catch up with the situation, now it was more like swimming through actual water—why was he lying on the ground at all?

Maybe it was apparent looking at him that he was starting to process things again because Laurens leaned back (okay, a third question, judging by the curtain why had Laurens been crouched just outside on the bathroom floor, which led to the logical fourth, why was he lying in the shower stall), pressing his hand to his mouth.

“‘m okay.” Hamilton said, the words fuzzy around the edges but understandable.  “I’m okay.  John?”  He pushed himself up and to his surprise saw that Laurens was laughing.

“You fucking _fainted_ ,” Laurens said, sounding incredulous as he sat back on his heels, taking his hand away from his face.  “I can’t believe it.”

“I got overheated,” Hamilton protested, feeling his face turn bright red.  

Laurens stood up, shaking his head and grinning.  He wiped himself down quickly with Hamilton’s towel then offered it to him.

Hamilton stood up, bracing himself with one hand against the wall and took it, drying off his hair and face.  When he lowered it he saw that Laurens was watching him and he narrowed his eyes, suspecting that it was because he thought he might need his help and his pride had already been duly pricked.

“What?”

“You’re looking at me.”

“Sorry.”  Laurens bit his lip, trying and failing to hide his grin.

Hamilton rolled his eyes and glanced in the mirror, then hit Laurens with the towel.  “You asshole!”  There was a massive hickey on his neck, a solid two inches in diameter, stretching all the way up to just under his jaw.

Laurens sounded just a little _too_ pleased with himself.  “Now we’re even.”

 

Lafayette was enjoying having the room all to himself.  Laurens had come in briefly to check on him and he had appreciated the gesture and appreciated even more the burger and coffee he had brought with him.  He was feeling mostly alive again, if embarrassed and desperately hoping he hadn’t done anything too memorable, and after quickly checking to make sure he hadn’t made any calls or sent any messages, he contacted Adrienne.

She picked up the video call and he lay dramatically down on his bed, holding her above him, hoping his melodramatic display would hide the very real headache he still felt.

“Adrienne,” he complained in French, “I miss you so much.  John and Alex are off fucking and I’m all by myself.”

“Oh no,” she said, correctly sensing that he was setting up for something and going to lock her bedroom door.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I want to hear your voice,” he said, putting one hand over the crotch of his pants and rubbing himself slowly.  “Tell me about your day.”

Lafayette watched Adrienne as she began to talk, slowly and with full knowledge of what he was doing even though he pretended to hide it, pretended that it was a secret he had to keep from her.  She deliberately asked him questions and feigned to be innocently put out if his answers weren’t elaborate enough.  Lafayette for his part was good at this game and she only once or twice had to accuse him of not paying attention as he worked his cock until it was hard and he had to concentrate to keep his body still and not move his hips into his hand.

As she moved on to telling him about the weather they had been having (rainy and no fun) he arched his back just a little and pretended he was stretching so that he could shimmy his pants down onto his thighs.  He put his hand back, still not touching himself directly but keeping a thin barrier of fabric between skin and skin, and made an assenting noise to her story about class as he felt the cloth start to get damp.

“Are you all right?”  She asked.  “You’re getting flushed.”

Adrienne didn’t always get so close to breaking character and he reddened further, feeling his pulse quicken.

“I had a long night,” he told her in a strained voice.  “We got back late.”

“Oh no,” she said with a perfect air of concern, “I hope you stay well.”

“I’ll try.”  He had to swallow, hard, as he moved his hand with more urgency.  He made himself keep eye contact, keep at least looking at her face instead of at where her shirt was dipping low over her chest and where the light fabric was clinging to the edge of her bra, just over her breasts soft and small enough for him to cup completely in his hand and bring up to his mouth and suck—

His hips were shaking a little now and he wanted so much to tug his briefs down as well and take his shaft in his hand and _finish_ , either shooting his load up onto the ceiling or to flip over and fuck his pillow or the mattress, but that would be obvious and he had to maintain the façade, he couldn’t let her know what he was doing, couldn’t let his Adrienne see him like this even when he was right in front of her…  He caught himself staring at her chest and forced his eyes back up, nodding in agreement to a question he had missed entirely.

She leaned one elbow on her desk and propped her chin in her hand, toying with her hair, still dyed silver like his, winding a strand of it around her finger.  

He watched her lips move, his Adrienne’s soft pink lips, soft and warm and yielding.  He heard her sigh, imagined her warm breath on his thigh and what it would feel like to have those lips on his cock.

There was a sudden knock at her door.  Lafayette was so distracted by the task at hand that his heart was shot through with adrenaline as he thought in a panic that it was someone outside his own door and he came into his hand and the fabric with a jerk.  

“Oh,” Adrienne said at the same time he did.  

“Oh.”

She stood up quickly.  “Sorry, Gilbert, I have to go.  I’ll talk to you later.”  The line cut and Lafayette let his hand and the phone drop to his side.  He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, still touching himself slowly over the wet material.  His headache was still there but maybe he’d be able to finish sleeping it off.


	23. Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showing Off; Setting Up; Banned; *Laurens Is Unfamiliar With the Classic "You up?" Text

“—and I’m never gonna stop until I make ‘em all drop and burn ‘em up and scatter their remains—”

Hamilton stopped the video before it got too shaky and it became apparent that he was as drunk as he had been when he was filming it. Lafayette didn’t question it, too busy being caught somewhere between mortified and impressed with and in spite of himself.

“To tell you the truth, I took that to embarrass you, but you’re damn good,” Hamilton admitted. “It’s hard to hear over the background noise, but you’re actually enunciating each word individually.”

They were sitting on a bench outside the library, Hamilton, not working that day, in the lowest v-neck he could find on short notice with his hair not only pulled back but put up in a neat bun at the back of his head.

“We’re getting a lot of looks.” Hamilton tipped down his sunglasses to watch a couple of students throw him glances as they walked past them. “Think there’s something going on or are we going to get scolded for loitering?”

“I think they are staring because you look like you forgot that Halloween isn’t for another month,” Lafayette replied, eyeing the deep purple mark on his neck, and then switched to French. “John must be mortified.”

“Whatever,” Hamilton replied in glib English. “He’s the one who gave it to me.”

“Did you really pass out?”

“It was too hot in there,” Hamilton said defensively. “You try to fuck in a sauna, see how well it goes for you.”

Lafayette laughed, more delighted by the idea than anything else. “Ah, but speaking of Halloween,” he had to pause mid-sentence as a gust of wind caught his silver hair and blew it into his face. He brushed it away and continued, holding it back with his hand. “Are we going to do something this year? I think it would be fun.”

“Sure,” Hamilton shrugged. “I’ll double check this afternoon that I’ve got the work done for that week. Mulligan wasn’t around last year but he usually throws a thing, bigger than what we went to. He liked you,” he added, “so don’t worry about it.”

“I thought you said that you did not have any friends in the city?” Lafayette asked.

“He’s not around all the time,” Hamilton said. “Besides, it’s not the same. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful. He’s done a lot for me, helped me get settled, showed me around… Hell, he even let me crash with him for half of my first semester. He’s a good guy,” he added. “He’s loud and he talks a lot of shit but you don’t gotta feel like you need to show off. When I got here he yelled at me about not prioritizing right or planning ahead, then let me crash on his couch for two months and altered factory rejects so I’d have something to wear to class.”

Lafayette nodded and didn’t say anything to that directly, shifting topics back to the holiday. “Does he throw a costume party?”

“People dress up. I don’t think you’d get kicked out for showing up in your regular clothes, but I’m guessing you have something in mind already.”

“I have not settled on anything.” They both glanced up as another gust shook the branches of the tree across from them. “But there are three of us, non? We should do something.”

“I’ll think about it.” Hamilton got up. “I’ve got class soon and if we stay out here any longer you’re going to be pulling leaves out of your hair for the rest of the day.”

 

On Wednesday Laurens ran into Hamilton quite by accident outside the student health center. Hamilton, getting a free copy of the paper out of the wire rack next to the door, was surprised to see him, and Laurens noted with resignation that he was obviously still dressing to show off as much of his neck as possible.

“It’s windy,” Hamilton offered in his defense before Laurens could get a word out. “If I don’t put my hair up like this it tangles before I can even get across the street.”

“Uh-huh.” Laurens had a scarf on under his jacket, even though the weather was still not cool enough to justify it.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Hamilton asked tucking the newspaper under his arm. “Twist your other ankle?”

“Actually, I’m here to get it checked on. Coach doesn’t trust me to know when it’s healed properly. I’m supposed to bring him a note.”

“A signed one?” Hamilton teased. “Like you’re in grade school again. You’re a liability, John.”

“Yeah, yeah. Drop it.” Laurens stepped to the side, closer to Hamilton, as the doors opened and someone walked out. “I was going to text, but since you’re here, are you busy this Saturday? Lafayette mentioned that he’s going to be having dinner with the Washingtons. I still can’t believe they just let him stay in their guest room.”

“Saturday?” Hamilton’s gaze flicked briefly to the stack of papers. “Yeah, sure. Did you want to get something to eat?”

Laurens shrugged. “We can. I’ve got a team meeting after dinner but I can meet you at your apartment or at the library or something. You’re not too busy?”

“Hm? I’m always busy.” Hamilton gave a short laugh. “But this is something I can make time for. Don’t worry,” he added, as he took a step back to leave, “I’m not risking any deadlines. I’ve got class, but remind me when you get done and I’ll make sure I’m free.” Hitching the paper up under his arm again he left.

Laurens grabbed a copy for himself as well—sometimes it was hard not to feel unproductive around Hamilton, and if there was a wait he might as well make better use of his time than by browsing the internet on his phone—and headed inside. He signed in at the front desk, was informed there was a slight backlog and asked if he had anywhere he needed to be, and sat in a chair at the other end of the room. He adjusted his scarf, hoping it wouldn’t get too hot inside with it on, and unfolded the paper. Of course Hamilton had wanted a copy, he thought to himself, as the main headline was on the latest financial scandal shaking the upper echelons of the city (or, rather, not shaking them enough, as he imagined Hamilton arguing). His eye was caught by another article further down the page warning that, while no serious damage was expected, the tropical storm bearing down on them was still anticipated to make landfall that weekend.

 

“Please,” Lafayette begged, following Laurens through the hall of their dorm the following day. “You’re just so talented! I don’t know anyone else who could capture her spirit like you can, and now that you’ve actually had the chance to meet in person I’m sure you would do an even better job!”

“I already said no,” Laurens responded, taking out his key as they neared their door. “And actually, I’m even less willing than I would be if I hadn’t met her. It’s creepy now.”

“It was never a sexual thing,” Lafayette continued, ignoring the look their neighbor across the hall was giving them as he entered his own room. “You were never turned on by it!”

“That doesn't mean it’s not weird! You never even gave Adrienne the first picture, you just put it back up once we moved back in here!”

Lafayette looked guiltily over at the drawing, in a plastic sheet protector and tacked to the wall again just where Laurens had accused him of putting it.

“Besides, I hadn’t realized how young she is. She’s Martha’s age, the same age as my younger sister, Lafayette. No.” Laurens sat on his bed and started digging through his backpack, trying to signal that the argument was over.

“What if if give you a photo to copy of her in the dress she made? The one you saw her in. That’s not revealing, is it?”

Laurens looked up, jaw set.

Lafayette sighed dramatically and lay down on his own bed, reaching up.

“—Don’t you touch it.”

“If I had another one I could put it over this and you wouldn’t have to see it.”

“Or I could just take it down.” Laurens stood up abruptly. “I drew it, I can take it back.”

Lafayette sat up with a start, his body between Laurens and the paper. “You cannot do that! It was a present!”

“From me,” Laurens insisted, “and since you’re being obnoxious about it I can do whatever the hell I want.”

“Fine. Fine.” Lafayette glared. “I’ll take it down and I won’t bother you about this anymore. Are you happy?”

Laurens sat back down on his mattress as Lafayette took the picture off the wall.

“It’s all well and good for you,” he complained as he put it carefully in his desk drawer. “Your beau is just a few minutes away. Adrienne is on the other side of the ocean and I have to go months at a time without seeing her in person. You should be more understanding.”

“Maybe I would be if you weren’t constantly kicking me out of here at five in the morning,” Laurens muttered.

“Just go stay with Alexander.”

“That’s not the point, Lafayette.”

Lafayette ignored him, opening his laptop and leaning back against the wall.

 

> A. Hamilton: hey

> A. Hamilton: you up?

 

Laurens showed up at Hamilton’s apartment around seven with takeout Mexican he’d grabbed en route, assuming that he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t eaten dinner yet. He was buzzed in right away and was surprised to see that the studio had been cleaned. Books were stacked neatly under and on the desk, there were fresh sheets on the futon, and there weren’t any clothes out.

“This is new,” he commented, putting the bags down on the desk and taking off his jacket and scarf. “I feel like I should have spent more than five dollars.”

He didn’t get the chance to say more than that because Hamilton was on him, his tongue in his mouth and one hand cupping his ass and pressing their hips together.

Laurens made a startled noise, taking a half step back and bumping up against the desk. He was afraid for a second that he would knock the books over but then Hamilton was kissing him more insistently and he closed his eyes and pulled him closer.

Hamilton sighed, then smiled, both of which Laurens felt with a shiver, and he arched back against the desk as Hamilton started undoing the buttons on his shirt and slid his hand up over his chest.

“Strip.” Hamilton barely moved back to say that and there was a slight pleading ring to the command.

“You’re eager,” Laurens teased, but he obeyed. By the time he was undressed Hamilton was as well, and pulling him down onto the mattress.

“I want you to fuck me, hard,” he said, his eyes serious. He pushed the bottle of lube into Laurens’ hand and Laurens, caught off guard for the third time that night, felt a hot rush of desire. He poured some into his hand as Hamilton yanked him down into a kiss, gripping his hair tightly. Laurens pushed one finger into him and Hamilton put his hand on his chest and shoved him back.

“What—”

“I said I wanted you to fuck me.”

“Alex,” Laurens started, but he stopped when Hamilton twisted to the side and grabbed his cock with a little more force than he needed to and started jerking him off.

Laurens hadn’t been fully erect yet but he hardened quickly in his hand and Hamilton stopped when he let out a low moan.

Hamilton straightened out and pulled Laurens roughly down to him again, biting his lip and tugging at his hair. Laurens let the tip of his cock rub between Hamilton’s legs for a moment, then he sat up, speaking before Hamilton could react.

“Turn over.”

A flash of realization crossed Hamilton’s face and he did so mutely, bracing himself on his arms with his head ducked beneath his shoulders.

Laurens positioned himself between his legs with one hand gripping his shoulder. He felt Hamilton’s body stiffen at the touch and then heard him hiss slowly between his teeth as he pushed three fingers into him and spread them slightly.

Laurens moved his hand back and forth, tightening his hold on his shoulder as Hamilton’s hips twitched and he whimpered.

“John, please—”

Laurens took his hand away, eliciting a gasp from Hamilton, and then just before Hamilton was going to tell him to hurry up he pushed into him, moving his hands to his hips.

Hamilton gave a short cry that turned into a moan and he pressed his right hand to his mouth, biting the back of it as Laurens quickly found a fast pace. Laurens took one hand from his hips and wrapped it around Hamilton’s shaft, moving it over him in time with his thrusts. Hamilton soon gave up his attempt at keeping quiet and Laurens, urged on to greater speed by his response, had to try hard not to lose himself in his desire. He felt Hamilton shudder and jerk underneath him, and he kept moving his hand until he was sure he had finished him fully and he could hear Hamilton panting, his face supported and kept off the sheets by his fist. Then he let himself push harder, slamming his hips into him, Hamilton tensing but not stopping him. It didn’t take long before his own orgasm took him and he pulled out, coming onto the sheet and the back of Hamilton’s legs.

Laurens sat back and got up shakily. “Sorry. Hold on.” He vanished into the bathroom and Hamilton collapsed onto his stomach, muttering some small obscenity about how he shouldn’t have bothered to do the laundry.

Laurens came back with a wad of toilet paper and awkwardly cleaned off his leg and, to the best of his ability, the sheet. Hamilton was still lying there when he came out a second time, turned off the lights, and carefully stepped over him to lie next to him.

The window rattled and Laurens turned his head to look at it. Hamilton, his face buried in his pillow, didn’t move.

“You should get some duct tape. Make sure it’s sealed properly. You’ve got too many books for the rain to get in.”

“Mm.” Hamilton sounded annoyed even without giving an actual response.

Laurens toyed with his hair, down to his shoulder blades and curling more than usual with the change in weather. Hamilton didn’t say anything else so after a minute he kissed his temple and settled down on his side, tucking his arm up under his pillow.


	24. Lafayette Has His Own Room at Mount Vernon IRL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confession Time, Here's What I Got; Washington on Your Side; Had to Redo This Entire Section When I Realized I Was Being Stupid and Should Have Just Looked up the Floor Plan for Mount Vernon

Laurens woke around midnight.  Hamilton was sitting on the mattress, fully dressed, laptop open, typing rapidly.  He could see in the light that the window had been taped shut and the take out bag was gone from the desk.  His stomach growled and he sat up.

“Did you eat all of that?  Half of that was supposed to be mine, you know.”

“You were asleep,” Hamilton said dismissively.  Half a soft taco was lying on a wrapper on the floor and Laurens picked it up.  Better than nothing.

“And here I thought you were a cheap date…”

Hamilton didn’t respond and Laurens tipped his head to look at the screen.  Some forum, he noticed with surprise, not actual work.

Water was falling against the window, although not particularly hard.

“Rain’s being pushed ahead of the storm front,” Hamilton said, still typing.  “Still not expected to make land for another two days.”  He glanced at the clock, saw that it was after midnight on Friday.  “One day.”

“Is it still a tropical storm?”  Laurens asked through a mouthful of disappointingly cold fast food.  “Or did it switch categories?”

“I don’t know,” Hamilton said, and there was that sharp edge again.  “How the hell should I know?”

“You’re on the internet,” Laurens pointed out.

Hamilton clicked his tongue and shut his laptop as the window rattled again in spite of the reinforcement.  “I’m going to the library.  I can’t think with this noise.”  He got up and turned on the light before dumping his computer into his bag, then started sorting through the books on his desk.

“It’s late,” Laurens said with a yawn, crumpling up the wrapper and tossing it in a perfect arc into the trashcan.  

“That’s fine.  They’ll be open.  Unless—”  He unplugged his phone from where it was charging on the floor and swore.  “ _Damnit!_ ”

“Did they close because of the weather?  I was wondering if that might happen.”

“Good for you, beating me to it for once,” Hamilton snapped.  “ _Shit_ , that’s—annoying.”

“Okay,” Laurens said, watching as Hamilton did not unpack his bag or sit back down.  “Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.  _Nothing’s_ wrong.  We’re just in the line of a hurricane, that’s all.”  He hesitated, aware that he had just shown his hand, and rubbed at his shoulder as if working a knot out of it.  “Whatever.  It would have been good to go to the library but it doesn’t matter.”

Laurens got up and started to get dressed.  “Come on.”

“Library’s closed, John, we just went over this.”

“I know.”

“I’m not in the mood to get soaked wandering around the city in the middle of the night.”

Laurens picked up Hamilton’s bag and slung it over his shoulder.  “Do you have a windbreaker or at least something with a hood?  I’m calling us a cab but if it starts to rain any harder you’ll probably want it anyway.”

“In the bag already.”

“All right.”  Laurens was on his phone and he switched on a friendly and upbeat tone when the dispatcher at the other end picked up, draping an arm over Hamilton’s shoulders.  “Someone’s in the area but dropping their passenger off right now.  Should be about ten to fifteen minutes.  Do you want to wait downstairs?”

“Yeah.  I can carry my own bag.”

“I got it.”  Laurens waited for Hamilton to lock the door then let him lead the way down to the first floor.  There wasn’t a lobby by any stretch of the imagination, just a narrow hallway with the stairs and then the door to the street.  Hamilton sat on the bottom step, watching the door.  Laurens checked his phone for the time, then put it away and sat next to him.  Between the two of them they completely blocked the way up or down.

“So…”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“And I would have been fine on my own.”

“I’m sure.”

“I don’t like weather like this,” Hamilton finally admitted, drumming his fingers on his leg.  “Rain is fine.  Wind is fine.  One hurricane was enough, thanks, I would have been all right with not sitting through another one, not able to do shit except wait for it to all blow over.”  He laughed, a little forced, a little in genuine amusement, at his bad joke.  “That’s how I got here, you know?  The hurricane.”

“I always assumed you caught a plane,” Laurens said, countering the joke with one just as bad.

“Nah, it picked me up and blew me 1,678 miles northwest.”

“So what did you mean?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “I wrote my way out.”  Laurens didn’t say anything and after a pause he explained.  “My scholarship.  Like I said, that’s how I got here.  I talked about what I saw and—it was in the news, the year before I came here, the hurricane—and people felt pity and pity might buy rice or bottled water for a couple months, but then it just,” he laughed again, a short angry one, “it blows over.  And then you’re back in the quiet with that yellow sky knowing it’s going to happen all over again while some idiot in the big house on the hill argues that the wind has died down and the water’s receded and so, God bless, we should all be fucking grateful.”

Laurens shook his head, not quite following.  “It’ll be all right.”

“No,” Hamilton said with a little more force and a lot more bitterness, “it won’t be, J., because it never is unless you work your _ass_ off.  I’ve had to fight for everything in my life and it’s still not enough.”

“I know what you mean.”  Hamilton looked skeptical but didn’t argue back and Laurens continued.  “My father.  I love him, Alex,” he began as if he had to explain himself and Hamilton rolled his eyes and looked away, “but I know I’ll never be good enough, no matter how hard I try.”

“So stop trying.  He’s just one man.”

Laurens leaned forward a little to try to see Hamilton’s face, but his head was turned away and his eyes were focused on the wall.

“It’s not as easy as that.  He’s my _father_.  That means something.  I can’t just give up on that, even though I know he’s being unreasonable.”

“He’s an ass,” Hamilton muttered, leaning his face in his hand so that the words were muffled.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”  Hamilton turned to face him  “You’re always trying to defend yourself to him and he’s either an idiot for not seeing how lucky he is or he’s just an _asshole_.”

“And this is just a storm,” Laurens shot back.  Hamilton slouched down a little but kept his gaze. 

A car pulled up outside and Laurens’ phone rang.

“That’s the cab.”

Laurens got up first, getting the door and ducking his head against the rain  that blew in.  

“Shit—Come on.  Do you have everything?”  Laurens was ready to wait with him on the step or get the cab door, find the windbreaker in his bag, tell the driver they just needed to get something and wait for a break in the rain—but Hamilton walked past him down the steps and across the sidewalk and opened the door, holding it for him and brushing his wet hair out of his face.

“Hurry up, John.  That bag isn’t waterproof.”

 

They had been riding for a couple of blocks, slowly, the traffic poor, when Laurens’ phone rang again and he picked it up this time.

“Hello—Dad?”

Hamilton shifted away and watched their slow progression down the street.

“I know, sorry, I missed the call.  No—No, it’s fine.  Yes, I saw the—really, it’s fine, I’m going back to the dorm now.”  A pause, and Hamilton could just hear the older Laurens’ voice on the other end, although it was too faint to even convey tone.  “I was just at a friend’s.  We’re in a cab, it’s hardly even raining but I didn’t want to walk in it.”  He grimaced a little, knowing his father would see right through that.  “I’m sorry, I can’t, I already made plans.  I’m not being stubborn!  —Sorry.  I can’t.”

Henry Laurens was saying something else and they were stopped at a light.

“Yes,” Hamilton glanced over at the tentative sound in Laurens’ voice.  “Well, I’m not leaving my friend.”  

The rain lighted for a moment, just enough that the murmur on the line could be heard as exasperated and final.  Laurens hung up and avoided Hamilton’s eyes as he leaned forward to speak with the driver.

“Excuse me.  I’m sorry about this, but I need to change our destination.”  He gave him the address and sat back, uncomfortably aware that Hamilton had been listening to all of that.

“I write that address a couple dozen times a week.  That’s the president’s house.  Why are we going to the president’s house?  Do you know Washington too?”

“No,” Laurens said.  “No, I’ve never met the guy.  My father has before, I don’t think for very long, and apparently they ran into each other at some event and he told him that I’m at the school…”

“And he offered to babysit.”

Laurens nodded mutely.

“…Right.”  Hamilton took out his phone.  “Then I’m letting Lafayette know.   Maybe he’ll be able to join us.  I’d feel a little weird about double dating with my boss and his wife.”

“You’re okay with this?”

“It’s a hell of a lot better than camping out in your room.”  Hamilton looked up from his phone.  “It’s fine, John.  I like him.  I think _you’re_ a pushover, but this works out well.”

 

Washington’s residence was a large white house with a red roof on a wide lawn.  Lafayette was waiting for them just under the overhang at the front door, the wind at this point having all but vanished and the rain coming straight down.  He got up when the cab pulled up and they got out, hurrying across the driveway.

“You’re here already,” Laurens said in surprise as they ducked under cover.

“The school closed when the storm was upgraded,” Lafayette explained, getting the door for them and stepping into the foyer, spanning the width of the house.  “So they invited me to come by a day early.”

“Alexander, John.”  A rich voice greeted them and in one of the rooms the entryway connected to Washington stood from his chair as Lafayette ushered the other two in, putting his hand out as he crossed the floor, carpeted in tiled floral pattern of blue and red, to meet them.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said to Laurens, who was suddenly a little nervous in spite of himself.  “I just spoke with your father, but I’m sure you already know that.  The two of you are more than welcome to stay until the weather has passed.”

“Thank you, sir,” Laurens said, shaking his hand.  “I’m sorry to bother you, especially at this hour.”

“Not at all.  Lafayette.”  Lafayette took the bag from Laurens.  “Would you show them to where they will be staying?  I’m sure you’re both tired,” he continued to Hamilton and Laurens.  “Martha and I will see you for breakfast.”

Laurens looked curiously around at the walls where family portraits and a crest hung, then Lafayette led them back out of the room and up the flight of stairs in the central passage.

“I assume you want your own room,” Lafayette said as they left earshot.  “Don’t look at me, I said nothing.  There is a guest room on this first floor,” he motioned to another door, “near the library, but my bedroom is upstairs and he assumed that we wanted to stay in the same area.”  Lafayette opened one of the doors on the second floor landing to a large, plainly decorated bedroom with several chairs and a fireplace.  A cot was made up next to the bed.  “You might want to at least rumple the sheets in the morning,” he commented after looking at it with consideration.

“Thanks for the advice,” Hamilton said, not sounding particularly thankful, and took his bag back.  “Are you staying up?”

“It’s seven in France, so I’m going to call Adrienne.”  Lafayette headed for his own room through the other door.  “ _Bonne nuit, mes amis._ ”

“Dibs on the bed,” Hamilton said, sitting on it as Laurens closed the door.  

“Oh, come on, my feet are going to hang off of that thing.”

“That’s your fault for being a giant.”  Hamilton said, pulling his shirt up over his head.  “Shit, I should have thought to pack clothes besides that jacket.”

“I don’t have anything either.  Maybe we’ll be able to swing back tomorrow.”  Laurens looked out the window at one end of the room, unable to see much in the dark.  He yawned.  “I’m not thinking about that now.  It’s too late.”

“Get the light,” Hamilton advised, stripping off his jeans and placing them folded with his shirt on the cot.  “See if the door will lock while you’re up.”

There was the click of first the lock then the switch as the lights went out, and half a minute later Laurens got under the covers.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton’s voice sounded muffled and Laurens wondered for the hundredth time how he could lie with his face in the pillow like that and not suffocate himself.

“I’ll drop it after this, but…”

“John.”  The mattress creaked as Hamilton propped himself up on one arm.  “It’s fine.  Besides,” he added with a yawn as he dropped back down, “I’m more concerned about my boss finding out about all the nasty things I’m gonna do to you in his guest room.  Helluva HR meeting that would be.”

Laurens laughed.  “Lafayette’s right.”

“About what?”

“Tell you later.”  He put his arm over him, pulling him closer, up against his bare chest, instead of just letting it drape.  “Good night, Alexander.”


	25. Papa G-Wash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a Bloody Sash in Fraunces Tavern; One Size Fits All

By Friday morning proper the rain was coming down in sheets although the wind had never picked up again from when it had died down the previous night.  The weather report was still stating that the hurricane would not make landfall until Saturday (although there was a wide range of projected trajectories and it was unclear if it would morph into a category two), but to expect rainfall all day.  

Washington, as Hamilton had learned during his time working for him, was a passionate amateur horticulturalist.  He had a large greenhouse behind the main property, some decorative potted plants out front, and several trees on the lawn to provide shade.  

And that’s how the three of them ended up soaked to the bone and earning their keep trying to save the ( _stupid, stupid, Goddamn_ , Hamilton thought) plants from the impending storm.

The greenhouse was on a sturdy frame but Hamilton was standing outside of it and taping over the edges of the windows and doors to make sure no wind would get inside and damage the structure.  The windbreaker he had brought might have kept his shirt more or less dry but his jeans were soaked through and heavy with mud from when he had been helping Lafayette move various potted plants inside.  He wasn’t sure if he would rather still be helping him with that (maybe not, the ground was getting very marshy and hard to maneuver, the nearby stream starting to jump its banks, but he did not envy Laurens who had one of two handsaws and the unenviable job of going around the property with Washington himself and cutting back any branches that the president thought looked too dangerous.

“This is bullshit,” Hamilton muttered as he moved on to the next window, shivering involuntarily as his hood bent under the rain and sent a stream of water down the side of his face and neck.  “Teach me to leave my apartment.  I should have insisted that I get dropped off at the dorm.  At least I’d have dry clothes.”

“You can borrow mine,” Lafayette said, coming up to stand next to him in just a t-shirt and jeans, having given up on even trying to stay dry apart from the very soaked red scarf he had left on.  “John as well.  I have spares.”

“How much clothing did you bring?”

“Only what I had on.  I mean I have some in my room.”

Hamilton shook his head slowly.  “I thought that was a guest room.  You actually keep things here?”

“ _Oui_ , not much.  Maybe a week’s worth of clothes, just in case there is something I need.”

“That’s weird,” Hamilton pointed out, gesturing with the roll of tape.  “But I’m not complaining.  Thanks.”

“ _De rein_.  Let me help you finish here—I finished moving the plants and want to get out of this torrent.”

“You should take a picture for Adrienne,” Hamilton commented as they worked together to finish up.  “Your shirt is basically painted on you.  You look like you’re in a fucking charity calendar.”

“Hm.”  Lafayette twisted, looking down at himself from one side and then the other.  “Yes.”

There was a sudden burst of wind and Hamilton flinched back against the side of the greenhouse as a piece of roofing flew at them while Lafayette still wasn’t looking.  He yelped in surprise as it hit him and then swore loudly, ducking up against the structure next to Hamilton.

“Lafayette!  Are you all right?”

“ _Putain!_ ”  Lafayette grabbed his calf, wincing.

“Shit.”  Hamilton crouched down, seeing red start to seep out from beneath Lafayette’s hand.  “Shit, shit, you’re bleeding.  Okay, come on, fuck this shit, we’re going inside.  His plants can die, whatever, this is bullshit.”

“It’s not that bad,” Lafayette insisted, taking his slightly shaking hand away.  The sudden release of pressure caused the blood to come out faster.

“I’m not saying you’re going to fucking _die_ ,” Hamilton said, already a couple steps towards the house.  “Let’s get out of here.”

Lafayette stubbornly took off his scarf and wrapped it around his leg, jaw set, tying it off as Hamilton groaned impatiently.

“I’m going to finish.”

Hamilton glanced up at the sky.  “Fine.  _Fine_.”  He ripped off a strip of tape and shoved the roll back at Lafayette.  “We’ll finish.”

They worked quickly and by the time they were done Lafayette was leaning with one hand on the side of the greenhouse to take the pressure off his leg, the cut throbbing and blood staining through to the visible side of the scarf.

“ _There_.”  Hamilton finished securing the last window.  “Now let’s go.  You're lucky that scarf is already red.”

Hamilton practically dragged Lafayette back into the house and paused in the hall, dripping onto the wood floor.  “Where’s a first aid kit?”

“There’s one in the master bedroom, next to my room.”

“Right.  Let’s get that thing cleaned up before you get tetanus or something.”

He let Lafayette lead the way, limping, through the guest room to another, more private, flight of stairs.  He caught a glimpse of a library, its door open just off of the foot of the staircase.  Lafayette opened a door at the landing on the second floor and let Hamilton into the master bedroom.  The floor was covered in a bold carpet of dusty blue, orange, and green, and a large white canopy bed stood against one wall.  There was a matching white armchair, fireplace, and colonial-style dark wood furniture—including a small desk that Lafayette leaned on.

“Tch… That door is the bathroom,” he said, nodding towards it as Hamilton opened it and went inside.  “There should be a first aid kit somewhere.”  He carefully undid his scarf, putting it wet but clean-side down on the ground, and then unpeeled his pants from his body, wincing as the material chafed against the cut.

“Got it.”  Hamilton came back and knelt in front of him.  “That’s pretty deep, Lafayette.  This is going to sting.”  He was in the middle of cleaning it with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol when—

“What happened, son?”

They both looked up, startled and a little guilty, at Washington standing in the doorway.  

Hamilton was still holding the bloody piece of cotton when Washington pushed past him, crouching on the ground next to him.  “How did this happen?  Was it when you were outside?  I’m calling a doctor, put pressure on that and elevate it.”  He stood back up, dialing from the landline at the desk.  “Lie down on the floor and put your leg up, Lafayette,” he instructed when neither of them moved.  “Hamilton, go get him a towel to put under his leg.

“It’s fine,” Lafayette protested, although he got onto the floor with a wince and elevated his leg on the chair, letting Hamilton put a towel under it and press a wad of toilet paper to it.

“It’s not fine.  I can’t believe you got injured helping me.  Yes, hello.”  Washington turned away from them when the line picked up.

“…Is he calling an ambulance?”  Hamilton asked.

Washington put his hand over the mouthpiece for a moment.  “My personal physician.”

“Oh.  It pays to know people,” Hamilton commented to Lafayette, who gave a short laugh.  Now that they were inside the adrenaline was wearing off and he was noticing the pain more.

“Alex, help me get these back on,” Lafayette finally said, reaching for his soaked pants.

Washington hung up the phone.  “There’s no need.  He’s coming over here to examine you.  I don’t like the look of that cut.  I’ll get you a robe.”  He got one from his bureau and handed it over as Lafayette painfully sat up to put it on.  “I’m going to tell Laurens that the two of you are up here.”  He vanished and a minute later Laurens came into the room, still wearing his wet clothes but with a mug of cocoa.

“Lafayette, what happened?”

Lafayette was back to lying on the floor, his leg elevated, but now wearing the robe.  He waved at Laurens upside down, his hand shaking a little. 

“Some flying shit hit him,” Hamilton explained, holding a new batch of paper to his leg.

“Jesus…”  Laurens sat next to him, then glanced at Hamilton who didn’t make eye contact.  “Does it hurt?”

“It did at first but then it wasn’t too bad.”  Lafayette paused a moment, then added with another shaky laugh.  “ _Ça craint_.”

Hamilton patted his knee bracingly.

“But Washington called his own doctor for me and,” he propped himself up on his arms so he could sit up just a little and look at Laurens more directly.  “He called me _son_.”

“I think that was a colloquial thing—”  Hamilton began, but stopped himself when Lafayette turned to look at him, eyes wide and wounded. 

“I’m sure he meant it,” Laurens said reassuringly as Lafayette lay back down.

“I want my phone.”  Lafayette was staring up at the ceiling. 

Hamilton and Laurens looked at one another.

“Why do you want your phone?”  Laurens asked carefully, pretty sure that he already knew the answer.

“I need to call Adrienne.”

“Lafayette, don’t you think you should wait until after you get patched up to call her?”

“But she’ll be worried!”

“How will she be worried?”  Laurens asked.  “She’s all the way in France.”

“What if someone tells her?  She’ll think that it’s worse than it really is!  You know people will exaggerate!”

“No one is going to tell her,” Hamilton said.  “Look, if you’re that worried, I’ll go make sure that G-Wash isn’t going to call her.  There’s no way that she’ll even find out at all unless you tell her yourself.”

“She’ll _know_ ,” Lafayette insisted, his words trailing off into a slight wail.

“We’ll get you your phone later,” Laurens said firmly.

“She’s very religious,” Lafayette continued as Hamilton and Laurens shared another look.  “She’ll know.  She always knows.”

“Are you sure she doesn't always know because you always tell her?”

 

“Okay,” Laurens said from the bathroom attached to Lafayette’s room, the same size as their guest room but more clearly lived in.  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate this—because I do—but I’m not sure this is going to work.”

“Come out,” Lafayette said, still pantsless but wearing his soaked shirt and leaning, posed, up against the wall while Hamilton, his borrowed pants rolled up several times at the cuffs and shirt hanging a little too big on him at the shoulders, tried to find the best position for the picture that also cropped him appropriately.  The doctor had come and gone and left him with six stitches in his leg and a much better mood than before.  “It doesn’t have to be a perfect fit, you can’t look any worse than Alexander.”

“Ha ha.”  Hamilton lowered the phone and rolled his eyes.  “Alexander is short, very funny.”

“I never said that.”

“Just look up.  You need to either borrow a blow drier or watch the angle so your hair doesn’t get so piecey.”

“I told you, I’m _going_ for the wet look—”  Lafayette stopped when Laurens stepped gingerly out of the bathroom, looking very embarrassed but also somehow even more on display than Lafayette did in just his boxer briefs and wet shirt.

“It’s a little tight,” he said, tugging at the light turquoise collar and then brushing his hands over the sides of the dark jeans, clinging more like spandex than denim, the movement made a little stiff and unnatural by how tight the short sleeves of the shirt were on his biceps.

“I’ll say.”  Lafayette raked his eyes over him in surprise and pulled his bathrobe back on.  “Try not to move too much.  I like that shirt and don’t want you to break a seam.  Or Alex,” he added, turning back to Hamilton who was shamelessly staring at Laurens.

“Cut it out,” Laurens told Hamilton.

“I bet you can’t do stairs.”  Hamilton finally commented and Laurens turned, red, to Lafayette.

“This isn’t working.  Can I just borrow a t-shirt and whatever you sleep in?”

“This is my only shirt, and I don’t sleep in anything I can lend you,” Lafayette said delicately.

“I’ll take that shirt.”

“John, don’t be silly.  It’s all going to be washed and you can have your own clothes back in a couple of hours.”

“Just strip, John,” Hamilton said, still staring at him but not making eye contact.  “I’ll even put some music on.  Think I’ve got some ones.”

“You are so thirsty.”

“I’m looking at a tall glass of beefcake.”

“Dammit, John,” Lafayette mock complained, “I _just_ told you not to break Alex.”

“Alex, stop, that doesn’t even make sense.”  Laurens tried to cross his arms over his chest then gave up and let them hang at his side.

Hamilton put the phone down on the bed and came right up to him, brushing his hair back out of his face and practically purring as he stood in front of him, toying with the bottom of his shirt.  “Maybe I have something for you in the other room that’ll be a better fit—”

“I’m right here,” Lafayette complained.  “And we said that we would only be a few minutes and then we would come down for lunch.”

“Who needs lunch?  We can skip that.”

“I’m with Alexander,” Laurens said, although he stepped away from him slightly.  “I’m not going out in public like this.”

“It’s hardly public,” Lafayette protested.  “There will only be a couple other people there!”

Laurens was shaking his head before he even finished.  “No, no way.  I’m not going.  Tell them I’m still cleaning up, or that my family called, _something_.”

“Fine.”  Lafayette picked up his phone to look at his pictures.  “But, Alexander, you’re not staying with him.  I’m injured and need your company and support.  Besides which, I don’t trust you alone with him.”


	26. Waiting It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twister; Checking in; Lost and Found

Lunch was a little awkward.  Laurens, true to his word, did not appear for it and Lafayette had to apologize for him and offer an excuse.  To his annoyance, Hamilton was hardly any better company but kept getting distracted  and staring out the windows in the small dining room.  Not even out them, Lafayette corrected himself as he tried to get his attention back yet again, because they had been boarded up in preparation.  He did jerk back to himself halfway through a story about Coach von Steuben throwing a pantsless party and almost dropped his fork in surprise.

“You cannot stop thinking about him for one minute,” Lafayette accused him as they opened the door to Lafayette’s permanent guest room.

“Let it go, Lafayette,” Laurens said, still wearing the clothes and leaning stiffly against the wall, scrolling on his phone.

Lafayette was surprised to be rebuked by Laurens rather than Hamilton but he pushed on.  “It’s true!  I couldn’t carry a conversation with him at the table any more than I could have with you in the other room!”

“I said to drop it.”  Laurens looked up properly now and put the phone in his pocket—it didn’t fit right and stuck out perilously halfway. 

“You’re too easily swayed,” Lafayette complained.  “Just a _little_ bit of attention from Alexander and you’re on his side!  If we are going to be here all weekend I don’t want to just sit around next door while you two enjoy yourselves.  We should do something together!”

“Yeah, all right.”

Lafayette turned, startled, to look at Hamilton, again getting the opposite reaction from what he had expected.  “Really?”  He asked suspiciously.

“Yeah.”  Hamilton sat on the bed, tapping one foot on the ground.  “They got games or something?  I’ll kick your ass at Monopoly.”  He looked up with a devious grin at Laurens.  “Or Twister.”

“Let me see what there is,” Lafayette said, deciding to run with the opportunity before he changed his mind and split the two of them off.  “Don’t go anywhere.”

 

“Holy shit,” Hamilton laughed when Lafayette finally came back.  “You actually found it?  Is this from their no pants party?”

Laurens, understandably, was confused.  “Their what?”

“Some other time,” Hamilton said, standing up and helping Lafayette spread out the Twister mat.  “Actually, no, it’s a fast story.  Did you know the teachers show up to parties half naked and then do flaming shots?  Your dad knows everyone, you should ask him about _that_.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I go home over Thanksgiving.”  Laurens took the spinner out of the box but Lafayette snatched it away.

“No, I’m injured, I get to spin.  Go stand by the mat.”

“I can’t play,” Laurens protested, but Hamilton grabbed his wrist and tugged him over and he was quiet.

“I feel like this is supposed to be a drinking game.  We should ask G-Wash where he keeps his booze.  Lafayette, you’re his son, go steal from your American dad’s liquor cabinet for us.”

“I’m not doing that!”

“Well I sure as hell can’t, he’s my boss.  And it’s not like John needs another call home to get him grounded.  Come on, spin already.”  He rubbed his hands together, rocking back on his heels in anticipation while Laurens tried to tug down the denim keeping his legs from bending and wondered how he was supposed to complete more than one round.

“You’re so pushy.  Left hand green.”

Hamilton made sure Laurens was watching before he bent at the waist, facing away from him.

Laurens looked up at the ceiling and Lafayette snickered.

“John, left foot blue.”

“That I can do,” he said, following the command, “But seriously, Lafayette, this game is going to last approximately thirty more seconds before I rip something.”

“Strip Twister.”

Laurens looked down at Hamilton.  “I’m not playing ‘Strip Twister.’”

“Right hand red.”

“It would make things easier.”

“Right foot green.”

“I really don't think so.”

“Left foot yellow.”

“ _So_ much easier.”

“Right hand blue.”

“I don’t—shit—”

“Left foot green.  Right foot red.  Right hand red.”

“He said _red_ , Alex!”

“I’m just reaching for it,” Hamilton argued, taking his hand away from where he had it high on Laurens’ calf and putting it back on the mat.  “I lost my balance.”

“No cheating,” Lafayette scolded.

Hamilton, somehow having managed to work himself between Laurens’ legs with his back to the ground, rolled his eyes dramatically.  “I wasn’t really supporting myself on him, relax.”

“I know,” Lafayette said.  “But you’re going to make him lose focus.”

“Excuse me?”  Laurens asked.

“Oh really?”  Hamilton said at the same time.  He looked up at Laurens.  “Is that a challenge?  Do you not think I can do that?”

“I think I’m forfeiting this until I get my own damn clothes back,” Laurens said, but leaned as far as he could anyway to meet the next command Lafayette gave him.  His borrowed shirt was riding up, baring almost his entire midriff, which was made even more exposed than it should have been because he had never really been able to tug the jeans up properly so they were sitting far too low on his hips.  Hamilton took his time following his next instruction, trying to figure out how best to shift to left hand yellow while still able to keep his abs in sight but maybe also get the bare top half of his ass in view.  Maybe if he went for the far circle, or maybe if he just leaned his head a little to the side…

Lafayette clapped his hand on the board.  “Alexander!”

“What!  Green?”

“Yellow.”

Hamilton changed position, arching up half to better hold it half because then there was barely a centimeter between his chest and Laurens’ and he could feel the heat radiating off of him…

There was a knock at the door and then it opened.  “I brought you boys your clothes—”  Washington stopped in the doorway, looking at the scene in front of him with mild confusion.

“Thank you,” Lafayette said, bouncing off the bed as best as he could with only one properly working leg to take the armful of neatly folded clothes as Laurens turned bright red and half-sprung half-fell off of the mat entirely.  Hamilton was left on his back staring up awkwardly at his employer, and he got to his feet.  

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s nothing,” Washington replied while obviously trying to hide a smile, then turned to Lafayette.  “You should change as well.  I can’t believe you came to lunch in that shirt.  It’ll be hard to call the doctor back in this weather if you get sick.”

Lafayette assured him that he would put something dry on as Laurens stood in the background, too embarrassed to do more than nod stiffly and tug his shirt down when Washington made eye contact before leaving with a distinctly amused “You kids have fun now.”

“Give me that,” Laurens muttered as soon as the door had closed, grabbing his clothing from the pile and vanishing into the bathroom.

“Oh, come on, John,” Hamilton called after him.  “At least change out here!”

His only response was the click of the lock.

 

“What happened, Gil?”  Adrienne asked immediately when Lafayette called her after dinner.

He shook his head, not realizing just how worn he looked.  “Don’t worry, my heart.  I was injured while helping Washington but I’m fine."

“Gil,” Adrienne started, worried.

“I’m all right,” Lafayette said, a little stronger.  “He even called for a doctor—for his own doctor!—and he stitched me up.”

“You got stitches?”  She asked with a little gasp.

“Six of them,” he confirmed, but then switched back to his previous track.  “I’m fine.  It wasn’t all that bad—it didn’t even hurt much until I came back inside and sat down.  Besides, Hamilton was there with me and he helped me clean it.”

Adrienne frowned, her brows knitted together.

“Don’t worry, my dearheart,” Lafayette said, more reassuringly.  “I am bandaged up and everything will heal itself.  I’ll be as good as new by the time you see me.  Would you like to see?”  He twisted awkwardly to the side, trying to figure out an angle to show her his bandage on the laptop.

“—That’s all right, Gilbert.  It looks like too much effort and I don’t want you to hurt yourself further.”

He put the laptop back down to her relief.  “At least take heart knowing that I can’t go out in the storm once it hits.  My room is on the second floor, of course, and while I can manage the stairs it’s enough of an effort to give me pause.”

“My poor Gilbert…”

Lafayette frowned, adjusting the screen.  “Adrienne?  Hello?  I’m sorry, the connection is getting poor.  Please send my regards to your family and my friends.  I’ll weather this out safe and sound and update you when I can.  You have all my love, my dearheart.”

 

The storm finally hit that night.

When Lafayette woke up his first thought was that it was a reprise of that night back in France when he’d heard Hamilton swearing as he tried to find his book.  A moment later he realized that Laurens was speaking to him from the foot of his bed.

“Did you talk to Alex?”

Lafayette tried to turn on the light on the nightstand and when nothing happened he sat up.  “ _Non_.  No.”  He rubbed his face and winced as a sharp stab of pain reminded him of his earlier misadventures.  “Why?”  He couldn’t make out his expression in the dark but thanks to sharing such a small room with him for so long he didn’t need the light to see, almost feel, how tensely he was holding himself.  

“I don’t know where he is.”

Lafayette got up and picked up his phone to use as a flashlight since the power was out.  “I’m sure he just didn’t want to wake you.  You know how he is up at all hours.”

“The line is down,” Laurens said, misunderstanding what Lafayette was doing, then flinched away from the sudden directed light.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”  Laurens looked unsure, as if he was having second thoughts about waking Lafayette, but then he turned and went to the door.  “I don’t know this place well.”  The wind was howling outside.  “Is there… I don’t know, somewhere further inside, away from the wind?”

Lafayette considered, then nodded.  “I know.  This way.”  He started walking, favoring his right leg, especially as he gingerly went down the stairs.  “What’s going on?”

“He doesn’t like storms,” Laurens said, repeating Hamilton’s wording.  “He was on St. Croix when it got pounded by the hurricane a couple of years ago.  Fucked him up.”

“When he was living with his cousin?  Or the landlord?”

Laurens shot him a confused look.  “Who?”

Lafayette frowned.  “Ah.  Never mind, it is not important.”  He knocked twice at a door and then opened it.  “Alexander?”

To Laurens’ surprise, Lafayette’s first guess was correct, although had he known the floor plan better he might have been able to figure it out as well.  They were in Washington’s private library, about twice the size of Hamilton’s studio apartment, the wall nearest to them was covered by rows of books behind glass and a portrait hung between two boarded up windows adjacent to the door.  There were several desks and chairs surrounded by many of the plants that they had brought in earlier.  The whole place smelled of old books and Washington’s cologne and Hamilton was crouched on the floor, several sheets of paper spread around him and a flashlight propped up in one of the pots, writing without stop.

“Alex?”  Lafayette repeated as he closed the door behind them.

Laurens sat on the floor next to him.  “Hey.”

At that Hamilton looked up with a start, his hair half in his face and genuinely surprised and confused to see them in the room with him.  

“Uh.”  He looked at Laurens, wearing the one outfit he had brought and sitting cross-legged as best he could, then over at Lafayette, his hair a mess and only in a pair of boxers, a large gauze bandage on his leg.  “Hi.”

Laurens put his hand on his shoulder and Lafayette yawned behind his hand and pulled a chair out to sit next to them.  “You’re writing?”

Hamilton gave a short laugh, the sound a little maniac around the edges, and touched Laurens’ hand.  “Yeah.  Couldn’t sleep.  You know how it is.  Came in here, I remembered that he had mentioned it before, told me that I should check out the maps.”  He motioned at the bookshelf.  One of the glass doors was open.  “It’s a neat collection, did you see them?  Colonial stuff, three are drawings made from the battlefield—well, on the land above them, not _on_ them—and there’re several of the city at various stages of development.  He’s even got one of when it was New Amsterdam, I mean, fuck me,” he almost laughed again but couldn’t quite get the sound out.  “Rich people, am I right?  That’s the sort of shit that should be in a museum.  Free access to knowledge and all that, you’d think he’d at least donate it to the university library.  Here, let me show you—”

He started to get up but Laurens’ hand on his shoulder stopped him.  He took it instead and sat back, knees bent.

“—You didn’t have to find me.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Lafayette said with renewed energy, motioning for Laurens to pass him one of the papers on the floor and leaning his hand on Hamilton’s other shoulder.  “We missed you.  I want to have an American-style slumber party and I can’t do that with just John.”  He rolled his eyes dramatically at Laurens and then ducked his head to stage whisper in Hamilton’s ear.  “He’s _such_ a kill-buzz.”

“Buzzkill,” Laurens corrected, intertwining his fingers with Hamilton’s and tightening his grip a little.  “Although I will give this moron credit for knowing where to find you.  Not that I’m surprised,” he went on, “this is basically your natural habitat.”

“It’s warmer here as well,” Lafayette said.  “John, we should just move the pillows and blankets in here and see if there’s any food in the freezer that needs to be eaten.  My laptop still has a charge.  We could watch a movie.”

“We’re not twelve year old girls,” Laurens pointed out, the corner of his mouth twitching up when Hamilton snickered.

“Are you sure?  Because you were certainly dressed like one this morning.”

“Those were _your_ clothes!”

“Alex, what is this?”  Lafayette asked, reading off of the paper.  “‘But like a jealous lover, when I thought you slighted my caresses, my affection was alarmed and my vanity piqued—’”

Hamilton snatched the paper away.  “Give me that.”  He glanced at Laurens and grinned, continuing in a more dramatic tone, leaning in and putting one hand on his chest for emphasis.  “You’re not reading it right.  ‘I had almost resolved to _lavish_ no more of them upon you and to reject you as an inconstant and an ungrateful—’”

“All right, all right.”  Laurens got up, only letting go of his hand once he was standing.  “I’m getting the bedding.”

“You should also get a board game from the sitting room,” Lafayette suggested.

Hamilton had been putting his papers back in order and he perked up at that.  “This time get Monopoly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An apology to anyone who was clicking around on this yesterday. I was doing some smaller changes online but they messed with earlier references a little. More importantly, the first four chapters are now the first _five_ chapters and have several major edits--things cut out, new material added, etc. There are a couple other places that I'll probably go back to, but this is by far the biggest (and most overdue) reworking that I can foresee happening.


	27. Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monopoly; Belonging; *Wake up Call

“You can’t just _give_ John five hundred dollars,” Hamilton argued.

“Why not?”  Lafayette had one hand in the till.  “He said he’s a little short and he’ll pay me back.  Won’t you, John?”

“That’s not how this works!”

“I’ll pay you back,” Laurens agreed, hand out for the money.

“At least charge him interest,” Hamilton went on.  “I _knew_ I should have been bank.  You suck at this, Lafayette!  It’s not even necessary to stimulate the game’s economy because he could literally just wait another round, pass go, and _then_ build the stupid hotel!”

“I can give you five hundred as well.”

“That’s not the point!”

“It’ll make the game go faster,” Lafayette countered.  “You’re supposed to be an economics major, don’t you want to see more money in circulation?  As bank I can take on his debt and he’ll refund me in the future.”

“You just don’t want me to have this because you’re hoping I’ll land on your spot,” Laurens pointed out, taking a sip from the mug of hot chocolate Martha Washington had made them after he accidentally bumped into her in the dark hallway as he was coming back with the game and the bedding and awkwardly apologized for letting themselves uninvited into her husband’s study.  Apparently they really were children at a sleepover.  “I can count spaces too, Alex, I know I’d be a little shy.”

“Lafayette,” Hamilton said, abruptly switching tracks.  “You realize that I’m ahead of John on the board, don’t you?  If you give him a loan for him to build that hotel, he’ll have to build up his other properties on green as well.  You’re on the railroad, so if you roll a six, seven, or nine you’ll hit his new development.  There’re only thirty-six possible combinations of the dice and fifteen of them would get you paying between twelve seventy-five and fourteen hundred.”  Lafayette looked sharply up at Laurens who glanced away, guilty.  “Rounding up, that’s a forty-two percent chance, and even if he pays you back the five hundred, I already own hotels on both side of ‘go.’  I mean, that’s unfortunate right now, but that’s been there for several rounds, and it’s been fine, do you really want to extend that gauntlet for yourself?”

“You might land on Community Chest,” Laurens offered, sheepishly, taking the five hundred still being offered.

“ _Give_ me that.”  Lafayette snatched the money back from him.  “I cannot believe you tried to cheat a wounded hero.”  

“That’s a strong way of putting it.”

“Alexander.”

“Thank you,”  Hamilton said, taking over the till from Lafayette.  “Sorry, John.”

Laurens grumbled but paid for the development anyway, leaving himself with very little cash to spare.

“Lafayette,” Hamilton said, as Lafayette chewed on his lip and looked at the new, suddenly much more menacing board.  “In recognition of your current position, I’d like to offer you a bank loan.”

“Hey,” Laurens protested.

“I just didn’t want _you_ to have one,” Hamilton clarified, then counted out a thousand dollars.  “Here, if you would like.  Just pay it back with twenty percent interest for each turn.  I assume you’ll need it on hand until you get to your own properties after jail.”

“You can’t pocket the interest,” Laurens argued, “it could take him half a dozen rolls to get that far, you’d end up getting more money than the loan itself!”

“I’m not going to take the interest for myself,” Hamilton said, irritated at the accusation.  “It’s the bank’s money, it’ll all go back in the till.  Look, I’ll even write him a receipt.”  He turned over one of the pieces of paper he had written on and made out a short contract, then shoved it at Lafayette who, feeling distinctly like he was making a deal with the devil, signed it.

Hamilton sat back, taking a handful of popcorn then just moving the bowl into his lap.  “Thank you.  This hot chocolate is weird, by the way, but it’s nice to actually have mugs from the same set for once.”

“It’s also nice to have an appropriate drink in them.  Doing shots out of a university mug just felt wrong.”

“I don’t know,” Hamilton countered, “I thought that had a certain _je ne sais quoi_.  What’s more collegiate than underage drinking?”

Laurens looked skeptial and took another drink.  “Maybe.”

“It’s the raw egg,”  Lafayette said helpfully.  Laurens choked and gagged next to him.  “It’s an old family recipe.”

“John, don’t die,” Hamilton laughed, hitting him on the back as he coughed.  “I thought you said you grew up on a farm?  Don't you have chickens?”

“You don't just drink raw egg,” Laurens protested when he could finally speak again.  “Are you kidding?”

“I helped make it before, I can show you what goes in it.”

Hamilton shook his head.  “Last year you wanted me to liberate you a pen and now you’re offering to smuggle out their family secrets.  You can’t be trusted.”

Lafayette looked torn between embarrassed and pleased, then swore as he landed on Laurens’ property.

“He could have been out of the game if you hadn’t given him a loan,” Laurens said, putting his mug down far away from himself.

“I want to kick both your asses.  Don’t worry, I’ve got it worked out.”

“You’re a machiavel.”

“‘Am I politic?  Am I subtle?’”  Hamilton put his hand out as Laurens rolled and then landed on his square.

“You’ve never been subtle a day in your life.”

“Mm, you’re right.”  Hamilton leaned over the board and kissed him slowly on the mouth.

The door opened and Laurens jerked away, grateful for the poor lighting.

“You boys are still up?”  Washington was standing in the doorway, holding two emergency lanterns.  “I’m leaving one of these with you, but you know that you don’t have to stay in here.”

“…We like the maps,” Lafayette said, Laurens still looking very deer-in-headlights and Hamilton still leaning over the board.  

Washington paused, letting that answer hang in the air.  “Okay.”  He set one of the lanterns down.  “Well, you boys have fun now.  I’ll be up if you need anything.”

He left, and Laurens stood up.  “That’s the second time he said that.”

“Calm down, J.”

“The second time!”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”  Lafayette made an irritated noise as Hamilton just missed landing on his property.  “Besides, you could come in here with Alexander’s mouth still attached to your neck and he wouldn’t care.”

Laurens rubbed the faded mark under his jaw anxiously.

“John, it’s fine,” Hamilton said and handed him the dice as he sat back down.  “Now roll a three or a four and then I’ll knock Lafayette out of the running.”

 

“You didn’t tell him about your parents.”

“You didn’t tell him about yours.”

The game was put away and Laurens was asleep on the floor, the other two sitting at the table above him and talking in French in low tones.

“That’s…”

“It’s the same,” Hamilton said, raising his mug to his mouth but not drinking.  “You know it is.”

“I told him eventually.”

“After living with him for a full semester, and just to take the heat off of how you tricked him into coming over to my place.  You didn’t want to deal with it either.”

Lafayette glanced down at Laurens.  “Be that as it may.  You might have noticed that he doesn’t mention his mother, either.”

Hamilton finally took a drink.  “Yeah.  You know, I wonder about that.  About her, I mean.  You seen Henry Laurens?”  Lafayette shook his head.  “Don’t judge me, I looked him up.  Congressman, it’s easy, he’s got his own webpage and everything.  Very photoshopped picture.  Very…”  Hamilton looked over at Laurens.  “There’s a strong resemblance, you know?  You ever think about wanting to be someone else?  Something he said to me once, about not fitting in.”

“We like him.”

“That’s not what he meant.  He’s not his father.  And he’s never going to look quite like his father.  But he also will, strongly, and irreversibly.”

“More than he’d like.”

“Probably,” Hamilton agreed.  “Except that it would be better to at least fit in _somewhere_.”

“Was that why he didn't want me to know about the paper he wrote?”

“For Jefferson?”  Hamilton didn’t bother to hide his distaste and Lafayette didn’t ask him to.  “Yeah, I think that was part of it.  More that he was concerned you’d try to go over all of our heads, straight to G-Wash and get it smoothed over.  Or to Jefferson himself, since you know him too.  I don’t fit in,” Hamilton continued, motioning casually towards his own face, “and that’s obvious.  I can work with that.  He doesn’t fit and no one sees it.”

“I am very fortunate,” Lafayette said after they were both silent for a minute, “because in spite of everything, I have a large family.  My grandmother and aunts, Adrienne’s parents and siblings, even here,” he added with a nod that took in the room.  “I don’t lack for attention.  Somehow I belong.”  He turned back to Hamilton, serious.  “And you on the other hand lost everything and learned to rely on yourself.  You claim at least that you do not need a family because every time one was taken from you, you continued to survive.”

Hamilton said nothing and after a short silence Lafayette kept talking.

“Our John is caught in between.  He has the family but in some sense he has managed in spite of it—not because of it.  Somehow that makes it easier for us to speak openly with one another about these things and more difficult to broach the subject with him.  The two go together, his father’s name and his mother’s death.”  Lafayette shrugged.  “You and I, we both know what our lot has been and we have had to accept it.  He has not been able to do that yet.”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton put the mug down.  “You’re right.”

“I know I am.”

“Do you remember, back when we first met?”

“You were so excited to meet another orphan.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about your title.”

“It doesn’t mean anything in America.  It hardly means anything back in France.”

“It means you’re eligible to star in your own Disney movie.  Except you can’t dance, so it couldn’t be a musical.”

“You’re teasing me,” Lafayette complained.

“Ha.”  Hamilton smiled, a little wryly, into his mug.  “Hey.  Thanks for staying up.”

Lafayette waved his hand nonchalantly.  “It is nothing.  I am French, it is actually noon for me.  It’s in my blood.  John made a good effort.”

“John doesn’t keep hours like we do.”

‘We’re too cosmopolitan,” Lafayette agreed.  

“That’s a good excuse.  I like it.”

 

Laurens was dimly aware that it had to be quite late, maybe early afternoon, even though the only light in the room continued to be the emergency lantern.  He could hear Lafayette sleeping a few yards away—he was used to the particular slow pattern of his breathing—and he could feel Hamilton lying behind him, under the same blanket, his body curved alongside his own, one hand holding the back of his shirt and his other—

“Good morning sunshine,” Hamilton teased as he traced his other hand over the top of Laurens’ pants.  “I see you’re,” he brushed over Laurens’ cock, “up.”

“Mm.  Alex.”  Laurens didn’t move away.  “What are you doing?  What time is it?”  He sucked in a sharp breath as Hamilton pressed a little harder.  “Did you sleep at all?”

“Shh.”  Hamilton scooted up a little so that he could whisper in his ear, and Laurens tipped his head towards his mouth without thinking.  “You gotta keep quiet, John.  Lafayette’s out cold but I think even he’ll wake up if you make too much noise.”

Laurens knew he should object, but his body was craving it and he leaned his hips into Hamilton’s hand. 

Hamilton popped the button on his pants and tugged down the zipper, sliding his hand in to rub him over the fabric.  “I’m not going to take you out, J.,” he said quietly, his lips brushing over Laurens’ ear.  “Less of a mess, although you’ll have to wash those.”  He was focusing his attention on Laurens’ head, teasing the wet spot that was forming.  “All right?”

“Talk less,” Laurens said through gritted teeth as he tried to keep his hips from jerking with too much obvious need.  A short pained noise died in his throat when Hamilton bit his ear, a little harder than necessary, and then he let the softest moan escape him when he felt Hamilton’s hand release his shirt and move down to undo his own pants.

Hamilton’s breath was soon coming in short staccato gasps, each one seeming to speed up the rhythm he was keeping, and Laurens turned his face so he could kiss the side of his mouth.  He was afraid that they would wake Lafayette or attract attention from outside, but Hamilton was still touching him and those concerns were forgotten.  

Laurens reached back and slipped his hand into Hamilton’s back pocket.  He pressed him closer and then ran his other hand down Hamilton’s forearm, grabbing his wrist and forcing him to keep moving.  Hamilton slipped his other arm across Laurens’ chest and dug his hand in to the fabric by his collar, closing his eyes tightly against the feeling of Laurens moving his arm for him, of how he could feel his muscles tense and harden and he wished they were back in the privacy of the guest room where he could convince Laurens to fuck him—His train of thought was cut short as Laurens shuddered and slowly stopped him.  

Hamilton lay still for a moment, his hand still over his shaft, as Laurens took several deep breaths and then rolled over, sliding one arm under Hamilton’s head and, his hand on his shoulder, pulling him close.  He put his other hand on his cock and Hamilton willingly relinquished power once more, grabbing Laurens’ arm and ducking his head down against his broad chest.  Hamilton let him finish him, holding on for as long as he could, and then muffling himself with his fist and not letting go of his arm.

Laurens kissed the top of his head, the thought flickering through his mind that he needed to get up and change.  Then he felt Hamilton relax against him, his hold on his arm loosening, and his breathing slow, and he closed his eyes, resigning himself to staying put.


	28. A Strange Kind of Compliment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans; Calling Home; Mouthwash; *Summer; Explanation

“Power’s back,” Laurens said, flipping the lights on in the library as he came back in from showering.  He couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with Lafayette.  “Wind died down a little too.  I caught something about how it made an earlier than expected landfall.  Do you want to stay in here another night anyway?”

Hamilton was still sitting on the floor, the blankets around his lap.  “I’ll go wash up,” he said, picking them up with him as he stood and holding them in front of himself.  

“Why do the Washingtons' have Twister?”  Laurens asked Lafayette.  “Monopoly I can understand, but Twister…”

“You really should have come to lunch,” Lafayette said.  “It makes a lot more sense after hearing that story.”

Hamilton stopped in the doorway and turned back.  “Can we have a _sans-culottes_ party?  Is that a thing now?”

“A pantsless party?”  Laurens asked, but Hamilton was already leaving again, having planted the idea in mind.

Lafayette stroked his chin.  “Well…”

“I can see you thinking about it and I just want to ask where you plan to hold it.  We’re not doing it at the dorm and I don’t think Alexander has the space.”

Lafayette didn’t answer but his eyes lit up.

“…Lafayette?”

“Hm.  I will see about it and let you know.  Do you have a good recipe for flaming shots?”

 

“He’s still on the phone?”  Hamilton asked after coming back into the library with Lafayette and more popcorn.  “He was on it when I got out of the shower.  He’s not talking to his father, is he?”

Lafayette shook his head and they sat at the table with the bowl.  “He called to check in but I think he’s at the office.  I could only eavesdrop so much.”

Laurens certainly sounded much more at ease than he usually did when calling home, and he was standing in front of the bookshelf, giving off the impression that if it wasn’t for the glass he would be casually pulling titles off of it and putting them back as he talked.

“Yeah?  That’s great.  Our next game will be a good one, you make sure you see it, all right?  Do you have it set to record?”

Lafayette and Hamilton were listening in spite of themselves, waiting for something interesting to come up.

“Good.  Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.  I love you too, Jemmy.”

He hung up and turned around.

“Jemmy?”  

“James.”

“Do I have competition?”  Hamilton offered him the bowl.

“Don’t be weird, that’s my kid brother.”  Laurens took it from him instead of just helping himself to a handful.

“Right, right.”

“How is your family?”  Lafayette asked.

“They’re fine.  The storm didn’t hit that far south.  He said they didn’t even get any rain.  I have to wait for my father to get back to me,” he continued, “but there shouldn’t be any trouble with both of you visiting over Thanksgiving break.  If you’re interested, that is.”

“Of course we are interested,” Lafayette said, looking brightly at Hamilton.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”  Hamilton sounded distinctly less enthusiastic.  “John, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“What do you mean?”

Lafayette took the bowl of popcorn from Laurens, eating from it and looking back and forth between them as they talked.

“I mean your father’s very, uh, particular, and you see my wording there?  That’s about the extent of my ability to be delicate about this.”

“I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I do.”

“Then you’re a fucking moron.”

“You wouldn’t date me if that were true.  Lafayette, give me that.”  He took the bowl back.  “I’m not asking you to spend a lot of time with him.  Chances are that he’ll be busy most of the week anyway so you’ll only really have to talk to him a couple of times, if that.  It’ll be better than staying in the city over break again.”

“Couldn’t we just go down to Cuba or something?  I hear Havana’s real nice that time of year.”

“Alexander.”

“I’ll try.  Okay?  But don’t act like I didn’t warn you.”

 

“It’s a home game next weekend, right?  Friday.  I told Lafayette I’d take him to one since we’ve never seen you actually play _football américain_ before.”  Hamilton was sitting on the cot in the guest room, the weather outside now no worse than sullen rain.

“He at least went last year  Have you ever even been to a game?  Not a school game, but a football game at all?”  Laurens asked as he pulled off his shirt.  “I’m seriously looking forward to getting my own wardrobe back,” he added as an aside.

“Don’t ruin it.”  Hamilton was watching him strip.  “I’m trying to be patriotic.”

“Get him a corndog, too, and a cinnamon roll.  You might as well give him the full American experience.”

“Jumbo-sized onion rings,” Hamilton agreed.  “Ooh, and nachos.  I bet I can get him to paint his face.”

“I’m sure you can,” Laurens said. 

“This is a real nice room,” Hamilton went on, looking around it.  “Do you know what the best part is?”

“The fact that it’s got a queen sized mattress on an actual boxspring instead of a twin straight on the wooden frame or a couple inches of padding on the hard floor?”

“You just get me.”  Hamilton said, moving back to sit on the bed.  

“I can’t believe we fooled around in Washington’s library…”

“Hey, hey!”  Hamilton clapped his hands in front of Laurens’ face in an attempt to bring him back to the present.  “Don’t you do that, don’t actually imply that we’re gonna fuck all night and then guilt yourself out of it!”

Laurens laughed.  “I was just saying.”

Hamilton pulled his shirt off and started to undo his pants.  “Get the light,” he suggested.

Laurens turned off the light (and locked the door) and was pulled down onto the bed as soon as he was within reach 

“Wait, shit—”  Laurens pulled back, Hamilton’s hand inside his fly.  “Wait, do you have any…?”

“In my bag.”  Hamilton turned on the bedside light with his free hand and let Laurens up.  He turned on his side to watch him dig through the backpack, impatient for him to find it and get back.  “What’s taking so long?  Front pocket.”

Laurens unzipped the other pocket, frowned, grabbed something, then turned the entire bag upside down to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.  “ _This?_ ”  He held up a travel sized bottle of mouthwash.

Hamilton swore loudly.  “Fuck!”

“Not with this we’re not.”

“You know what I mean, John.  Shit, I can’t believe I grabbed the wrong thing.”  He rolled over onto his back.  “Right, go ask Lafayette.  I’m sure he has.”

“I’m not asking Lafayette!”

“You still have your pants on,” Hamilton argued.  “It’s not a big fucking deal, John, just go ask him.”

Laurens zipped himself up and went back out into the hall.  After a nervous glance down it to make sure he was alone, he knocked on Lafayette’s door.  He could hear him on the phone and when he didn’t get a response he knocked again.

“ _Un moment, ma vie, un moment…_ ”  Laurens heard Lafayette coming over to the door and then he opened it with a scowl, hand over the speaker on his phone.  “ _Quoi?_ ”

“Uh,” Laurens glanced back at his own door.  What was he supposed to say?  “Alex brought…  Never mind.”  He dropped his voice to a stage whisper.  “Do you have lube?”

Lafayette gave him the most exaggerated eye roll and closed the door.  He opened it again a moment later and pressed a bottle into his hands.  “Don’t give it back.”

Laurens looked down at the bottle.  “Thanks!”

The door slammed shut.

 

“I’m sorry about that,” Lafayette said in French once he was back on his bed.  “John and Alex had a problem, but I took care of it.”

“Are you alone again?”  Adrienne asked, and Lafayette could hear her voice soften to just above a whisper even though he knew that she was by herself.

“Yes.  I’m sitting on my bed.  And you, my life?”

“I’ll be wherever you want me to be.”

Her voice was so soft now and it sent a shiver through him. 

“You should be asleep.  It’s so late.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Good,” he said after a slight pause.  “Me neither.”

“Gilbert,” she said, drawing his name out, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, so much, Adrienne.  I think about you all the time.  What it would be like to be able to kiss you and hold you…”  

She made a little pleased noise and he continued.

“I’m so lonely here sometimes, and you are so far away.  All I have are my memories of how you feel, and the sound of your voice… Keep talking to me, my dearheart.”

“Tell me what you’re doing,” she said, turning the command around on him, and he was only too willing to obey.

“I’m touching myself,” he said, undoing his pants as she made that same little sound.  “I’m thinking about you, remembering all the fun we had this summer.”

“Which time in particular?”

“In my room, when I carried you to the bed and we fucked for hours.”  He felt a little thrill from using such corse language with her.  He could hear the smile in her voice when she responded.

“I don’t remember—Remind me.”

“Adrienne,” he almost whined her name.  “You wound me!  Can’t you remember?  I can’t forget a moment of it.”  He didn’t wait for her to explain and instead kept talking, rubbing himself over his briefs.  “I was kissing your lips and your neck, and then you took my hand—” he moaned a little, remembering and grabbing himself directly, “—and you drew it up between your legs.  You were so _wet_ , Adrienne, and it was so warm…”

“I was thinking about the next morning,” she said, softly.

“The next…”  He remembered.  “Mm.  Yes.”

“After we got up,” she prompted him.

“Yes, after we got up, and you let me taste you—ah, my heart, I’m so hard thinking about it—how good you taste and how I made you arch off the bed, twisting the sheets.”  He took himself out now and worked his length in his hand.  “I can still remember the feel of you against my mouth, so soft, your scent like the sea…”

She laughed, just a short breath of it.  “You’re quoting poetry.”

“Your, mn, your body is poetry.”  Lafayette was breathing harder and she could tell that he was having a more difficult time remaining coherent.

“What do you mean?”  She urged and then, just in a whisper, “I’m touching myself.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, his hips jerking and his hand slipping a little in the sudden wetness.  “…Are you?”

Her answer was a slow, drawn out moan that made his head spin.  He could picture her so clearly, his Adrienne lying on her back on her bed, his Adrienne with her nightshirt drawn up over her small breasts and her hand tucked between her legs.  He whimpered, his free hand gripping the side of the mattress.

“Gil…”

Lafayette ran his thumb over his slit, slick with precum, and continued as he toyed with himself.  “You are so, ah, so beautiful, my heart, I’m imagining how my arm fits around your waist and I want to kiss your mouth and between your legs, I want to feel your heat against my face with your soft legs pressing at my shoulders…”  He paused for a moment.  “I want to fuck you with my tongue.”

He could see in his mind’s eye how her mouth opened in a small gasp of pleasure at that and he imagined putting his hand over hers as she moved it between her legs.  He put his hand back on his length, moving it faster and more insistently now, leaning forward a little and remembering how she had lifted herself off of the bed and how soft warm her thighs had been when he pressed his fingers into them, how tightly her legs had bit into his shoulders and the desperate noise she had made as she came—

Lafayette had intended to come into a towel but he was too caught up in the memory and didn’t grab it in time, hearing Adrienne breathing in short gasps on the other end of the line.  He must have made some noise that gave him away because she moaned, still just as soft as before, and low, and then laughed breathily.  

“Oh, my dear Gil…”

Lafayette set the phone down momentarily as he picked up the towel and gently cleaned himself up.  He wiped the floor with the towel and tossed it to the side.  They'd have to run one more load of laundry before they left.

 

“Hey.”  Later that night Hamilton was lying on his back, his hair a mess on the pillow, legs stretched out, taking full advantage of the larger bed.  He reached out one hand without looking and tapped Laurens’ chest with the back of it.  “What did you mean the other day?”

“Hm?”

“Wake up for a second.  You said that Lafayette was right.”

Laurens gave a tired, half-awake groan.

“What were you talking about?”

“Said you were horrible.”

Hamilton turned his head on the pillow to look at him.  “Excuse me?”

Laurens sighed heavily, blinking hard behind his hand as he rubbed his eyes.  “Relax, he said I was horrible too.  You know how he’s in that psych class?”

“Sadly.”

“Right?  It’s the worst.  Anyway, he was going off on that sort of thing, something about how I was wearing the brace to make you feel wanted, I don’t remember.”

“Ha.”

“I said I was only wearing it because they were making me and he got all huffy.”

 “So what did you mean, ‘he was right’?”

Laurens yawned and picked up Hamilton’s hand off his chest, lifting it to his mouth and kissing it.  “He said we were perfect for one another.”

“…Huh.”

“Mm.”

“Are you fucking asleep again?”  Hamilton squinted in the dark, saw Laurens’ mouth part slightly and felt his chest rise and fall.  He rolled onto his side, pulling Laurens’ arm over him and intertwining their fingers.  “Good night, jerk.”


	29. Nobody Likes Boxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Netflix and Chill; Measurements; Labels; Rule

“This is bullshit,” Hamilton pointed out helpfully, dropping a stack of books on Laurens’ desk.  

“That looks like your Saturday night reading to me.”

“I had to order these all through inter-library loan and they only _just_ came in!  It’s crap that the school doesn’t shelve them in its own damn library and it’s extra crap the kind of markup they’re charging at the bookstore.  It’s a fucking Ponzi scheme!  And before you start, no, I’m not just mad that I didn’t get my hands on a piece of that pie before it was too late.  There are two ways out of poverty and as fucking glamorous as it may be, most kids aren’t talented or lucky enough to kick their way out with a soccer ball.  I’m not even asking for a handout, just that it be a little easier to get access to the basic resources needed to make something out of yourself.”

“We didn’t say anything,” Laurens said, speaking for both him and Lafayette, the two of them sitting on Laurens’ bed and looking up from his laptop.

“Are you allowed to keep those all semester?”

“Long enough to take some notes and make some scans.”

“Ah.”  Lafayette turned his attention back to the laptop.  “Press play.”

“What are you watching?”  Hamilton stopped sorting through his books at the sound of violence coming from the computer.

Laurens didn’t even look up.  “ _Saving Private Ryan_.”

“That’s the fucking worst Netflix and Chill I’ve ever heard of.”

Lafayette and Laurens both motioned at him to be quiet.  Hamilton sat on Laurens’ other side.

“How far in are you?”

“Over halfway.  We were going to watch _Remember the Titans_ but it wouldn’t buffer.”

“Liar.  You’re not watching it because you’d cry when the team captain calls the other kid his brother.  Desegregation and football,” he explained to Lafayette.  “Calling it now.  It has to be his favorite movie.”

“Can we just watch this, please?”

“If you wanted to show him something American you should have gone with _Independence Day_.  Ooh, or _Red Dawn_ , you could go full McCarthy.”

“John,” Lafayette complained, “use your mouth and make him shut up.  I can’t hear what they’re saying.”

“I’m not making out during _Saving Private Ryan_.”

“Exactly.  Worst Netflix and Chill.”

Laurens shoved him and paused the movie again, turning to Lafayette.  “But speaking of excellent movies, you’re coming to the football game this weekend, right?  I’ll explain the rules to you if you’d like.”

“ _Merde_ ,” Lafayette muttered, brushing crumbs off of himself as the package of the poptart he was trying to open suddenly ripped all the way down.  “No, I know them.  You don’t play baseball as well, do you?”

“Sorry.  I used to collect the cards as a kid though.”

“That’s fine.  I’ll make you take me to a game.  Do we like the Yankees?”

“South Carolina Gamecocks.”

“What on earth is a gamecock?”

“A penis,” Hamilton said without looking up from his phone where he was scrolling through IMDB.  

“Shut up.  It’s a fighting rooster and you know it.  Stop confusing him.”

Hamilton looked up and made eye contact with Lafayette from around Laurens.  “It’s a penis,” he mouthed.

“I don’t make fun of your teams.”

“Yeah, don’t mess with the VI.”

“They’ve been one of the best teams since the 70’s,” Laurens said to Lafayette, switching back to talking about his own team.  “They have the record for the most consecutive home NCAA wins.  Now, last year wasn’t their best, but the Gamecocks are solid.”

“So do you follow all American sports?”  Lafayette asked.  “Football, obviously.  Baseball…”

“I keep track of how USC is doing, and then the professional leagues.”  Laurens shrugged.  “I like sports.  My dad and I used to watch games together.”

“I see.  And you?”

Hamilton also shrugged.  “I like the Virgin Islands.”  He got up.  “John, can I borrow your headphones?  I want to get started on these but let me know when you’re finished and putting on _Titans_.”

“Top desk drawer.  I told you, I couldn’t get it to play.”

“I emailed you a link.  You know you want Lafayette to see it.”

Laurens didn’t argue and was about to play the movie again when Hamilton spoke up once more.

“Oh—Shit.”

He looked up to see Hamilton reaching blindly into the drawer to get the headphones.

“…What?”

“Nothing.”

“I left it open, didn’t I?”

Hamilton actually looked a little guilty as he nodded.  “Yeah.  It’s okay, I didn’t _really_ see.”

“Nah, you might as well.  I’m just about done and it’s been long enough.”  He got up, handing Lafayette the laptop, and took the sketchbook out of his desk.  “Here.”  He passed it over to him and Hamilton studied it quietly.  It was the portrait he had started the previous year of Hamilton sitting on the stool.  His feet were on the bottom rung, legs spread slightly, and he was leaning his chin on his hand in what he had initially intended as a mocking imitation of Rodin but what came out on paper as genuinely thoughtful.  Hamilton couldn’t remember looking at it what had been going through his mind, but he recognized the slight furrow in his brow and the way he was teasing his lower lip even though he had never actually seen the expression on his face.

“Well?”  Laurens didn’t sound as nervous as he could, but there was still a note of anticipation in his voice.

Hamilton handed the drawing to Lafayette, who was clearly waiting for his turn to see.  “Mind you do justice to the length of my nose and don’t forget, that I—”

Lafayette had been listening as he admired the picture and looked up when he stopped speaking.  Laurens was kissing Hamilton, his hands on his waist as if he had pulled him to him mid-word.  They stayed like that for about five seconds until Lafayette cleared his throat and they stepped apart.

“It’s remarkable,” he said, obviously meaning the drawing, and he handed it back to Hamilton who looked it over again.  “You truly managed to capture him.”  He thought he caught a sly wink from Laurens but couldn't quite be sure, although Hamilton cleared his throat at that and abruptly changed the topic.

“Right, I need to study.  If you decide you're going to fool around to Matt Damon fighting Nazis let me know so I can give you a little privacy.”

Laurens sat back down on the bed and raised a brow.  “Matt Damon?  You mean Jeremy Davies.”

“And now that I know whose picture I can expect to find tacked to your ceiling when I visit you in South Carolina, I’m getting to work.”

 

“John, can you do me a favor?”

Laurens looked over at Lafayette as he finished buttoning up his shirt.  “What is it?”

“Stand still and put your arm out.  _Oui, merci_.”  Lafayette came up to him with a measuring tape, drawing it out along his arm to his wrist and then around his bicep.  “Thank you.”  He stood in front of him, measuring his neck while Laurens awkwardly tried not to make very up close eye contact.  “Stay there.”  He ran it from his waist to just under his arm, then went back to his computer to jot down his notes.

“Am I…”

“Don’t go anywhere!”

Laurens kept standing there stiffly, his arm still out, as Lafayette came back and measured down his back from his collar and then across and around his chest and waist.

“Just so you know,” Laurens said as Lafayette wrote everything down again, “this is all a little concerning.”

“Give me your hand.”

“I do have class soon.”

Lafayette ignored him but sped up a little.

“Did you hear me?”

“Shh.”  Lafayette reached up and measured around his head. 

“Lafayette.”

Lafayette dropped down into a crouch, paused to wince and shift his weight off of his bad leg, and took the diameter of his calf and thigh.

“What is this— _Hey there!_ ”

“Sorry.”  Lafayette stood back up awkwardly.  “Inseam.”

“Are you going to tell me what this is for?”  Laurens asked, sounding annoyed as Lafayette went back to his computer.

“Class project.  That was all I needed, thank you.”

Laurens wanted to push for more information, but a glance at his watch told him that there was no time.  “Right.  Just so you know for the future, I’ve been to a tailor before and you don't need to move anything over.”

“Alex didn’t complain,” Lafayette called after Laurens as he left.

 

“Do you miss girls?”  Lafayette asked as he and Hamilton sat at the counter along the window at a cafe, watching other students walk by outside.

“Do you miss girls?”  Hamilton asked, turning the question around on him.  “Of course I do—so do you, Lafayette.”

“That’s not the same.  I miss Adrienne.”

“Bullshit, I see you looking at other girls.  Don’t tell me you never think about them.”

Lafayette took a diplomatic sip of his coffee.

“What I miss is getting to stick my dick in stuff,” Hamilton continued.  “And boobs.  Shit.”

They both watched as a girl with full red lips and a necklace dipping into her low shirt collar walked by.

“I just didn’t realize we were monogamous until everyone else did.  You can’t blame me for looking.”

“Do you regret it?”

“What?  No, I mean, John’s great.  I like him a lot.  I’m not incapable of keeping it in my pants just because I’ve got a wide range of tastes.”

“I never said that.”

“You implied it.”

“I implied it because you are Alexander Hamilton, not because you are bisexual.”

“Can we not use labels?”  Hamilton rolled his eyes over the lid of his cup.  “I hate labels.  I like what I like.”

“Hm…”  Lafayette took another drink and then put his cup down.  “Did you really mean to tell me that he’s never let you, how do you say, fuck him?”  He made a crude but visually helpful gesture.

“No!  And I’m afraid to ask, I think it’d really freak him out.”

Lafayette sighed.  “Probably.”  He glanced around them at the very full coffee shop.  People were sitting immediately to either side of them and the table behind them was taken as well.  “Do you think we should have been talking in French?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “ _Je m’en fous_.”

 

> A. Hamilton: yo

> A. Hamilton: coming over tonight?

> A. Hamilton: I get off at 5:30, can be there by 6, just saying

> J. Laurens: I’m playing this weekend.

> A. Hamilton: shit you’re right, you won’t be able to break out of my sex dungeon by then, it’ll take you at least three days to chew through the leather straps

> J. Laurens: I’m serious Alex

> A. Hamilton: because I'm looking at my calendar 

> J. Laurens: I’m not having sex before the game.

> A. Hamilton: and it says it’s still thursday

> A. Hamilton: wait what

> J. Laurens: All right?

> A. Hamilton: wait no

> A. Hamilton: bullshit

> A. Hamilton: you

> J. Laurens: Look, it’s not that weird.  A lot of the guys don’t do it, it’s better to wait until after.

> A. Hamilton: sent that too soon. you really mean nothing ALL SEASON not just a day before?

> J. Laurens: That’s what I always do.

> A. Hamilton: Don’t you try to tell me that’s normal because i’m calling bullshit on that, there is no way that all your stupid ripped teammates aren't getting their dicks wet for three months

> J. Laurens: I just said, that’s what I always do.  Let it go.

> A. Hamilton: you’ve never fucking had a boyfriend before john!! it didn't fuckign matter before if you made some weird vow of chastity because WHERE WERE YOU GOING TO STICK IT?? jesus h are you fucking telling me we’re on fucking hiatus until december?!

> J. Laurens: (I saw what you did there.)

> A. Hamilton: (Good.)

> A. Hamilton: oh my god wait no are you counting through championships you fucking better not be counting through championships don’t make me hate myself for wishing you make it that far don’t you do it

> J. Laurens: Thanksgiving break is in between. 

> A. Hamilton: THAT WE WILL BE SPENDING AT YOUR FATHERS HOUSE

> A. Hamilton: LET <E SEE HOW WELL THAT WILL WORK

> A. Hamilton: “Alexander Hamilton, nice to meet you you racist motherfucker please excuse me while I fuck your eldest literally in the closet”

> A. Hamilton: “i brought a bottle of wine, thank you for having me”

> J. Laurens: Go with the red, not white.

> A. Hamilton: you’re killing me J

 


	30. Game Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Football

“He’s so fucking southern sometimes,” Hamilton muttered to Lafayette behind his scarf.  “I should get him a damn promise ring for his birthday.  I bet I could find one in the shape of a turtle.”

“Were you really unable to change his mind?”

“I got him to promise me a handjob at least once a week, so that’s something.”  He showed his student ID to the girl at the turnstile and waited a moment for Lafayette to follow him into the stadium.  

“The face paint came out well,” he commented, looking him over—the right half of his face was dark blue and he had drawn a matching star on his left cheek.

“Yes, I know.”  Lafayette caught a glimpse of himself in the metal siding of one of the food stands.  “You should have painted yours to match.”

“Too cold.  It’d get all over my scarf.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“It’s in the upper 60s and I’m from south of the Tropic of Cancer.  According to environmental determinism I shouldn’t even be alive any longer.  It’s cold.”  They got in line at one of the larger stands.  “Please tell me you’re coming in November.  I think I’m gonna hurt his feelings if I give him a hard no and besides which, I checked the weather and I’d much rather be down there than stuck in the city.”

“I’ll come,” Lafayette assured him.  “I’ve never been that far south before, or to the American countryside.”

“Me neither—on the mainland, that is.  I’m a little curious,” Hamilton admitted.  “I can’t tell if he’s playing up or down how redneck it’s all going to be.”

“Redneck?”

Hamilton waved a hand.  “I mean it might be weird to see him back on his home turf.  Maybe he actually does go full farmhand and I was wrong for accusing him of being a poor little rich boy.”

“Alex,” Lafayette said, “Even I am surprised by how often he asks his father to buy and send him things.”

Hamilton considered this as they reached the front of the line and Lafayette placed their order.  A few minutes later, each carrying a loaded tray of food, they made their way up to the very front of the student seating.

“I can’t believe it’s been three years and this is the first time I’ve ever actually come down to watch a game,” Hamilton said.  “You do know the rules, right?”

Lafayette nodded.  “It’s like a game of war, and our John Laurens is on the attacking side.”

“Right, he’s a running back.  I was looking at his yardage, he’s good, too.”

“I couldn’t get you to go to a single game with me last semester and John says that you’ve never gone to one at all.  Since when have you cared about football?”

“Since I started dating a first string.”

“Touché.  But does it count as dating,” Lafayette began, chewing one of his onion rings, “if the only people who know are the three of us?”

“My neighbors _definitely_ know.”

“You know what I mean.”

Hamilton stole an onion ring.  “We’ll work on it.”

“You’re being surprisingly patient,” Lafayette commented.  “Let me try your nachos.”

Hamilton handed them over.  “Yeah, because my other option is to insist and scare him off.  Whatever, it’s not like I want to be in some sappy rom-com.”  He paused, then laughed to himself.  “No, forget it,” he said when Lafayette looked at him curiously. 

They had been at the very front of the crowd, having waited extensively outside to be let in, and the seats were filling up around them.

“Looks like it will be a good turnout,” Hamilton commented, twisting in his chair to look back at the rows behind them.

“Ah, Alexander.”  Lafayette pointed up to the electronic screen at one end of the field.  “They are putting up player profiles.”

The screen had been on but was now alternating between commercials and profiles containing photos and stats for various players (Tench Tilghman, James McHenry, David Humphreys all showing up before they started to lose interest).  

Hamilton turned back.  “Think you can get a decent picture for John?”

Lafayette took a test photo as the screen displayed the picture and information for Charles Lee, the team captain.

“That is not bad, _non_?”

“Little grainy.  But it’ll work.  Try the cinnamon roll.”

They had to wait close to an hour, during which time Lafayette had at least tried all the food they had purchased, before John Laurens’ (#18) profile appeared on the screen.

“Nineteen touchdowns,” Hamilton commented, impressed.  “And that’s considering that he didn’t get to finish last season and is starting late this year.”  The screen flashed to a piece of bonus trivia and Hamilton leaned forward a little.  “Shit—Am I reading this correctly?  John’s committed _ten_ personal fouls?  No wonder he keeps fucking injuring himself.  He's a liability!”

“Calm down, Alexander.”

“I am calm.  I’m just saying.”

“What are you doing… You can’t text him now!”

“Yes I can.  He just can’t respond.”

Lafayette sighed and took the last onion ring.  “Are you really surprised?”

“It’s annoying,” Hamilton argued.  “I keep saying this!  Everyone assumes John’s the _nice_ one!  ‘Oh, John, he’s so sweet and pure and he draws such cute turtles.’  People should know about this stuff!”

“It’s up on the board,” Lafayette pointed out.  “I think people do know.”

“Then it should stick more.”

“Shouldn’t you be happy?  Your boyfriend is even more of a status symbol.”  

“Yeah, yeah, only if they win— _Hey, jackass!_ ”  Hamilton stood up, shoving his tray at Lafayette and leaning over the railing to shout at Laurens who had just walked out of the gate with a couple of his teammates.  “Number eighteen!  Laurens!”

Laurens glanced up as he jogged with a ball over to the goalpost and lifted a hand in greeting.

Hamilton was holding his phone up now, still shouting and pointing at the picture he had snapped of the personal fouls.  “You want to explain this?”

“I don’t think he can hear you,” Lafayette said.

Hamilton sullenly sat down as Laurens gave him a confused gesture then looked at Lafayette and tapped his cheek, mirroring where he had drawn the star, and gave him a thumbs up before turning away to throw the ball back and forth.

“You can pester him all you want after the game,” Lafayette said, handing him back his tray.  

“Yeah, I’d rather have the sex,” Hamilton muttered. 

 

Three quarters in and the game was going well.  Laurens hadn’t scored yet, but he had been consistently advancing the ball, even having a run of thirty yards before he was forced out of bounds.  He seemed gracious on the field, congratulating his teammates and even offering a hand up off of the ground to an opposing player that he had taken down.  When their team was playing defense, however, Hamilton and Lafayette found themselves mutually distracted by the cheer line, dressed in the same navy and white as the players, but with a lot more leg and arm exposed.

“Damn,” Hamilton commented succinctly as the girl at the top of the pyramid did a flip and stuck her landing back on the turf.

“ _Oui_.”

“You think John would mind if I invited her over?  Not even to participate, just to stand on the side and do her routine.”

“Don’t be selfish, Alexander.”

“That’s not selfish, selfish would be inviting her _and_ the rest of her squad.”  Hamilton leaned forward a little, craning his neck so he could see the benches their team was sitting at.  “And maybe number nineteen.”  

“The quarterback?”

“Yeah.  He’s pretty fine.”

“I didn’t think he would be your type.”

“Lafayette, I do not have a single ‘type.’  I am an equal opportunity employer, in which the job to be done is my—”

“We’re getting the ball again,” Lafayette cut him off as Hamilton started to make an obscene gesture southwards.

Hamilton shifted his attention back to the field as Laurens and the other offensive players switched in.  He was easy enough to make out, even with the matching uniforms, both because of his height and because of the way he carried himself.  Even this far into the game he showed no signs of tiring in his posture or movements and he was clearly confident as he spoke briefly with the quarterback and then clapped him on the back before taking his position.  

The ball was hiked, number 19 backed up and scanned the field before throwing it long to Laurens who leapt and twisted to catch it, tucked it under his arm, and then was tackled out of the air, landing hard on his side, and was quickly piled on by several more defenders.

“That was fast,” Hamilton said, unscrewing the cap of his water bottle and taking a drink.  “Oh well, two more downs.  I bet we can score once more before the quarter’s up.”

A murmur ran through the crowd as the other players got up and moved back to the general area of the new line of scrimmage except for the one who had landed the initial tackle.  He had gotten up but was standing there, saying something inaudible to one of the sideline refs.  Laurens was still lying on the ground.

Lafayette frowned.

“Wait.”  Hamilton leaned forward, his feet solidly on the ground.  

People on the field were clearly talking to one another now and the coach and one of the other professionals from their school hurried over.  

“Wait, shit—”  Hamilton stood up, knocking the remains of their food to the floor.  “Shit, Lafayette.  John!”  

Lafayette got up quickly, grabbing the back of Hamilton’s jacket as he grasped the bar in front of them as if he was about to leap over it onto the field below.  

“Lafayette, _let go of me_ , something’s wrong!”

On the field Laurens finally sat up although from the gesturing it seemed like he hadn’t been asked to do that yet.  

“Alexander, he’s—”

“He’s not fine!”

Lafayette glanced around them.  The stadium was full, especially the student section, and they were front and center.  People were watching curiously.  “Come with me,” he commanded, pulling Hamilton away and down the aisle as the other spectators’ attention shifted back to the field as Laurens got up and walked off the field to sympathetic applause.  

“He’s walking,” Hamilton was saying, still watching the field and then the video feed on the screen over his shoulder as Lafayette steered them away.  “But someone’s helping him, you know he doesn’t like help.  Did he break his arm?”

Lafayette glanced back at the monitor, the footage showing Laurens holding his right arm close to his body as the coach took his left for support.  “I’m not sure.”

“That’s not how he walks.  That’s not how he _walks_ , Lafayette, did you see?” 

Lafayette was guiding them down a flight of stairs.  

“Lafayette!”

They stopped at the last step, a long hallway curving to either side in front of them.  Lafayette turned back to take Hamilton by the shoulders.  

“You need to calm down.”  He felt Hamilton tense and could see the fear in his eyes spark into anger.  “There are ambulances waiting outside in case anyone is injured and they will take him to the hospital.  He will be very unhappy if he finds out that you’ve made a scene.”

Hamilton inhaled deeply and the fire dulled although he was still obviously tense when he spoke.  “Let’s go.”

They made their way out of the stadium and around the back to the parking lot in time to see Laurens sitting down on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance.  

“John!”  Hamilton shouted across the lot, waving one hand in the air and apparently forgetting everything Lafayette had said.  Lafayette for his part broke into a sudden run in spite of his leg, so fast that Hamilton had to chase after him.

Laurens had been coerced into a sling by the time they reached him, his arm bound across his chest and his left hand pressing an ice pack to his right shoulder, which was hanging at an odd sick angle from his body.  His helmet and upper body gear were removed and his dark hair was drenched, sweat beading on his ashen face. 

For a moment it looked like Hamilton was going to jump into the back of the van and grab him but he caught himself after just a step forward and drew his hands back slightly.

Lafayette turned to the assistant coach, an attractive young man only a few years older than they were named Ben Walker.  “What happened?”

Laurens answered that question through tightly gritted teeth.  “Popped my shoulder out.  Walker says I have to go to the hospital.”

“Just what he said,” Walker agreed.  “He says it was from the initial impact and we’re hoping the dog piling didn’t make it too much worse.”

“How bad is it?”

Laurens shot Lafayette a sharp glance, closer to angry than he should have been at that because of the pain and adrenaline. 

“John.”

Laurens took a slow breath, the air hissing through his teeth as he inhaled, then turned his head slightly to look at Hamilton.  “It’s fine.  I’m fine.”

“You always say that.”

“So do you, it’s always true.”

“No, it’s not,” Hamilton said, his voice starting to raise. 

“I’m—”  The muscles over his shoulder twitched involuntarily and Laurens winced, falling silent. 

“Oh my God, you are such a fucking jock sometimes.”  Hamilton ran a hand over his face.

“I’ve never dislocated it before.  They need to take x-rays first.  Muscle relaxants—” he sucked in a breath as his shoulder jerked again and he pressed the ice to it a little more firmly although his hand was shaking, “—to stop it doing that.  Then they can do a closed reduction.”

Walker spoke up.  “I’ll be riding with him, but you guys can call a cab and meet him after they fix him up.”

“I’m his roommate,” Lafayette said.  “I can make sure he gets back afterwards.”

Walker nodded.  “We’ll work something out.  Let’s go, John.”  He got into the back of the ambulance.  The doors closed.


	31. Patched up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drugged; Missed Messages; Disoriented

Hospital waiting rooms are not the most comfortable.  

Hamilton couldn’t stop moving, drumming his fingers on the armrests of the chair and tapping his foot on the ground, standing up just to walk over to the magazine rack and then turn around and sit back down again.

“It’s all right.”  Lafayette looked up at him from his copy of _USA Today_.  “It isn’t serious.”

“Your paper’s upside down,” Hamilton said a little sharper than he meant to.  

Lafayette turned red behind his face paint and put it down in his lap.

Hamilton resumed drumming his fingers.

“It’s a nice hospital,” Lafayette said to change the subject a little.  “I thought it was very nice that the secretary asked if you were his husband when you said you wanted to see him.”

“Shut up,” Hamilton muttered.

“It’s too bad she got suspicious when you asked if saying yes would mean you were allowed in the back.”

Hamilton crossed his legs, leaning his face heavily on his fist, his ears burning.

“How are you both maimed, anyway?”  Hamilton asked, complaining to put some distance between himself and everything else.  “I thought it was stupid enough when you got yourself cut open but, no, I was wrong, this is even dumber.  Seriously, you’d think he’d know how to not get himself injured by now.  How careless is he?”

The door opened and they both looked up as Laurens walked out, holding his discharge papers and instructions for care in his right hand.  His arm was still in a sling and still with an ice pack pressed to it, but his shoulder looked more normal, if still swollen.

Lafayette stood up.  “John, how are you feeling?”

Laurens looked at them with mild surprise, as if he had not noticed them in the room. 

Lafayette and Hamilton exchanged a worried look.

A nurse appeared in the doorway, pronouncing Lafayette’s name with a heavy Brooklyn accent.  “Gilbert Lafayette?  Right, they said you’d be taking him home.  They had to give him a pretty heavy muscle relaxant to get the joint back in the socket and he’s experiencing some side effects.  It’s very common, but all the information is there on that sheet.  Read it over and call or come back if you have any concerns.”

Hamilton took the paper from Laurens and skimmed it as Lafayette checked with the secretary that everything was taken care of and they were good to go.

“Hey.  John.”  Hamilton snapped his fingers in front of his face and Laurens shifted his focus with some difficulty from middle distance to look at him.  “You with us?”

“Uh.”  It seemed like he was having some trouble putting words together.  “Yeah, Alex.”

“What’s with him?”  Lafayette asked as he held the door and they escorted Laurens into the hallway. 

“He’s higher than a kite.  He’s stoned,” Hamilton explained when Lafayette gave him almost the same confused look as Laurens.  “Come on, buddy,” he said, putting his hand on his back when Laurens started to list into the wall.

“He looks like when our cats come back from the vet,” Lafayette commented.  “Even his hair is a little brushed the wrong way.”

Hamilton frowned and reached up to smooth it down.

“I’ll call the cab again,” Lafayette said as they loaded Laurens into the elevator.  “I don’t think we can take him on the subway like this.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Laurens was swaying a little as they stood there and they both looked up at him. 

“Are you okay?”  Lafayette asked as the doors opened again and Hamilton half-pushed him out.

“I’m okay.  I’m good,” Laurens assured him, his accent coming out heavily and without him noticing even as his words started to slur together.  Lafayette bit his lip to keep from laughing.  

“They had t’ give me that so they could re, uh, reduction it.  Stopped hurtin’ so bad once they got it back in.”

Hamilton normally would have jumped on the opportunity to tease him for the drawl but he let it go.  “Uh huh.  John, you’re telling me that it doesn’t hurt anymore, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you follow that?”

“Yeah.”

“John, does your shoulder hurt?”

“ _Fuck_ , Alex.”  Laurens stumbled over the words a little, starting to sound frustrated either with the line of questioning or with his own inability to respond better.  Hamilton didn’t push it.  

Outside Lafayette managed to flag down a cab that was just dropping someone off and they piled in the back, Laurens with his right side against the door and Hamilton to his left.

Lafayette gave the driver the address of the dorm and started explaining what had happened.  Before they were out of the parking lot Laurens had knocked out, sliding down in the seat and leaning against Hamilton’s shoulder.

 

Hamilton held the door as Lafayette helped Laurens through it and sat him on his bed.  Laurens was drifting off again just sitting there and he had to hold him up so Hamilton could take off his shoes.

“What do you think?”

“Leave the pants on, I don’t know how you could lift him up enough to get them down, he’s friggin’ dead weight.”

“All right.  John.  John, we’re back at our room.”  Lafayette looked up at Hamilton.  “Do you think we can lie him down?”

“I got his legs.”

Between the two of them they carefully maneuvered Laurens onto his back and under the covers without jostling his shoulder.

“Shit,” Hamilton swore and put the paperwork on Laurens’ desk.  “No wonder he didn’t want to take anything, whatever they gave him really got him.  Turns out we need a second one of him around just to lug this first one places.  Whatever.”  He kicked off his shoes and lay down next to him.  “I know it’s early but I’m done with today.  Here’s to tomorrow sucking less.”  He fidgeted around under the covers for a moment and then carefully dropped both their phones on the floor, turning onto his side and tucking his face down next to Laurens’ sling.  “Wake me up in like sixteen hours.”

Lafayette was leaning heavily on the desk, reaching down to rub at his leg and hoping that he hadn’t popped any stitches hauling Laurens from the car.  He picked up the phone as Laurens’ screen lit up.  “It’s still on silent.  He has many missed messages.”

Hamilton’s voice was muffled.  “So long as they’re not all his father yelling at him for not looking both ways before he got tackled.” 

Lafayette unlocked the phone and scrolled through them.  “No, it looks like he talked to him from the hospital.  These must be his teammates.  Who is this Andre? He’s sent a half dozen.”

“I dunno.”

 

> J. Andre: Hey, I’m so sorry.  I know they had to take you to the hospital to get looked at and I really hope it’s nothing serious.  Let me know how it goes and if I can do anything.  

> J. Andre: We lost, by the way.  I thought you’d rather hear it from one of us.  Everything just went to shit in the last quarter.

> J. Andre: Coach said you dislocated your shoulder, I’m really sorry. I don’t know if you’re getting these or not or if you can’t respond yet but seriously let me know if you need anything.  I don’t have any plans for the rest of the day so if you need a ride or for me to explain shit to your dad or anything I’m your man.

> J. Andre: That reminds me, he also said he talked to him.  That was all he said, though, spent more time kicking our asses for the loss so at least you missed that.

> J. Andre: Lee’s real pissed you got hurt.

> J. Andre: Hey Laurens, not sure if you’re still at the hospital or not.  Give me a call if you need a ride.

> J. Laurens: Hello, this is John’s roommate.  He’s back at the dorm and is asleep.  I’ll tell him to get in touch with you when he wakes up.

 

Lafayette had barely sent that message when another one came back.  Clearly Andre had been waiting for a reply.

 

> J. Andre: Don’t worry about that!  Thanks for getting him.  I’ll swing by tomorrow to drop off his stuff if that’s ok. 

> J. Laurens: Sure

 

Laurens woke up hours later.  It was still dark out and the edges of his mind still felt fuzzy and there was an _ache_ radiating from his shoulder down his arm and up into his neck.  He tried to move his arm, then realized that it was in a sling—when did that happen?  They had put him in one before he left the stadium, but then at the hospital they had of course had to remove it so they could roll his shoulder back into place.  He replayed the memory of that several times because it was strangely cloudy and dreamlike.  He couldn’t remember anything after that although he was clearly back in his own bed and Hamilton was curled next to him, his arm draped over him, and not exactly helping the pain.

He sat up with effort—the bed was too small for both of them even when he had full mobility—and looked around in the dark for his phone or his laptop.  They were both out of reach.  He shifted to get up and then realized he was stuck, unable to leverage his weight over Hamilton without his right arm. 

“Mm… J.?”

Laurens sat heavily back down.

“What’re you doing?  Do you need something?”  Hamilton sat up.  “Do you feel sick?  Wait, I don’t think you ate since yesterday morning, are you hungry?  I can order something…”

“I need to shower.”

“Oh.  Right.  Okay.”  Hamilton got out of bed so that Laurens could get up.  He turned on the desk light and helped gather his things while Laurens fumbled with the clasp of the sling.

“Here.”  Hamilton undid it for him and Laurens clumsily took off his shirt.

“Do you need help?”

“No.”  Laurens was obviously irritated.  “I can take care of myself.”

Hamilton sat back down on the end of the bed as Laurens left and was still waiting there, wishing they were at his apartment where he wouldn’t have asked at all but would have just joined him in the shower, when he got back.  

Hamilton stood up when he entered.  “Hey.”

“What time is it?”

Hamilton checked his phone then put it back on the desk.  “Almost five.  You need to take anything?”

Laurens waved the question off with his left hand and sat on the bed, rubbing his face with it.  “Thanks for getting me.”

Hamilton took it.  “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better, but I’ve been worse, too.  I hate taking that stuff, it always messes me up.”

“Ha.  Yeah, you were pretty out of it.  Don’t worry, it wasn’t that bad, you were just basically sleepwalking.  Actually, I’m pretty sure you were sleepwalking by the time we got back here.”

Laurens took his hand away and rubbed at his shoulder.

“Put the sling back on.”

“I don’t need it.  I’m just going back to bed anyway.”

“You’re up now,” Hamilton argued, “and why would they give it to you if you’re not supposed to wear it?”

Laurens opened his mouth to retort but closed it and put his hand back on Hamilton’s leg.  “Fine.  Pass it to me.  I might as well practice getting it on right.”

Hamilton handed it over and sat back as Laurens worked with it.  “You can move your arm.”

“Yeah.  It’s just stiff.  I’d heard that it’s a lot better once they can get it back in and they were right.”

“Are you going to class tomorrow?  I’ll email your professors as you and say you can’t make it.”

“I’ve got a note, but thanks.  I don’t think I’d be able to pay attention to anything they say, anyway.”  He narrowed his eyes at the sling as he got it fastened properly.  “Is this blue?  Like true blue?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton bit back a laugh.  “You’re pissed that it won’t match your clothes.”

“It’s so bold, why wouldn’t they make it in something more subdued?”

“Maybe they offered you a choice and you picked it out yourself.”

“No way.  I wasn’t that stoned.”

Hamilton leaned forward and turned his head, kissing him gently.  “You’re never allowed to call me vain again.”  He sat back.  “Are you still tired?”

Laurens carefully lay down, using his pillow so he was still sitting up partially.  “Tired enough.  Are you staying up?”

“Nah.”  Hamilton lay down next to him, then paused.  “You don't mind, do you?  I can head back.”

“Stay.”


	32. Plus One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another John; Calling Home; Sir?

 

John Andre came by a little after eight in the morning.

Lafayette, just barely dressed for class, answered the door when he knocked.  “May I help you?”

“Hey.” The young man outside was barely shorter than Lafayette and trim with dark hair styled almost too trendily to the effect that he would not have looked out of place on the poster for a boyband.  “I’m Andre.  Is Laurens up?”

Lafayette’s eyes widened briefly in a very clear “oh shit” and then glanced back towards the other bed.  “Ah, one moment.  John?”

Laurens had been asleep again, Hamilton lying next to him, but he sat up with a start when he heard who was at the door.  

Lafayette smiled at Andre.  “I’m sorry, I forgot to wake him.  Are you on the team?” 

There was a yelp and a thud as Hamilton hit the floor.

Andre looked puzzled at the noise and like he wanted to peer into the room to see what was going on but was refraining himself.  “Ah, yeah, I’m the quarterback.  I know it’s early, I can just drop this off and come back later.”

“No, it’s fine.  Hello, Andre.”  Laurens came to the door.

“Laurens,”  Andre smiled widely.  “I missed you this morning, man.  I’ve got your stuff from yesterday.”  He picked up Laurens’ gym bag from the hall and carried it inside.  “Thanks for letting me know you collected him,” he said to Lafayette, and his eyes lingered a moment on where the picture of Adrienne had been tacked to the wall in the past.  “I didn’t know what was going on and I just wanted to make sure he didn’t get stuck trying to get back on his own.”

“I would’ve been fine,” Laurens said.

“Yeah, of course.”  Andre turned to Laurens’ side of the room to put his things down and was startled to see Hamilton, his hair in a messy ponytail,  standing at the foot of the bed with his arms crossed.  “Oh, hey.”  Andre glanced between Hamilton and Laurens, looking for an introduction and then put the bag down and his hand out.  “My name’s John Andre.  It’s a pleasure.”

Hamilton shook it, his irritation with the whole situation vanishing.  “Alexander Hamilton.”

“Oh, you’re Alexander,” Andre said, as if that explained things.  Hamilton wondered what exactly Laurens had said.

“You’re number nineteen?”

Andre nodded.  “Quarterback.”

“Right, right.  I just didn’t realize—Lafayette was saying that an Andre had been texting him but we didn’t know who you were.  We were around even if John was asleep, you could have dropped that off last night if it would have been more convenient.”

“That’s all right,” Andre turned back to Laurens who forced the suspicious look off his face for a blankly neutral one.  “Actually, I wanted to apologize to you in person.  That was a bad throw and I’m so sorry, Laurens.”

Laurens shrugged with one shoulder.  “I told you to throw to me and we got the yardage.  I’ll be fine, Andre.  Besides, I should still be able to make the end of the season.  Don’t beat yourself up about it too badly.”

Andre nodded, looking relieved even as he anxiously fiddled with his keys, a little jade dog on a red cord clinking against the metal.  “That’s good to hear.  Look, I’ve got class, but again, if you need anything just let me know.  I’ve got the car, it’s not a problem.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate it.”

Andre said goodbye to the others and left.

“I didn’t know you had a gym bunny friend,” Hamilton commented.

“I don’t—it’s weird when you say it like that.  It’s not like we’re the only two guys who show up for training.”

“Yes, but he is the only one who sent you six texts last night before I responded to him,” Lafayette said.

“Yeah, about that.”  Laurens turned to him, annoyed.  “Maybe next time you could mention that I’m expecting company.”

“You were still asleep!”

“Lafayette.”

“All right, I forgot.  It was a very tiring night.”  Lafayette yawned, perhaps more to prove the point than anything else, and picked up his bag.  “I am going to class.  Adrienne sends her love and hopes that your shoulder is better.  Alex, are you coming?”

Hamilton glanced at Laurens.  “Yeah, I should.”

Laurens sat down at his desk.  “It’s fine.  I’ll see you guys later.”

Once they left Laurens picked up his phone and with growing reservation scrolled past his father’s number in his phonebook before putting it on speaker and propping it up against one of his books.

“Pick up,” he muttered, drumming his fingers anxiously on the desk.

After several rings a much younger voice cut in.  “Jack?”

“Jemmy,” Laurens said, relieved.

“Are you okay?  Dad said they had to take you to the hospital to fix your shoulder.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.  The doctors did a good job.  Listen, Jemmy, I haven't been able to see the footage yet, what happened?  Not the actual hit, I know what happened on the field, I want to know what the cameras showed.  Dad was watching, wasn't he?  Tell me exactly what you all saw.”

James sounded confused.  “Yeah, he was here.  We saw you get hit and then that you couldn’t get up right away.  They replayed what happened and then we saw you already sitting up.  Dad got up then and got his phone but he saw you walk off the field.”

“Right, right.  And then?”  Laurens leaned against his fist.  “Did it show the spectators or anything like that?”

“I don’t think it ever went off the field except for when it showed you on the sidelines.  Don’t worry,” James continued as Laurens heaved a sigh of relief, “we didn't see you hurl.”

“Hey,” Laurens protested, “I didn't—Whatever, it’s not important.  Thanks, Jemmy.  Have a good day at school.”

 

“Hamilton.”

Hamilton looked up from filing away Washington’s papers.  “Yes, sir?”

“About the trustees’ dinner next month.  I wanted to make it clear that you are invited to that as well.”

“Sir?” Hamilton stood up, surprised.

“It’ll be a good opportunity for you to make some connections.  I’ll make sure you get an official copy of the invitation.”

“Thank you,” Hamilton said.  “I’ll be there.”

“Good.  It’s a black tie event, so make sure you get something appropriate to wear, and you’ll probably want to bring John.”

Hamilton blinked.  “John?”

“It’s standard to bring a date to this sort of thing.  Could you get me the minutes from the last board meeting?”

Hamilton turned back to the cabinets.  “One moment, sir.”


	33. A Very Productive Lunch Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Rise up; A Generous Endowment; Crossing Paths

Laurens was surprised to find Hamilton at his door.  “Aren’t you—”

“Lunch break.”  Hamilton stepped past him into the room.  “I’ve got forty minutes before I need to walk back over, how’s your shoulder?  Are you still drugged?”

Laurens shook his head.  “I’m—mmph!”  

Hamilton had leaned up and kissed him, pushing his tongue into his mouth and broke away only after Laurens had closed his eyes and put his hand on his waist.

“Good,” he said, breathlessly.  “I couldn’t wait anymore.  Sit.”

“Alex,” Laurens began, although he did sit back down in his chair.  “What…”

Hamilton knelt in front of him, pushing his legs apart and running his hands up his inner thighs, bending forward and brushing his lips just over the fly of his pants.  “You’re not playing this week, so this isn’t breaking that stupid rule of yours.”  

He undid the button with his teeth and Laurens sunk down a little in the chair with a low moan.

“Alex…”

“Rise up.”

Laurens did so, obediently, and Hamilton slid his pants down around his knees.  He ran his tongue slowly up over the bulge in Laurens’ briefs, repeating it as Laurens rocked his hips towards him with a short frustrated whine.

“You’re loud today,” Hamilton commented, flicking his tongue over his upper thigh just off the fabric.  “I like it.”

Laurens let out a slow hissing breath through his teeth and Hamilton looked up quickly but his head was tipped back and his eyes closed.  Laurens pressed his hips towards the warmth of Hamilton’s mouth as he put it back over his cock and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Take them off.”

Hamilton pulled the fabric to the side instead, a little sharply, and Laurens made an uncomfortable noise.  Hamilton leaned close and darted his tongue over the underside of his shaft and Laurens tightened his grip on his shoulder.  Hamilton repeated the motion and Laurens shifted impatiently.

“I thought you said you didn’t have much time.”

“Over half an hour.”  He sat back and pulled his briefs off, looking over Laurens’ cock, before taking just the head into his mouth.  Laurens moaned again as Hamilton slid a little past it, then back up, then a little further down, then back to focus his attention on his head.  Hamilton wrapped his hand around his shaft and ran his tongue over his slit, teasing it without taking his mouth off.  He moved his hand slowly, more for his own pleasure than Laurens’ as he relished the feel and heat of him in his grip.  He tasted salt and took that as encouragement to move his tongue faster and more insistently, as Laurens tried to push his head down.  Hamilton resisted, taking his mouth off of him instead with one last flick of the tongue.

“Before I forget, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Alexander,” Laurens pleaded.

“So I was at work today—”

“ _Alexander._ ”

Hamilton grinned.  “Fine, I’ll tell you later.”  He put his hands on Laurens’ legs and took as much of him as he could into his mouth, rewarded with a gasp and a moan and Laurens curling his fingers into his hair.

Hamilton dug his fingers in a little as he braced himself, moving on and off and almost letting Laurens set the pace as he tugged at his hair.  Sensing by how insistent he was getting and how his hips were shaking that he was almost done, Hamilton pulled back again, working his head with his tongue and pumping his length with one hand.  Laurens came and Hamilton slid his mouth back down his shaft almost lazily, sucking slowly against him.  

“Mm.”  Laurens squeezed his shoulder.  “Hey.”  He was breathing heavily and the sound of it made Hamilton want to keep touching him but he made himself move away and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“What, uh, you were going to tell me something?” Laurens asked, grabbing a tissue off his desk to clean himself with before he got dressed again.  

“I missed you.”

Laurens looked confused.  “What?”

Hamilton put a hand on his good shoulder and kissed him slowly, his tongue in his mouth.  Laurens felt a shiver of heat travel through him as he realized he could taste himself on him.

“Anyway,” Hamilton started to pull away but Laurens put his hand on his back and pushed him forward so that he almost fell onto him, kissing him again.  He laughed into it.  “Mm.”  He moved away again, kissing the side of his mouth and his jaw.  “I have to go soon.”

“Tell him I needed help with something.”

“You did, and I fixed it already,” Hamilton pointed out.  “You want me to lie to my boss so I can suck you off again?  Right, speaking of whom—”

Laurens had turned his head and was biting and sucking at his neck now, one hand rubbing him between the legs.

“Get on the bed,” Laurens growled against his skin.

“John,” Hamilton protested.  

“Now.”

Hamilton whined.  This was not the time to have accidentally done whatever he just did but also, lord, how could he say no to this?

Laurens pushed him away and stood up, quickly getting the sling and then his shirt off.

“Damn it,” Hamilton muttered, feeling the last of his resolve crumbling as Laurens threw his shirt to the floor and stepped out of the rest of his clothes, his eyes dark and feral.  “Yeah, okay, but I’m going to be fucking pissed if I get fired for this.”  He got on his phone as he started undoing his pants.  “Hello?  Hey, this is Hamilton.  Could you let Washington know that I’m going to be late?  I’ll make the time up tonight.”

Laurens had his hands on his waist and licked his neck, then nipped at his ear.  Hamilton bit his own lip for a second to keep quiet. 

“Yeah.  Yeah, uh, tell him John Laurens needed me to pick up his painkillers for him and I’m not going to get back in time but, uh, thank you and we’ll both _definitely_ be there next month.”  

He had barely hung up when Laurens pushed him backwards onto the bed and climbed on top of him, impatiently helping him pull his clothes off and then kissing him hard, leaning on his left arm while his right worked his cock.

Hamilton made a small undignified needy sound and arched into his hand, wrapping his arms around him and digging his nails into his back.  The little bite of pain urged Laurens on and he moved his hand faster.

“Get the lube from the drawer.”

Hamilton moved back to reach over his head and open the drawer, but then couldn’t find it without looking.  As he sat up, Laurens moved down his body, kissing the bare skin and causing his hips to tremble as his lips brushed over the v in his hip.  He could feel Laurens’ breath hot against the base of his shaft and he forgot what he was doing, turning back and running his hand through his hair and grabbing his shoulder with the other.

“Ah—John—”  He tipped his hips toward him and just brushed the side of his face with his shaft, gasping in surprise and then groaning as Laurens took the opportunity and swallowed him as far as he could.

Hamilton didn’t notice when Laurens took his wrist and moved his hand to the side of his face, but then he was moving his mouth over him and he realized he could intertwine both his hands in his hair and he could feel his own heart racing faster.

“John, mm, stop—”  He regretfully tugged on his hair.  “You’re gonna make me lose it.”

Laurens sat back and took a long look over Hamilton lying on the bed in front of him.  His face and cock were flushed and he wanted to make him spread his legs further, to let him fuck him until all his frustration was gone…

Hamilton saw the way he was watching him hungrily and he sat up gingerly, leaning back against where the head of the bed met the desk and getting the lube.  With a slight grin he opened it and rubbed it on his hand, and then, making sure Laurens was still paying attention, he pulled one leg up and curled to the side, pushing one slick finger into himself.  Laurens leaned forward a little, watching.  Hamilton worked a second one in, not really able to get comfortable with the angle but enjoying the complete hold he had over Laurens.  He was tempted to make him touch himself, to just sit back and watch him jerk off to how much he wanted him.

“Get back here.”

Laurens didn’t need to be told twice.  He was back on top of Hamilton, kissing and touching him as he pushed in.  The fit was so _tight_ and Hamilton gasped sharply and grabbed his shoulder hard to steady himself.

Laurens made a sudden pained noise and Hamilton, realizing what had just happened, jerked his hand away.

“Sorry!”

Laurens kissed him, hard, and grabbed his wrist again, forcefully putting his hand back.

Hamilton pushed away again, his other hand on his chest to keep some distance.  “John!  What the fuck?”

Laurens still had him by the wrist and he was breathing heavily, his voice low and dangerous.  “I like that.”

Hamilton stared at him incredulously.  

Laurens pushed his hand on a little more and Hamilton could feel the muscle start to twitch.

“John, I don’t want to—”

Laurens bit his lip and then his neck, letting go of his arm to brace himself on the mattress as he fucked him and when Hamilton automatically tightened his hold again, Laurens responded more forcefully.  Hamilton tipped his neck back, no longer quite sure what was happening as Laurens   left a dark bruise on it and moved his hand roughly over Hamilton’s length.  Hamilton was moaning encouragement with each thrust and Laurens pushed himself to go faster, feeling his heart pound in his ears.  For once the thought that someone might hear was appealing to him—let them hear, he wanted them to hear this, hear how he could make him arch off the bed and shout his name.

Then they were done and Laurens collapsed, exhausted and sore, on top of Hamilton.

“Mmph.”  Hamilton slipped his right arm free and cradled Laurens’ head, tucking it down next to his neck.  “I can feel your heart trying to pound out of your body.”

Laurens, still breathing heavily, didn’t respond.

Hamilton kissed his temple then turned to look at his shoulder and winced.  “Jesus, J.”  It was more obviously swollen than it had been when he had first taken his shirt off, and an angry red, scratches criss-crossing over it and down his upper arm.  “You should have stopped me.”

“Liked it.” 

“You’re crazy.”

“Mm.”

Hamilton sighed, petting his hair.  “I guess I can’t talk.”

“Nope.”  Laurens’ face was still half-buried but his breathing was starting to regulate.

“I still gotta go back to work.”

Laurens whined and Hamilton laughed.  “Yeah, I do.  I already fucked off to go get some, that’s gonna look real nice after Washington invited us to the party of the year.”

“What?”

“Oh, shit, that’s right.  That’s what I was actually coming by to tell you.”  Hamilton paused, feeling Laurens’ weight against him.  “You know what, it’s a long story and not that important.  I’ll have to work late after this but I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

 

Lafayette had gone over to Washington’s office to eat lunch and had picked up the phone when it rang.

“Hello?  Dr. Washington’s office.”

He heard Hamilton on the other end, a little too distracted to be confused even though he had clearly expected to get Washington himself as no one else should have been there to answer the line.  Lafayette didn’t bother to explain it was him as Hamilton was already talking, impatient to get back to whatever it was he was doing.  Lafayette decided it was better—especially considering that Washington was still in the room—not to ask.

“Were you told about the trustee dinner?”  He asked him instead, sitting up properly in the chair and trying to put on a professional air.  “And about your plus one?”  He was barely able to get that question out before Hamilton cut him off again, tossing what was so transparently an excuse that Lafayette had to fight to urge to roll his eyes.  “All right,” he assured him, “I’ll let him know.  _Bonsoir_.”

“Hamilton?”  Washington asked once Lafayette had hung up the phone.

“Yes.”  Lafayette picked up his plate and tiny fork from where he had set them on the desk, delicately stabbing a piece of cheese from their platter and taking a cracker and a grape with it.  “He apologizes and says that he went back to check in with John Laurens and will be late returning.”  Lafayette arranged them on his plate.  “He is going to pick up his pain medication from the pharmacy.”

“As long as he gets the work done in time.”

“He said he’d be in later,” Lafayette added quickly.  “And that the two of them would be attending.”

“Good.”  Washington put a piece of cheese on a cracker.  “You must be pleased.”

“I am.”  Lafayette smiled, all pretense of formality gone.  “Thank you so much for inviting them.  I don’t know anyone else and it would have been such a long night.”

“That’s not true,” Washington told him, “you know virtually the entire guest list.”

“But it’s not the same,” Lafayette protested.  “Alexander and John are my friends.  I don’t _know_ anyone else here and they’re both so busy.”

“You should meet more people your own age,” Washington told him.  “It’s not that I don’t enjoy your company, but it’s not healthy for you to be only spending time with someone as old as I am.”

“And Alexander and John.”

“Who are both so busy,” Washington reminded him.  “Have you put any more thought into extracurriculars like I asked you to?  You would do a fine job at the language tutoring center and it would be good experience for you.”

“Yes…”  Lafayette hesitated.  “It sounds like it would take up a lot of time.”

“Lafayette,” Washington scolded him.  

Lafayette felt a twinge of shame.  “I’m not afraid of the work!  But I want to be free to call Adrienne…”

“She sounds like a very understanding girl,” Washington said.  “I’m sure she would encourage you to better yourself and broaden your social circle.”

Lafayette had no real way to argue with that.  “Is it after the deadline?”

“I think I can pull a few strings,” Washington smiled.  “There are a few advantages to having this job, after all.  I’m going to be speaking with the department head after lunch.  I’ll tell her to call you.”

Lafayette nodded, a little disappointed although he wasn’t sure if it was more in how things had played out or in himself for trying to get out of them.  “I did like the class I took at the gym last semester.”

“Did you sign up for another one?”

“A club—actually, I also paid for lessons at another studio off campus.”

“Good,” Washington said, sounding genuinely encouraging.  Lafayette brightened at receiving praise once more.  “I’m glad to hear it, son.”

Lafayette was beaming.  “Tell the department head that I’m very sorry that I am applying so late, but that I would like to be of help in any way possible.  I would love to be able to assist students with their work, as I know how difficult it is to express yourself in a foreign language.  In fact,” he took his checkbook out of his bag, “I would like to make a donation to the department, as a symbolic gesture of thanks for all of the help that I have myself received since coming to America.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I do,” Lafayette insisted, signing his name with a flourish and tearing out the check.  “I would have been lost without the help of so many people here and I would be honored to give back.  When I first came here,” he continued, “my English was so poor.  Do you remember?  When we first met I had to explain my situation to you in writing because speaking was too difficult.  Please, I don’t want to be treated any differently.  I will still fill out the application and interview for the position, just like any other student.  In fact, don’t pass this along until after a decision has been made one way or the other.”  Washington raised his brows at the number on the check and Lafayette didn’t slow down at all.  “I want to give this either way.  You are right, sir, I need to work harder to be worthy of the trust everyone has put in me—you most of all,” he finished eagerly.

“I think you need to worry most about your appearance in Adrienne’s eyes,” Washington said, almost teasing.  “She’ll be with you long after you leave me in America.”

Lafayette hesitated, not sure how to react to the joke.  Washington put the check away in his desk.  “But regardless, thank you, Lafayette, very much.  I will see to it that this is passed along.”

Lafayette smiled broadly once more.  “My leg is healing nicely,” he said, changing the topic.  “It only bled a little after I carried John up to his room.”

“It bled?”  Washington sounded less than delighted.  “Did you break the stitches?  You need to be more careful, Lafayette.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened at the stern tone.  He hadn’t expected that.  “Oh, no, not—well, not very much at least.  He couldn’t take the stairs himself, and the elevator was so far away, and we thought that he wouldn’t like to be led like that though the common area.”

“You should have had someone else help,” Washington continued.  “There are plenty of other people you could have called upon.  Why didn’t one of his teammates stay and escort him back?  Actually, von Steuben should have picked him up himself—”

“I wanted to take him back,” Lafayette protested, uncharacteristically cutting off Washington for the second time.  “I told them right there at the stadium that I would collect him.  I love John, he is like a brother to me!  If I can be of any help to him, if there is anything I can do for him—!”

Washington laughed fondly.  “Yes,” he said, “I know.  You forget just how much you like to talk about your accomplishments.”

Lafayette blushed.

“But you’re a good friend,” Washington continued.  “I know you mean well and we both know I would have noticed it on my own anyway.  They are hardly subtle.  For all intents and purposes we can continue to assume that I picked up on it all on my own.  You shouldn’t be punished for very deserved enthusiasm.”

Lafayette nodded.  “And that’s also why it was necessary that I carry John…”  His words died in his throat as Washington gave him an unamused look, his mouth in a tight line.  “…I’ll go see the school nurse after this.”

 

Hamilton ran into Andre on the first floor of the dorm as he was leaving (still a little flushed, walking tenderly, hair and clothes impeccable).

“Oh.  Uh,” he glanced at the printouts in his hand.  “Are you going to see John?”

“Yeah, I told the professor I’d bring him the assignment and notes from class.  How is he?  I thought he might show up to his afternoon classes at least.”

Hamilton nodded, looking up and avoiding eye contact.  “He’s real good.  Real good.  Better than usual, actually.  Although,” he added, “I’m pretty sure he was, uh, about to pass out when I left.  Maybe just slip those under the door.  Carisoprodol.”  He shrugged.

Andre sounded relieved.  “That’s good.  I was really worried when they had to help him off the field.  Usually he’ll just get right back up and try to keep playing.”

“I don’t usually manage to make it to games.  Does he get injured a lot?”

“A _lot_ ,” Andre agreed.  “He’s very reckless.  Honestly, some of those fouls he has he took more of a beating than the other guy did.  I’m surprised he’s actually taking anything and using the sling.  It must have really hurt.”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton searched for a change of topic.  “What class are you taking with him, anyway?”

“French.”  He held up the papers.

“ _Tu parles français?  Moi aussi, mais je ne suis pas dans un cours ici.  Je manque toujours de temps._ ”

Andre laughed a little at that obvious showboating.  “ _Oui_ , but it’s not my focus.  I’m a language studies major,” he explained.  “I’ve also taken Italian and German.”

“Really?”  Hamilton sounded impressed.  “That’s hot, I mean, that’s hard to keep track of.”

“Italian and French are both Romance languages so there’s a lot of similarity there.  German is more challenging.  Did you know they actually have a phrase in German admitting that it’s hard to learn?  _Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache_.”

Hamilton grinned.  “I’m going to remember that.  So why those three?  Are you planning to start your own football team in the Alps?”

“My dad's stationed in Switzerland.”

“So I was right, basically.”

“I don’t know if I would say that.”

Hamilton glanced at the clock across the hall.  “Shoot, I really need to go.  Hey, listen, since you’re such good friends with John and all, why don’t you join us on Halloween?  A friend of mine is having a thing in the Heights and you’d be welcome to come.  I’m sure John would like having someone else he knows there.”

“Sure,” Andre agreed.  “Here, let me give you my number and you can send me the information later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally saw Hamilton the other week!


	34. TL;DR I Ended up Buying These Too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shoes; Patronus

“When are you ever going to wear those?”  Hamilton asked, sitting at Lafayette’s desk as Laurens unpacked with one hand a pair of white and royal blue hightops. 

“I’ll wear them all the time.  They’re nice,” Laurens said, a little defensively, picking one up and turning it over for a better look.

“They don’t go with any of your—Wait a minute.”  Hamilton’s eyes widened.  “Did you buy those just so you’d have something to accessorize with your fucking sling?”

Laurens didn’t say anything.

“Oh my God you did.  You are such a fucking dandy.”

“If I have to wear this damn thing it might as well not clash with everything I own!”

Hamilton started to laugh.  “Shit, did you pay for express on those?  I know we’re in the city but there’s no way they would have arrived today otherwise.”

Laurens didn’t respond to that as he switched out his current shoes for the new ones and got up to check the match in the mirror.

Hamilton tipped his head to one side appraisingly.  “You need a hat.”

“I don’t need a hat.”

“Yes you do, then you can trade out the hat and the shoes.  Or at least a watch.”

Laurens glanced down at his wrist.

“It’s not a bad color on you at least.”

“Navy would have been better.  I look like a Royals fan.”

“Right, I’m sorry they didn’t give you a sling in South Carolina’s colors.”

“I don’t want to associate the Gamecocks with this.”

“I think you look dashing,” Hamilton only mostly lied.  “And speaking of which, you own a suit, don’t you?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“‘Cause, and listen close because this first part is good, Washington invited me personally to the Trustees Dinner in October.”

Laurens turned back from the mirror.  “Alexander, that’s great.”

“I know.”

“What do you want my suit for?”

“Well,” Hamilton tapped his fingers together.  “Actually, Washington invited both of us.”

Laurens touched his chest.  “He invited me?”

“Yeah.  Uh, as my date.  I told him we’d be there, I guess you’ll have to find a matching tie too.”

“Wait, what?”  Laurens touched his chest again, more forcefully this time.  “I got asked out for you by _Washington_?”

“Yeah, about that,” Hamilton began with an awkward grin.  “It’s more like he just assumed I would be taking you.  Turns out I was not as subtle as I thought I was.”

“You think?”

“It’s not a big deal, J.,” Hamilton said as Laurens, bright red, pressed his hand to his mouth.  “He didn’t give a single crap.  It was just ‘oh by the way find a suit and bring John, I need those papers that I misplaced again and I expect you to magically know that I put them in a folder for a completely different year.’  I love the guy but he gets real bitchy about things.”

“Alexander,” Laurens started, “my _father_ ’s a trustee, he’s on the planning committee for this.  He goes every year.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton’s eyes widened.  “Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton paused.  “So come anyway.  I mean, fuck it.  You invited me to your house over break, do you really think he’ll just never figure it out?”  Hamilton waited until it was clear that he wasn’t going to get a response.  “I will never understand you.  Just come anyway.  Okay?  I promise I will do my utmost to avoid him.”

“I know some good places we can try for a suit.”

“I was just gonna rent one.”

“As if this is going to be the last black tie event you’ll get invited to.  I’ll take you to find one.  Besides, your next fitting should be by someone more qualified than Lafayette.”

 

“He’d have a turtle.”

“I don’t think he would agree.”

“Too bad, he’s not here.”

Hamilton and Lafayette were sitting halfway up the bleachers at the edge of the open air field, eating lunch while they watched the team practice.  Laurens was down on the lowest bench sitting next to the supplies and the assistant coach.

“I’d have a horse,” Lafayette claimed, taking a bite of his perogi. “And it would still be white so I could still call it Jean le Blanc.”

“Your patronus would not be a horse,” Hamilton argued.  “No way.  You’d have, like, a budgie or something.  A horse is too dignified.”

“I am dignified,” Lafayette said, offended.

“Yeah, like a budgie.”

“You have the worst taste.  I would be a horse and John would be one of Adrienne’s large white dogs.”

“The animals don’t actually have to be white, you know.”

“You’d be a persian.”

“ _I’d_ be a unicorn.  They’re a real animal in that ‘verse, that counts.”  Hamilton paused, watching as Andre did ladders.  “Right, before I forget again, two things about parties I need to tell you.  One, I ran into Andre and told him to come to Mulligan’s for Halloween.  I ran that pantless idea by him, by the way, loved it, so that’s definitely going to be the theme.  Two—did you know that Washington knew John and I are dating?—because he invited me to that trustees thing and told me to bring him.”

“Oh, that," Lafayette said, avoiding having to answer the question. "I’m going to that, too!”

“Not to sound too salty about you stealing my thunder, but why?”

“Why not?”

“That can’t be your answer for everything,” Hamilton said, trailing off slightly as the players on the field dropped en masse to do pushups. 

Lafayette hit him upside the head.  “John is _right there_.”

Hamilton rubbed his head.  “What?  I didn’t do anything!”

Lafayette sniffed disapprovingly and put his food down.  “To answer your question more specifically, I made a small donation to the school and they are thanking me with an invitation.”

“Wait, don’t tell me you’re the anonymous donor to the language department.”

“I never said that.”

“Jesus, Lafayette, that was a hell of a lot of money!  I walked in this morning to a flurry of hush hush paperwork and spent an hour looking up a loophole big enough to sneak it in without bringing it to the attention of anyone in the department it's actually going to since for tax purposes it's better to run it ASAP but they're not _allowed_ to know about it until next fiscal year!"

Lafayette shrugged.  “It seemed uncouth to brag.”

“Friggin’ rich people problems.  If I had donated that much you can bet that everyone in the entire city would know.”

“Everyone on the East Coast would know.  You are chronically unable to shut up.”

“Mm,” Hamilton agreed as Andre stood up, smiling brightly as he joked with one of the other players.

“Except for when you are checking people out!”  Lafayette shoved him.  “Stop that, it’s very rude.”

“You don’t need to defend John’s honor or some shit, I’m just appreciating the eye candy.”

“You’re practically undressing the eye candy,” Lafayette complained, taking out his phone to make a note of that term.  “Stop objectifying the pretty boy.”

“See?  Even you think he’s pretty!”

“That’s different.  I can acknowledge physical beauty without trying to figure out how to invite him to a _menage à trois_.”

“I’d do it by letter, like in a joke so if it was too real I could just say I was kidding and why is he making it weird.”

Lafayette just gave him a look and Hamilton shrugged unapologetically. 

“You are the worst, sir,” Lafayette muttered, picking up his food again.

“Oh, come on, I’m not even hitting on him.”

“You asked him out!”

“I did not, I told him he should come to a group event since he’s John’s friend.  There’s a world of difference there.  Get off your high horse.”

“Ah, so you agree that I would have Jean le Blanc?”

“That’s not what that means and you know it.”

“I think that you would not have a persian—”

“Damn right, I’d get a freakin’ tom cat.”

“—I think that you would have a limpet instead.”

Hamilton paused, his fork halfway to his mouth and for a moment actually lost for words.  “…The hell?”

“Yes, it is perfect,” Lafayette agreed with himself.  “It is small and unassuming but it can never let things go.”

“A friggin’ _limpet_?!”

“See?”  Lafayette smiled as Hamilton shut up, having accidentally proven his point.  “Ah, the more I think about it the better it gets.”

“This is stupid.”

“You constantly put your foot in your mouth and you are so clingy.”

“Okay, the foot thing I’ll give you, but you’re full of shit on the rest of that.”

“Am I?  This little distraction aside, which even you say is not going to go anywhere, you’ve been practically joined at the hip to John since he got injured.  No, before that, it just wasn’t as obvious until now.”

Hamilton, red, turned away.

“Washington saw the two of you at his house the other weekend.  Think about it, Alexander, it was probably obvious from the moment John showed up in the middle of the night with you instead of by himself.  And don’t tell me you haven’t talked about him at all while you are at work, I can’t believe that you never let your mouth run while you are filling things away.”

“Fine,” Hamilton muttered, watching as Laurens and Andre talked.  “I’d have a friggin’ limpet, but my animangus gets to be a tom cat.”

“Fair enough,” Lafayette agreed as people began to gather up their things and disperse.  “I have a brief date with _mon coeur_.  I told John I wanted privacy while we talked.”

“While you touch yourself, more like it.”

“Don’t be so crass.”  Lafayette got up.  “Not all of us are animals.”

Hamilton started to follow Lafayette off the bleachers, then stopped to get his phone out as it vibrated in his pocket.

 

> J. Laurens: I’m going to help clean up, I’ll catch you later.

 

Hamilton stared at it, puzzled for a moment, then looked down at the field where Laurens was putting his phone away and talking to a couple of his teammates.

 

> A. Hamilton: You’ve only got one arm, John

 

He watched as he slipped his phone out of his front pocket just enough to read the message on the screen, then put it back and felt a sudden sharp sting.  

 

> A. Hamilton: We’re friends!  I could be here to

 

Hamilton paused for several long seconds, realizing that he didn’t know how to finish that sentence.  Why would he be there, anyway?  It would be one thing if Lafayette had stayed, but on his own, waiting out on the field?  He put the phone away without sending the text and descended from the bleachers without checking to see if Laurens had seen him leave.


	35. Beefcake Soup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Frustrated; *Soaking in the Water, Stewing in a Couple of Arguments

Lafayette lay back on his bed in the empty dorm room, his computer in his lap, propped up against his knees

“No,” he explained to Adrienne over the video feed, “they’re not here.  And you?”

“I’m going out in a little while.”

“A little while?”

“Maybe thirty minutes…”

Lafayette smiled and slid his hand down.  “Oh, then there is no need to rush.”

“I miss you, my dearheart.”

He smiled at her use of the pet name.  “I miss you too, Adrienne.”

She blushed faintly.  “Show me.”

Lafayette froze.  “What?”

Adrienne repeated herself.  “Show me.  I know what you are doing and I want to see.”

Lafayette set the laptop to the side, angling the screen and then undoing his pants and sliding them down so he was exposed to her view.  He took himself in hand and began to toy with his cock, getting harder faster than he would normally just from knowing that she was watching.  He put one leg down so he could tip his hips towards the screen, giving her a better view as he worked his hardening length.  He watched her face, saw her bite at her lower lip, and reached behind his pillow to grab a bottle of lube.  He paused for a moment to pour some into his hand and then took hold of himself again, letting out a low moan at how slick it was and then how it started to heat up.

“Adrienne…”

“What is it?”  She asked softly.  “Tell me.”

“Ah—”  He was moving his hips slowly into his grip and he half laughed at the question.  “It’s warm.”

“Like me?”

His hips bucked a little at that.  “Mn.  No.  Not like, not like you.”  He tightened his grip just a little, giving himself more friction to work with.  “It’s never like you.”

His eyes were closed but he could hear the smile in her voice.  “I’m glad.”

“You’re cruel,” he groaned.  “I wish I could _feel_ you—”

“Adrienne, we’re going to be late!”

Adrienne gave a little startled scream and leapt up and Lafayette snapped his eyes open just in time to see the door open and her laptop slam shut.

He lay on his side for several seconds, hand still on his cock and eyes open wide in shock.

“…Fuck!”  

He sat up, still hard.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

Lafayette grabbed his pillow and threw it against the wall on the other side of the room in frustration, then leaned forward against the mattress with one hand, his other moving fast and hard over his shaft.  He closed his eyes again, imagining that Adrienne was there with him, lying just underneath him instead of across an ocean.  He pictured her delicate jawline and the soft curve of her neck and he gripped the sheet, remembering what it was like to cup and squeeze her breasts and to suck them… 

With a feral growl he lowered himself onto where she should be, pressing his forehead against the bed and fucking his hand and the mattress, thrusting harder into it than he would into her were she actually present.  He could almost feel her soft skin and her nails digging into his shoulder blades.  His breath was coming fast and ragged and he swore again, speeding up and eager to finish and he let it tear through him, sudden and messy, and held himself up just off the bed on his arms and knees, unsatisfied.

 

Laurens came back to the dorm that afternoon and put his bag down on his bed and, with a confused look, tossed Lafayette’s pillow back to his side of the room.

 

> J. Laurens: Hey Alex

> J. Laurens: Are you free later?

> A. Hamilton: Maybe.  Why?

> J. Laurens: Thinking about when you came over the other day.

> A. Hamilton: ha

> A. Hamilton: yeah

> J. Laurens: Can I use your tub?

> A. Hamilton: uh

> A. Hamilton: are you high?

> A. Hamilton: I don’t have a tub.

> A. Hamilton: I mean that as an expression but also no seriously

> A. Hamilton: after the other day i kind of have to ask

> J. Laurens: I’m going to come over.

 

Back in his apartment Hamilton stared at the phone and then put it to the side, picking up his book again.  He was still reading when he buzzed Laurens in and waited until he was at the end of his paragraph before getting the door for him.

“Are you busy?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “What are you here for?”

“I told you.”  Laurens took off his sling, rubbing his shoulder as he headed for the bathroom carrying a box of epson salt.  “I need to use your tub.”

Hamilton followed him, stopping in the doorway as Laurens stepped over the low wall of the shower and started filling it.  “You’re serious?  John, that’s not a tub.  I’ve never even…  Whatever, knock yourself out.  I’m finishing my book.”  He left, shutting the door behind him.

It only took about fifteen minutes for Hamilton to regret having said that.  

He caught himself looking up from the page for the hundredth time after the sound of running water had stopped, unable to get the image of Laurens, naked and wet, out of his mind.

He finally gave in, putting the book down and knocking at the door.  

“God, John, do you have to be taking a bath now?  I was going to read for next semester.  It’s like beefcake soup in there.”

“Don’t come in, I’m soaking my shoulder.”

Hamilton paused, then opened the door anyway.

“Hey—!”

The stall was just long enough for Laurens to lie on his back with his shoulders barely submerged against the far end and his legs propped up against the other wall on either side of the spigot.

Hamilton stared.

“I told you not to come in,” Laurens complained, trying to sit up but mostly just getting stuck and splashing water out onto the floor.  “I thought it was a little bigger than this.”

Hamilton started to laugh, coming over to stand right in front of the tub.  “Oh my God, J., you look so stupid.”

Laurens winced as he pushed off his bad side and Hamilton knelt in front of him, putting his hand on the side of his face and turning it slowly up so he could kiss him.  He ran the other one over Laurens’ wet chest, smiling into the kiss as Laurens leaned into his touch.

“Do you still want me to go?”

“Stay.  But,” he added as Hamilton’s hand moved south, “go sit over there.”

“The fuck?  That’s not fair!”

Laurens settled back down into the water.  “I told you, I need to soak my shoulder.”

Hamilton scowled but he sat on the floor against the door.  “You suck.”

“Mm.”  The corner of Laurens’ mouth quirked up.  “Maybe later.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“Alexander,” Laurens warned, his eyes closed.

“You started that one!  What kind of weird line is ‘I want to come over and use your tub’ anyway?”

“It wasn’t a line, it was the truth.”

“I hope you at least scrubbed that thing out first.  I haven’t washed it since I moved in.  Doesn't matter to _me_ , I’m just standing in it when I jerk off, I’m not the one steeping.”

Laurens frowned and opened one eye.  “‘Steeping’?”

“Like tea.”

Laurens laughed and shifted down a little, closing his eyes again and not seeing how Hamilton was watching the water lap at his body.  “You’re so strange.”

“Yeah, that’s rich, you’re the one who didn’t mind me and Lafayette staring at the back of your head for an hour but told me to get lost as soon as you were done.”

Laurens hesitated before answering.  “That’s different.”

“Ha.”

“It is, okay?  You guys weren’t even really supposed to be there.”

“I didn’t see anyone complaining.”

“That’s because you weren’t…”  He stopped himself.

“Weren’t what?”

“I was going to say ‘in the way,’” Laurens admitted.  “That’s not quite right.  Look, it would have been embarrassing if you were a girl, too.”

“If I was a girl you’d just be the worst homosexual ever.”

“You know what I mean, it’s like if I were to just show up at your class or place of work and loiter outside and then hang around while you finished things up.  Wouldn’t you find that weird?”

“I’d find it flattering.”

“That’s just because I’m hot.”

Hamilton sat up straight.  “Excuse me, are you implying that you’re the hot one?”

“I never said that,” Laurens grinned, intentionally arching his chest more out of the water, rivulets running down his sides and his muscles gleaming.

“Try again sometime when you’re not in the freaking birthing position,” Hamilton said a little sharply as he slouched back down.

“Come on, Alexander, I heard you and Lafayette talking about eye candy.”

“We weren’t talking about you—”  

Laurens opened his eyes now and turned his head to look at him.  “What do you mean?”

Hamilton briefly weighed his options.  “Guys in tight shorts.  In general.”

Laurens turned his head back and closed his eyes.  “Didn’t think Lancelot was into that.”

“He thinks Andre’s pretty.”

Laurens laughed again.  “Yeah, I mean…  Yeah.  I can see that.”

Hamilton looked at him, a little suspiciously.  “You can?”

“I’m not blind, Alex.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“You know, you’re a lot more talkative about this sort of thing now.  This time last year I thought you were straight just by default.  I mean, serves me right to assume, but the point still stands.  Just twelve months later and you’re naked in my shower with your ass in the air.”

Laurens rolled his neck to the side, taking his hand out of the water and rubbing at a crick in it.  “You’ve got a real way with words.”

“You’re more assertive, too.  Showy.  Or maybe you always were and I just never noticed.  Whatever,” he flipped his hand in the air in front of him.  “I like it.”

“Do you?”

“John Laurens with a little bit of bite?  Hell yeah.  It makes the football thing make a lot more sense, too.”

“You could have come to the games before, you know.”

“True, but why bother?  I wasn’t sleeping with one of the star players.  Number eighteen wasn’t yet my eighteenth.  Ha, I like that.  When your shoulder’s better I’m totally putting that on a sign and taking it down to games.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“‘John Laurens:  _My_ Number Eighteen!’  Shit, it’s not quite self-explanatory enough.  Maybe I should attach a list of names before yours so it’s clearer.  Or dates and locations?  I’m actually more certain of those…”

“Alexander, that’s fucked up—”

Hamilton stopped abruptly, drawing back a little in surprise.

“—I don’t like being reminded how long your Goddamn list is.”

“Don’t call me a slut.”  Hamilton got up angrily.  “And let me have one fucking macho thing, I let you do what you want every time.  Shit!”  He slammed the door behind him as he left.

Hamilton was stacking up books with much more force than necessary when Laurens came out of the bathroom, dripping wet and holding a towel around his waist.

“Alexander.”

“Fuck off."

“I’m sorry.”

Hamilton scoffed but turned to face him, arms folded.

“I just—I don't like the implication that I’m another number.”

Hamilton’s expression softened slightly.  “It was a joke, John.  You gotta joke about shit.”

“It’s a little more than a joke.”

“Don’t sound so touchy.  You want to know shit?  Ask me, I’ll tell you.  We’ve already been over this,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk, “so, fine, just get it out in the open.  I was fourteen, her name was Celia, does that help?”

“You’re kidding me.”

Hamilton shrugged.

“And you weren’t dating.  Did you like her at all?”

“I wrote her a poem.  How did it go… ‘Celia’s an artful little slut;—”

“…Seriously.”

“‘—Be fond, she’ll kiss, _et cetera_ —but, / She must have all her will; / For, do but rub her ‘gainst the grain / Behold a storm, blow winds and rain, / Go bid the waves be still.’”

Laurens ran a hand over his face.

“I got it published in the paper.  Told them I was seventeen.”

“Alexander, that’s not okay.”

“I was fourteen and recently orphaned.  Obviously I wasn’t making great life choices.”

Laurens’ voice got more serious.  “I’m sorry.”

Hamilton shrugged that off.  “It’s fine.  It’s not like it’s a secret.”

Laurens pulled the chair out and sat in it in front of him, carefully holding the towel in place.  “My mother…”

“I know,” Hamilton said when it was apparent that he wasn’t going to finish that thought.

Laurens nodded.

“I know a lot of it was fucked up,” Hamilton said as the silence threatened to get too long.  “But it’s in the past.  Just trust me.  Okay?  I like you.”

Laurens leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Hamilton’s waist and put his head in his lap.  Hamilton sat up straighter for a moment, surprised and not exactly sure what to do, then ran his fingers through his wet hair as he spoke.

“I trust you,” Laurens said finally.

Hamilton took one of his hands and slid off the desk.  “Did the bath help?”

Laurens got up and then lay on the futon, tugging him down next to him.  “Not really.  Maybe a little.”

“I told you I don’t have a tub.  Let me see.”  

Laurens tipped his head away to give Hamilton a better view.  Hamilton traced the faint scratches on it with a finger, then leaned down and kissed it, then his jaw, curling into him and putting his hand on his chest.  Laurens turned onto his side, shoulder be damned, and put his arm over him, pulling him close to his body and breathing deeply.

“J.,” Hamilton said, pulling away, “turn over.”  

He did, looking a little confused, and Hamilton climbed over him, lying back down.

“There.  It’s not like there wasn’t an easy solution to that,” he teased, sliding his arm back into place.

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“Clearly.  You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

“Ah, so you were talking abut me with Lafayette.”

“There you go again being cocky.”

“You’re not bad looking yourself.”  Laurens kissed his temple.  “You’re the hottest guy I ever slept with.”

“Thanks.  Real high praise, coming from you.”  Hamilton rolled his eyes dramatically, but he was trying to hide a smile.

“Come on.  You’d say the same thing.”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton tipped his face up and kissed him lightly.  “You got me.  I think you’re fucking fine, John Laurens.”

Laurens grinned.

“You’re kind of a moron, though,” Hamilton continued, “You wanna just take a painkiller for that if it’s bothering you that much?  I got off-brand ibuprofen.”

“I can—”

“I know you _can_ deal with it, obviously,” Hamilton cut him off.  “But maybe take something so you don’t pop it out again trying to find a way to contort yourself into my shower.”

“Yeah.  Okay.  Later.  I don’t want you to get up.”

Hamilton smiled a little.  “Hey, be the tiebreaker.  Lafayette says that you’d have a white dog but I think—”

“My patronus would be a dragon.”  Laurens cut him off.  “I had this argument plenty of times as a kid.  Don’t think I won’t fight you for it—I beat my sister, I’ve got no qualms about taking you.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Hamilton laughed.  “We were just kidding around.  I didn’t realize this was such a big deal.”

“Didn’t you get into it when you were a kid?  I wrote my sister a fake acceptance letter when she turned eleven and she just about fainted.”

“I never actually read them.”

Laurens leaned away a little so he could look at him better.  “What?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “I know the gist of it, I wasn’t living under a rock.  I think I saw one of the movies once?  Uh, what year did the fifth one come out?”

Laurens propped himself up on his good arm.  “Did you not have any normal interests as a kid?”

“‘Liking girls’ is pretty normal.”

“Ha.  I overheard my dad once telling his friend that he supposed it was a good thing I still wasn’t interested in them because it meant my grades were good.”

Hamilton snorted and laughed. 

“Hey,” he said once he recovered himself, “Come out with me this weekend.”

“You mean like a date?”

“Yeah.  You’ve got your new shoes so you can coordinate something pretty and I’ll pick you up at your door with flowers,” Hamilton teased.  “Carolina jessamine, right?”

“Wrong time of year for that.”

“We’re in the greatest city in the world, I bet I could find some.  Come on, John, we won’t go to campus or your dad’s office and I promise I won’t try to get us arrested for public indecency.”

“Fine.”

“Yeah?”

Laurens kissed him and leaned more into it when Hamilton put his hand on the back of his neck, encouraging him to deepen it.

“Look,” he said after a minute, “about before, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t ruin it.”

“Right.”  Laurens kissed him again and slowly rolled on top of him, making a short surprised noise as Hamilton pressed hard into his thigh.  “Alexander?”

Hamilton started to turn red.  “Your towel came down back when you rolled over the first time.  I didn’t want to say anything.”

“I was wrong,” Laurens said with an amused shake of his head.  “You can be subtle.”

Hamilton tugged the cloth off all the way and tossed it to the side.  “More than you.”  He ran his hands up his legs and grabbed his ass with a grin.

Laurens raised a brow.

“…Okay, maybe not now.  Shit, look, just help me get out of this.”  He slipped his arms under Laurens’ and started undoing his shirt.  Laurens lifted off of him a little to give him room and then began to kiss his neck and collar, his hand stroking the other side of his face and touching his mouth.  

“Mm… J., that’s not helping…”  Hamilton tipped his face towards his hand, his eyes closed. 

“You have space.”  Laurens’ voice was soft and Hamilton started when his lips brushed over his ear, then gave a soft groan when he bit at his lobe.

Hamilton ran his hands over Laurens’ bare chest and down his sides and took just the tip of one of his fingers into his mouth and sucked on it for a moment.

Laurens took his hand just out of reach.  “Finish undressing.”

Hamilton whined in frustration, running his hands over his body again before slowly taking them away to finish working the buttons on his shirt.  Laurens moved his hand back and slid two fingers into his mouth, letting out a long low breath as he sucked on them and then flicked the tip of his tongue over them as he pulled them away.  Hamilton grinned as he felt Laurens starting to get hard and he arched off the mattress, tugging his pants down.  Laurens sat back, pulling them off the rest of the way and putting his hand very high on Hamilton’s inner thigh.

Hamilton propped himself up on his elbows.  “By the—” He tipped his head back, eyes closed again, and the rest of his words dying in his throat as Laurens slowly took him into his mouth.  “Mn, Jesus _fuck_ , John,” he finally managed to get out as Laurens moved off him.  “You remembered your promise.”

Laurens ran his tongue up along the underside of Hamilton’s shaft to a shuddering moan, then took just the head in his mouth.  “Of course.”  His lips brushed over Hamilton’s tip and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.  Laurens glanced up.  “Don’t do that.”

“What…?”

“Talk to me.”  Laurens slid his mouth over him again and Hamilton groaned, taking his hand away and tipping his hips forward.  Laurens sat back and Hamilton made a sound of protest.

“That’s not talking,” Laurens said.  “Come on, Alexander, I get to make one request.”

“Th-that’s your… Fine, I’ll—ah…”

Laurens had taken him in his mouth again and Hamilton briefly lost track of where he was going with that.

“Ah, J., when you were,” he swallowed dryly, “above me, it was driving me crazy, I just—wanted to touch you all over.”

Laurens was moving slowly back and forth over him and Hamilton sat up, putting his hand on his good shoulder and the other on the mattress behind him.

“Shit.  It’s,” he paused, “difficult—I’m not giving you the obvious joke there—to do this when you’re, ah, doing… that.  You know this is one of the, of the only times I feel like,” he stopped for a moment again to steady his voice, “I feel like my mind is clear?  When you’re—when I’m—”

Laurens had just his head in his mouth and was running his tongue around the rim, slowly working his length with his hand.  Hamilton bit his lip.

“—Like my mind is clear.  That’s why I texted you the other week, I didn’t—want to _think_ …”

“Write me something.”

“What?”  Hamilton sounded a little desperate and Laurens started to move his hand faster as he talked.  

“Not on paper.  With your words.  Write me a poem since you’re so good at that.”

“John…”  Hamilton protested.  Obviously Laurens had not been listening to what he had been trying to tell him.

“Write me one,” Laurens said, his lips just brushing over him and his hand slowing dangerously.  “Or I’m stopping altogether.”

Hamilton started talking quickly without pausing to even try to think through the content or rhyme scheme.  “John’s got an artful, well-shaped—Hey!”

Laurens had had to sit back quickly, laughing hard.

“John!”

“Was that next word really going to be ‘butt’?” 

Hamilton was bright red and he tossed the pillow at him.  “Yeah, and then I was going to work in a rhyme about kicking it!”

“Sorry, sorry.”  He was still laughing as he rubbed at his shoulder.  “I can’t…  I’m gonna choke, I’ll take a rain check and make it up to you later, I promise.”

“Well, you ruined it, thanks,” Hamilton complained, grabbing his clothes and getting up.

“I ruined it?  You’re the one who—”  Laurens couldn’t finish that sentence.

“Jackass,” Hamilton muttered, going into the bathroom and shutting the door.  A moment later he yelled, “For Chrissake, John, you could have at least drained the fucking tub!”  The shower started running anyway.


	36. Seriously Though, Lafayette Knows Everyone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First Job; Advice; Escort; Adelaide and Aglae

> A. Hamilton: I need to talk to you about this coming weekend

> G. Lafayette: Je suis au travail.

> A. Hamilton: wtf? since when do you have a job?

 

The answer was since that very week.

Lafayette put his phone face down on the table and turned back to the girl sitting next to him.  “ _Excusez-moi.  Où sommes-nous?  Ah, bien_.”

He took the pencil from behind his ear and circled one of the words on her worksheet.  “This is the direct object pronoun.  Do you see?  It replaces the object that is being acted upon by the verb.  ‘ _Je t’aime_.’  ‘I love…'”  He paused, waiting for her to fill in the pronoun.

“‘You.’”

Lafayette smiled.  “ _Très bien._ ”

He looked up as the door to the room opened and Andre walked in and signed in on the language tutor sheet.

“Oh, hey,” he said with a smile.  “I didn’t know you worked here.  You’re not usually on at this time, are you?”

“I just started,”  Lafayette explained as his phone buzzed again and he picked it back up with a sigh.  “ _C’est une première impression terrible_.  _Excusez-moi_ ,” he said to Andre and his client.

 

> A. Hamilton: anyway I need to talk to you, can you come by gwash’s office when you’re off? i’ll go on break 

> G. Lafayette: Fine, I’ll see you there

> A. Hamilton:  great, thanks,.

 

When Lafayette finished his shift shortly later, Andre was still there, doing his own homework as he waited for his scheduled client to arrive.  Lafayette stopped at his table on the way out, addressing him in French.

“John Andre.  You’re coming on Halloween?”

Andre looked up.  “Yeah, uh, Laurens’ friend invited me.”

“Alexander.”

“Right.  Did he tell you?”

Lafayette nodded.  “We’re friends as well.”  He checked his watch and then sat down at the table.  He had a few minutes to kill.  “Have you known Laurens long?”

“We roomed together our first year,” Andre explained, closing his book.  “I guess we were friends before college actually started,” he continued, “since we were both on the team already and had to get here early for pre-season training.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, nodding.  “I see.  But you don’t live in the dorms anymore?”

“I left as soon as it was an option,” Andre said.  “Laurens’ father wanted him to stay on campus.”

“Oh,” Lafayette repeated.  “I didn’t know that.”  He could have guessed, having overheard enough snatches of phone calls, but he crossed his arms on the table and put an innocently curious look on his face.  “He doesn’t say much about his father, but it sounds like he is very strict.”

“Yeah,” Andre agreed.  “He can be demanding.  His mother—”  Andre caught himself and only barely faltered before smoothly correcting himself.  If Lafayette hadn’t already been paying close attention he wouldn’t have caught it, hidden in the very casual, almost surfer boy, intonation.  “—My mother, sorry, I hardly ever use this much French anymore.  My mother’s very strict too, so I can relate to that.”

“Are your parents French?”  Lafayette asked, putting his chin in one hand and pretending not to have picked up on anything.  “When you came here, did they make you go through that special orientation for foreign students?”

“My father is French, but I was born here, so I missed all of that.  It looked kind of fun.”

“Mm, it was,” Lafayette agreed, “but not in the way they intended.”  Andre looked confused but he didn’t bother to clarify.  “I grew up in Chavaniac, do you know it?  It’s near Le Puy.”  He took out his phone and pulled it up on a map to show him.  “My grandmother and aunts still live there,” he continued, “but I spent the last few years in Paris.”

“I see.”  Andre studied the map carefully.  “I haven’t been to Paris in years.  My father’s in Zurich,” he explained.  “Laurens stayed with us for a little while after freshman year.  He visited you in France as well, didn’t he?  It sounded like he had a really great time.”

Lafayette smiled, pleased with the compliment and with how the conversation had gone, and put his phone away.  “I hope so.  I have to go to class, but before I forget, I wanted to let you know that Halloween is a themed event and that we are also going to have a group costume.  You’re welcome to join us if you would like.”

Andre smiled.  “That would be great, thanks.  What’s the theme and what’s the costume?”

“We are going to be continental soldiers,” Lafayette said with a playful grin.  “Is that all right?”

Andre nodded.  “That sounds good to me.  And the theme?”

Lafayette stood and hitched his bag up on his shoulder with a wink.  “Don’t bother with the pants.”

 

Lafayette walked in familiarly to Washington’s office, taking a deep breath of the familiar cologne.  “Alex?”

“Lafayette.”  Washington stepped out of the inner room when he heard him come in.  “Hamilton’s just typing something up for me, he’ll be right out.”

Lafayette broke out into a broad smile when he saw him.  “Ah, it’s not a problem.  We won’t be long.  How are you?”

“Fine, fine.  Did you get your invitation to the dinner in the mail yet?  Hamilton,” he started to turn back to the door.

“They’re being sent out in the morning,” Hamilton shouted from the other side.

Washington and Lafayette both nodded.

“I hear Laurens is doing better.  And how is your Adrienne?”

“She is doing very well, thank you!  I will tell her that you asked after her, she sends her regards, like always.  She is working on a new project for school right now.  I’ll show you the pictures of her work in progress on her blog next Sunday.”

“She’s a very talented girl,” Washington said, taking a step to the side as Hamilton came out, pulling on his jacket.  “Where are you two off to?”

“We’re just going out to grab some air,” Hamilton said, motioning for Lafayette to follow him as he headed for the door.  “I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Lafayette waved cheerily as they stepped out into the hallway, then turned to Hamilton.  “ _Alors_ ,” he started in French, “ _Qu’est-ce que le problème?_ ”

“ _Le problème_ ,” Hamilton said, following along with his choice of language, “is that I asked John out this weekend and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Is that all?  You made it sound like it was something serious.”

“It is serious, Lafayette!”

“Alex, it’s easy,” Lafayette said reassuringly as they rode the elevator down to the first floor.  “You’re already dating him so you don't need to win him over, and you know what he likes.  Art, sports… Take him to the MET or to a game and then back to your apartment.”

Hamilton was chewing his bottom lip.

“You’ve been on dates before.”

“Yeah, but… Not with anyone I really _liked_.  That’s not quite true,” he clarified, switching back into English as they got out of the elevator.  “I liked basically all of them.  I just didn’t, I don’t know, this is stupid.  What I mean is, it’s not like I was actually trying to date them, like over an extended period of time, I just wanted to go on dates, individual nights, with them.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I see.”

“Anyway, I figured you’re a sap and you know him.  I just want it to be _just_ there,” he put his hands a couple of inches apart in the air in front of his face.  “You know?  Like to actually be something cool without getting too weird.”  He glanced up at Lafayette.

“You’ll do a good job,” Lafayette reassured him, a little additionally enthusiastic because of how Hamilton had appealed to his vanity (intentionally, with his words, and then unintentionally, with the anxious way he had said them).  “What did you think of my suggestion?”

“Yeah, that could work.  We could get something to eat there, too, pay out the nose, then take him back…”  Hamilton trailed off as he thought.   “I don’t know.  You’re going to be out Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“What time are you leaving?”

“I was planning on going around one.”

“Right.  You think you can sign off on a delivery for me before you head out?”

 

Laurens checked the time on the clock in the hall as he waited.  11:27.  He glanced at the door next to him, starting to grow antsy.  

“This was a dumb idea,” he muttered to himself as one of the other nearby doors opened and students headed out.  He took out his phone and checked the time on it as well (11:26, the first clock was slightly fast) and then opened up his email, trying to look busy.

Other classes were starting to get out now and then the door next to him opened, a couple of students chatting to each other as they passed by him without a glance.  Laurens stood awkwardly to the side as more people left, then tapped Hamilton on the shoulder as he stepped out the door.

“Hey.”

Hamilton looked surprised and stopped walking in the middle of the flow of people.  “Hi.”  He got jostled and remembered to move to the side, next to the wall.  “What are you doing…” He grinned.  “Well, I guess I was right.  I am flattered.  Are you going to carry my books for me, too?”

“I can get them,” Laurens began, putting out his right hand.

“It was a joke, John.”  Hamilton started walking again and Laurens fell into step alongside him.  “Are you actually walking me to my next class?”

“Economic Macrocosms.”

“Good recall.  A little creepy, I would like to add.”

“I had to check your schedule to know where to find you,” Laurens admitted.  “You had it on your desk the other day.”

“Does that mean you were planning this?  This isn’t just you deciding spur of the moment to prove a point for me because you had some free time?  Stop trying to one-up me before Sunday.”

“I see you picked a day.”

“And a time.  I’ll come by at noon.”

“That’s early,” Laurens said, throwing an awkward glance at someone he recognized. 

“Yeah, it’s an all-day sort of event.  All-night too, if I have any—”

“Right, noon, I’ll be ready.”  Laurens cut him off.

Hamilton grinned again.  “Great.  You can run in those things, right?  You’ve broken them in enough?”

Laurens glanced down at his shoes.  “Uh, yeah.  Should I ask why?”

“And ruin the mystery of it all?  Stop being such a pragmatist, John.”

Laurens’ mouth twitched up in a slight smile.  “Speaking pragmatically, should I bring cash or is charge okay?”

“Nuh-uh, no way.  I’m the one dragging you out right after you get back from practice, I’m paying.  You can make it up to me some other time.”

“That doesn’t sound like reliable economics.”

“Are you kidding me?  I’ve just described the basis of the friggin’ gift economy.  This is like a pre-runner of our modern credit system, John.  I give you something in advance with the understanding that you’ll pay me back in the future, it’s totally _reliant_ on an uneven exchange, you don’t want direct reciprocity here or the whole thing just falls apart in one ‘wham bam thank you ma’am, handing over the goods for the services, have a nice day’ without even a ‘please come again.’  I’m not saying you want something this loose set up on a really large scale, with a myriad of complex relationships, but on a smaller—”

“All right, I get it.  You’re not in class yet.”

“Yeah?  Then how come you just got _schooled_?”

Laurens laughed, relaxing as they kept walking and no one paid them a second glance except to get out of Hamilton’s way as he gestured and mimicked an explosion on the last word.  “Touché.”

“That’s my building,” Hamilton said with a nod as they neared.  “You don’t need to come up.  Oh, one more thing,” he added as he split off.  “Far be it from me to meddle in your fashion choices, but you’ll probably want to wear black.”

 

Lafayette crossed the street from his subway station, tucking his metro pass back into his yoga bag—the same navy as his matching pants—his hair tied back and any remaining curls kept out of his way behind a bold red elastic headband.  He entered one of the buildings and cheerfully greeted the woman at the front desk before heading down the stairs into an underground room, its cement walls painted a soothing light blue.

“Good morning,” he said to the class in general as he unrolled his mat in his standard spot about a third of the way from the back.  He was one of about thirty students, the vast majority of them girls from the university or surrounding area.  The room was kept at a sweltering thirty-three degrees celsius (ninety-two fahrenheit, Lafayette did the conversion in his head for practice) and Lafayette unzipped his jacket and took off his shirt, putting them both aside.  He had signed up for a yoga class the previous semester through the campus gym because it had seemed interesting and like the trendy American thing to do, and while he had not been particularly good at it he had enjoyed it and switched facilities when he heard some of the other students talking about off campus lessons.  The demographics of the class were an enjoyable change from otherwise spending much of his time with Laurens and Hamilton, and…

“ _Salut_ , Adelaide,” he said with a smile as the instructor walked in.  Adelaide had been one of two young instructors who had traded off on the class the previous semester—or had there been more than two?  Lafayette had not been attending particularly regularly, not until he realized that she was also recently come to the _États-Unis_ , although from a different francophone country.  By the time he had realized, it had been too late to do more than attempt to get her attention as a fellow ex-pat and then follow after her when she passed out fliers for her normal class off campus.

“ _Salut!_ ”  Adelaide returned his greeting as she walked past and set up the music at the back of the room.

“How has your week been?”  He asked her in French, standing a little awkwardly by the edge of his mat.

“It’s been fine,” she responded fluently, her accent low and rolling, more so than his.  “And yours?  How is your friend’s shoulder?”

“He’s doing much better, thank you.  My week was not very interesting, just work.”

“And class,” she corrected him as the stereo system turned on and she moved to the front of the room.

“Yes, and this class.”  For a moment Lafayette forgot about the other, academic, classes he was enrolled in.  He watched the sway of her hips, the way the lights moved over her bare shoulders, casting cerulean splashes of shadow on her dark skin.

At the end of the hour Lafayette handed the strawberry blonde next to him her water bottle, picking it up off of the ground with his own.

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem, Aglae.”

She gave him a half smile and took a drink, starting to pack up.

“How are your courses?  What was your major again?”

“World religions.  And, you know, they’re going well.  It’s just the start of the semester, though.”  Her voice was bubbly and upbeat even as her words kept a little distance.  It was the kind of voice that made its speaker sound almost naive.  After speaking with Andre, Lafayette wondered if it was calculated or not.

“True.  My friends are having a Halloween party next month,” he continued, “you should bring your girlfriends.”

“Okay,” Aglae nodded, “I’ll see if they’re doing anything.”

“ _Magnifique_.  I’ll see you there, hopefully.”

She left with a small wave and Lafayette followed her out.  He looked back over his shoulder at Adelaide, standing at the front of the room and checking her messages on a flip-phone.  She looked up from it, met his gaze, and smiled with her mouth closed.  For a moment Lafayette forgot both France and America—there was only the diaspora and the two of them crossing paths in it.


	37. Learning Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gym; Belated Birthday Gag Gifts; MASH; Passing Along Information; Prep; *Experimenting

“Start the French homework yet?”

“No.  I’ll get to it later today.  You?”

“I started the reading.”  Andre tapped the wall at the top of the stairs and turned around, heading back down.  “I’m only five pages in or so, though.”

“Better than me.”  Laurens watched him from the chair he had brought out to the bottom of the stairs in the gym.

“I didn’t know your roommate is a tutor, by the way.”

“Lafayette?  Yeah, he just started.  I was surprised, too.  Do you guys work at the same time?  He mentioned that he’s enjoying that.”

“Yeah.”  Andre headed back up the stairs again.

“You should talk to him sometime.  I think he misses getting to speak the language with people.”

“You know it.”

“Not like you,” Laurens said, calling after him.  “I just study it, I didn’t grow up speaking it.”

“Ha,” Andre would have laughed properly if he wasn't running.  “Just with my father, I’m not actually from Geneva or Paris.”

“Yeah, but he is.”

He touched the wall again and headed back down.

“Andre!”  Von Steuben, an older man, carrying some extra weight but obviously still heavily muscled, shouted from the bottom in a thick German accent.  “ _Halt die Klappe!_   Laurens has an excuse to sit around, you don’t.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Sorry,” Laurens repeated.

“Andre, bars, go!  _Scheiße_ ,” he swore. “And Laurens,” he turned to him as Andre left, waving a dismissive hand at his back, “stop distracting him.”

 

“Do you have any plans for the weekend?”  Andre asked as he left the gym’s locker room with Laurens.

Laurens paused a moment.  “Yeah.  Not quite sure what, though.  What about you?”

“Peggy Shippen and I got back together,” Andre said happily, getting to the real reason he had asked Laurens about his schedule.  “I want to take her out somewhere nice.  I wasn’t really sure where, but I thought it would be a good gesture.”

Laurens nodded.  “Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Do you have any suggestions?  I know you’re usually too busy to go out, but I’ll take anything.”

“Lafayette told me about a good French restaurant.  I’ll tell him to give you the name.”

“Great, thanks.  Hey, you know, if you want, I can see if any of her friends are free.  It’d be fun to do like a double date sort of thing and it might take some of the heat off me this weekend.”

“Sorry, Andre.  Like I said, I’ve already got plans.”

“Yeah, okay, but if they fall through give me a call.”

“So how far do we have to read for French?”  Laurens asked, changing the subject entirely.  “I missed that part in class.”

 

Hamilton leaned away, taking his arms from around Laurens’ neck and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, quickly climbing off of Laurens’ lap as the door to the dorm room opened.

“I got a package,” Lafayette announced happily as Laurens embarrassedly straightened his shirt collar and scooted an inch away from Hamilton.  “I wasn’t expecting one so soon, this is a real surprise!”  He sat down on the floor in the middle of the room to open the box.  “I know she was planning on sending me one in the middle of October—John, help me pick out the most American Halloween candy later, I didn’t realize there were so many options last year.”  He got the tape off and opened it up, taking out a note in Adrienne’s handwriting.  

Hamilton got off the bed and sat next to him to read over his shoulder.  “Belated birthday presents from Louis and Ségeur?”

“ _Oui_ , Louis-Philippe, my old friend.  And you met de Ségeur.”  Lafayette took out several colorfully wrapped packages.  “I’ll call them later to thank them.”

Hamilton picked one up and gave it a shake.  “Kind of heavy.  Any guesses?”

Lafayette took it from him and turned it over in his hands.  “It’s hard to say.  Whatever it is, it’s in a box.  I don’t know what would be this long…”

"It looks like an industrial flashlight,” Laurens commented, leaning forward a little but not getting off the bed.  The other two looked at him.  “What?  I used to go camping a lot.”

Lafayette tore the paper open and Hamilton burst out laughing.  “A fucking fleshlight?  Your fucking future brother in law bought you a Goddamn stroker!  I knew I liked that guy!”  He took the box from Lafayette and opened it without asking permission, taking it out and pointing it at Laurens who made a face and flinched away.  “Industrial enough for you, J.?  I bet you had a hell of a lot of fun on those camping trips.”

“Cut that out, Alexander.  Don’t be disgusting.”

“Wow,” Hamilton commented, touching the rounded, non-anatomical top with undisguised interest, “this thing is soft.  They really went all out and got top of the line fake cunt for your dick.  Personally, I’d prefer one that looked like _something_ , but…”

“Stop touching that!”  Lafayette snatched it back and tossed it onto his bed, one of the other packages in hand.

“What else did they get you?”  Hamilton grabbed the present before the paper was even all the way off.  “Are these eggs?  John, you’re from a farm—”

“The _one time_ you choose to not call it an estate.”

“—did you know we now make silicone eggs for fucking?  This is truly the best of all possible worlds.”  He turned the box over, reading the back.  “You gotta discard them after use?  I take it back, it’ll be the best of all possible worlds when we’ve got some biodegradable sex eggs on the market.”

Lafayette had meanwhile opened the last present and was looking over the box with mild confusion.

“What’s that one?”  Hamilton asked, trading him packages.  “A vibrator for your dick?  Sorry," he clarified, "for your dick head?  Did you know they made this sort of thing?”

“No, and I was fine not knowing,” Laurens answered.

“You’re so vanilla.”

“He’s not actually going to use those,” Laurens argued, then looked over at Lafayette.  “Right?”

“Of course not,” Lafayette said automatically.

“Official party line,” Hamilton said, jumping in again.  “Be more sex positive, John.  At least he’s not asking you to draw him more porn.”

“I don’t think you have room to talk,” Lafayette added, talking to Laurens but taking the box from Hamilton and putting it with the rest of it on his bed.  “At least I never asked Adrienne to hurt me a little.”

Laurens turned red.  “Do you have to tell him everything?”

Hamilton shrugged unapologetically.

 

“Did you ever play MASH as a kid?”

Laurens, leaning against the wall in Hamilton’s apartment, looked up from his book, still a little wary after unpacking things with Lafayette.  “MASH?”

“You know.”  Hamilton was sitting in the middle of the floor with his economics assignment instead of working on it at his desk.  “Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House.  Says who you’re gonna marry and what your job will be.  That fortunetelling game.”

“Oh, right.”  Laurens nodded.  “Yeah, we used to play that.  I haven’t thought about that in years.”

“I used to cheat.”  Hamilton looked back down at his paper and the textbook, writing down the next question and getting started on answering it as he talked.  “I figured out what answers would be left depending on what the number I picked was, so I’d arrange them on purpose and then make sure I got the corresponding number so that I could always get the answer I wanted.”

Laurens shook his head.  “I’m impressed.”

“Nah, kind of takes the fun out of it after a while.  You’re not telling the future, you’re just some kid wasting time by scribbling on a piece of paper.”  Hamilton paused, turned his pencil over, erased the last couple of digits and rewrote them.  “Who’d you put in the marry category?”

Laurens frowned.  “I don’t really remember.  Girls in my class, I guess.”

“I used to put Nia Long down once I figured out how to rig it.”

“Nia Long?  Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?”

“She did other stuff.  More acting.  Motivational speaking.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “She’s hot.  You ever look her up?”

The answer was no, of course, and Laurens closed his book.  “Who did you put before you knew who you were going to get?”

Hamilton finished writing his answer and turned the page.  “I don’t remember.  No one in particular.  It depended on who I was trying to show off for.”

"Your friends?"

Hamilton shrugged.  "Didn't really have any.  That sounds worse than it was.  Didn't have any I didn't need to show off to, so, yeah, by that logic, my friends."  He started on the next problem.  "You had friends as a kid, right?  Your childhood sounds pretty normal for the most part, or maybe that's just you fronting, same as me."

"I had friends," Laurens said, not really answering the real question.  "My best friend was named Francis.  We played sports together."

"Is he the one whose sister you..."

"No, that was someone else.  I knew Francis since we were really young.  We used to play spies," he continued, smiling.  "A different kind of code to break."

"Cute."

"I think I still have the key.  I'll show you over break."

"I'll get fluent," Hamilton warned, teasing. "Read all your super secret spy materials."  

"Are you showing off?"

"Nah."  Hamilton turned his attention more fully back to his homework.  "I'm not pretending, just telling the truth."

 

“Did you talk to your friends?”  Lafayette asked Aglae as he rolled out his mat.

“I did.  I think we’ll be able to make it.  You didn’t give me the address, did you?”

“No.”  Lafayette picked up his phone.  “What’s your number?  I’ll text it to you right now.”

She took the phone from him, her fingers just brushing over his.  “Is it a costume party?”

“ _Oui_ , and there is a theme.”

“Oh?”

“It is a no-pants party,” he said, taking the phone back with a wink, the exact same way he had told Andre, curious if she would roll with it like he had.

She laughed.  “No it isn’t!”

“It is!”  Lafayette insisted as he sent her directions to Mulligan’s apartment.  “You’ll be horribly out of place if you don’t comply.  My friends and I are going as continental soldiers, but only from the waist up.”

“But it’ll be so cold on the trip there and back!”

“All right,” Lafayette relented, “I suppose you can arrive with pants, but you must remove them to enter through the door.”

“That sounds fair.  I’ll let my boyfriend know.”

Lafayette’s smile faltered a little but stayed in place.  “Be sure you do.  It would be a horribly unpleasant surprise otherwise.”

“I don’t know what costume I should wear,” she continued as she lay out her mat next to his.  “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Marie Antoinette,” he responded, and then explained.  “You could have a lot of fun with her costume, _non_?”

Aglae giggled.  “I don’t know, I’ll think about it.  You might be right, it could be fun.”

“It would be dramatic,” Lafayette said.  “And colorful.”

“If I did my hair then we would match,” Aglae said consideringly.  “We’d both have silver.”

“Yes,” Lafayette nodded, sitting and suddenly distracted and disinterested in the conversation as Adelaide made her way to the front of the room, “that’s true.”

 

“I’m surprised you’re keeping up with that,” Laurens commented as Lafayette got back to their room.  “Actually, I’m surprised you got through the regular class.”

“It’s quite enjoyable,” Lafayette said, putting his bag down under his desk, next to the porcelain cat.  “You should try it sometime.”

“No thanks.”

“It might help your shoulder.”

“It might tear my shoulder out of the socket.  I’m not flexible enough for that kind of thing.”

“Ah,” Lafayette said, sitting in his chair with a gleam in his eye.  “But don’t you want to be?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I’m getting at.  I am looking forward _so much_ to when I see Adrienne again.  We are going to have so much fun.”

“Don’t tell me you’re bringing those toys back to France.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Lafayette said with great dignity.  “I _mean_ , John Laurens, that we will be able to explore so many new positions while you are stuck with the same two.”

“There are more than two.”

“I forgot about the time Alexander got on top.  Three.”

Laurens winced and looked away.  “It’s really weird that you guys talk about that.”

“That’s the price you pay for sleeping with Alexander Hamilton.  He is incapable of shutting up.  Fortunately for you,” Lafayette continued, “I can be more discreet.  Be thankful that the has picked me as his confidant.”

Laurens looked skeptical but didn’t push it.  “If you really want someone to go with you, ask Alex.  I don’t know when he’d find time to fit it in, but it would be good for him to pick up some kind of physical activity so he can relax.”

“No, I don’t think I want to invite him along.”

“Why not?  You don’t think he’ll like it?”

“I’m sure he would.  But besides, he already picked up a sport of his own, _non_?” 

Laurens looked away.  “Not that I want to know, but how come he doesn’t tell me about the sort of shit that you get up to?  It doesn’t seem fair that it’s a one way street.”

“He could never tell you,” Lafayette said.  “That wouldn’t be right.  Bros before hoes.”

“Are you calling me a—”

“Yes, I used it correctly this time.”

Laurens rolled his eyes and got up, opening his closet door and checking his hair in the mirror.

“You look nice,” Lafayette said, looking him over—black shirt, black jeans, blue sling, blue shoes.  “I see you’re committing to that color scheme.”

“If people gave me less crap I wouldn’t wear it,” Laurens said.  “The color itself is growing on me, though.  Maybe I’ll get a jacket to match the shoes so they won’t look too out of place later.”

“I’ll tell Adrienne to keep an eye out.”

Laurens started at the knock at the door and grabbed a casual (black, not blue) jacket as Lafayette opened it.

“Good morning, sir, I’m here to pick up John.”

“He’s still getting ready.  Come in and sit down and we can have a talk about your intentions with my—”

Laurens pushed Lafayette, hard.  “Shut it.”

“Bring him back by midnight,” Lafayette shouted after them as Laurens slammed the door.

Once they were gone, Lafayette checked his watch and locked the door.  He had plenty of time.  He waited a minute to make sure that they would not return, pacing the length of the room in nervous anticipation, then knelt before his desk and opened the bottom drawer, taking out a bottle of water-based lubricant and the long box with the stroker in it.  He looked around nervously, as if someone might really be watching, then took it out and sat on the edge of his bed.

Lafayette glanced at his laptop, considering calling Adrienne, then shook his head.  It really hadn’t sounded like she had known what the other two had sent him.  It would be weird to call her.  Wouldn’t it?  Or would it be worse to use it and not tell her?  She should know… But he could always tell her after the fact, after he decided if he actually liked it or not.  Besides, at this time she was likely to be at dinner and not free to come to the phone and he didn’t have so much time that he could wait a couple of hours for her to be done.

Lafayette slipped his pants and underwear down with a pang of guilt, then poured some of the lube into his hand and started to work his shaft.  Thinking about Adrienne somehow made it worse, reminded him that he hadn’t told her what he was doing and made him wonder anxiously how he would explain how his friends had tricked her into mailing these things for them afterwards.  Instead he focused on the sensation, his own hand sliding wet and slick over his cock, the blood starting to rush to his face and his groin.  Unbidden, suddenly, came the image of Aglae, her full breasts pushing against the tight fabric of her top as she leaned forward, a bead of sweat running between them.  

Lafayette felt his body react and he let his mind’s eye continue to rove, seeing the curve of her waist and hips, her round ass with the fabric clinging to it as she bent at the waist.  He imagined what it would be like to cup it, slip her pants down as she leaned over and touch her from behind, already wet and ready for him.  He opened his eyes, and grabbed the stroker, poured a bit of lube in, and cautiously pushed it onto himself.  He had barely gotten it past his head when he let out an involuntary low breath that he hadn’t realized he had been holding.  His mind flooded with images now of Aglae, of taking her from behind, of his hands pressing into her waist as she braced herself with her legs wide against the wall of the studio.  He could feel his hands under her shirt, against her slick skin, feel himself pushing _into_ her, tight but yielding.  He moved it faster over himself, working his way quickly to completion, and the image changed to Adrienne lying on her front on her bed with him over her, fucking her as she moaned his name.  

Lafayette came and leaned forward, panting, his arm shaking slightly from the exertion. 

He stayed sitting like that for a couple minutes, his mind spinning a little.  Even if it had been a joke from his friends, it was still the closest he had had to the real thing since leaving France and he wondered if there was a way to make it even more realistic…

His phone started ringing and he pulled it off of himself quickly and stood up, awkwardly grabbing his towel from that morning and cleaning himself up before wrapping it in it and tossing it to the floor.

“Hello?”  He was pulling his pants on, the phone on speaker.

“Gil?”

Lafayette blushed red at Adrienne’s voice.

“I miss you.  I’m free now, can we talk?”

“Ah, in a few minutes, my life, John and Alex only just left and I need to clean up in here before the delivery man comes.”  He zipped his fly shut.  “I’ll call you right back.”


	38. Sorrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch Date; Miscellaneous Calls to France of Varying Degrees of Lafayette No

“We’re getting lunch first,” Hamilton said as he and Laurens made their way out of the subway station.  “Don’t even think about taking your wallet out, I told you that I got this and I don’t want to do that stupid check dance.”

Laurens nodded, stepping aside to let an older woman through the turnstile between them, then following after her.  “Right, I got it.”

“You’re gonna like it.  This is like top quality.  Crème de la crème,” Hamilton said as they exited onto a busy street with many restaurants and storefronts with elaborate façades.  Laurens looked at them apprehensively, weighing in his mind how much a meal here would cost against what he guessed Hamilton had in the bank.  “I don’t mind just grabbing something quick,” he offered, “I don’t know what else you have planned but I’m not all that hungry yet and we can pick something up on the go.”

“Stop trying to back out on me,” Hamilton said, weaving his way through the other pedestrians.  “You promised me and I’m holding you to it.”  He paused.  “I’m holding you to your other promise too, you still gotta finish that for me.”  He glanced back at Laurens who was turning slightly red.  “See?  I’m not even being specific enough to be obscene.  I told you I’d try my best.”

Laurens followed as Hamilton made a sudden turn down one side street and then another, stopping in front of a small hole in the wall restaurant probably only twice the size of Hamilton’s apartment.  

“Come on,” he said, pushing open the door and stepping into the cramped and plainly decorated interior.  “This is it.”

Laurens looked around, noticing a faded tourist map of a couple of islands on one wall and a framed dollar bill while Hamilton crossed to the register and called into the kitchen, talking familiarly with the man who came out from behind the hanging curtain separating it from the small seating area.

“This is John,” he said, motioning back at Laurens, and Laurens had the sudden impression that he had been talked about before.  “John, grab a table.  I’m gonna go ahead and order for us.”

Laurens awkwardly sat at a table in the corner and after a minute Hamilton sat down across from him, carrying two glasses of water.

“I found this place right after we got back from France,” Hamilton explained.  “I was craving sorrel and I finally got off my ass and tried looking up if I could buy it in stores and saw this place listed.  I wasn’t sure how legit it would be, but, trust me, everything’s good.  The owner, he’s also the chef, came here about twenty years ago, he actually used to live just a block down from the Jewish school I went to as a kid.”

Laurens had been taking a drink of water while Hamilton talked, and he put the glass down.  “You went to a Jewish school?”

“.כֵּן”

Laurens shook his head slowly in surprise.

“Anyway, short of hopping a plane this is the best meal I can take you to, and the other one we’d have to go dutch or _something_.  Chivalry’s dead, whatever, I’m not buying you a plane ticket.”  Hamilton’s phone went off and he took it out.  “Excuse me.”

 

> G. Lafayette: Alex, I need to tell you something. 

> G. Lafayette: It’s very important.

> A. Hamilton: busy can it wait

> G. Lafayette: No.

 

Laurens watched as Hamilton frowned and started typing faster.

 

> A. Hamilton: whats wrong

> A. Hamilton: did they fuck it up?

> G. Lafayette: No, no, that’s all fine, I signed off on it.

> G. Lafayette: But I have the solution to all your problems.

> A. Hamilton: tell me later, I’m on a date

> A. Hamilton: which btw you should be aware of

> G. Lafayette: do you remember how you said that you miss fucking things?

 

Hamilton silenced his phone and put it back in his pocket.  “Sorry about that.  What were we saying?”

 

Lafayette realized after a couple of minutes that he had been muted.

“ _Merde_ ,” he muttered, putting his phone down and leaning back in his chair, his wet hair dripping onto the floor.  He had showered again and had only just made it back in time to catch the delivery man.

Lafayette picked up his phone once more and opened his conversation with Adrienne to respond to her last message and tell her that he needed to go meet Washington for his ride to his house but would call her later.

As he grabbed his backpack and jacket to leave, he dialed one more number in desperation, praying both that it would and would not go through.

“ _Ciao_.”

“De Ségur.”

“Did you get the package from your girlfriend?”  De Ségur asked him in French, laughing.  

“There’s a problem.”

“What, did you not lube it with water-based?  Didn’t you read the instructions?

“That’s not it.”  Lafayette locked the door behind him and headed down the hall.  “I tried it—” He was cut off by de Ségur laughing again.  “—And it was good, it was very good.”

“All right, so what’s the problem?  Louis and I figured you were getting tired of your own hand by about now.”

“I cheated on Adrienne.”

“Yes, with a bit of plastic and silicone.”

“No, I mean I actually did.”

“What happened?”

“I was using one of the presents and instead of Adrienne, I started by thinking about Aglae, a girl I met here.”

“Oh.”  De Ségur sounded confused.  “All right, so what’s the problem?.”

“It’s different from just flirting with someone!  I’ve never thought about anyone else like that, not seriously.  Not while I was doing that.”  Lafayette insisted.  “About her body and what I wanted to do with her.”

“Yeah?  And what was that?”

“That’s not the point.”

“I’m trying to make it the point.  Come on, Lafayette, you’ve been with Adrienne since you were both children.  You’re off in America, you might as well look even if you don’t touch.”

Lafayette considered this.

“It’s perfectly natural to think about other women.  Hell, I love my girlfriend but I think about other women all the time.  Tell me more about this Aglae.  What does she look like?”

“She is…”  Lafayette shrugged.  “She is pretty.  She has wide hips and a small waist.  Her skin looks like it would be very soft.”

“And her breasts?”

“They’re _quite_ large,” Lafayette said, a little more emphatically than he meant to.  The guilt he felt was reassuringly washed away by de Ségur’s laugh.

“That’s the spirit.  You’re only twenty,” de Ségur reminded him.  “Stop trying to act like an old married man.  Relax, have a little fun.  You can run off to America but you can’t think about other girls?  That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I suppose so,” Lafayette said, heading out the door.  “I have to go,” he continued, not comfortable continuing this conversation even while going to meet Washington, much less in his presence.  “Give Louis and Adrienne my regards if you speak with them before I do.”

“Don’t study too hard,” de Ségur teased before the line cut.

 

“Oxtail,” Hamilton was saying, pointing to the bowl of stew, “fish soup, fried plantains, this one is sweet potato and goat, fungi—it’s basically grits with okra, I got that one especially for you—, and sorrel.”  He raised his glass with a mischievous grin.  “ _Salud_.”

“ _Salud_ ,” Laurens repeated, raising his glass and then lifting it to his mouth.  The red liquid smelled strongly of ginger, cloves, and citrus, and he took a drink and then coughed in surprise.  “How did you…”

“I turned twenty-one in January,” Hamilton lied.  

Laurens took another drink, slower.  Now that he wasn’t thrown off by the other scents he could easily smell the thick undercurrent of rum.  “It’s good.”

“I know.”  Hamilton was helping himself to the various dishes.  “I should have ordered saltfish.  Remind me next time, they do good saltfish here.”  He watched with anticipation as Laurens hesitated before starting to fill up his own plate.  

Laurens took some of everything, aware of how closely he was being observed. “You should take Lafayette here,” he said.  “Didn’t you say you were going to cook for him?”

“Don’t remind me.  Even if I had an actual kitchen I wouldn’t be able to pull off a real meal.”  Hamilton took another drink.  

Laurens followed him.  “My mom was a good cook.”

“Yeah?  Mine wasn’t, not really.”

“She used to make these big family dinners, I guess you’d call it southern style, every Sunday.  Way too much food.  She'd make other things, too, when my father was busy.  He can be very picky...”  Laurens paused.  “This is excellent oxtail.”

Hamilton smiled, visibly relaxing.  “Yeah, that’s their speciality.  I’ll pick up some for takeout sometime.”

 

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, a little nervously, in his room at the Washingtons’, “do you know what de Ségur and Louis had you send me?”

On the other side of the computer Adrienne turned red.  “Yes…  I didn’t when I shipped it.  I’m sorry, Gilbert, I didn’t realize at the time and then they asked me not to ruin the surprise.”

“No, no, it’s quite all right,” Lafayette reassured her.  “I’m not upset with you, my dearheart.  If anything, I think it was cruel of them to play a joke on you as well as on me.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine.  I’m not mad at them.  Louis said that they needed my help to keep you from suspecting anything.”  She suddenly sounded more concerned.  “I hope you opened it in private.”

“Well, close enough.”

Adrienne nodded, relieved.  She hesitated, then asked, “Have you… tried any of them?”

“Just one, and just this afternoon.  You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, not at all.”  Adrienne looked down, a little coy.  “I’d like it if you told me about it.”

“Really?”  Lafayette tipped his head to the side.

Adrienne nodded, checking with a glance that her door was closed and locked and teasing her lip a little with her finger.

“All right.  I had just gotten back from yoga.”

“Mm-hm.”

“And I felt a little guilty about trying anything without you but I knew you were busy and I did not have much time, so I decided to test it out anyway.  I was so curious, Adrienne.”

“I understand,” she breathed.

“And when I started to touch myself I was still thinking about class, and about Aglae.”

Lafayette wasn’t paying attention, but Adrienne froze, her eyes widening slightly.

“The girl you met in class?”

“Yes, her.  I was thinking about her body and what it would be like to touch her as she bent over, to put my hands on her hips and grab her breasts, then to push her up against the wall.  It felt so realistic,” he explained as she sat back, away from the camera.  “It was almost like the real thing.”

“I see.”

Lafayette laughed a little, much more at ease than he had been at the start of the conversation.  “In fact, I was almost disappointed when the image faded away.”

She smiled thinly.  “Almost?”

“Almost,” he agreed.

There was a knock at the door and Lafayette stood up.  “Adrienne, I have to go.  Let me know when you are going to bed and I will call you to say goodnight.”

“All right, I will.”

He blew her a kiss.  “I love you.  I miss you.”

“As do I, Gilbert.”

 

Hamilton was laughing, a little day drunk, as he talked.  “Well, I told you, they wouldn’t let me in!  How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore get accepted to a prestigious private school?  He doesn’t, John, didn’t matter that I could write circles around all the other students.”

“Wait, wait, you said that this was when you were living with your mother still.”  Laurens took another drink, the dishes on the table between them demolished.

“Ah, shit.  Got my timeline wrong.  Scratch that second qualifier, but the rest is right.”

“How do you mess up your own timeline?”

“Hey, shut up, what is this, a history test?  Anyway, the Jewish school was more understanding.”  

“And this was on St. Croix.  When did you move there?”

“I was real little.  Three or four, I forget.  Got naturalized some time after the move.  I barely remember the flight over and I’ve only got snatches of Nevis floating around in there,” Hamilton said, motioning vaguely towards his head.  “Sun, cement floor, screen doors.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“To Nevis?  Or to the Caribbean?”

“Either.”

Hamilton didn't answer, even by a wordless gesture.  He drank long from the sorrel.

“Alex?”

“I dunno.”

Laurens was surprised.  He had expected an emphatic yes.  “You mentioned visiting before.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, I know, but…”  Hamilton looked over Laurens’ shoulder at the travel poster on the wall.  “I don’t know if I can explain it if you don’t feel it too.  You ever have a place that’s so much a part of you that you’re afraid it’ll completely consume you?  It’s like asking me to go back into the sea.  Of course I miss the water, but it’d be so easy to drown.  Just let myself sink.  And I’d _like_ it.”

Laurens was silent.

Hamilton toyed with his napkin.  “It’s not a big deal.  I’ll go back, probably, eventually.  Or maybe I won’t.  Who knows?  I’m not sorry at all about leaving, I had to get out.  Rock fever.  New York is a sea in its own right, John, with these tides and currents of people, strangers and immigrants washing up on its shores.  If I’m lost here, I’m in good company.”  Hamilton finished the rest of his glass then took his wallet out as he got up to pay.  

Laurens stacked up the plates and bowls and carried them up to the front, putting them on the cart by the kitchen.

“Keep the change.”  Hamilton turned to Laurens as he waited for his receipt.  “Oh, thanks, J.”

The owner gave him a look of surprise as he handed him the slip of paper.  “John and J. are the same person?”

Hamilton winked as he grabbed the receipt and Laurens’ hand for a moment to pull him out of the restaurant.  “Come on, it’s a few blocks but I could use the walk.”

“What did you…?”

Hamilton let go of Laurens’ hand once they were on the sidewalk although he stayed a little closer to him than necessary.  “Nothing dirty!  All right, J., I told you a bunch of stuff you didn’t know.”  He brushed up against him as they walked, his tone cheerful again.  “It’s your turn.”

“You’re tipsy.”

“I am not.”

“Just a little.  I bet I could literally drink you under the table.”

“You’re a freakin’ jock stereotype, I’ve said this before.  Except for the part where you’re into all of this,” he added, motioning towards his own face.  “Not complaining, mind you, but aren’t you supposed to be in a frat or something?”

“My father didn’t want me to be in one.”

Hamilton started to laugh and Laurens quickly explained.  “He wanted me to focus on my academics instead, and he had a point.  Besides, I don’t need to be in one to network and make connections.”

“Whatever!  It’s better this way.  You’re already bordering on too prep, I don’t want you to go full popped collar and matching boaters.”

Laurens avoided eye contact.  “Right, yeah.”

“Hold up.”  Hamilton stopped him, the back of his hand on his chest.  “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You’re embarrassed.  Do you secretly like that shit?”

“Are we crossing at the light?”

“Come on, John.”

Laurens rubbed at his shoulder.  “Don’t make fun of me.  That’s just how we dressed when I was in high school.”

Hamilton forced himself to keep a straight face.  “Right.  All right.  Got it.”  He pressed the button for the light.

Laurens looked down the street.

“So…”

Laurens, with great apprehension, turned back to Hamilton.

“So did you wear those shirts with the little polo players on the breast?”

“Alexander.”

“Okay, okay.”  Hamilton was chewing his bottom lip in an effort to keep from grinning.  “What about patterned crew socks?”

Laurens sighed.

“No, no, I’m not teasing you.  I’m not teasing you!”  Hamilton had to chase after him as the light turned.  “Cardigans?  Pastel sweaters tied over your shoulders? Shorts with tiny anchors on them?  Hey, come on.”  He grabbed his hand again, directing him to the right once they crossed the street.  

Laurens pulled it away, rubbing at his shoulder again.  “Drop it.”

“Do you have pictures?  Can I see?  I’ve never worn a white blazer before, I’m so going to raid your closet this Thanksgiving.  Don’t tell me I can’t wear it just because it’s after Labor Day, that’s a stupid rule and it was meant to be broken.”

“Laurens!”

Laurens felt his heart suddenly jump into his throat as his name was called out and he turned to see Andre waving at him as he and his girlfriend approached.

Laurens moved to the side with Hamilton to let others pass and waited for them to catch up.

“Andre.  Peggy,” he said, greeting her with a polite nod.  “Peggy, this is Alexander.”

“What are you doing here?”  Andre asked, his arm around Peggy’s waist.  

Laurens wasn’t sure how to answer that but Hamilton cut in.

“I’m from the Caribbean and I found the best dive for it in the city.  It’s great, cheap drinks, too, you should check it out.”

“I see.  Laurens, when you said you had plans for the weekend I thought later that you meant you finally had a date,” he teased familiarly, then turned to Peggy.  “This guy’s a catch but he’s got the worst luck.”

Laurens was quietly turning red and Hamilton noticed the little flick of Peggy’s eyes between the two of them.

“Don’t be mean, John,” she said to Andre, who put up his free hand to defend himself.

“Babe, it’s just an inside joke, we’re cool.”

“Besides, he does have the worst luck,” Hamilton jumped in.  “Did he ever tell you about the family feud he and his last girlfriend caused?  That was some telenovela shit.”

“Can we not talk about that?”  Laurens asked, real irritation just hiding the note of gratitude, coming back to himself.

Hamilton looked back at Peggy in time to catch the flash of surprise on her face.

“Sorry,” Andre was saying.  “Anyway, we should run.  I’ll see you Monday.”

“Monday,” Laurens agreed as they left.

 

“Good evening,” Lafayette said into his phone as he closed the door to his room at Mount Vernon behind him.  “One moment, let me put you on video.”  He sat in the middle of his bed as Adrienne, at her desk and surrounded by fabric, came through in video.  “What are you working on?”

“I was doing the buttonholes,” she said, lifting up blue jacket and holding it close to the screen for his approval.  “I finished all of them on the coats.”

“All of them?  Already?” 

“Do they look all right to you?”

“Perfect,” Lafayette said, delightedly.  “You’re a marvel, Adrienne.”

She smiled shyly and then stood up, putting it on over her white nightdress.  “How do I look?”

“Like the prettiest Continental soldier,” Lafayette declared.

She laughed.  “No, this one is far too big.  Hold on, let me put on Alex’s instead.”  She switched it out for one of the others which, while still large on her, hung much closer to her frame.  “There.  I bought the backing for the hats yesterday but I won’t have a chance to start on them for a little while.”

He smiled, watching her.  “Adrienne, turn around so I can see it better.”

She backed up and spun in a slow circle.

“I miss you,” he said, a little suddenly.

“Do you?”

“Of course.  I think about you all the time.”

She looked like she was preventing herself from making some comment and instead took the jacket off and set it carefully to the side.  “I’ll send these to you soon, I promise.”

“I’ll send you a package as well.  There’s more food that I want to try with you.  I want to share everything with you, even if we can’t be in the same place when we split it.”


	39. Two More Firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheating; *Violation of Roommate Protocol

“Okay, so if this is too crap you’re going to blame Lafayette, not me.”

“Right,” Laurens promised, following Hamilton down the street, both of them forced to hug the buildings and walk in file to avoid the press of people and street vendors.

“Two dollars,” Hamilton commented, more to himself than to Laurens, looking up at a cheap printed sign as they passed by.  “John, remind me, I wanted paletas.  It’s gonna be too cold for them soon enough.  You got paleteros in South Carolina?”

“I know what—Well, no, not where I live,” Laurens said, catching himself and answering the actual question.

“Some other time,” Hamilton said, taking his phone out again and typing as he walked.  “Sorry, rude to text on a date, let me just get back to Lafayette.  He was texting me earlier and I left him hanging”

 

> G. Lafayette: do you remember how you said that you miss fucking things?

> A. Hamilton: I’m listening.

> A. Hamilton: wait, is this about the stroker?

 

Lafayette didn’t respond to him right away, so Hamilton put the phone back in his pocket.  “He’s probably at G-Wash’s.  It’s getting to the point where I’m surprised he didn’t ask you for a pin-up of him instead of Adrienne.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, “I wouldn’t draw that.”

“Not your type?”  Hamilton teased.  “That’s the problem with taking commissions, John, you get asked to do all kinds of weird stuff, especially once people realize you’re down to draw the dirty shit.”

“I’m not taking commissions,” Laurens complained.  “That was a present!”

“You’re good, that’s all I’m really saying.  Here we are, this is it.”  Hamilton pushed open a door and held it for Laurens.

Laurens stepped inside and looked around.  The room they were in held a couple arcade consoles, a vending machine, and, next to a closed door, a counter.  Hamilton went straight up to the counter to talk to the employee stationed there, letting Laurens take a moment to stare in surprise at all the—well, okay, they weren’t all _children_ , a large number looked like they were in high school at least, but _still_ —customers.

“Laser tag,” Laurens said, coming up behind him as Hamilton finished signing them in.  “Lafayette actually suggested this?”

“Nah, his bright idea was the MET but this was closer to where I wanted to take you for lunch.  I’ve never been but it seemed fun.  Not sure how big the set up actually is, though, it’s not fun-sized, is it?”  Hamilton directed his question to the employee, then turned back to Laurens.  “Too tacky?  Whatever, I bet you’ll kick ass.  We’re doing every man for himself, by the way, so don’t worry about trying to tell people apart.  And don’t expect me to go easy on you,” he added as they were ushered through the door into a smaller room with rows of equipment hanging on pegs on the wall.  “Like I said, I’ve never been.  I’m planning on making a memorable entrance.”

“I’ve gone before,” Laurens said as he took off his sling, put on one of the chest plates, and took a laser gun, checking the straps and getting a feel for this particular model.  “With teams, or at a couple of birthday parties.  But I haven’t been in years.  Not since maybe early high school.”

“Not much of a handicap,” Hamilton commented, zipping up his dark jacket all the way before following Laurens’ lead with the supplies.  

Other people began to filter in and someone came in to give them a brief explanation and safety talk.  Hamilton, standing next to Laurens, refrained from leaning up and whispering anything lewd in his ear or cracking an off-color joke.  He was still a little buzzed from lunch and didn’t quite trust himself not to keep on the right side of the line if he let himself toy with it.

“You ready?”  He asked Laurens just before the doors to the course opened.  They would have a few seconds to disperse themselves before their equipment activated.  They had been encouraged to spread out.

“Of course,” Laurens said, checking the trigger again.

“You gotta wait for it to unlock,” Hamilton said, “the guy just explained that.  It’s gonna be a little while, John, weren’t you listening—”

The doors opened, but when the others scattered Laurens swore.

“Shit, Alex, this isn’t…”

Hamilton stopped in his tracks and walked back.  “John, I told you, they haven’t unlocked it yet.  It’s not actually broken—”

An overhead buzzer went off, alerting the participants to the start of the game and Laurens, grinning smugly, pressed the tip of the gun to Hamilton’s sensor and clicked the trigger.

“Fair,” he said, finishing his own sentence.  

Hamilton’s eyes widened as he was temporarily disabled from retaliating.  “Asshole!”

Laurens backed away, laughing, then ran as Hamilton came back to himself and chased after him.

 

“You’re sure it’s okay?  I guess I didn’t really think that through.”

Laurens had his hand pressed to his shoulder, sling on once more.  “Just don’t tell Coach.  I’ll put a compress on it, it’s fine.”

“You’re a model patient, you know that?”  Hamilton asked sarcastically as he waited for Laurens to get the door.  “I have no idea why your father thought you shouldn’t go into medicine.”

“Hey, that was about him, not me.” 

Laurens opened the door to his room, turned on the light, then stopped in surprise.  On his desk was a small bouquet—green foliage with yellow bell-shaped flowers.  He stepped forward, then looked back at Hamilton who had closed the door and was practically vibrating in anticipation.

“Alex?”

“I told you I could get it.”  He was grinning.  “Pay up, J.”

Laurens laughed, shaking his head as he took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair.  “All right, I was wrong.  Thank you.”  He crossed back to him and kissed him slowly.  

Hamilton moved away after a minute to put his own jacket on Lafayette’s bed.  “So…”

“Are you up for that raincheck?” 

Hamilton’s eyes widened.  “Uh, yeah.  Yeah.”  He sat down.

Laurens leaned down and kissed him again, sucking lightly on Hamilton’s tongue when he slipped it into his mouth.  Hamilton let out a soft moan, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him closer as he spread his legs.  Laurens let his leg rub up between Hamilton’s and felt him move forward, more off the edge of the bed to press himself against him.  He deepened the kiss, putting his hand on the back of his neck and feeling Hamilton shift uncomfortably against him.

Laurens dropped into a crouch.  “Take those off for me.”

Hamilton was only too willing to oblige, quickly undoing his jeans and yanking them down.  Laurens stopped him and leaned in before he could remove his briefs, running his tongue slowly up over the bulge in them.  Hamilton groaned, leaning back on his hands and tipping his head up.

“You’re kidding me…”

Laurens repeated the gesture, then put his mouth just over the head, licking and sucking at it through the fabric as Hamilton twisted uncomfortably.  He slipped his hand under to cup him as he continued to tease him over the cloth barrier and Hamilton dug his hands into the sheets.

“I won’t tell you what to say this time.”  Laurens’ mouth was just brushing over him.  “But your voice is incredibly hot.”

Hamilton felt a jolt of electricity run through him and he smiled, not sure if he was blushing a little or just getting flushed from the activity.  “Y-yeah?”

Laurens ran his tongue in small circles over his head as the fabric suddenly damped further.  “Yeah.  It drives me crazy when you moan my name.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested weakly, “I don’t—”  His words trailed off as Laurens tugged down his briefs and he proved him right.

Laurens slowly took Hamilton into his mouth as Hamilton pulled his underwear down the rest of the way and put his hand on his left shoulder, leaning his head down instead of back.

“Ah—John—”  He whimpered as Laurens moved further down him, then sucked along his length as he pulled back up. “Please.”

Laurens repeated the action a couple more times, then sat a little back, his mouth still close enough that Hamilton could feel his breath.  “Please what?”

“Just—more.  You’re going too slowly.”

Laurens flicked his tongue over his slit then slid back onto him, moving faster this time so that Hamilton held onto him tightly and moaned his name repeatedly, mixed in with rambling encouragement.

Laurens wanted to pick up more speed but couldn’t with the stiffness in his shoulder, so in frustration he wrapped his hand around him and Hamilton gave a short surprised curse, then moved his hand to his arm.  Laurens moved his hand quickly, faster than he could his mouth, and Hamilton dug his nails into the hard muscle of his arm, mind starting to spin.

“John,” he gasped, desperation in his shaking voice.  “J.—I can’t, I’m gonna—”

Laurens quickly pulled off of him and grabbed a towel from the floor, pumping Hamilton’s shaft as he came into it, his hips jerking.

Laurens watched, his own breathing hard as Hamilton leaned forward, panting and still tightly gripping his arm.

“Shit,” Hamilton finally managed to get out, wiping himself off and dropping the soiled towel.  “C’mere.”  He pulled Laurens up into a shaky kiss.

Laurens let him, then pushed him over backwards onto Lafayette’s bed, kissing him repeatedly as he rolled onto his back and Hamilton kicked off his pants and shoes and pulled off his shirt. He put his hands on his body, running them over his bare skin, and let Hamilton undo his sling and help him with his shirt.  

Trailing his mouth over his jaw and neck, Hamilton touched Laurens over his pants, his hand slow.  “What do you want?”

Laurens tipped his hips into his hand.  “Mn, Alex…”

“What do you want?”  Hamilton repeated more insistently.

“I want to fuck you.”

Hamilton kissed him, rubbing him harder and touching his bare chest.  “Right,” he finally said.  “You strip and I’ll—Oh, there we go.”  He grabbed a bottle of lube from the side of the bed.

Laurens grunted in pain as he tried to arch up and pull his jeans down without getting up.

“Moron.”  Hamilton pressed the bottle into his hand, sliding everything off for him and then straddled his legs, almost hungrily taking as much of him into his mouth as possible.

Laurens groaned, forgetting for the moment about his other plan as he tangled his hand in Hamilton’s hair.  Hamilton braced himself on the mattress, moving over him without pulling off very far and letting Laurens push his head down.

Hamilton continued until he could start to taste him and then he tapped Laurens’ leg to get his attention and slowly sat back, sucking hard as he pulled off and running his tongue around his head.

Laurens let go of him so he could push himself up a little on that arm and watch Hamilton, his hair falling into his face and his mouth on his cock.

Hamilton brushed his hair back as he moved away, then saw how intensely Laurens was looking at him, his brown eyes dark and his lips slightly parted, and he felt his pulse quicken.  

“…Give me that.”  He took the bottle from him and poured some into his hand, checking the label in surprise when it quickly heated up.  Laurens sucked in a sudden sharp breath as Hamilton wrapped his hand over his shaft, coating it with the warm and slick liquid, then put his hands on the bed again and _swallowed_ him.

Laurens gasped and whimpered slightly as Hamilton forced himself so far down that he brushed the back of his throat, the heat of his mouth made even greater by the lubricant.  Laurens’ arm was shaking as he leaned on it and he didn’t realize he had closed his eyes tight until he opened them again to see Hamilton watching him as he pulled back and took just his tip in his mouth.

Laurens ducked his head, self-conscious and closing his eyes again, and didn’t object as Hamilton switched to his hand and shifted over and off one of his legs, pushing it so that Laurens bent it and moved it to the side.  Laurens jerked in surprise when he felt Hamilton’s fingers warm and just pressing against him.

“Can I?”

Laurens swallowed dryly and nodded and Hamilton pushed one slick finger into him.

Hamilton left his hand where it was as Laurens blinked his eyes open, automatically spreading his legs a little further as the heat radiated.

Hamilton slowly worked it in and out, watching Laurens’ face closely.  

“Ah.”  Laurens exhaled, a little surprised but not stopping him, his gaze firmly on the wall next to him.

Hamilton reapplied the lubricant and slowly added a second finger, carefully spreading them.  Laurens shifted his legs a little further apart.

“J.”

Laurens looked up but could only hold his gaze for a moment before he settled for staring at his collar instead.

“Can I?”  Hamilton asked again.

Laurens tried to ignore the stream of commentary that had been running through his head—how of course it had to line up with the one time he had let him pay for everything; how, Christ, he had actually gotten him flowers too, okay, don’t pull at that thread too hard, how embarrassing;  how it looked like this was happening, was he going to let it keep happening?—and nodded.  “Yeah.”

Hamilton added a third finger, moving his hand back and forth a little more forcefully, and Laurens took a deep breath.  Before he had really acclimated to the idea, the hand was gone and Hamilton was pushing into him.  He forced himself not to flinch away and he lay back down, grabbing Lafayette’s pillow and pressing his face to it.

Hamilton stopped himself about halfway in, one hand on Laurens’ hips and blood ringing in his ears.  He made himself move slowly, much slower than he would normally or than he wanted to, and stroked Laurens’ shaft in time.  He only pushed further in after a couple of minutes and looked up, suddenly afraid as Laurens gave a short cry.

“Sorry—”

Laurens shook his head, embarrassed and covering his mouth with his fist.

“J.?”

He swallowed hard and his voice was strangled.  “No, that, ah…  That wasn’t bad.”

Hamilton’s eyes widened slightly and then he let out a relieved breath.  “Right.  Okay.”  He moved out a little, then back in, and when he hit the same spot he couldn’t help but grin as he saw Laurens bite his lip and felt his shaft twitch in his hand.

“You like that, huh?”

“Alex…” Laurens pleaded.

Hamilton bit back a pleased laugh.  Not the time.  

He started to go faster, setting a pace closer to what he wanted, and took his hand off of Laurens’ cock so he could get a better angle.  Laurens raised his hips a little for him, pressing the pillow to his face again so he could have something to bite as a jolt of pleasure shot through him with every thrust.  He could hear Hamilton’s quickened breathing and his own blood pounding and before he knew it he could feel his orgasm starting to coil within him.  He tried to fight it back, wanting to prolong the pleasure, but every time Hamilton moved he felt it grow stronger and then almost without his knowing what had happened he felt it tear through him, leaving him drained and weak.  

By the time the world had stopped spinning and he opened his eyes, Hamilton was sitting on the edge of the bed, cleaning himself up with the towel.

Hamilton looked up and quirked a smile when they made eye contact, dropping the towel back to the floor and leaning over him.  At first Laurens thought he was kissing his chest at random and then he realized, flushing red, that he was licking the cum off his skin.

“You were screaming,” Hamilton informed him with a very self-satisfied purr, trailing his mouth over his neck and jaw to nuzzle the side of his face.  “It’s a good thing you thought to grab the pillow.”

Laurens had no response to that and Hamilton grinned against his cheek.

“Come on.  You need to get up.  I’ve gotta get dressed and dump this all in the laundry before Lafayette gets back and literally murders us.”

Hamilton laughed when Laurens put his arm around him instead, keeping him from getting off the bed.  “Hey, I’m serious.  It’s getting late and he’s coming back tonight.  We’re just lucky he didn’t walk in during.”  Hamilton kissed him, then pushed away.  “Go lie on your own bed.”  He shimmied into his pants and stripped the bed while Laurens crossed the room and practically collapsed on his mattress.  “Shoot.”  Hamilton turned back at the door.  “Almost forgot your towel.”

“Not my towel,” Laurens muttered, face down.

“Oh.”  Hamilton picked it up anyway.  “Well, then we definitely gotta wash it.  I’ll be back in a sec.”

He left and Laurens was alone with the thoughts that were starting to creep back in now that the weight of what had just happened was sinking in.  What had he just done?  There was no denying anything now, no writing anything off.  On the other hand… he had to admit it, that was _good_.  He rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Okay,” he said out loud to the empty room.  “That’s fine.  This is fine.”

He heard the key in the lock and Hamilton came back in and dropped down on the bed next to him.

“How long does a cycle take?  Forty minutes?  It’s quarter ’til, remind me to go back and put it in the dryer—”  Laurens rolled over and pulled him to him, holding him against his chest and tucking his face down into his hair.  “—John?”

Laurens’ voice was muffled.  “‘J.’”

The corner of Hamilton’s mouth twitched up.  “Right, J.  You okay?”

“Stay here tonight.”

Hamilton turned his head up.  “Mmph.  Are you sure?”  He paused.  “Do you want to come back to my place instead?”  Laurens didn’t say anything and Hamilton slipped his hand up to touch the side of his face.  “Whatever.  Yeah, I’ll stay.  It’s getting too cold to walk back anyway.”

Laurens half-laughed.  “It’s still September.”

“It’s the _end_ of September,” Hamilton clarified.  “Besides, if I stay here I get free heat.  You watch, I’m going to camp out here all winter until you get sick of me and lock me out.”  He sat up a little but was tugged back down.  “I’m not getting up.  You should get the blanket.  You’re gonna freeze your ass off and then I’ll never be able to finish you that poem.”

Laurens gave a little snort of laughter and sat up, pulling the blanket out and then over them as he lay down again.

“Better.  Thanks.”  Hamilton kissed him lightly.  “I think I’m getting free lunch tomorrow, J.  I’ll grab you something.  Do you want me to give it to Lafayette?  I’ll give it to him, I think he’ll see you before I do.  Don’t get your hopes up too high, it’ll probably just be half a soggy pizza but there’re always leftovers.”  Hamilton curled into him, still talking as he felt Laurens slowly relax.  “Although if I give it to Lafayette to give to you, there will be even less.  Maybe you should plan on buying your own lunch anyway.  I’ll text you, we’ll work it out.”

 

When Lafayette came back later that night, Hamilton and Laurens were both asleep.  Hamilton woke and rolled away from Laurens a little to raise a hand in greeting to Lafayette, who eyed his bare chest and the naked curve of Laurens’ shoulder and grinned.

“Ah, so John gave it up on the first date, _non_?”

Hamilton winced and made a slashing gesture with his hand, motioning him to silence.

Puzzled, Lafayette turned around and noticed that his bed was stripped and the sheets and his towel were neatly folded on top.  His eyes narrowed and he slowly turned back.  “What did you do?”

“Good story, I’ll tell you later,” Hamilton assured him in a loud whisper.

“Alex—”

Hamilton cut him off with a wave of his hand and turned back on his side, putting his arm over Laurens’ shoulders. 

Muttering to himself about certain ungrateful friends, Lafayette set about making his bed.

 


	40. Early to Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Quiet; Making Excuses; Something in Common

Laurens woke in the early morning to Hamilton kissing his neck.

“Mn,” he began with a complete lack of grace, rubbing at his eyes with the base of his hand.  “Good morning.”

“You woke me,” Hamilton informed him quietly, shifting his leg forward so that Laurens realized with a start that he had been pressing into him.

“Ah.  Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”  Hamilton was keeping his voice deliberately low, Lafayette’s deep breathing audible in the background, and he slipped his hand down to stroke him.  

Laurens’ hips jerked.  “That’s—”  He was going to tell him that his hand was cold, but then Hamilton was moving it and it was quickly warming up and he didn’t tell him to stop.

“Don’t apologize,” Hamilton continued.  “I like your cock.”  He grinned as Laurens tipped his head away slightly.  “I do, it’s hot.”  He took advantage of the angle to lightly bite his neck, stroking it and his bare chest with his free hand.  “ _You’re_ hot,” he clarified, teasing his slit with his thumb as Laurens shifted uncomfortably.  “I woke up this morning,” he broke off with a soft breathy laugh, “and, just, damn, J.”

Laurens tried to rock his hips into Hamilton’s hand but he just moved with him and didn’t provide any resistance.  

“I can’t help myself.  When I see you,” Hamilton slowly kissed the firm muscle bridging his shoulder and neck, “I just want to touch you everywhere.”

Laurens was breathing faster, concentrating on keeping quiet even as Hamilton continued to talk.

“I want to put my hands all over your body, I want to put my _tongue_ —”

Laurens gave a very short soft whimper and Hamilton felt his fingers getting slick and used it as he ran his hand down his shaft.  Laurens pushed into his hand, finally getting the contact he had been denied.

“Alex…”

Hamilton kissed his neck again.  “What?”

“Don’t stop.”

“Don’t be crazy,” Hamilton said, and Laurens could feel him smiling as he moved his hand over him.

“No, don’t—stop talking.”

Hamilton’s smile broadened.  “Oh, is that what you meant?”  He leaned up, tipping Laurens’ head down so he could just whisper in his ear, his free hand entwined in his hair.  “Anything, J.”

Laurens slid his hand up to his shoulder, holding him firmly, his eyes closed as Hamilton continued.

“I want to do things to you all the time, whenever I’m with you.  I want to grab you, pull you away from the crowd when we’re out, push you up against the wall and make you stand like that while I suck you off.  I want people to know but not be able to _say_ anything.”  He was moving his hand more forcefully and Laurens, remembering how his mouth had felt the previous night, bit back a moan.  “Yesterday, Christ, the way you grabbed my hair and pushed me down.”  He laughed a little and nipped at his earlobe.  “I shouldn’t have liked it, but I did.” He slowed down to force Laurens to pay attention.  “I like you, a little rough like that.”

Laurens’ alarm started to go off on his phone and Hamilton quickly picked up the pace again, trying to get him to finish before it went on too long and woke Lafayette.  

Too late.  Lafayette yawned and sat up, pushing his hair out of his face, and looking over at Laurens’ bed where Hamilton immediately froze.  Lafayette got up and picked up Laurens’ phone, switching it to sleep with the casual air of someone who did that on a regular basis.

Laurens was thankful that neither of them could see how red he knew his face must be in the poor light, and he kept his eyes closed, feeling the blood pounding in his cock, still in Hamilton’s hand.  Hamilton very lightly ran a finger over his head and Laurens twitched, certain that he did that on purpose with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to react.

Lafayette was still in the room, straightening out the sheet on his bed and sorting through his closet.  Hamilton gently kissed just below Laurens’ ear as soon as Lafayette’s back was turned and traced his thumb around his rim, causing Laurens’ hips to shake slightly.  He moved his hand down, then up, timing it with every opened and closed drawer or shifting of hangers, and Laurens tightened his grip on him in a warning that Hamilton ignored. 

As Lafayette changed Hamilton teased Laurens’ head, whispering so faintly that Laurens could barely hear him, “You said not to stop.”

Laurens wanted to complain, to make some kind of noise or to grab Hamilton’s hand and force it down further, but he made himself stay as still as possible until Lafayette finally grabbed his toothbrush and left the room.

As soon as the door was closed behind him Hamilton resumed his previous speed and force and Laurens let out the moan he had been holding in, leaning against Hamilton’s face and neck and letting him quickly finish him, spilling up his hand and over his arm.

Hamilton lay still for a minute, letting Laurens hold him and breathe heavily against him, then the alarm started again and he got up.

“Are you going to practice?”  He grabbed a tissue from the desk and handed Laurens his phone.

“I should.”  Laurens silenced it.

“Or you could go back to bed,” Hamilton said.  “I don’t need to head back to my apartment to change for another hour and a half.”

Laurens hesitated.  “I should go.”

“You’re not doing anything yet, though, are you?  If they want you to rest, why not just do that here?”  Hamilton lay back down.  He took Laurens’ wrist and lowered his arm, tugging him closer.  

Laurens locked the screen and put his phone back on his desk.  “Yeah.  Okay.”

“I won’t get used to it,” Hamilton assured him, stealing his arm to use as a pillow.  “You’re hot all burly.”  He yawned and closed his eyes.  “G’night, John.”

Laurens was surprised that he wasn’t being asked to reciprocate but he settled in, dozing off by the time Lafayette came back.

 

“Are you all right?”  Andre asked as Laurens sat uncomfortably next to him.  The tiny metal chairs with the attached desks were always a little awkward for him to maneuver but today he was taking his seat especially gingerly.  “You didn’t show this morning.”

“Lafayette set my alarm to sleep,” Laurens said, not technically lying.

Andre nodded.  

“Was Coach upset?” 

“Von Steuben?  No, he didn’t say anything.”

Laurens relaxed a little.  “All right.  I felt bad about it.”

“It’s fine.  How’s your shoulder?  Looks uncomfortable.”  Andre said, nodding to the sling as Laurens took it off, much more deftly than the first time he had tried to maneuver it.

“I don’t really have to wear it.  It does keep me from using it,” Laurens admitted.  “To tell you the truth, I just want it done with as soon as possible.”  He didn’t admit that Hamilton had tossed it at him when he was dressing and he’d put it on to avoid the argument.

“Yeah.  Hey, it was funny to run into you and your friend the other day.”

“Ah, yeah…”  

“Peggy and I had a good time,” Andre continued, grinning.  “A really good time.  You know?”

Laurens laughed a little.  “I know.”

“We went back to her place,” Andre said, a little lower so the few other students in the room couldn’t hear.  “Her roommate is out of town so it was just us.  I don’t want to brag, but—”

Laurens dug in his bag for his book, unable to make eye contact for the conversation.  “That good?”  He cut him off. 

Andre opened his mouth to say more but was stopped by their professor entering.

“Are you all here?  Good.  We will get started early and then we will finish early,” he informed them in French.  “Open your books to the chapter you read for class.  John.”

Both Andre and Laurens looked up expectantly.

“Sorry, John Laurens.”

“Yes, Professor Franklin.”

“Read us the opening paragraph, please.”

Laurens started reading, but the second line made mention of long hair and his mind, already present only through great effort, started to wander.  He kept saying the words out loud but without any idea of what they meant as the memory of Hamilton brushing his hair from his face and looking up appeared unbidden before him.  Hamilton, that genuinely attentive look.  Hamilton, so pleased with himself as he nuzzled his neck.  Hamilton, telling him to get up with such easy assurance.  _Hamilton_ …

“That’s enough, John.”

Laurens jerked back to himself and realized that he had started on the next paragraph without noticing.  “ _Desoleé_ ,” he managed, embarrassed, as someone snickered.

He tried to force himself to pay attention to the discussion, laughing with Andre when a student arrived on time and was scolded for being late, but the longer class went on the harder it was.  Hamilton knew French, Hamilton would have plenty to say if he was sitting in one of the empty chairs.  Laurens could just see him sitting in front of him, see the fabric of his shirt slide over his shoulder blade as he raised his arm and hear his voice, fast and confident, as he responded before he was even called on.  He could imagine the sly grin he would give him, turning in his seat and the light from the window hitting his high cheek bones and sharp nose.  That smile, he could still feel the way it curved against his skin…

“ _Quatre-vingts_ ,” Andre whispered to him and Laurens shook his head to clear it, turning his book to the right page.  His phone was just there in his bag and he was so tempted to check it but instead he forced his eyes to the clock and counted the painfully slow minutes.

When they were released, a good quarter of an hour early, Laurens apologized quickly to Andre and explained that he needed to make a call as he ducked out of the room.  He tried to regain a feeling of control—loitering like an idiot next to a rarely used stairwell was not the best way to do that—and dialed.

This was stupid.  An hour before he had been fine.  That morning, fine.  That night—

There was no suitable distraction to focus on as the blood rushed to his face and Laurens thought dimly to himself that it was like someone had flipped a switch and as much as he could pretend otherwise there was a needy ache in his chest that insisted he had to see—

The ringing stopped.

“Alexander.”

 

Hamilton was surprised to actually receive a call instead of a text from Laurens and he picked up as he walked into his classroom.

“Hello?  John?  What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”  Laurens sounded casual, outward façade cooly in place.  “What’s your schedule today?”

“Uh.  Hold on.”  Hamilton shifted his phone to his shoulder as he dug his planner out of his bag.  “I’m about to start class and then there’s that council meeting over lunch, we’ll probably get done by one-thirty, but I’ve got econ after that from two to three, which is why I said I’d just give the pizza to Lafayette.  I don’t think I’ve got time to hand it over to you directly, you’ll have to talk to him about it.”

“What do you have after three?”

Hamilton was confused.  Was that not the point of the call?  “After three?  I said I’d come in and proof some things.”

“Do you need to do that today?”

“Uh, I don’t _need_ to, but I’m already going to be in the area and it’ll make my week easier if I get it out of the way Monday.  Why?”

Laurens paused.

“John?”

“I can get you a fitting for that suit this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said, perking up.  “All right.  I’ll let Washington know.  Thanks, John!”

Laurens was obviously smiling as he responded.  “It’s not a problem.  I’ll meet you at three.”

 

It was a slow day and Lafayette didn't have anyone scheduled, so he was doing his own reading when Andre walked in.

“Oh,” Andre sounded surprised, “I didn’t realize we were working together again.  Actually, I just had class with Laurens.”

Lafayette closed his book and motioned to the seat next to him.  Andre took it.

“Hey, could you do me a favor?  Could you try to make sure that he makes it tomorrow morning?”

Lafayette looked at him in surprise.  “Of course.  He’s usually so good.  Did he get in trouble for missing a single day?”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Andre said, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly.  “He’s fine.  It’s just…  People were asking about him and we thought maybe something happened…”

Lafayette frowned.  “All right.”

“Do you usually turn off his alarm?”  Andre asked after a few seconds.

Lafayette glanced around the room but there was no one else there he could share a confused look with.  “Not all the time, but I’ve never known him to sleep through it once it starts to go off.  I only silenced it because I was already up anyway and I thought it would wake…”  He caught himself and coughed delicately, turning his attention to opening his metal thermos and drinking from it.

“Oh,” Andre’s eyes widened.  “I got it.”

“Do you?”  Lafayette asked over the rim of the bottle.

“He could have said something.  I mean, if he wanted to take some other girl this weekend that would have been fine, we still could have all done something.  I didn’t have to set him up with Peggy’s friend.”

Lafayette grabbed the change of subject.  “Peggy?”

“Peggy Shippen,” Andre said, only too happy to change topics.  “My girlfriend.  Here.”  He took out his phone and showed Lafayette the background of him and a pretty blonde girl.  “We just got back together.”

“She’s very cute!  You two look good together.  Ah, this is my girlfriend, Adrienne.”  Lafayette showed Andre his own phone background of him and Adrienne in period costume outside her house.

Andre grinned.  “Halloween?”

“No, she is studying to be a costume designer,” Lafayette explained.  “She’s just finishing up her last year of high school, but she is in a special program for the arts and she is so talented,” he smiled affectionately at the phone.  “I cannot believe how lucky I am.”

“I know just how you feel,” Andre agreed quickly, obviously excited to finally have someone to talk to.  “Peggy is just…  I don’t know how I managed to end up with her.  She’s amazing and so sharp and personable.”

“Adrienne is more reserved,” Lafayette said, going into his photos and finding Andre the portrait Hamilton had taken of the two of them on the couch.  “But she is so… _Je n’ai pas les mots_ …”

Andre was nodding enthusiastically and he switched into French to match him.  “She sounds great.  How did you meet?  I met Peggy at the very first party I went to here.  She was there with her friends and as soon as I saw her I knew I had to figure out a way to talk to her.”

“Adrienne and I met as children.  I confessed to her when I was fourteen, I knew that she had my heart even then.”  This was perhaps the only conversation where neither story sounded saccharine or forced by contrast. 

“You really are lucky,” Andre sighed, “I wish I had met Peggy sooner.  We have our rough patches but when we’re together—”

“But being apart from her is so hard,” Lafayette cut in.  “No one understands that, they think that just because we talk it’s good enough.”

“What?”  Andre sounded indignant on his behalf.  “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I know!”

“How could that possibly be the same?  Not getting to see her in person… That would be torture, and this is maybe even worse because you’re not forced to be completely cut off, either!”

Lafayette was leaning in, one hand on Andre’s shoulder and a serious expression on his face.  Finally, _finally_ , someone who understood.  “Andre.  I cannot do anything about how far away I am from my dearheart.  But no one is scheduled for today.  Go, find Peggy and be with her.  Take her in your arms and tell her that you couldn’t stand to be away from her for another minute.  I will cover for you, they will never know.”

Andre’s eyes lit up, then he sighed.  “She’s in double English for another hour and a half.”

“Oh.”  

Lafayette sat back and Andre slouched down in his seat.

“Sorry.  I got a little carried away,” Lafayette finally said.  

Andre waved him off.  “It’s nice to finally be able to talk to someone who’s actually interested, though.  I mean, Laurens is great, don’t get me wrong.  But he’s so reserved.  I talk to him almost every day and I didn’t even know he was seeing anyone.”

“Mm, yes, he is very private about his personal life.”

Andre nodded.  “Hey, do you want to hang out sometime?  I’m sure you’re really busy, but…”

Lafayette smiled.  “Sure.”


	41. The One With the Tailor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Strange Kind of Outing; Bathroom Call; Friendly Advice; Apology

Laurens was waiting outside Hamilton’s classroom when he got out, nervously checking his phone.  He looked up as people started to come out and put his phone back in his pocket and raised a hand in greeting as Hamilton exited at the very back of the crowd.

“So where’s this tailor you were telling me about?”

They started walking, Hamilton not noticing that Laurens brushed up against him a few times as if he was sticking a little closer than normal.

“It’s not too far from here.  Twenty minutes if we can catch the subway right away.”  He glanced down at him.  “Do you have time to go?  I can call him back and ask to reschedule.”

Hamilton waved his hand.  “It’s fine, I already said I’d come in after this.  Washington can’t complain, he’s the one who wanted me to get one anyway.  Besides, Mulligan—he’s the one I was meaning to talk to, did I mention that?—he’s out of town.”

Laurens nodded, relieved.  “Right.  So…”  He felt at odds for a topic of conversation.  “How was class?”

“Class was fine, same as always.  Can’t wait until we start the next section, I’m so sick of democratic-republicanism.  Seriously, that should always be a one class lecture, _max_.  Twenty-four years that lasted, John, why it’s getting more than a single question on that test is beyond me.  Here, I’ll even write it for you.”  He drew his hands out in front of him as they walked like he was displaying it in the air.  “‘How do you know the democratic-republicans were full of shit? A, they were dedicated to an outmoded and severely limited idea of America’s economic future; B, they didn’t approve of the Goddamn navy, we’re talking about a coastal country, John, what the actual shit, good luck dealing with literal pirates on a piecemeal state’s rights basis; C, they were founded _in opposition_ to a pre-existing set of ideas, the entire platform is fundamentally based on a negative; or D, all of the above, this section is stupid and we need to move on.’”

Laurens laughed and Hamilton, not quite expecting that, grinned.

“I was going to say ‘D, this is a party that birthed Andrew Jackson, we need to just send in a priest with holy water and salt the freaking earth under everything he touched,’ but that seemed a little unfair.  To the party, I mean,” he clarified.  “They didn’t know he’d be such a tool.”

Laurens looked away, his hand over his mouth as he tried to stop smiling and get a hold of himself, and Hamilton kept talking.

“The whole twenty dollar bill thing doesn’t even make sense.  You’d think it would be way easier to get a freakin’ woman on that one, Jackson was a racist asshole who, I’m sorry, _hated paper money_.  Why the fuck is he on there?  Is it just to give him a giant middle finger in the grave?  Because I’m almost okay with that, but let’s just stick him on some more useless denomination in that case.  The twenty’s a good, high profile one.  Put him on the two.  No one gives a shit about the two.”

“The two?”

“See?  You forgot we even had that one.”

“I did not,” Laurens protested, getting the door as they left the building.

“Thank you.  Anyway, that was my class.  What did you come from?”

“I was just at the library.”

“Nice.  I’ve got shit to get done this week,” Hamilton complained.  “So if I vanish suddenly it’s because I’ve gotten literally buried alive.”

“You’re free to work at the dorm, if you want.”

“Thanks, but I wouldn’t be able to get anything done there.  I get too distracted if I’m not at my own place or basically in a book den way at the back of the library.”

Laurens nodded.

“—But this is great, thanks for setting it up!  I need to get it done and if today is when you could get them to fit me in then I’ll take it.”

“No problem,” Laurens said with a smile.

“Hey, are you okay?”  Hamilton asked.  “You’re kind of quiet.”

Laurens knew he was looking at him and he carefully stared straight ahead instead.  “Nothing’s wrong.  You just talk a lot.”

“Ha.  Yeah, that’s true.”

“So the two, huh?”

“Hm?”  Hamilton cocked his head to the side, still staring up at him, then remembered what he had been talking about before.  “Oh, yeah.  I mean, nobody gives a shit about whoever’s on the two.  Don’t even need to take anyone off, just slap him on the other side, done.”

 

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said excitedly on the phone in the men’s restroom.  “I can’t stay long but I had to talk to you.  I met someone new!”

There was an apprehensive pause on Adrienne’s side of the line and then she asked nervously, “Someone new, Gilbert?”

“Well, not _new_ , exactly, my heart, but we only really talked for the first time today.  It’s like we’re of the same mind!  He understands me!”

There was another silence, but this one was more confused.  “He?”

“John Andre,” Lafayette explained.  “He’s one of John Laurens’ friends, and we tutor French together.  Finally, there’s someone who understands how strongly I feel for you!”

Adrienne laughed with relief.  “Oh!  Oh, that’s what you meant.  I’m glad you made a friend!”

“I hope we will become good friends,” Lafayette enthused, fixing his hair in the mirror.  “He’s fluent in French as well, it is so good to be able to speak it with someone here!  And he loved your work, of course.”

“You didn’t show him!”

“Why not?  He was very impressed, and—Oh, I have to go, I love you, I will text you, goodbye,” Lafayette said all in one very quick breath, hanging up as someone opened the door to the restroom.

 

“Don’t you wish velvet was back in fashion?”  Hamilton asked, standing in front of the floor length mirror as he was measured.  “I understand that an entire suit would be impractical, but what about accents?  Or embroidery?  I thought it looked kind of silly at first but that costume Adrienne made was really growing on me.”

Laurens shook his head, smiling.  “Embroidery?  Alexander, you’d look ridiculous.”

“‘Flashy,’ the word is ‘flashy,’” Hamilton corrected him.  “Who doesn’t want to stand out in a crowd?  Besides, I bet I could work it.”

“Either way, I don’t think that’s what Washington had in mind when he told you to get a suit.”

“Yeah, I know.  Plain black is good too.”  He lifted his arm as asked by the tailor.  “But when I’m rich and powerful I’m going to bring some shit back.  Sorry,” he apologized, glancing down at the older man who didn't seem offended by his language in the slightest.

“You have very delicate calves,” the tailor commented as he lowered Hamilton’s arm for him and stepped away.  “Very delicate.”

Laurens was about to say something, but Hamilton didn’t sound put off.  “Thanks.”

The tailor moved to the back of the store and Hamilton twisted in the mirror to look at his legs.

“He’s right,” he commented, putting on a fake air.  “A certain delicate slimness about them.”  He grinned at Laurens.  “Come on, I’m hot and you know it.”

Laurens had his arms folded and an amused smile on his face as he walked forward.  “You told me not to—”

“Hey, hey, who said anything about being vain?  I’m just telling it like it is.  You’re such a stud and Lafayette’s, well, French, but you gotta admit it, I’m fucking charismatic.”  He ran a hand back through his hair, playfully half-blowing him a kiss as he tipped his face up, all clean angles and teasing energy, and Laurens couldn’t help himself.  He leaned in and—caught himself.  Hamilton was staring at him, eyes wide.

Laurens stepped back, clearing his throat behind his hand.

“John?”

The tailor came back out and went behind the register.  “All right, I’ve got that all down and I made a note of the fabrics you picked out.”  He was making out a handwritten receipt and he came out from behind the counter to give it to Hamilton.  “There you are.  I’ll give you a call when it’s ready for you to try it on.  If there are any problems we’ll address them at that time.”

Hamilton took it, still looking at Laurens.  “Hm?  Oh.  Yeah, thanks, so do I pay you now, or…?”

  
“It’s taken care of,” the tailor said.

“What?”

“It’s taken care of,” Laurens repeated, getting the front door.  “Thank you, we’ll be back to pick it up.”

“Wait, wait, what?”

“Alex, don’t worry about it.”

Hamilton shoved the paper into his pocket and hurried out the door.  “You bought me a fu—Thank you, sir, I look forward to seeing it—You bought me a fucking suit?!”  The door closed.  “John, seriously, I was going to get it myself, it would have been fine!”

“I know.”

“Are you sure?  I’m pretty sure I could have written it off as a work expense, and so I live off rice and instant noodles for a while, I wasn’t going to starve, I could have figured something out!”

Laurens took his hand for just a moment, looking at him.  “I wanted to get it.”

Hamilton pulled away as Laurens let go.  He stopped him with one hand on his arm.  “Hold up, is this a date?  John, did you just take me on a date to _the tailor_?  Oh my God, you’re the only person alive who would drop a couple grand to get their date felt up by someone else.”

“Well, that’s not true.”

“And now you’re making crass jokes and I’m the one about to tell you to tone it down.  What the hell!”

“Alexander, calm down.”

“Right, you’re right.”  Hamilton took his hand off of him.  “One of us has to be normal and it might as well be me.  You’re weirding me out a little, John.”

“Look, isn’t this what you said should happen?”  Laurens asked, embarrassed and quickly getting defensive.  “Uneven exchange.  I’m playing by the rules that you put down.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Hamilton started walking towards the station.  “I didn’t think you’d go for something quite that dramatic.  …Expensive?”  He asked himself, trying to find the right adjective for the situation.

It was about a block before Laurens said anything again.  “Are you angry with me?  I thought it would be nice.”

“What?  Jesus, J., no, I’m not mad at you.  I’m just…”  Hamilton made a helpless gesture.  “You caught me off guard and I’m not sure that you’re not running a fever or tripping balls off some pain medication.  No, scratch that, this is in character, I forgot that you freakin’ flew to France because you were afraid I was gonna fuck my way through the _cinquième arrondissement_ and then pulled some Romeo and Juliet balcony shit when I got pissed at you.  You really do like your dramatics,” he said with a shake of his head.  He looked up.  Laurens was watching him.  “There’s just…”  He frowned and turned away.  Something was different and he couldn’t quite put a finger on it.  “Whatever.  It’s fine.  I’m not used to being out-showboated, I guess.”

 

> A. Hamilton: I need to talk to you

> G. Lafayette: Aren’t you at work?

> A. Hamilton: are you going to narc on me to gwash?

> A. Hamilton: yes I'm at work its important okay

> A. Hamilton: are you with john?

> G. Lafayette: yes

> A. Hamilton: okay

> A. Hamilton: dont be

> A. Hamilton: come to the office I’ll  let you in

 

“Grab a seat or whatever.”

“What did you do to John?”  Lafayette asked, sitting in front of Washington’s desk.

“What?  That’s my question,” Hamilton said.  “Did you notice?  What the fuck?”

“I noticed that he was fine when he went to class and then came back after seeing you looking like a kicked puppy.”

Hamilton held up both his hands in confusion.  “I have no idea!  He said he’d take me to get the suit tailored like he had promised and that was fine.  We get there and I pick shit out and get fitted and I’m just fucking around and—he was this close to kissing me right in the store, Lafayette!”

Lafayette’s eyes widened.  Hamilton didn’t stop talking.

“So of course I’m like, whoa, what the, and then I find out that he’s already paid for everything.  _Everything_ ,” he repeated, half-sitting on the desk and picking a pen off of it and handing it over to Lafayette, who put it in the inner pocket of his jacket.  “I tried to tell him that he didn’t need to do that and he took my hand.  On the street!  Since when does John do that?  He was already being all _weird_ and quiet and then he basically didn’t talk the entire way back after I tried to ask him what his deal was.  He thought I was mad at him or something?”  Hamilton shook his head in bewilderment.  “After all that he just ditched as soon as we got off the subway.  Seriously, Lafayette, what the hell is wrong with him?”

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with him,” Lafayette said incredulously, “except that he’s dating a complete idiot.”

“Hey!”

“How do I say this in English and with simple words so that you will understand…  He was trying to be sweet to you.”

“Huh?”

“John is a nice boy.  He likes you.  And he was trying to show you that,” Lafayette said, deliberately keeping his sentences simple.  "You embarrassed him and hurt his feelings.  It’s hard for him to make gestures like what he tried to do today.  He's not comfortable with expressing himself that way like you and I are.  He was feeling things out, giving it the, how do you say, good old college try.  You should be ashamed of yourself,” Lafayette added, taking out his new Washington pen and clicking it experimentally.

“Oh, shit.”  Hamilton looked guilty.

“Do you need me to tell you how to fix it?”

“No.”

“You need to go back to the room,” Lafayette said, ignoring him, “and tell John that you were being an idiot today and didn’t realize what was happening.  Then you need to prove that you still like him by action rather than words.  You also need to trade keys with me,” Lafayette added, “because I’m going to stay at your apartment tonight but if you fuck on my bed again I will end you.”

 

Laurens only dimly heard the door open over the music from his headphones and he didn’t bother to look up.  His bag was up on his desk, for once, blocking the flowers from view, and the sling was gone.  Although Laurens hadn’t put his book down he had only gotten a couple pages farther in it since Lafayette had left and he hoped he wouldn't notice and comment.  He leaned a little further over it, trying to communicate that he wasn’t in the mood to talk and snapped when a pair of hands carefully pulled his headphones down.

“What the fuck, Lafayette?  I’m trying to work!”

“Hi.”

Laurens felt his heart turn over and he froze.

Hamilton came around to the side of his chair and knelt on the floor.  “I’m sorry about this afternoon.  I know you were trying to do something nice for me and I really appreciate it, J.  I was running my mouth without stopping to think, I’m an asshole, I’m sorry, don’t take anything I said to heart.”  He took one of his hands off the book.  “You’re gonna blow your eardrums out if you keep the volume up that high.”

Laurens took his hand away, ran it back through his hair and took the headphones off from around his neck, then turned off the music and gave him his hand back.  “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” 

Laurens shrugged.

“John,” Hamilton sounded a little more desperate now.  “J., come on.”  He glanced around for an idea.  “I didn’t get dinner, want to come with me to get something to eat?”

“Not really.”

Hamilton ran a hand over his face.  “I could just order take out…”

“Alexander, I need to read this.”

“Right, yeah.  I’m busy too.”  Hamilton stared at the laptop, willing it to give him an idea.  “…Can you do me a favor?”

Laurens finally looked away from his book.  “What do you need?”

“I need a break.  No, seriously, just a couple of hours.  I’m gonna go crazy if I have to fix one more sentence.  For being such a smart guy, Washington’s not the best writer.  Just two hours of your time, come on, I won’t make you leave the room and I won’t get handsy, I promise.”

“Alex, I really need to finish this.”

“Yeah, okay, I hear you.  Just let me borrow your laptop and sit with me.  You can keep reading.”  Hamilton dug a pair of earbuds out of his pocket.  “I’ll be quiet.”

Laurens sighed, but handed him the laptop and got up to sit next to him on the bed.  Hamilton put the earbuds in and settled down next to him, taking his arm and going quiet.

Laurens kept reading, finally able to get past that section, then glanced over to see that Hamilton was watching a movie.  He realized a split second later with surprise that Hamilton was watching _his_ favorite movie and he felt a twinge of annoyance that he would try to lure him with something like that.  He returned to his book but couldn’t help looking over several times, although each time Hamilton’s attention was fixed to the screen and he didn’t seem to notice him.  By the time the film was about twenty minutes in, Laurens was watching it in silence over his shoulder and Hamilton finally looked up when he put the computer down so he could curl his legs under himself and get more comfortable.  He took out one of the earbuds and offered it to him.  Laurens unplugged them and got up.  Hamilton, nothing to brace himself against anymore, fell over onto the mattress and sat up as the room went dark.

Laurens sat back down, adjusting the screen and putting his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders as he lay down and leaned on his leg.

“It’s a good movie.”

“Mm.”

Hamilton was absentmindedly tracing a pattern on his thigh.  “Lafayette’s staying at my apartment tonight,” he said after a minute. 

“Yeah?”  Laurens shifted Hamilton off.  For a second Hamilton was afraid that Laurens was going to get up, but then he lay down behind him, putting his arm back over him.  Hamilton leaned into him, taking his hand, and Laurens smiled and ducked his face down into his hair. 

“Hey.”  Hamilton tipped his head back a little although he still couldn’t see him.  “We’re okay?  Just checking because apparently I’m a huge moron.”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”  Hamilton turned forward again and kissed his hand.  “‘Cause I like you a lot.”

 


	42. "Mein Freund"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Puppy; New Jock Friends; *NSFW; Bad Luck; Note

Hamilton was surprised when he woke early the next morning, still on Laurens’ bed, still with Laurens’ arm over him, the laptop closed in front of them.

“Good morning.”  Laurens kissed his temple.  “I’m glad you’re up.  I have to leave soon.”

“What the…  What time is it?”

“A little before six.”

“Your gym schedule sucks.”

Laurens kissed him again and when Hamilton rolled onto his back he nuzzled the side of his face.  Hamilton stared up at the ceiling, only half-awake, and absentmindedly stroked his hair.

“You’re like a puppy.  It’s like dating a giant puppy.  Lafayette was right, that is your spirit animal or whatever.”

Hamilton could feel Laurens stop and then raise an eyebrow as he talked.

“All right,” Laurens said, getting up.  “I’m leaving.”

“Hey, come on,” Hamilton protested, reaching for him and missing.  “It’s not bad!  I never said it was bad!”

Laurens gathered his things and headed for the bathroom.  “Too late, you ruined it.”

Hamilton flopped back over onto the mattress, burying his face in the pillow.  “Your sling, John,” he said, the words muffled.  “I’ll grab a jacket and walk you down.  Jesus Christ,” he continued, swearing to himself as he pushed himself up off the mattress.  “Your gym schedule sucks.”

Laurens paused, then came back and grabbed it.

 

> G. Lafayette: How did last night go?

> A. Hamilton: weird af

> G. Lafayette: ?

> A. Hamilton: didn't even give him a handy

> A. Hamilton: Watched Titans and fell asleep

> A. Hamilton: wtf

> G. Lafayette: You’re in a relationship now

> A. Hamilton: shit

 

Lafayette rolled his eyes at the screen as he walked into the mess hall in the same clothes he had on the night before, but without a story to go with it.

“Lafayette?”

He looked up, surprised to see Andre checking out at the register.

“You getting breakfast by yourself? I’ll save you a spot.”

Andre vanished in the crowd leaving Lafayette to pick something out and follow him a few minutes later.

 

> J. Laurens: Are you busy?

> A. Hamilton: getting dressed.  I need to go into work to finish some stuff up

> J. Laurens: oh

> A. Hamilton: why?

> A. Hamilton: wait come on don’t give me that

> J. Laurens: It’s fine, can I come?

> A. Hamilton: uh

> A. Hamilton: yeah I guess, he already invited you out for me

> A. Hamilton: why not?

> A. Hamilton: I really do need to get this done though.

 

Lafayette spotted Andre with relative ease at a table with several other members of the team, an empty spot next to him.  Lafayette supposed this was just more proof that he was popular in America as well as France and took his seat.  Andre had apparently already explained to the others that he was inviting him over because he only made the introductions one way.

“This is Tench, Tench Tilghman, and Ben Tallmadge,” he motioned to the two across the table from him.

Lafayette nodded hello.  “John, ah, Laurens isn’t here?  I assumed he ate with the team.”

“He usually does,” Tench Tilghman confirmed.  He was slightly shorter with gelled back black hair and a prominent nose.  “But he said he had somewhere he needed to be.”

“…Oh.” Lafayette took a bite of his cereal.  “I see.”

Andre gave Lafayette a knowing glance and he decided it was time to change the topic.

“Are you looking forward to the game this weekend?”

Ben Tallmadge—something about the arrangement of his features and his general bearing made him look very similar to Laurens—answered.  “I’m looking forward to when Lee finally stops his bitching.”

“Hey,” Andre protested, “he’s justifiably upset about the loss.”

“Tench agrees with me. He needs to move on,” Tallmadge insisted.  “You’re his scapegoat, Andre, and it’s getting old.”

Lafayette was suddenly more interested in the conversation.

“It’s not like that,” Andre quickly insisted, glancing at Lafayette.  “He hasn’t said anything that isn’t true.  You yourself said I lost us that game when I threw to Laurens.  It dropped us in the rankings,” he explained to Lafayette, who nodded, putting up a very superficial façade of being convinced.  “We’ll need to have a perfect record after this to even have a chance of making it, and that’s only if a couple other guys ahead of us take important losses. It’s his last year,” he continued as Tallmadge rolled his eyes and looked away.  “Of course he wants to go all the way.”

“Does he really blame you for Laurens getting hurt?  Is he upset with Laurens, too?”  Lafayette asked, keeping his voice casual and trying to get just a little more information about of him before they shut the topic of conversation down.

“It’s more that he says Laurens was an idiot and Andre should have known better.  He told him to throw to him,” Tench said.

“He didn’t force me to, I could have done something else!”

Tench shrugged.  “But it’s true.  I was there, Andre.  He told you right before the play to toss it to him no matter what and that he would make a break for it.”

Andre looked guilty and Lafayette nodded slowly.  “I see.  That sounds like Laurens.”

“He’s reckless,” Tallmadge agreed.  “And it was a bad call on Andre’s part, especially because we were already up and all we had to do was maintain the lead, but no one could have known he’d get hurt like that.  Poor guy.  Out of anyone he probably hates to sit out the most and he’s just coming off of another injury and getting benched last season.  He must be having a hard time.”

 

Laurens slammed Hamilton up against the closed office door.  Their mouths were pressed together before they even hit the wood and Hamilton was recklessly shoving his hand up Laurens’ shirt, running it over his chest and then his back, pulling him tightly against him as Laurens put his own hand behind his head and made a hungry noise against his mouth.

Hamilton groaned as Laurens grabbed him over his pants and he sunk down a little, legs spreading and knees buckled. He twisted Laurens’ shirt in his hands and Laurens took his other hand from his neck to cover his mouth and keep him from making further noise.  Hamilton felt a shiver run through his body at that and his hips jerked forward.

Laurens rubbed him hard and stifled Hamilton’s moan, biting at the lobe of his ear and his neck.  Hamilton grabbed his arm to steady himself and tipped his head away, tugging at his shirt encouragingly as he felt Laurens’ teeth sharp against his skin. He tipped his hips further into his hand, hoping that he would take the hint and undo his fly but instead Laurens stepped between his legs, forcing Hamilton to rub himself against him if he wanted any contact.  Hamilton whimpered and pressed himself to him, digging his nails into his arm as Laurens left a mark low on his neck and slid his hand, now freed, up Hamilton’s shirt over his bare skin.  Hamilton arched into the touch and gasped behind his hand as Laurens shifted his leg closer, forcing him up suddenly almost onto his toes and very aware as he supported himself against the door, that if Washington were to come back he would fall to an undignified heap to the floor.

Laurens moved his leg forward and all thoughts vanished from Hamilton’s mind as he rubbed himself against him, grinding on him as if they were in the darkened back of a club and desperately trying to find the angle that gave him the most relief.  He wanted to cry out, to moan Laurens’ name, and the forced restraint made him even more needy, tugging at Laurens’ shirt pleadingly and squirming as he felt his last shards of restraint starting to give way.

Laurens’ voice was low and dark in his ear.  “I’m not going to touch you.  You’ll have to finish yourself if you want it that badly.”

Hamilton gave a short cry, mostly silenced, and pressed himself to him, clinging as he thrust and rocked his hips against Laurens’ leg and shuddered with his release.  Laurens stood still, letting Hamilton support himself against him, and took his hand away.  Hamilton, already panting, gasped once he was freed and leaned forward, resting his head against Laurens’ chest.  Laurens helped him straighten up, his arm around his waist.

“Ah.”  Hamilton winced, adjusting the wet fabric. “ Shit, John.”

Laurens leaned in, kissing and then nuzzling the side of his face.  Hamilton fought the urge to roll his eyes, irritated at how this had played out.

“What the actual shit am I supposed to do now?  I can’t stay here like this!”

“So come back with me.  I’ll give you my coat.”

“Oh no, that’s a trap.  I go back with you and I never finish—I’m literal days behind on my work, John, as great as it is I can’t keep fucking you 24/7!”

“We didn’t do anything yesterday.  And I didn’t touch you today.”

“Sound less fucking smug.”

Laurens frowned and stepped back.  “Look, just…  Toss your underwear.”

Hamilton gave him an incredulous look.  “We are not having this conversation.”

“It would solve your problem.”

“I’m not—”  Hamilton gestured to himself.  “These are new!  And I’m not going commando in these jeans!”

“Then you can come back with me and change.  Those are your only options, Alex.”

Hamilton narrowed his eyes, thinking.  “No, there’s another one, and that’s what we’re doing.  I told you I needed to work so I’m blaming you for this.  Drop trow and give me yours, we’re trading.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”  Hamilton was already undoing his pants.  “And I’m giving you mine and you’re putting them in your bag and taking them back to the dorm and washing them for me.”

“Alex,” Laurens protested.

Hamilton pulled Laurens down to him and kissed him hard.  “Come on, J.  Please.”

Laurens gave in, knowing he was being manipulated and unable to help himself anyway.  He made the switch reluctantly and looked away as Hamilton changed.  He glanced back, thinking he was done, and felt a little thrill at seeing Hamilton wearing his own dark gray briefs.  It was just a glimpse.  Hamilton slid his pants on the rest of the way and did them up.

“All right, that’ll do.  Thank you.”  He stepped forward and kissed Laurens lightly.

Laurens knew that it wasn’t the time and that he was operating on a hairpin trigger, but he wanted him and he felt himself stir—against the thick denim of his own jeans and the uncomfortable reminder just made it that much more exhilarating.  He didn’t do this, anything like this, or at least he hadn’t until Hamilton came along…

The door opened and Hamilton stepped away to greet Washington and shoo Laurens out.

 

“John Laurens.”

Laurens had just left the building when a familiar and unwelcome drawl called him back.

“Professor Jefferson.”  He awkwardly tightened his hold on the strap of his bag.

“Don’t look so jumpy.  I’m just reminding you that you’ll need to resubmit your prospectus if you plan on graduating this time around.  I suggest that you get on it, I hear that the standards are a little higher this year.”

Laurens just nodded.  “I understand.”

“Laurens?”  Another voice joined in and Laurens swore internally.  Perhaps Jefferson noticed because he just smiled and dismissed him.

“Lee,” Laurens said, forcing a smile and turning.

Charles Lee had stopped walking and was waiting on the sidewalk.  “I have a question for you, Laurens.  What’s the deal with your sling?  I’ve seen you wear it when you head down to the gym, but it seems strange that you’d take it off once you get there.”

“It’s fine.  It’s in my bag.” Laurens sensed that Lee was waiting for him to take it out, as if to prove it to him, but he wasn’t about to open his bag right there so he just started walking.  “I’m going back to the dorms.”

“Your sling, Laurens.”

“It’s fine.  I don’t need to keep it immobilized anymore.”

“Then why wear it out at all?  Are you trying to get sympathy or look like a hero?”

Laurens couldn’t very well tell him who he had actually put it on for and Lee pressed the point, clearly enjoying himself.

“Laurens, we need you back on the field.  It’s one thing to be reckless in an attempt to drive the ball, but don’t keep us a man down—”

“I wore it through class, so get off my—”

“Lee?  Laurens?”

What the fuck was with the area in front of the offices? Was it some kind of Bermuda Triangle of running into people or was it (more likely, now that Laurens considered it) that the universe knew he was impatient to get back and determined to drag it out as long as possible.

“Hello, Coach,” Lee said as von Steuben walked up.

“What are you two talking about?”

Laurens saw his chance.  “Lee was reminding me that I should still be wearing the sling.”

Von Steuben frowned, responding in his heavy accent.  “Your sling?  No, Lee, that’s old.  He hasn’t needed that for a while.”

“I was confused, sir, because he’s been wearing it before gym in the morning.”

“Did you?  Is your shoulder still bothering you, Laurens?   _Zeig es mir_.”

Laurens took a quick step back, tightening his hold on the straps of his backpack again.  “Sir, it’s fine.”

“Then why wear it?”  Lee asked.

“Laurens, if something is wrong then we need to look at it as soon as possible.  The sooner it’s dealt with the better.”

“It’s fine,” Laurens said, a little too emphatically and felt a sinking sensation as von Steuben looked at him calculatingly.

“All right.  Laurens,” von Steuben began, “I wanted to talk to you about working it.  Come with me to my office.”

“Yes, sir.”  Laurens followed after him with a distinct feeling of dread.

 

“Have a seat, Laurens,” von Steuben said, closing the door to his office behind them.  Laurens sat awkwardly on the edge of the chair in front of the desk.  “You are one of my best players, Laurens, and I like you.  Either there’s something wrong and it’s not healing right or you’re pretending to need it when you don’t.”

“Sir, it’s fine, really, everyday things it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Laurens.”  Maybe it was the German accent, maybe it was his previous military experience, but it was hard to tell just how pissed von Steuben was at any given moment.  He tended to ratchet quickly up to sounding like he was about to start cursing in his native tongue.  It hadn't taken long for Laurens to learn the basic necessities for if he was ever caught in traffic or a bar fight in Deutchland.  "Why have you been using it and taking it off when you come to practice?”

Laurens felt himself starting to blush.  “Sir, it has nothing to do with the team.  It's just,” he fumbled over his words, “a friend of mine, he thought...  With the ankle brace, he said I should have been wearing it and,” Laurens was tripping over his own excuse, accidentally telling the truth instead.  “And he also saw me when you had me get my ankle checked at the health center because I wasn't, I mean, I wasn't wearing it, and my—friend, he—it was just easier to put it on before practice so...”  

Once again von Steuben studied him for a long moment, then finally nodded, much to Laurens’ relief.  Was he off the hook?  “Don’t wear it anymore.  You should be building your strength back, not letting it sit immobile.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That means I want you to tell him you don’t have to wear it anymore.”

Laurens felt a little nervous jolt and hoped for the best.  “Lee, sir?”

“Alexander.  Tell him your coach said you don’t have to wear it anymore."  He started digging in his desk for a pen and paper as Laurens turned completely red and felt the shock like a punch to the gut.  “I will write you a note to give to him since we both know how unreliable you can be.”

“Sir—” Laurens finally managed to get out, but von Steuben was already pressing the paper into his shaking hand.

“If I hear that you're still wearing it, I'll give you another note to make him sign.  Find a different way to show off,” he advised.  “And tell Alexander he is welcome to keep you company on the bench when we are at the field. But I don’t think you will be there much longer,” he added as he dismissed an unbelievably embarrassed Laurens.


	43. This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tempest; Lafayette and Friends x 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Wednesday chapter because I'm about to get on yet another plane and my knees may actually kill me.

“I’m fucking sick of _Tempest_ ,” Hamilton complained to Lafayette, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets as they walked to the mess hall.

“Really?”  Lafayette sounded surprised.  “I thought you would like that one.”

“It’s overdone as fuck.  Hurricane in the tropics, ha ha ha,” Hamilton said, only slightly bitterly.  “And don’t get me wrong, I love a good post-colonial reading as much as the next guy, more, probably, but it’s been done to death.  Caliban is the colonized subject, I get it.  Can we get a more creative reading?  What about a PoCo analysis of _Macbeth_?”

“I don’t—”

“You can totally do it,” Hamilton argued without waiting to hear what Lafayette was actually going to say.  “Shakespeare was English and writing for an English audience, so you’ve got that work with, do some analysis of royal authority, the use of nature and the periphery, it writes itself.”

“Is John joining us?”  Lafayette asked as they entered the building and he raised a hand in greeting to Tench across the way.

“I don’t know.”  Hamilton checked his phone.  “I tried texting him but he didn’t really answer.  Hey, you want to tell me if I’m being crazy?”

“You probably are, but explain.”

“So John’s all, whatever you called it, sweet, and I thought that was weird.  And it was also weird that we didn’t fool around last night.  But then we mess around while I’m on the clock and now he’s not texting me back and I’m kind of pissed.”

“Poor John,” Lafayette sighed as he picked out his lunch.  “He deserves an easier starter boyfriend.”

“Excuse you.”

“You are so needy,” Lafayette continued.  “I wasn’t half as bad as you when I started dating Adrienne, and I was just a child.”

“Hey,” Hamilton started, but Lafayette kept talking.

“You need to stop giving him such mixed signals.  You say you want attention and then push him away.  He gives you space and you get mad at him.”

“You’re making me sound worse than I am.  At least I’m having this conversation with you instead of just bitching him out for, look at this, _literally_ responding ‘k.’”  He held up his phone for Lafayette to see.

“He is being strange,” Lafayette agreed, scrolling up a bit in the conversation.  “He’s not in class right now, is he?  You should go find him.”

“I should find him,” Hamilton repeated.  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No, you should leave him on his own to question your fledgling relationship after you hurt his feelings yesterday when he was just trying to do what you asked him to.”

Hamilton scowled.  “Fine.  But if you’re wrong and he actually did want to be alone then I’m trashing your psychology book.”

 

“John?”  Hamilton knocked on the dorm room door.  “I can hear your music, let me in.  I got sandwiches.”

The music turned off and Laurens opened the door.

“Hey,” Hamilton slipped inside.  “I didn’t know what you wanted but I figured beef was good.  I’ll trade you if you don’t like it.”  He leaned on Lafayette’s desk.  “You didn’t have class in between, did you?  Were you here the whole time?  I have to go down to the library later, I’ll walk over that way with you when—”

“Alex.”

Hamilton looked up from unwrapping his sandwich.  Laurens was standing with one hand on his desk and he turned to look at him over his shoulder.

“This is,” he motioned between them. "I'm actually..."

Hamilton frowned.  Was he missing something?  “Okay,” he finally said, slowly. “Yeah, we’ve been fucking for pushing nine months now.  I literally dry-humped your leg this morning and I’m wearing your underwear.  Don’t tell me you’re only just realizing you actually like all this.”

Laurens had turned his head away again, unable to meet his gaze and Hamilton put the food down and came over to him.  “John, seriously.”  He put one hand on the side of his face, turning it to him.  “Fuck ‘em.”  His voice was quickly taking on an edge as he realized what Laurens had meant.  “Tell me who said what and I’ll make sure he gets so fucked—you’ll see what I can do to him.”

Laurens brushed his hand away.  “Von Steuben.”

Hamilton tipped his head to the side, narrowing his eyes.  “You need to explain that to me.  That doesn’t exactly make sense.”

Laurens took the note out of his pocket and handed it over.  Hamilton read it.

“Oh.  Well, that’s good about your shoulder.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, the point is that he was assuming you didn’t mind being called out on it, which is dicks but, trust me, he didn’t mean anything by it.  You know how many proposals he’s constantly submitting?  My first week on the job, I’m sorting through Washington's mail and I say, ‘Sir, did you know von Steuben sent you three memos about funding housing for at-risk LGBT youth?  I’m pretty sure he actually owns the property this one operates at.  What’s my point, sir?  Oh, nothing, I’m just commenting.’  Frankly, I’m shocked it’s not a bigger point of gossip, the man is anything but quiet.”  Hamilton crumpled the note up and tossed it out, kissing Laurens just off the side of his mouth.  “I know I tease you, but you’re not some blatant stereotype, John, jock or otherwise.  He’s just… very attuned to these things.  You want me to send _him_ a note saying to drop it?  I’ll use official stationary.  I’ve gotten real good at mimicking Washington’s signature.”

Laurens shook his head and took his hand.  “I’m sorry.  I’ve been difficult and I don’t like it.”  He sat in his chair and kissed it.  “It’s just that sometimes when I’m with you I feel a little crazy,” he admitted.

Hamilton blinked.  “Huh.”

Laurens looked up at him.

“No, no, it’s nothing.  Just something I was talking about with Lafayette, I’ll tell you later.”  He paused.  “Do you want lunch?”

Laurens smiled.  “Sure.”

“Good, because I don’t need both of these.”  Hamilton passed him one of the sandwiches and went back to opening the other.

“It’s a nice day,” Laurens said, parting the curtain to look at the sky.

“Too cold,” Hamilton argued through a mouthful of turkey.

“We could eat in the foyer.”

Hamilton perked up.  “Yeah?  You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Great!”  Hamilton got up, already waiting by the door.  “No offense, but it’ll be nice to eat at a table and without that porcelain cat staring at my legs.”

“I thought you liked your legs,” Laurens teased, squeezing his hand for just a moment as they left.

“Yeah, I do, and I don’t want some tacky piece of home decor to sink its teeth into them.”

Laurens laughed and Hamilton looked up quickly, grinning.

“You’re—”

“Crazy, I know.  Let’s grab a table.”

 

“It’s just very immature,” Lafayette said, sitting on his bed the next day and eating out of a bag of cheetos.  “Are the two of you fourteen?”

“Yes,” Hamilton said pulling down his collar to look at the hickey low on his neck in Laurens’ mirror.  “Aren’t you impressed that we’re about to graduate ahead of you?”

Lafayette shook his head.  “ _Des suçons, Alec?_ ”

“ _Oui.  Cur non?_ ”

“Don’t take my line.”

Hamilton shrugged but let go of his collar.  “It’s hot.  So I like knowing that people can see the evidence, whatever.  Besides, why is that your phrase?”

“It’s been on my crest since the eleventh century.”

“Ah.”

“Actually, it was mostly forgotten but I'm trying to bring it back. It’s just so evocative.”

“It does suit you,” Hamilton agreed.

“So how are you and John?”  Lafayette asked as Hamilton sat at his desk.

“Pretty good, actually.  He told me that I’m invited to keep him company on the bench but I think I’ll pass.  Don’t get me wrong, as tempting as it is to get front row seats to that show, I’d rather not break him again.”

Lafayette nodded and passed him the bag.  “How considerate of you.”

“I know.  Shit,”  Hamilton paused with one hand in the bag.  “Do you think I need to delete my Tindr?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said as delicately as possible, “I think you do.”

“Damn.”  Hamilton handed the food back and took out his phone.

“I’ve got class,” Lafayette said, rolling up the top of the bag and putting it on the shelf.  “Are you going to wait here for John?”

“Yeah.  Yoga?  I’m surprised you stuck with it.  Is it fun?”

“It’s very boring,” Lafayette lied.  “You’d probably hate it.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really sound like my thing.  Are you free after?”

“I’m meeting a friend.”

“You have friends besides John and me?”

“Of course I do.”

Hamilton shrugged and went back to his phone as Lafayette gathered his things and left.

 

“It’s the truth,” Lafayette was saying to Aglae as they packed up after class.  “Before I came here last year I had never been to America before.”

“But your English is so good,” she exclaimed.  “Did you go to Britain?”

“I’ve never been.  I’d much rather go here.”

“How do you know that if you’ve never been?”  She asked teasingly.  “Don’t tell me it’s just because you’re French.”

“ _Oui, oui, mon amie_.”

Aglae laughed and swatted his arm.

“Do you miss France?”

“Of course I do,” he said, “but America is fantastic.  There’s just something about this place.  It’s hardly perfect, but you have to believe that you can make a difference.”

She smiled.  “You’re an idealist.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.”

Lafayette picked up his bag, everything put away in it.  “Are you headed towards campus?  I’ll go with you.”

“No, I’m not.  You could come with me anyway,” she said playfully.

“Ah, I’m meeting a friend.”  Lafayette sounded regretful.  “Some other time.”

“All right.”  She brushed a strand of hair out of her face.  “Maybe next week.”

 

“Lafayette!”  Andre waved to him, getting up from the bench outside the mess hall.  “ _Ça va?_ ”

Lafayette, freshly showered and with his still-damp hair pulled back, lifted his own hand in greeting.  “ _Ça va._   Where did you want to go?”

“It’s getting crowded here.”  Andre glanced inside.  “There’s a cafe nearby.  Do you want to just go there?”

“At the corner?  Sure.  They have a good signal and it shouldn’t be too loud.”

“Perfect.”

They started walking.

“How is Peggy?”

“She’s great,” Andre said.  “I think she’s going to be busy this weekend, though, which sucks.  But she’s great.  We just click, you know?”

Lafayette nodded and Andre continued.  “Do you think it would be all right if I brought her on Halloween?”

“Of course.  There need to be more girls there, anyway.”

“Okay, great.  Great,” Andre said.  “I didn’t want to tap out but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it if she couldn’t go.  I want to be able to spend it with her, too.”

“I understand.  I would want to spend holidays with Adrienne as well.”

“Are you going home over Christmas?  It’s pretty far.”

“I went last year.  This year… I’m not sure how I will divide up my time.  Laurens asked me and Alexander to visit him in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, so maybe we’ll make plans to do something for winter break as well.”

“Alexander and Laurens can do something together.  I’m sure they’d understand if you couldn’t make it.”

“Oh, I’m sure they would,” Lafayette said carefully.  “But I am looking forward to seeing Laurens’ home.  I’ve never been that far south.”

“I haven’t either.  From what he’s told me about it, I’m sure you will enjoy yourself.”

“What has he told you?  He’s said very little to me.”

“It should be warm, for one, and I don’t know if his old friends will be around over break but it sounds like they get up to all sorts of trouble.  Uh, Kilroy?  Kinloch, I think his name was,” Andre frowned, trying to remember.  “It doesn't matter.  Anyway, I don’t think he was there last year, but Laurens mentioned seeing him over break before.  I bet between the two of them they could show you guys a good time.”

“I’ll ask about it,” Lafayette said, promptly forgetting as they entered the cafe and placed their orders.  Lafayette found a table for them and took his laptop out of his bag, setting it up as Andre retrieved their drinks.

“Good evening, Adrienne,” he said in French once Adrienne appeared on screen, sitting on the sofa in her front room.  “This is Andre.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Andre said.

“And you.  I’m glad Gilbert has made another friend his own age.”

“Don’t worry,” Andre reassured her, “I’ve made up my mind to introduce him to many people.  You’ll have to beat the boys off of him with a stick!”

Adrienne giggled and Lafayette cut in.  “Adrienne, you should show Andre what you’re working on.”

“All right.”  Adrienne bent down and picked up a pair of tall black boots.  “These aren’t really mine.  A friend in my class is helping me with them.”

“I love boots,” Andre said.  Lafayette glanced down at him.  He was, in fact, wearing a pair.  “Are those for the military uniforms?”

Adrienne nodded. “Gilbert said he told you about that.”

“He showed me pictures of things you have made before.  Do you have a favorite time period to work in?”

Adrienne smiled, a little shyly.  “Gil and I always liked the mid- to late-eighteenth century.  The end of the Old Regime and the Enlightenment.”

“Adrienne is wonderful with Voltaire,” Lafayette said.  “You would think that she met him!”

“He’s flattering me,” Adrienne laughed.

“No, it’s true!  Adrienne, tell him—”

“ _Excusez-moi, peux, uh, peux-tu utiliser des headphones?_ ”

The three of them looked in confusion at the employee with the poor accent until Lafayette made sense of what he was trying to say.

“Ah.”  He took a pair of earbuds out of his bag and offered one end to Andre.  They continued their conversation.

“It’s too bad you can’t join us in America,” Andre said.  “Peggy and I could show you around the city.”

“Mm, it’s not an option for me right now, but that reminds me, de Ségur and Louis are talking more about visiting you at some point, Gil.”

“Ah, are they really?”  Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “That would be fun, they should do it.”

“They need to convince their parents first.  Not everybody can do things the way you did.”

Lafayette smiled nervously at that.  “Yes, well, that is true.”

“How did you do it?”  Andre asked.

“I didn’t exactly ask permission before getting on the plane,” Lafayette said, embarrassed.  “I was supposed to go on vacation with them to Sicily instead.”

“Oh.”  Andre sounded awkward.  “I’ve never been to Sicily.  Is it nice?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“…Right.”

“Andre,” Adrienne said, changing the subject much to Lafayette’s relief, “Lafayette tells me that you play football with John.”

“Laurens?  Yeah, he’s great.  You got to meet him, didn’t you?”

“He and Alexander visited over summer.”

“Then I guess you do have to visit him in South Carolina again this winter,” Andre joked, missing how Adrienne leaned a little away from the laptop.

“I haven’t decided on anything,” Lafayette said to both of them.  “How could I spend the holidays away from France?”

Adrienne smiled.

“Andre, I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ll have time to make you a costume as well.  Even just a jacket would have been nice, so you could match the others.”

“That’s all right, you don’t have to do that,” Andre said.  “I’ll just rent something.”

“Gilbert, get Andre’s measurements for me for later,” Adrienne said.  “It’s not fair that he doesn’t get _anything_.”

"You don't have to do that," Andre said again, raising his hand in protest.  Lafayette leaned out of the way of the gesture and spilled his drink on himself.

"Ah, I'm sorry," Andre started as Lafayette quickly got up, yanking out the earbud with the motion.  

"No, it's fine," Lafayette said shaking off the front of his shirt and taking handfuls of napkins from the holder on the table to clean himself with.

"Andre," Adrienne said.

Andre turned back to the screen, a little startled to be addressed directly while Lafayette couldn't hear.  

"I worry about him."  Adrienne looked up at Lafayette as he cleaned himself up.  "He means well.  Maybe the problem is that he means too well.  You have a little more distance than John and Alex.  Keep an eye on him for me, please?"

Andre paused, then nodded.  "Yes."

Lafayette glanced over, only then realizing that they were having a conversation without him.  "What are we talking about?"  He asked as he sat back down and put the earbud back in, still dabbing at the material with a napkin, somewhere between distracted and mildly jealous.

"I'm trying to decide what to send along for Andre," Adrienne said lightly.  "I think he really deserves something."


	44. Honestly Just Smut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *seriously, I don't even remember writing this but I'm uploading it anyway

Laurens groaned, pressing his hand hard against the door as Hamilton sunk to the ground in front of him, one hand still cupping him over the front of his jeans and the other running up his thigh.

“Mm, Alexander,” he put his hand a little farther out from his side, bracing himself as Hamilton started to pull his pants down and licked along the band of elastic.

“I want to taste you,” Hamilton said as Laurens arched towards him.  “I’m not going to stop before you’re done.  I want you to come in my mouth.”

Laurens tipped his head back against the door, heart racing.

“I didn’t think I would like it so much,” Hamilton went on, moving his hand over the bulge in his briefs and sliding his other up to cup his ass.  “But you drive me wild.  I could eat you alive.”

Laurens whimpered a little, his arm shaking.  Hamilton flicked his tongue just under the elastic and grinned when he heard Laurens gasp.

“The other night when you were on your back, at first I wasn’t planning on doing much, but once I saw it, saw how hard you were—damn, J.—I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to see how much of you I could swallow.”  He tugged the fabric of his briefs away a little and Laurens took a sharp breath.

“I like that I can make you so desperate with just my mouth.  Make you cry out and grab my hair.”

Laurens put his other hand on Hamilton’s shoulder, half to brace himself and half to urge him on, but Hamilton was taking his time.  He slid his hand under Laurens’ briefs, running it over his bare ass.  Laurens moved his legs a little further apart so he was standing in a stronger stance and Hamilton ran his fingers against him without pressing in.  Laurens bit his lip.

“I want to make you moan, I want the whole _hall_ to wonder what I’m doing to you in here.”

“Alex…”

“What is it, J.?”

Laurens shifted his hips uncomfortably.  “Hurry up.”

“We still have time.”  Hamilton ran his fingers over him again and when he passed his other hand over his head he could feel the fabric just starting to get damp.  Laurens moaned, low, and leaned his hips forward.

“Am I being too mean to you?”  Hamilton asked, and even though he had his eyes closed Laurens could hear the grin in his voice.  “I’d threaten to stop but I don’t want to.”

Laurens nodded.  “Good.”

“I just want to draw it out.  Make this last as long as possible.”  Hamilton pressed his hand hard over his shaft and Laurens groaned again, leaning heavier on him.

Hamilton slid his briefs down, giving a short appreciative exhale at the sight that caused Laurens to shiver, and kissed him just next to his base.

Laurens gripped his shoulder tighter, his breathing quickening as Hamilton kissed him again, then ran his tongue about halfway up along the underside of his shaft.

Hamilton repeated it, pausing and murmuring against his skin so that Laurens tried not to jerk as his lips brushed over him.

“God, J.  You’re so _fucking_ hot.  I could look at you forever.”

M-mm,” Laurens barely managed to get out, putting his other hand on Hamilton’s shoulders as well.  “Do—more than look.”

“Take me pictures,” Hamilton commanded.  “The next time I’m sleeping at my apartment.  Send them to me.  I want to see you touching yourself.”

“Alexander…”

Hamilton slowly took Laurens into his mouth and he forgot what he was going to say.  Hamilton moved over him and gave a short laugh when Laurens put his hand on the back of his head.

“H-hey.”

“Sorry.”  Hamilton pulled off and ran his tongue over his head so that Laurens groaned, ducking his head down.  “I told you that I like that.”

Laurens pushed him closer at that and Hamilton obligingly swallowed as much of him as he could, moving faster and holding his legs tightly.  He could feel him trembling slightly, and he swallowed hard against him as Laurens tugged at his hair. Hamilton pulled off as Laurens gasped out his name.

“I like that.  Feeling how much you want it.”  He took him back in his mouth without warning and Laurens gave a short startled cry, his breathing coming harder and louder, and he pushed Hamilton’s head down again, moaning and leaning back against the wall as he felt heat pooling in his groin.

“Alexander, please…”  He yanked at his hair harder than he meant to and Hamilton gave a short appreciative moan against his cock.  Laurens slipped a little down the door with a whimper.  He opened his mouth to warn him, then remembered what Hamilton had said and shut it again, his hand shaking as he kept him from moving away and jerked his hips forward, repeating his name as Hamilton wrapped his hand around his base, pumping until he had finished, then swallowed against him again, moving a little further down instead of off.

“Mm—”  Laurens took in a sharp breath, sensitive to the touch, as Hamilton only very slowly moved away, teasing his slit with his tongue before sitting back on his heels.

“You’re so hot,” Hamilton repeated himself.  “I can’t believe it.”

Laurens just laughed, short of breath.

“No, I mean it,” Hamilton insisted.  “Just your cock alone—damn.”  He stood up as Laurens covered himself and did up his pants and then kissed him slowly.  Hamilton put his hand on the side of his face and slid his tongue into his mouth.

“I know you don’t like it,” he said quietly as he moved away, lips just off of his, “but I want you to know what you taste like.”

Laurens felt a thrill run down his spine.

Hamilton stepped away.  “It’s a little early, but I want to grab something before the dinner rush.”

“Sit down.”

“Hm?”  Hamilton had been checking his pocket for his wallet and he looked up, surprised, then grinned when he saw how Laurens was watching him.  “All right.  Bed or chair?”

“Bed.”

Hamilton, still looking like the proverbial cat who caught the canary, sat at the edge of it.  “Should I get my pants?”

“Take them off.”

Hamilton quickly stripped and let out a pleasantly surprised gasp and moan as Laurens pushed him back onto the mattress, his hand around his shaft.  Hamilton put his arms around his neck, kissing him hungrily as Laurens moved his hand over him, quickly getting him hard.  Hamilton tried to arch up off the bed into his hand but it was difficult when he hadn’t been lying on it properly and he whined in frustration.

Laurens sucked on Hamilton’s tongue, feeling heady at how insistent Hamilton had been and how much he had enjoyed himself.  He could still taste the salt on his mouth and while normally he disliked it, right now it made him want to make him _scream_.

“Turn over,” Laurens said, standing up.

Hamilton inhaled sharply as Laurens moved away, then wordlessly did so.

Laurens leaned over him, his face next to his as he braced himself on the mattress with his left hand and he put his right back on Hamilton’s shaft.

“John,” Hamilton gasped.

Laurens pressed his face to his, moving his hand faster.  Hamilton was breathing harder, every few breaths coming out as a whimper.  The feel of Laurens’ weight against him and the position—he jerked his hips into Laurens’ hand, desperate for more forceful contact.  Laurens was quickly bringing him to climax, and he dug his hands into the sheet, his arms shaking slightly as he fought the urge to collapse onto the mattress.  His mind was flooded with images of Laurens, of his naked body and hard cock, and he could feel himself losing control, unable to think of anything beyond what he had just done and of Laurens’ hand on his shaft.

Hamilton spilled onto the sheets and Laurens turned to him and kissed him deeply. He nudged him onto his back on the mattress and pinned him to it for a minute.

Hamilton held him to him and when Laurens moved away it was just to duck his face, smiling, to the crook of his neck.

“Hey.”  Hamilton said, running a hand through his hair.  “You ever think of growing this out?  You’d be pretty cute.”

Laurens laughed against his skin.

“Okay, you’re already pretty cute.  You could work it is what I mean. Join me and Lafayette on the dark side.”

“Mm, I don’t know,” Laurens said, still smiling.

“Trust me—”  Hamilton was cut off by his stomach growling suddenly and he half-laughed, embarrassed.

“Come on.”  Laurens kissed him again, lightly, and got up.  “You wanted to get something for dinner.”

“You should probably change your shirt,” Hamilton pointed out as he dressed.  “Unless you want everyone to know what we were doing.”

Laurens looked down at himself.  “Shit.”  Hamilton passed him another shirt from his drawer.  “Thanks.”  He switched them out.  “What are you doing after this?”

“I wish I could give you the dirty answer to that question, but I’ve got homework.”

“Do it here.”

“John.”

“It’s fine, Lafayette will be here.  I’ll make him be quiet, I won’t talk to you, either.”

Hamilton looked skeptical.

“Or let me come to your apartment or the library with you.  I have work of my own to do anyway.”

Hamilton laughed and raised up on his toes to kiss him again before getting the door.  “You’re so… sweet.  I’ll stay here.”

 


	45. Night in the Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rousseau; > H. Mulligan; Oreos

“That has been _attribué par erreur_ ,” Lafayette argued, the chair at his desk turned out so he could speak more directly to Laurens, and his accent coming out stronger than what had become normal.  “Rousseau never said ‘noble savage,’ _even though_ it had been coined previously.”

“It doesn’t matter if he used the exact phrase,” Laurens retorted.  “He idealized Tahiti and its people, he didn’t need to put that label on it for it to still be problematic.”

“But he wasn’t talking about an idealized native in that sense.  Excuse me if I am wrong, but your noble savage is a heroic, if tragic, figure who is innately good because he has not been, how you say, _Il n’a pas été corrompu par la civilisation_.”

“He hasn’t been corrupted by civilization,” Laurens repeated for his benefit.  “Right, and how is that different than what he thought he saw in the Pacific?”

“It is different because it is a negative good, he simply meant to argue for self-sufficiency and a removal of these _corruptions_ , _merci_ , that he saw in his France.  Alexander,” he turned to Hamilton, who was sitting on the floor against Laurens’ bed with headphones on as he read, “you know Rousseau, don’t you?  Tell your boyfriend that I am right.”

Hamilton looked up, annoyed.  “You’re both wrong.  John, Lafayette is right, he never used that phrase, you’re being lazy with your terminology.  Define what you mean and don’t get butthurt when he points out your mistake.  Lafayette, even though I’ll give you that you’re right about his actual message, the dude still was drawing generalizations about civilization itself and you can’t _do_ that without painting entire groups of peoples in broad strokes.  You both lose points on this one, now shut up and let me finish this.”  

Lafayette turned away in a huff, taking out his phone.

“You can’t just tell Adrienne to agree with you when Alexander doesn’t,” Laurens complained in a loud whisper.  

Lafayette made a shushing motion and started typing anyway.

Hamilton shifted away so they weren’t directly in his line of vision.

“What’s Adrienne’s number?”  Laurens asked, getting out his own phone.

“Why?”  Lafayette was suspicious.

“You told me to think of her as a sister, didn’t you?  As her older brother I’m pretty sure I need her number so she can call me when weirdos like you are bothering her and I can smack the phone out of your hand and tell you to leave her alone.”

“You’re not making a strong case—”

Hamilton interrupted Lafayette to recite the number.

“Zero nine?”

“Seven nine,” Hamilton clarified as Laurens saved it to his phonebook.

“I thought you were on my side,” Lafayette complained.

Hamilton shrugged.  “This seemed like it will be more fun.  Besides, it’s not like I need to worry about anything.”

“I’m going to tell her to block your number,” Lafayette started to threaten, but was again cut off.

“Too late.”  Laurens showed him his phone.

 

> J. Laurens:  Hello, Adrienne.  This is John Laurens.  I’m putting your number in my phone, if that’s all right.

> A. de Noailles:  Hello John!

 

Lafayette put his phone away, defeated.

“I should tell her that you tricked me into drawing that picture of her and that you still never gave it to her.”

“If you do, I’m not speaking to you anymore.”

“John, tell Adrienne about the picture,” Hamilton said. “Then you’ll have to stop talking to one another and I can finally finish this Goddamn chapter.  This is why I didn’t want to do work here.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

 

> G. Lafayette: Should we apologize again?  He didn’t say anything.

> J. Laurens: Let him be, I promised we wouldn’t bother him.

> G. Lafayette: What’s the problem?  Usually he’s the loud one.

> G. Lafayette: In bed too, I understand, but I meant when we are passing time together.

> J. Laurens: He tells you about that?  Not just what we do but that kind of detail?

> G. Lafayette: Of course.

 

Laurens gave Lafayette a silent look, managing to convey the proper level of discomfort he had with that.

 

> G. Lafayette: What’s the problem?

> G. Lafayette: There is a phrase I want to say but I don’t know what it is.  Help me. Something about talk among friends.

> J. Laurens: Are you trying to make a locker room reference?  

> G. Lafayette: Peut-etre.

> J. Laurens: It’s not the same, it’s not like when Andre tells me about what he did with his girlfriend.  You’re friends with both of us and… I can’t see how he would have even brought that up, tbh.  It’s not something you can… brag about?

> J. Laurens: I’m not really asking you to explain.

 

Lafayette rolled his eyes and deleted what he had been in the middle of typing.

 

> J. Laurens: Thank you.

> J. Laurens: To get back to the other point.  He’s behind on some things and needs to catch up.

> G. Lafayette: ohhhhhhhhhhhh

> G. Lafayette: Right

> G. Lafayette: Les tourtereaux :* <333

> J. Laurens: Can you not.

> G. Lafayette: You are still having votre lune de miel, I am surprised you can keep your hands off of one another long enough for me to be sitting here in the same room as you!

> G. Lafayette: If you like, I will take Alex’s keys again and sleep in his apartment

> J. Laurens: Ha ha.

> G. Lafayette: Tell me all about it, I get tired only hearing Alex’s side of things.  

> G. Lafayette: With him it is just half the time sex and half the time I am talking him down from doing something stupid.  Adrienne and I are sure that your version of things is more accurate.

> J. Laurens: I am so unsurprised that you tell her everything that I can’t even be upset about it.

> G. Lafayette: I don’t tell her the very dirty parts

> J. Laurens: …Thanks.

 

Laurens looked up again.  Lafayette tipped his head questioningly to the side.  Laurens glanced at Hamilton, still reading, then picked up his keys.

“Alex, I’m going to make a run to the mart.  Do you want anything?”

“Coffee.”

“It’s after eight, I’m getting you decaf.”

“You’re fucking Satan.”

Lafayette refrained from making an obvious joke.

“Lafayette, do you want to come?”  Laurens nodded his head towards the door, and Lafayette stood.

“I’ll see what they have.”

“Right.  We’ll be back in a little bit.”

Hamilton raised a hand but didn’t bother to respond as they left.

 

“So,” Laurens began once he was sure they were alone in the hall, “you said that he talks?”

“Constantly,” Lafayette confirmed, “but you know that.”

Laurens glanced around.  “What does he say about me?”

“He told me you don’t like it when he comes in your—”

“Please stop that forever,” Laurens interrupted.  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Be more specific next time.”  But Lafayette thought about this.  “He likes you a lot.”

“Yes, he’s said.”

“But you want to know what that actually means,” Lafayette said.  

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t date Alexander Hamilton.”

“Lafayette.”

“Fine, fine,” he flipped his hand.  “He is very eager to please.  He doesn’t understand what you want, which is very silly because you’re so easy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that not the right term?  I mean that you are very straight.  Ah, straightforward.  He genuinely does not realize when he’s being a bit of an ass and he wants you to pay attention to him always.  Hm, not not actually always.”  Lafayette paused to think, and then waited as another student crossed their path.  He started talking again once there was no danger of being overheard. “But frequently.  And on his own terms.  It’s like you are now the owner of a very touchy cat,” he concluded.

“Thank you,” Laurens said dryly.  “That is very helpful.”

“What exactly am I supposed to be telling you?”

Laurens rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.  “I don’t…  Never mind, this was a stupid idea.  Forget it.”

“Come on,” Lafayette said encouragingly.  “Just be more specific.”

“I don’t know what he wants.  I just want him to like me.”

“He does, I said that already.”

“No, I mean…” 

“He does,” Lafayette reassured him.  “He’s trying very hard.”

“Yeah?”

Lafayette nodded enthusiastically.  “And he is always bragging about you.  Not just in bed,” he added quickly when Laurens looked like he was going to tell him to shut up again.  “In fact, Washington told me that Alex—”

“Whoa, whoa, he talks about me with _Washington_?”

“Nothing inappropriate!  He spends a lot of time with him.  They talk sometimes.”

Laurens winced.  “It’s still weird.”

“You need to deal with it,” Lafayette advised.  “Alexander is very smart.  He knows who he can trust and you should find it flattering that he, how does he say it, runs his mouth off about you.”

Laurens didn’t say anything to that.

“You wanted to know if he really liked you,” Lafayette continued.  “If he didn’t, he wouldn’t talk about you to anyone willing to humor him.”

Laurens was still silent, thinking about this as they kept walking.  His phone went off and he took it out of his pocket, smiled, and started typing a response.

“Ah, _la lune de miel_ ,” Lafayette said, shaking his head.  “He complains so much and then we are only a few minutes and he’s texting you.”

Laurens laughed.  “What was that?”  He turned the phone to show him the picture Adrienne had just sent him of her dogs.

Lafayette checked his own phone a little jealously.  No new messages.

 

> H. Mulligan: HEY WHATS THE DEAL WITH HALLOWEEN I JUST HAD MY OWN PARTY MENTIONED TO ME BY SOMEONE I DONT KNOW

> H. Mulligan: IM COOL WITHA RAGER BUT YOU WANNA GIV ME THE DETAILS OR NAH

> A. Hamilton: jfc Mulligan caps lock

> H. Mulligan: sorry.

> A. Hamilton: Yeah I invited someone and I think Lafayette was getting some girls, figured that was ok

> H. Mulligan: ok cool cool no prbolem

> H. Mulligan: you tell them to BYOB?

> A. Hamilton: shit I’ll get around to it. cover fee otherwise?

> H. Mulligan: ya

> H. Mulligan: we got time though don’t bust yo ass yet

> H. Mulligan: speaking of which how’s the ass busting going

> A. Hamilton: OMG SHIT THAT’S RIGHT

> A. Hamilton: SHIT

> A. Hamilton: I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TELL YOU THE FUCKING DRY SPELL HAS ENDED

> H. Mulligan: fuck yea!!!!

> A. Hamilton: not to invalidate what we were already doing or anyone for whom that is a personal preference but FUCKNG HELL PUSHING A YEAR SINCE I GOT MY DICK WET WHY THE FUCK DID I WAIT SO LONG

> H. Mulligan: idk

> A. Hamilton: fUCK

> H. Mulligan: so whats the deal am i allowed to act like i know who he is yet

> H. Mulligan: also remind me your area code I’m sending yo a motherfucking bachelorette cake to celebrate your dickcomplishment

 

“Maybe I should steal her from you,” Laurens teased, still texting as they headed back from the mart.

“Adrienne from Lafayette?”

Laurens and Lafayette turned to the new voice.

“Oh, hello, Andre.”

They waited for him to catch up and fall in alongside.

“How’re classes?”  Laurens put the phone in his pocket.  “Did you get started on French yet?”

“I’ll get around to it tomorrow morning.  I’m heading over to Ben Tallmadge’s for a while.  Are you guys busy?  You’re welcome to come with me.”

“Alexander is back at the dorm,” Laurens responded.  “We just went out to grab a snack.”

“Some other time,” Lafayette reassured him.  Laurens raised a brow, then looked in mild confusion at Andre when he didn’t seem to find that unusual at all.

“Right, just let me know.  We’re still on for Friday?”

“Friday?  Sure—”

“Oh,” Andre cut Laurens off, looking embarrassed.  “Sorry, I was talking to Lafayette.  You can come too, though!  Open invitation.”

“Friday’s still good,” Lafayette said, interjecting himself smoothly back into the conversation.  “Same place?”

“Yeah.  Right, I’m turning here.  See you guys later.”  Andre split off with a wave and Laurens turned to Lafayette.

“…We’re trying to pick a weekly time that works well for both of us to meet up and get coffee,” Lafayette explained.  “It turns out that we have a lot in common.”

“Really?”  Laurens sounded skeptical.  “You both have girlfriends and speak French.  Is that really what you’re basing your standing date night on?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said with dignity.  “Tell me all the hobbies you and Alex have in common again.”

“So are all the drinks pumpkin flavored yet?”  Laurens changed the topic.

 

Hamilton got the door when they knocked.

“You guys both live here, don’t tell me neither of you had your keys—Oh, hey, coffee!”  He took it from Lafayette.  “What did you—”  He took a sip and made a face.  “The shit is this?”

“I told you I was getting decaf,” Laurens said, coming in and sitting back at his desk.

“I thought that was a joke!”

“You need to actually sleep, Alex.”

“I need to get my work done, John.”

“So study for a couple more hours and then go to bed.  I’ll wake you when I get up and you can finish then.”

“Does this mean I’m spending the night?  ‘Cause that’s the first time I’m hearing about this.  I’m just clarifying,” Hamilton continued, directing his comment to Lafayette, “so you don’t think I’m just inviting myself over.”

“Stay if you like, it’s fine with me.  Although I’ll be getting up before John does and you’ll both be asked to leave.”

Laurens groaned.

“…My place?”

“Your place.”

“Good, now that is settled,” Lafayette said, digging through his bag of purchases, “Alex, guess how many different kinds of Oreos we found at the store.”

“Uh…”  Hamilton glanced up at Laurens who, without looking at him, put out four fingers at his side.  “Four.”

Lafayette closed the bag.  “You cheated.”

“It was a dumb question.”

“The point is,” Lafayette continued, taking out one of the boxes and opening it, “that I need you to help me taste test these for science and my true love.”  He handed it to Hamilton.  “I need to send her box out this weekend,” he clarified.

“Ah.  Don’t you usually wait until she gets whatever it is before you break into it?”

“There were too many options this time,” Laurens explained for Lafayette.  He waved off the box when it was offered.  “We decided it would be better if the two of you tried them first and then sent her the strangest.”

“The most American.”

“You didn’t actually buy the normal ones,” Laurens pointed out.  “I’m pretty sure that you’re just going to send her the one you find most foreign to your tastes.”

“She’s a lucky girl,” Hamilton said through a full mouth.  “Her boyfriend is shipping her low-quality snack food that I’m pretty sure she could get a hold of herself if she really wanted. Don't listen to what the media tells you, _that's the dream_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there was initially a note on chapter 19 that in regards to the buffer, the last thing I had written was a bit on Rosseau. Anyway, that's 26 chapters for anyone playing along at home.


	46. Lack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (*)Loneliness; Domestic

Lafayette was awake.  He hadn’t really been able to sleep even though he had sent the other two away and had everything ready for his lunch date with Adrienne.  He checked his watch.  3:50.  He let his arm flop back onto the mattress and lay there for another minute, staring up at the dark ceiling.

This was a waste of time.  He was growing annoyed and finally sat up, checking his watch again (3:51) and putting his legs off the side of the bed.  As he sat there, an idea slowly started to come to him.  He could get some more classwork done, but it was so early and he just didn’t want to, or…

Lafayette got up and opened the bottom drawer of his desk, hovering his hand for a moment as he tried to decide what to take out.  Maybe something else new.  If his friends were going to spend their money on him he should make sure it didn’t go to waste.  He sat back on his heels, opening one of the boxes and taking out what looked like a silicone egg, open on one end and hollow on the inside.  He put a finger inside it curiously.  It was textured with waved ridges.

Shrugging to no one in particular he took it and the lube back to the side of his bed and undid the drawstring of his pants, slipping his hand inside.  He let his mind wander as he touched himself, remembering Adrienne in France with him, her body underneath his on her bed, her arms around his neck and hands in his hair.  Adrienne, kissing and touching him, whispering his name in his ear…

Instead he heard Aglae’s voice.  Aglae, asking him where he was going, her face flushed with sweat, her hair starting to come out of its ponytail, and he imagined her tipping her head back as he bit her neck and kissed her breasts, wondered what it would feel like to grab them and what her voice would sound like as she moaned out his name.  He could hear it now, hear her repeating his name, not soft like Adrienne but loud, and he pinned her up against the wall and she wrapped a strong, soft leg around his hips, pushing him closer.  Her shirt was pulled up over her breasts and she tugged on his hair as he sucked at one of them, encouraging him on.  He could already feel her so slick that it wet the tops of her thighs and he poured lubricant into his hand and gave a quiet moan as he wrapped it back around his cock.

In his mind Aglae was the one who was making noise and he fumbled for a moment with the toy before getting it lined up properly, stretching it down over his shaft so that as he moved his hand the texture rubbed over his cock.  Lafayette passed his hand over himself faster, more insistently, and suddenly in his imagination they were both naked and he was inside her, feeling her wet and warm and tight—he tightened his grip a little.

He could hear his own elevated breathing in the dark room and he imagined it was hers, imagined he could hear her gasping with each thrust.  He could picture her closed eyes and slightly parted lips and he made a frustrated noise, trying not to think about how far he really was from her, how far—he was from Adrienne.

He slowed.  He stopped.

Lafayette tossed the toy into the trashcan and leaned forward, resting both his arms on his knees.

 

“Fuck—!”

Hamilton woke up with a start when Laurens rolled over and smacked him in the face.

“What the shit…”  He rubbed his eyes and shoved Laurens’ arm off of him.  “Fucking men. It’s like sleeping next to a giant sack of bricks,” he muttered, pushing him and trying to roll him back and just succeeding in sliding himself backwards off the futon.  He fell back with a melodramatic thud and lay there in defeat for a second before sitting up in the dark.  He pulled his hair back, yawning, and noticed that his phone was lit up.

Hamilton glanced back at Laurens, fast asleep, and pulled a pair of pants on as he unlocked the screen to respond.

 

> G. Lafayette: Elle me manque

> A. Hamilton: aren’t you meeting her soon?

> G. Lafayette: It’s not the same, alex.

> G. Lafayette: She’s not actually here.

> A. Hamilton:  …Yeah.

> G. Lafayette: I think about her all the time.  And when I don’t, I later feel like that was time wasted.  No one understands how painful it is to be away from her, and I can’t even be angry with anyone other than myself.  I feel so bad for leaving her, Alex.

> G. Lafayette: I miss her

> G. Lafayette: It’s four in the morning and I’m sitting in the dark and I miss her.

> G. Lafayette: I talk to her every day and it’s not enough.  Why doesn't she write me more?  She was talking to John last night instead of me and it was eating me up inside.  When I don’t hear back from her right away I pretend that something must be wrong with the connection or the server because its easier to be mad at that than at myself and I can’t be upset with her

> G. Lafayette: I don’t deserve to be with her,

> G. Lafayette: I never should have come here.

 

Hamilton felt around off the side of the bed for his glasses.

 

> A. Hamilton: That’s crazy talk.

> A. Hamilton: You’re still at the dorm, aren’t you?  Hang tight.

> G. Lafayette: You don’t have to come over

> A. Hamilton: faster than typing

> A. Hamilton: well, no.  Better than typing.

> A. Hamilton: brb

 

When Hamilton was let into the dorm room, it was still mostly dark inside, although Lafayette had turned on his desk lamp.

Hamilton sat on the bed.  “I get that you miss her.  No, really, I know John’s just a few blocks away and I’m not talking about him.  I get it.  I do.”

Lafayette sat next to him.

“And you are absolutely right, it was your own choice to come here, and I’m not even gonna say ‘maybe it was a stupid one,’ because we both know that it was.  But for what it’s worth, I’m glad that you were enough of a reckless idiot to make it.”

Lafayette nodded, not looking at him but staring at the floor instead.

“Hey.”  Hamilton put his arm over his shoulders.  “I know it’s a fucking platitude, but you’ll see her again.  It’s okay.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder—there’s your second cliché, I still get a third if I choose to use it—and you came here for a reason.  Adrienne wouldn’t want you to turn around now.”

Lafayette sighed.  “I don’t even remember why I came.  To go to school?  We have schools in Paris.  I hope she misses me like I miss her, but that’s too cruel to her when she had no say in our separation.  I need her, Alex, she is more than my heart, she is my life.”  He slouched against Hamilton, who patted his shoulder.  “I want to go back to her.”

“Then why don’t you?”  Hamilton asked.  “You came here even though you knew the consequences would be heavy.  If anyone would just up and ditch in the middle of the semester, it would be you.”

Lafayette didn’t answer.

“You know it will be better if you stay.”

Lafayette nodded silently.

“Everyone knows that you miss her. _She_ knows. She knows it's hard for you and that you're punishing yourself on her behalf. You love each other, right? What's done is done, she'd want you to make the best of it.”

Lafayette nodded again.  Hamilton tightened his grip on him.  “Right, I could keep going but you’re getting my jacket wet and she’s going to call you soon.”

“Ah.”  Lafayette wasn't exactly consoled but he sat up, wiping his face.  “ _Oui.  Merci, Alec._ ”

“Of course.  I’m turning on the overhead light.  It’s too depressing in here.”  Hamilton got up and got the light.  “Come on.  You should wash your face at least.”

Lafayette sniffed and stood up.  “You are right, of course.  I will clean up and she won’t have to know about any of this, at least not now.”  He grabbed his keys and followed Hamilton out into the hall.

“You want to hang out later?”  Hamilton asked.  “I’ll get rid of John.  We can do our nails and gossip or whatever it is that the cool kids do, I never got invited to your sleepovers.”

Lafayette gave a short laugh.  “Sure.  This afternoon, I’ll come by your place.”

“Great.”

 

“Gil!”  Adrienne was at school, Lafayette could see the bright sun and hear other students talking happily in the background.  He could tell that she was propping her phone up against something—he wondered what—and then she settled down in front of it with her lunch.  “I almost thought you weren’t going to pick up!”

Lafayette was sitting at his desk, the lights in the room on and dressed neatly for their date.  “I’m sorry, my life.  I was slow in picking up.  How are you today?”

“I’m good, and you?”

“Any day that I get to see you is a good one.”

She blushed a little.  “You’re flattering me.”

“It’s true,” he insisted.  “I love you.  I was thinking about you this morning and—”  He could feel that knot in his throat forming again and he pulled himself back, not wanting to lose control while she was at school and they couldn’t talk privately.  He smiled brightly.  “—I was so happy to think that I would get to see you soon.  What do you have for lunch today?”

 

The first thing Laurens noticed when his alarm went off was that he was sleeping by himself.  He sat up in the dim light and turned it off, then went into the bathroom to wash up and confirm that he really was alone in the studio.  He got the lights and checked the desk for a note while he brushed his teeth.  By the time he was dressed he was just about to call Hamilton, but then he heard the key in the lock and he got the door.

“Thanks.”  Hamilton handed him a paper bag.  “I got you a bagel.”

“Oh.”  Laurens looked down at it in surprise.  “Thank you.”

“There’s one in there for me, too,” Hamilton added as he took off his jacket and glasses and headed into the bathroom.  “Don’t eat it.”  He turned on the shower.

“Did you go out just to get this?”  Laurens followed after him.

“I owed you for the dirt-water you got me yesterday.”

“If I had gotten you actual coffee you wouldn’t have been asleep by eleven.” Laurens caught the shirt that Hamilton tossed at him, but was out of free hands and just had to put his arm up to block the rest of his clothes.

“Not a fair trade.  You’re showering after practice, right?  Too bad.  I’d invite you to join me.”  He stepped in and pulled the curtain closed.

“I could shower twice…”

“You could also be late,” Hamilton pointed out.  “I was just teasing you, J.”

Laurens took a bite of his bagel.  “What are you doing later?”

“Busy this afternoon.  See you this evening?”

“Sure.  Are you wearing these today?”

“Hm?  Nah.  Toss ‘em in the basket and grab me something else.  I need to spend some time in the office, though, so make it look nice.”

Laurens came back a few minutes later with a fresh set of clothes as Hamilton turned off the water and reached one arm out from behind the curtain to grab his towel.

“I was thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll definitely be ready by seven.  Do you want to get dinner with me?  Nothing fancy, just meet me at the mess hall.  Thanks.”  Hamilton took his clothes and got dressed while Laurens looked in the opposite direction.

“That sounds good.  Give me a call when you’re ready and I’ll head over.”

Hamilton finished buttoning up his shirt, then came up behind Laurens, putting his hands on his waist and leaning up to kiss his cheek.  “You have to leave, J.”

“Yeah, I know.”  He grabbed his bag from where it was by the desk.  “I’ll text you after practice.”

 


	47. Made You Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If It Isn't Aaron Burr, Sir; Coordinated; Penciling in

The doors to the elevator Lafayette was about to ride up by himself on his way back from class were closing when someone called for him to hold them.

“Wait!”

He pressed the button automatically, then cursed himself when Aaron Burr stepped in.

Burr for his part looked surprised to be stuck in an elevator with him, and Lafayette briefly glanced out the doors as if debating whether it would be too rude to duck back out.  Lafayette prayed he would press a button for the next floor.  Burr didn’t.  He pressed a button for a floor a few up from Lafayette’s, meaning Lafayette was trapped with him the entire way back to his room.  This was going to be awkward.

They stood there awkwardly, waiting for the doors to close.

“Nice weather we’re having,” Burr said after a couple of long seconds and Lafayette looked pleadingly upwards.

“Yes,” he replied as the doors closed very slowly and they did not plunge to their deaths.

“The hurricane aside, of course.”

“Of course.”

The elevator slowly started to rise.

“How’s,” he paused, like he was trying to decide what name to use, “Alexander?”

“He’s fine.”

“Good.”

Lafayette wondered if Burr really meant that, but then he was talking again in a tone that came off as just a little too practiced.

“It was good to hear about the two of you getting together.  It seems like he’s finally calming down.”

Lafayette actually turned from where he had been trying to bore a hole with his gaze in the wall to stare in confusion at Burr, who looked a little startled, then a little calculating, and kept talking without missing a beat.

“In the meetings, I mean.  He’s still indefatigable, but he’s somewhat less of a loose cannon.”  Burr half-laughed.  “I feel less like I’m trying to have a debate with a rapidly scrolling wall of text.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said carefully, “of course.”

“And it’s good that your roommate is handling himself so maturely.  Alexander and I both know, well, we’ve had to deal with several incidents recently.  I don’t know if he’s mentioned any of that to you, nothing serious, but of course I can’t give details beyond what comes up in the public reports.  Student athletes implicated in inappropriate language and conduct,” he waved his hand slightly in the air as if brushing it aside.  “Generally discriminatory and homophobic behavior.  Of course, it is difficult to prove anything one way or another.”

Lafayette nodded, looking straight forward again.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened.

“Tell him hello from me,” Burr said as Lafayette stepped out.

“I think I will tell him more than that,” Lafayette replied, waiting for the doors to close before he headed to his room.

 

“I just had the strangest conversation with Aaron Burr,” Lafayette said before Hamilton was even in the room.  Hamilton made a face.

“That guy?  Why were you talking to him?”

“He thinks we are dating,” Lafayette continued without answering the question.

Hamilton stared at him incredulously then started to laugh.  “Shit, really?  I bet that was good.  What did he say?  Was he weird about it?”

“Only because he congratulated us,” Lafayette said, “which is preposterous because I am out of your league.”

Hamilton laughed harder.  “Ha!  Yeah, you’re in a league of your own, all right.  But seriously, what did he say?  I kind of assumed he’d get all shirty and morally offended.”

“He was perfectly nice,” Lafayette admitted.

“That’s how he gets you.  Talk less, smile more, blah blah blah.  I wonder what his angle is.  Is he trying to get at me through you?  But why even bother, we can just yell at each other next Monday.  Speaking of Monday, if you’re my boyfriend now can I get you to sign a petition for me?  I’d ask anyway, but now that you’re my bae I can also twist your arm into writing and attaching a personalized argument backing it up.”

“You’d also do that anyway,” Lafayette pointed out, but took the paper to look over when Hamilton brought it out.  “The only thing he really said, Alexander, was that you are easier to deal with now.  It’s true,” he added after a moment of consideration.  “Getting some on a regular basis really does take your edge off.”

“Not sure if I should be offended.”

Lafayette shrugged, then sat at his desk and signed his name.

“Add a comment, too.  Make it something I can use.  But that was really all he said?”

“He also said he was glad that John did not have a problem with it.”

Hamilton started to laugh again.  “Yeah, right, John’s totally fine with it.  He’s cool.  Very understanding, that John.  Very accommodating.  Shit, this is the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages.”  He took out his phone to text Laurens.  “Did you tell Adrienne yet?  She can be our maid of honor but I gotta say I’m putting my foot down firm, that cat of yours has to be flower girl.”

“I thought you didn’t like Hamilton.”

“She’s growing on me.”

“He was just so convinced,” Lafayette said as he wrote.  “It was not a question at all.  I wonder who he heard it from.”

“No clue.  I’m actually tempted to speak to him just so I can ask.”  Hamilton was reading over Lafayette’s shoulder.  “Yeah, that looks good.  Give me like another two sentences and hand it back.  So how was Adrienne?”

“Perfect.”  Lafayette sighed.  “I don’t know what I was thinking…”

“Hm?”

Lafayette shook his head.  “Never mind.”

“Is this about you not knowing if you should have come stateside?”

“No, no, nothing about that.  You were right, I made my choice and I have to see it through.  It is just hard to be so far from her.  When I left France it didn’t hit me until I was already on the plane and then there was nothing I could do.”

“That must have been a rough flight.”

“ _Oui_.  I had never been on one so long, either.  It was horrible.”

Hamilton winced, not at all jealous that he had not been there.

“I want to mail this package.”  Lafayette picked up the box, finally packed and taped up.  “Come with me to the post office.”

“Sure.”  Hamilton got up and they headed back out into the hall.  They crossed paths with one of Lafayette and Laurens’ neighbors, not an unusual event, but this time they both noticed that particular look.  It wasn’t accusatory or judgmental, just… knowing.  They glanced at each other once they had passed him.

“Did you…?”

“You know, I did.”

“I want to ask him to explain, but we don’t have too much time.”  Lafayette glanced at his watch around the package.  “I’ll let you know if I figure it out.  I need to call Andre after this.”

“Are you guys really friends now?  Way to steal him from John.”

“I did not _steal_ him, they still see plenty of each other.”  Lafayette paused, glancing over at Hamilton who wasn’t responding to that but just staring into middle distance in great distraction.  “I didn’t mean that literally.  Stop thinking about it.”

“Hm?  Right, sorry.  Why are you calling him?  Asking him out on a second date because the first one went so well?”

“Yes, actually.”

“…Really?”

“I thought he could bring his girlfriend this time.  I could call Adrienne and we could have a double date.  It might be a little soon, but I’m so excited to know another couple to go on a date with.”

“Uh,” Hamilton stopped walking and motioned towards himself.  “Excuse you, what about us?”

Lafayette frowned.  “You and John?  I don’t know, that would be strange.”

“Why would it be strange?”

“Because I met both of you under different circumstances.  I think of you as my friends first, a couple far second.  Andre is more enthusiastic about dating, like I am.”

“Hey, I got him flowers.  You even helped sign for that.”

“Yes, and then you panicked when John tried to maintain that level of intimacy.”

Hamilton half-frowned, unable to argue.

“I believe your exact words to staying the night and not having sex were ‘weird as fuck,’ ‘what the fuck,’ and ‘shit.’  Besides,” Lafayette continued, “I didn’t think either of you would be interested.  If I am wrong and you and John would _like_ to—”

“Hell yeah we’d like to,” Hamilton said quickly, not really thinking it through and just wanting to feel like he won the argument.  “In fact, I’ll tell him tonight.  At _dinner_ , which is basically the same thing as that coffee date of Andre and yours.”

“Except with less palpable sexual tension.”

Hamilton nodded.  “That’s true.”

 

Laurens met Hamilton outside the mess hall for dinner as promised.

“Hey.”  Hamilton stood up off the bench he had been reading on.  “Ready to—”  His eyes narrowed slightly.

“What?”

Hamilton looked down at himself, his dress shirt the same dusty gray-blue as Laurens’.

“You picked this.  Did you do this on purpose?  Because that’s _hella_ —”

Laurens started to bristle and Hamilton forced himself to shut up.  Right, public.

“…Sorry, come on.”

They entered and got in line.

“…You matched our pants, too, didn’t you?”  Hamilton asked, keeping his voice low.

“They’re just jeans.  You’re being paranoid.”  Laurens handed him a tray.

“They’re _black_ jeans,” Hamilton argued.  “They’re the only pair of black jeans I own.  If I had picked things out for myself I’d be wearing—”

“Are you insulting my taste now?”

“God forbid.”

Laurens started to fill up his tray and Hamilton, grabbing what he wanted, split off.

“I see a free table in the back so I’m going to jump ahead to the part where  I pay for this.  Come find me.”

Hamilton was reading, his food untouched, when Laurens sat down across from him.

“Small table.”

“Two-seater.  Thought it would be more intimate.  Also it was the only spot open with room for both of us. This is a hellish hour to come here.”  Hamilton read to the bottom of the page and then put his book down.  “So I was thinking and actually I take it back, you’ve got great taste.”

Laurens picked up his fork.  “Oh?”

“Yeah, Lafayette and I can get kind of loud, you’re more reserved—blue shoes incident aside—but you always look put together.  In a sexy way, too, not just like you’re lifting something straight from a department store catalogue.”

“I thought you were going to turn that into a compliment for yourself.  Something about how you realized I must have good taste because I like you.”

“I decided to give you an actual answer, not the easy joke one.”

Laurens smiled, amused.  “Thanks.”  His attention was caught by a familiar voice somewhere in the crowd and he glanced up and over his shoulder.

“Shit, I didn’t think to ask.  Is this one of the meals you usually eat with the team?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Sometimes.  It’s fine, Lee was pissing me off anyway.”

“Right.  Well, I’m glad to provide an excuse to ditch him.”

Laurens nodded and looked at him, at that teasing half-cocked smile, and suddenly felt the impulse to lean across the table and kiss him.

“…What?”

Laurens forcibly turned away.  “I thought you wanted to get dinner, Alex.  You haven’t even started eating.”

“I wanted to give you a suggestion you’d agree to.”

Laurens wasn’t sure if he was just trying to get a reaction from him or not and he didn’t trust himself to look back to check.

“Soooo…”

Okay, that was a concerning noise and Laurens looked up, his previous worry replaced with a new one.

“What is it?”

“Don’t be mad.  I _kind of_ got into a stupid argument with Lafayette and long story short we’re going on a double date with him and his laptop.”

“Lafayette and Adrienne?  All right.”

Hamilton cocked his head to one side, surprised by the lack of resistance.  “Okay, cool, cool.  I’ll just let him know, I guess.”

 

A message popped up on Lafayette’s screen as he was talking to Adrienne and he paused to read it.

“Ah, Adrienne.  We have two group dates coming up.”

Adrienne looked up from the cat she was brushing.  “We do?”

“Yes, we are going to have coffee with Andre and his girlfriend Sunday morning and then again with Alex and John on Tuesday,” he said, copying and sending her the message from Hamilton.  “Oh, I hope you are free?  You’re not too busy, are you?”

“No, no,” she said, a little distracted as she mentally rearranged her schedule, “that’ll be fine.”

“Good.”  He sounded relieved.  “It’s hard to find times that work for so many people.  Between classwork and sporting events and extracurriculars… I didn’t know what other times to suggest!  Just imagine what it will be like when we’re trying to pick a suitable date for our wedding!”

Adrienne smiled fondly.  “I think people will be more willing to change around their plans for that, Gil.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience them,” Lafayette continued, starting to get caught up in the fantasy.  “It will already have to be in France, of course, which means that many of the guests on my side will be flying in.  We don’t have room enough for all of them—Alex and John can be shoved in any old corner, but what about the Washingtons?  I can’t ask them to make their own hotel arrangements!  They’ve been so good to me, my heart, so the least I can do is make sure that they are comfortable.  But then any others I want to invite, it would be so rude to take care of one set and not the rest of them, but what hotel would be suitable?  It has to be in the area and sufficiently large.  I assume that your immediate family would stay at your home, but all of your friends?  Just because they’re not flying across an ocean doesn’t make them any less our guests and our responsibility, Adrienne, and they’ll be depending on us to provide for their needs.  Room and board at least should be taken care of, and we should coordinate tours for those from out of town who want to see the city and simultaneous events for those from the area that do not overshadow the sightseeing but are still sufficiently engaging…”

“Gilbert, you’re getting ahead of yourself.  Take us back to this Sunday.”

“Right,” he said, embarrassed.  “Sunday we will meet Andre and Peggy at three,” he continued, converting the time for Adrienne.  “I expect that we will sit and have coffee for a couple of hours.  It’s a little difficult to do anything more strenuous,” he apologized, “and going to a cafe is a classic opening act.”

“And Tuesday?”

“We could go back to the same place.  What do you think?  Do you mind going there again so soon?”

Adrienne smiled.  “I don’t mind.”

Lafayette nodded.  “Good.  It has a strong signal and is not too noisy.  I sent you one of their coffee blends in the package I mailed out today so you can join us more thoroughly if it arrives on time.”  He paused for a moment.  “Will you talk to me more?  Send me messages or call me even if you don’t think I’m around.”

“I don’t want to disturb you if you’re busy.”

“I’m never too busy for you,” he insisted.  “I always want to hear from you.  I feel like I’m the one who is always contacting you first and I can’t be upset with you about that, I just want to hear from you even more.”  Lafayette took a deep breath, not wanting to explain everything but also feeling like he had to say something else.  “I miss you, my Adrienne.”

 


	48. Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *This Is How Hamilton Problem Solves

Hamilton led Laurens up the stairs to his apartment, turning back to talk to him as they went.

“So I realized that even with the suit taken care of, I need to go get everything else still.  Shoes, mostly, I assume I can still wear my regular underwear with something that fancy.  Or is it customary to just go commando?”

Laurens laughed.  “I’m sure what you have will be fine.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton raised a brow suggestively at him.  “Do you think you should check?”

“This is very strange bedroom talk,” Laurens commented.  “I’m not sure you’re really hitting the mark.”

“I’m sorry our current setting of shitty narrow stairwell isn’t exactly inspiring,” Hamilton started, then stopped when he saw the box in front of his door.

“What did you order?”  Laurens asked, coming up onto the landing behind him.

“I didn’t order anything,” Hamilton crouched down and read the unfamiliar label with increasing confusion.  “Hang on.”  He picked it up and let them in, setting it on his desk and cutting the tape with his key.  “Let me get the—”  He took off the lid and burst out laughing.  “Oh, _fuck_ , he actually did it!  John, check this out.”

Curious, Laurens leaned over Hamilton’s shoulder and then made a face at the novelty bachelorette cake.

“Seriously, Alex?”

Hamilton was still snickering as he took a photo.  “Shit, this will be the first dick pic I send Lafayette.  I hope he appreciates.”

“That’s not from him, is it?”

“Nah, it’s from Mulligan.  I thought he was just fucking around.”

“Do I want to know why?”  Laurens took off his jacket and then put his hand out for Hamilton’s.

“He’s just congratulating me,” Hamilton said, handing over his jacket and looking around for a clean fork.

Laurens put them down on the chair.  “…You told him?”

“‘Course I told him, John.  He’s chill, don’t worry about it.”

Laurens looked uncomfortable.  “Alex…”

“I just want to brag about my pretty boyfriend, okay?”  Hamilton said, intentionally keeping the tone a little teasing as he came back with a fork.  “Is that so wrong?”

Laurens hesitated, remembering what Lafayette had told him about how much Hamilton wanted to tell people about him.  “No,” he forced himself to admit.  “It’s not.  _That_ is, though,” he added as Hamilton took a piece out of the balls.

“’S good,” Hamilton informed him with his mouth full and offered him the fork.  “Buttercream filling.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Come on, John, it’s fine.  If the visual bothers you so much then just close your eyes and I’ll put it in your mouth—” Hamilton cracked up again.  “Sorry, sorry, bad choice of words.”  He took another bite.  “Have some, I can’t eat this whole thing all on my own.”

“No, thank you.”

“Really?”

Laurens ran his hand over the back of his neck.  “Look…  I’m not working out as much as I normally do.”

Hamilton put the fork down.  “I’m sorry, _what_?”

Laurens glanced away and Hamilton couldn’t help himself but continued to gape.

“Oh my fucking God, you— _you_ —are feeling insecure?  Like— _how_?”

Laurens rubbed at his shoulder.  “Don’t make it sound so dramatic.  I’ve put a lot of time in, I can tell when things are different.  I know it hasn’t been very long, but the earliest I’ll be back to normal is another four weeks and I’m seeing my father at that dinner next Saturday…”

Hamilton put the lid back on the box.  "John, you know that I was being hyperbolic but not lying, right?  I literally brag about how hot you are.  _Literally_ ,” he repeated, more insistently when Laurens didn’t meet his gaze.  “I can prove it to you if you’d like,” he said, stepping forward and slipping his hands into Laurens’ back pockets, pressing their hips together.

“Alex…”

“It’s good cardio,” Hamilton teased, turning his face up and kissing him lightly under the jaw, then at the base of his neck.  Laurens tipped his head away, letting him.  Hamilton moved his hips in a slow circle against him and started undoing the buttons of his shirt.  “I’d tell you to get the lights, but, damn, I get so hot just watching you.  I’ve said that before but it’s worth repeating.”  Hamilton ran his tongue just over the edge of his lips as he pulled Laurens’ shirt open and raked his eyes over his musculature, visible and defined beneath his white undershirt.  “Call me a fucking voyeur, but I can’t help myself.”

“Ha.”  Laurens arched away a little as Hamilton ran his tongue over and then lightly bit his nipple.  Hamilton sucked on it, teasing it with his tongue, as he pressed his hand between his legs.  Laurens shifted uncomfortably and Hamilton moved his hand slowly over him.

“How do you want to do this, J.?”

Laurens felt a thrill run through him when Hamilton called him that.

“Do you want to stand?  I’d like to make you stand, just here, make you come into my hand.”  He let Laurens rock his hips into his touch.  “We could do something else instead.  We could do more than one thing.  I could suck you off.”  He felt Laurens tense at that and he teased him again with his mouth, slowly.

Laurens put one hand back on the desk to steady himself.

“I could fuck you,” Hamilton added, quietly.  “You don’t even know how hot you looked, J.  All flushed, with your eyes shut.”  Laurens whimpered softly.  “Pulling that pillow to your face but I could hear you anyway, and, shit, your arm flexed and shaking.”  He turned his head to the side and bit his bicep.  Laurens jerked a little in surprise.  “I just want you to be on display for me, all the time.”  He ran his hands over his chest and down to his hips.  “I don’t know how you get through the day,” he continued.  “If I looked like you I’d never get anything done.”

Laurens half-laughed.  “Your logic is a little faulty.”

“I can’t help that,” Hamilton insisted, cupping him with one hand so that Laurens groaned while he undid his fly with the other.  “You’re so distracting, J.”  He tugged his jeans down—Laurens moved away from the desk slightly and started to help then pressed one fist to his mouth, gripping Hamilton’s shoulder hard with his other hand as Hamilton dropped suddenly to his knees and ran his tongue up his inner thigh.  Laurens’ heart was racing as he moved his legs apart.

“Mm, there is one problem,” Hamilton said, his mouth just off of his cock.  Laurens made an impatient noise.

“I can’t talk to you while I do that.”  He flicked his tongue over him and Laurens’ hips jerked.  “I want to be able to tell you—” he repeated it and Laurens leaned harder on the desk.  “—just how mad you drive me.”  He kissed his head softly and stood, rubbing him again and leaning against him.  “You never answered me.”

“I—what?”  Laurens was very distracted, shifting into Hamilton’s touch, his voice a little strained.

The corner of Hamilton’s mouth twitched up.  “Get on the bed.”

Hamilton stepped away to undo his shirt and Laurens finished stripping, Hamilton putting his hand on the side of his face and drawing him down into a hungry kiss as soon as he was done.

“Get on the bed,” he repeated, then when Laurens started to unfold the futon he stopped him.  “Not like that.  Brace yourself on it.”

Laurens hesitated for a moment in confusion then started to turn red when he pieced together what Hamilton had in mind.  He blushed harder when the realization made his cock stiffen further.  He could see that Hamilton was watching it as he leaned on the folded up mattress, spreading his legs wide to make up for how low to the ground it was.

Hamilton ran his hand lightly over his back and ass.  “Touch yourself.”

“What?”

“You know how.”  Hamilton knelt behind him and wrapped his hand around his shaft, stroking the entirety of its length as Laurens gasped and ducked his head, breathing heavily.  “Do this for me.”

“Alex,” Laurens started, a pleading note in his voice.

Hamilton took his hand off of him and Laurens whimpered.  Hamilton put his hands at his hips and bent down, making Laurens gasp again as he bit him.

“I won’t complain when you even the score later,” Hamilton promised.  “I’ll do whatever you want.  Anything.”

“Mm—”  Laurens could feel himself growing slick and he moved his hand faster as Hamilton undid his pants, releasing his cock and rubbing it between his legs as he leaned over him.

Hamilton ran his hands up over his torso and chest, letting out a long appreciative exhale and kissing his back.  “God, J.,” he murmured, wrapping one arm up around his to put his hand on his shoulder and running his other hand over Laurens’ arm as he touched himself, “how are you fucking real?  I swear to God,” he continued, rocking his hips slowly so that his cock moved against him and Laurens’ breath caught, his legs slipping a little farther apart, “sometimes I think I could come just from looking at you.”

Laurens let out a small whine without meaning to and Hamilton tightened his grip on his arm.

“Don’t rush it, J.”

“Alexander,” Laurens pleaded.

“I should make you talk sometime.”  Hamilton was moving his hand along his arm, feeling the firm curves of the muscle, then put it over Laurens’ hand, controlling how slowly he moved it.  “You’ve said that you like my voice.”

“Yes,” Laurens said, a little steadier with great effort.

“I like yours too.  The way you say my name like that, like you’re so _desperate_ for me to do something.”  He was still dictating Laurens’ pace, his own hand getting wet and slippery as he went on.  “You’re so independent and confident otherwise.  Knowing that I can bring you of all people to your knees—it’s a fucking thrill.”  He pressed his hips to him harder and Laurens gave a short needy cry then bit his lip to silence himself.

Hamilton’s voice was low.  “Say my name.”

“Alex.”

Hamilton ran his hand over his ass.  “‘Alexander.’”

Laurens’ breath caught again and he shifted into the touch.  “Alexander.”

He could hear the pleased grin in Hamilton’s voice as he responded.  “I want to fuck you.  I want to do everything to you, make you come over and over.  I want to put my mouth over every inch of you.”  He kissed his back again.  “And then I want to start all over again in the morning and just keep you here with me all day.  On the bed, on the desk, up against the wall…  I think about you when I’m at work or class sometimes,” he continued as Laurens felt heat building in his groin.  “I’d be embarrassed but I don’t even care—it takes so much effort not to call you and skip out, fuck in a bathroom or storage closet…”  Hamilton started directing Laurens’ hand faster, tightening his hold on his shoulder as Laurens moaned, his breathing coming in short gasps.

“Alexander—”

“Yes, J.?”

Laurens’ arm was shaking as he braced himself on the futon and he kept moving his hand even when Hamilton moved away.  Hamilton’s cock rubbed up against him again as he sat back and Laurens jerked and slipped a little further down, picking up more speed and knowing that he was seconds away—

“Stop.”

Laurens did so, with a small desperate noise.

Hamilton quickly slipped his hand back and Laurens started at the sudden pressure at the base of his shaft.

“What—”

He turned around in surprise, his face flushed and eyes dark, and felt his heart turn over at Hamilton’s smug face, his long hair down.  Hamilton kissed him hungrily, his tongue in his mouth and one hand on the back of his head, the other grabbing his upper arm and turning him further so that he was sitting on the floor and leaning back against the mattress.  Laurens put his hands on his waist and pulled him to him, between his legs and Hamilton moaned into the kiss, pressing his body up against his.

Laurens’ cock rubbed uncomfortably up against him and he made a pleading noise into the kiss as Hamilton put his hand on it, stroking it insistently.  He bucked his hips, unable to get release even with the stimulus.

“Alexander,” he moaned, and Hamilton sat back a little.

“Shit, J.”  He shook his head.  “I know I said I wasn’t going to suck you off—” Laurens whimpered, eyes closed and chest heaving.  “—but you’re just _right there_ and I want to so badly.  I can’t decide what I want most,” he said, and Laurens gave just the breath of a laugh at how genuinely distressed he sounded.

Hamilton moved away and leaned down.  Any laughter died in Laurens’ throat as he slowly took him into his mouth, making a satisfied noise against his shaft that caused Laurens to press the back of his hand to his mouth.  He gripped the side of the mattress tightly, his hips shaking as every moment of contact was heightened and kept him feeling like he was just off the edge of losing it.

“Alex,” he said, a sharp pleading note in his voice.  “Alexander—”

Hamilton was moving over him, taking him almost all the way to the hair tie at the base of his shaft, and he pressed two fingers against him.  Laurens automatically spread his legs further and tipped his hips to him.

Hamilton pushed a little harder without working his fingers in, just teasing him with the contact and anticipation of what he might do.  Laurens could tell that he was getting loud, that every fast breath he took was being exhaled in a whimper, and his mind was spinning.

“Please—”

It wasn’t until he had heard it several times that he realized he was the one saying it and Hamilton worked the tie off with his free hand.  It was only halfway off, Hamilton’s mouth still on him, when Laurens suddenly felt its constriction loosen.  He came without being able to control it or give warning, grabbing Hamilton’s shoulder hard and holding him in place as he cried out.

Hamilton swallowed and slowly pulled off of him, wiping his mouth on his arm and looking at Laurens lying breathless in front of him.

He leaned in and put one hand on the side of his face, turning it to his and kissing him slowly.

Laurens drew a trembling hand alongside his face, brushing back his hair and giving a soft moan into the kiss as he recognized what had come to be a familiar taste.  Hamilton slid his tongue just briefly into his mouth, then sat back.  Laurens felt a thrill as he watched him deftly put his hair back up.

“Are you done?”  Hamilton asked.  Laurens was very aware of how hard Hamilton still was and he shook his head even though he would have been otherwise fine with just stretching out on the floor and going to sleep.

Hamilton grinned.  “Good.”  He got up and went into the bathroom.  “‘Cause now that I’ve done that I really have made up my mind.  I’m going to fuck you, J.”  Laurens could hear a drawer opening and closing and then Hamilton’s voice, clearer as he leaned out of the doorway.  “—If that’s okay, that is.”

Laurens half-laughed and started to sit up.  “Well, I can’t right now.”

Hamilton was already in front of him again, completely undressed now and so pleased with himself as he pushed him back against the mattress.

“That’s true.”  He pressed the side of his face to Laurens’ for a moment, eyes closed, then put his hands on his chest for balance as he kissed him.

Laurens put his arms around him, one hand high on his back and the other on the small of it, and let him keep him down.

“Do you want me to…?”

“Turn over,” Hamilton instructed, getting off of him.

Laurens did so, getting back into his previous position leaning on the futon.  Hamilton was kneeling between his legs and he slowly pushed one slick finger into him and kissed his lower back.

“Mn…”  Laurens spread his legs a little farther, trying to find the best angle and height as Hamilton moved it in and out and added a second.  Laurens closed his eyes.

“J.”

“Y—yes?”  Laurens’ voice wavered as Hamilton spread his fingers.  “You—did that on purpose.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton kissed him again.  “Accident.  Fortuitous coincidence.  I didn’t realize you’d like this so much.  Before, I mean.”

“Ha.”

“I’m glad you do,” Hamilton went on, adding a third and pushing in further as Laurens bit back a moan.  “I’m not saying we have to do this all the time.  But, damn, I just like getting you off.  Doing the work.”

Laurens swallowed dryly and concentrated on keeping his voice steady.  “You’re a hard worker.”

“I can’t help myself.  You’re so _hot_ , I just—I want to even things out a little.  It’s not fair that I can get hard just thinking about you, about your body.  I need to give you something in return.”

“Bullshit.”  Laurens could feel a low note of pleasure every time Hamilton pushed his fingers far enough in and it made him weak at the knees.  “You… Ah.”  He bit his lip, trying to keep his breathing even.  “You’re really—”

Hamilton drew out his movements, making them slow and deliberate.  “I’m what?”

“So fucking—”  Laurens could hear his words slurring together around the edges.  “So—Alexander…” he finally just settled for moaning his name and Hamilton bent his fingers, pressing against him.

“Are you going to get hard again?”  Hamilton asked, repeating the motion as Laurens gasped.  “I can hear it in your voice.”

Laurens ducked his head down and didn’t answer.  He tensed as Hamilton took away his hand and then pushed himself into him.

Hamilton had his hands at his hips and he let out a slow exhale, eyes closing for a moment as he slid all the way in.  When he started talking again Laurens could hear the waver in his previously steady voice.

“God _damn_ , J.”

Laurens wanted to sink onto the mattress or grab Hamilton and push him up against the wall—he wasn't sure which he wanted more—but he forced himself to stay still and concentrated on keeping his arms from shaking.  His eyes were tightly shut as Hamilton moved inside him and his breath came out in a hiss with every thrust.  He could hear Hamilton’s breathing quicken and felt his grip tighten as he suddenly picked up speed.

“John—”  Hamilton switched back to his real name, the last letter getting a little clipped as he pushed hard into him.  He was moving with more force now, digging his nails in hard enough to leave little half-moon indents, and completely incapable of thinking outside the moment, of how good it felt, of how much longer he might have to enjoy it before he had to pull away—

“Shit.”  Hamilton paused, half-out, as he realized suddenly that he had forgotten to grab a towel but it was too late to do anything about that now.

“Ah…”  Laurens tipped his hips back to him, his cock getting hard again and frustrated at the sudden denial.

“Sorry.”  Hamilton almost slammed back into him and Laurens bit back a startled yelp, then groaned as a fresh burst of pleasure coursed through him.

Hamilton reached down with one hand and Laurens jerked into the touch.  His hand was still slippery with lubricant and Laurens quickly hardened the rest of the way as he moved it to the increasing pace he was setting.

Laurens wasn’t sure if Hamilton was saying something incoherent or if he just couldn’t hear him right over the blood pounding in his ears, but then to his surprise Hamilton suddenly pulled away, taking his hand off of him and almost tripping over his leg as he stumbled to his feet.  Laurens turned with a confused mixture of concern and irritation, putting one arm down to brace himself on his elbow, and saw Hamilton leaning hard against his desk and finishing himself into a tissue.

Laurens stared, completely enthralled, at Hamilton, his lips parted and eyes tightly shut, unaware that he was being watched as he pumped one hand over his shaft, the other holding the tissue to his head.  He let out a low strangled moan as he came and Laurens completely understood what Hamilton meant when he talked about that barely controllable desire.

Hamilton stood there, panting for several seconds, then rolled his head from side to side and opened his eyes.  He looked startled at first to see Laurens watching him, then he grinned.

“Hey, J.”

He tossed the tissue into the trashcan and started to walk back but stopped when Laurens stood.  He took him by the wrist and, holding it up by his face and pushing his tongue into his mouth, shoved him back against the desk hard enough that the books on it shook.

“Mm—!”

Hamilton had started to turn around to check the books, but Laurens roughly turned his chin back to him and kissed him aggressively, bringing Hamilton’s other hand down to his cock.  Hamilton didn’t need to be told twice and immediately started touching him again, quickly, as Laurens put his hand behind his head and thrust into his grip.  He wanted a rapid conclusion and when Hamilton tried to tease him and slowed his hand down he growled and grabbed his wrist, returning it to its previous pace.  Hamilton obliged even after Laurens let go to brace himself against the table and give himself better leverage and he stopped only once Laurens had spilled over his hand and arm with a low moan against his lips.

Laurens stayed where he was, pinning Hamilton up against his desk, and slowly broke the kiss, his chest rising and falling heavily as he put his face against the crook of his neck.

“Don’t do that again.”

“What?”  Hamilton had been smiling, self-satisfied, but it faltered and he tried to glance down at him.

Laurens' voice was still low and his words were still edging into one another.  “Don’t just stop like that.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton squeezed his arm, trying to nudge him off of him.  “I didn’t think you’d want me to finish inside of you.”

Laurens didn’t move.  “Then wear a condom, Alex.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think of that until it was already done,” Hamilton admitted, then perked up, realizing this was permission for there to be a next time.  “You’re staying tonight, aren’t you?  I’ll unfold the futon.”

“Mm…”  Laurens was kissing his neck now and Hamilton laughed.

“J., you have to get off of me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do,” Hamilton repeated.  “I want to get the bed and I have to put the food away.”

“I’ll get the mattress.  Are you actually going to bed?”  Laurens stepped back and unfolded the futon, putting on the sheets from where they had been piled in the corner.

“Nah.”  Hamilton vanished into the bathroom.  The water ran and he talked over it.  “I’ve got stuff to read.  I can do it there instead of at my desk, though.”  He came back out and grabbed the box, standing in front of the fridge and trying to figure out how to rearrange its contents to make room.  Getting it stored away he went back into the bathroom.  “You can sleep if you want.  You have to get up earlier than I do tomorrow.”

“There’s work I should do, too,” Laurens admitted.

Hamilton stepped back out, toothbrush in his mouth.  “Don’t ‘ave t’ do ’t.”

“What was that?”

Hamilton waved his hand impatiently and disappeared from view again.  He came back out a minute later and grabbed a book from his desk, sitting on the freshly-made bed.  “What do you have to do?  If it’s not for tomorrow you can do it this weekend.”

Laurens raised a brow but sat next to him.  “Are you telling me to slack off?  While you get your work done?”

“You didn’t even bring your bag, what were you going to do?”

“I was going to ask to borrow your laptop.  I can get the text online.”

“Oh, too bad, it’s dead.  My internet is down.”  Hamilton stretched out on his back, reaching his arms up above his head, and then turned onto his side and tugged Laurens down.  “I guess you’re stuck just lying here with me.”

Laurens laughed and kissed him lightly.  “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m gonna freeze if you fall asleep on top of me before I get under the covers.”  Hamilton rolled off the side of the bed and turned off the light.  Laurens got under the sheets and held them open for him.  “Thanks.”  He smiled as Laurens put his arm over him and then kissed his collarbone.  “I’m gonna read, J.  But stay like that.”  He turned over onto his other side, grabbing his book and phone to use as a light, tugging Laurens’ arm down tighter and settling in.

Laurens didn’t protest, feeling sleep overtaking him again now that he was lying down, and slid his other arm underneath Hamilton’s pillow, closing his eyes and leaning his head against him.

 


	49. The Easy Way Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Communal Pancakes; *What We Can Expect on Our New Ten; Playing Along

“All right,” Lafayette said that night, his laptop on the counter in their floor’s communal kitchen.  “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” Adrienne responded, standing in her own kitchen.  “Were you actually able to get all of the supplies?”

“Hm, no.”  Lafayette looked at the items laid out in front of him.  Economy sized box mix, eggs, milk, syrup, a bowl, fork, and pan.  “That’s all right, my heart, I’m going to try the American version instead.”

“American crêpes?”  Adrienne asked, mildly surprised.

“Pancakes,” Lafayette confirmed.

Adrienne laughed.  “Oh!”

Lafayette held his hair tie in his mouth as he pulled his hair back and out of the way.  Once it was secured he smiled broadly.  “Are you ready?  Shall we race?”

“Gilbert,” Adrienne laughed again.  “It’s not a contest.”

“No, fortunately not,” Lafayette said, picking up the box and looking at it a little skeptically.

Another student walked into the kitchen and opened the shared fridge, looking at Lafayette curiously.

“If you come back in a few minutes I will give you one,” Lafayette said in English.  “Bring your own plate and utensils.  And friends!”  He called after him as he opened the box.

“You’re going to be so popular,” Adrienne teased a little, already at work in the kitchen on her end.

“I want to meet everyone,” Lafayette said.  “There are so many new and interesting people here, Adrienne.  I can hardly keep track of everyone.”

“You’re so outgoing,” she said with admiration, “and so considerate.  It’s no wonder everyone likes you.”

“And you are darling and a flatterer,” he responded, following the instructions on the box.  “Thank you for agreeing to do this with me.”

Adrienne glanced at the clock in her kitchen.  Two AM on Thursday—now Friday—night.  “I’m glad to spend time with you,” she responded truthfully.

“How are you going to do the crêpes?”

“Just lemon juice and brown sugar.”

“Ah,” Lafayette smiled as he mixed in the eggs.  “A classic.  I like them with strawberries.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to go to the store.”

“Why are you apologizing?  You’re making them for yourself, not for me.”

“That’s right.”  She smiled, a little embarrassed.  “I’ll make them for you when I see you.  In December?”  She asked tentatively.

Lafayette nodded.  “In December.  I’m looking forward to seeing John’s home this November.  It will be interesting to see them setting up for Thanksgiving.”

Adrienne nodded.  “I think so.  Will it be very traditional?”

“I’m not sure.  John doesn’t talk about things like that much and from the little he has said about his family I am surprised that he was able to invite us to visit during the holidays at all.  Are you certain you don’t want to come?  He wouldn't mind.”

“You can’t invite me for him!  But I will be happy to see you after the semester is over.  I don’t want to get in the way of your having fun with your friends.”

“You’re too sweet.”  Lafayette frowned, looking between the instructions on the box and the carton of milk.  It was difficult to estimate measurements when you weren’t sure how they compared to the ones you were familiar with…  “How much is a cup?”

Adrienne looked puzzled and held up a mug that had been drying by the sink.  “A cup?”

“Yes.  I would think it would be similar to that, no?”

“I suppose so.”

“Or do you think they mean a teacup?”

“I didn’t know that they used teacups in America.”

“I haven’t seen many,” Lafayette admitted.  “But something like that seems more likely.”

“Why do you need to know?”

Lafayette held up the carton of milk in response.

Adrienne frowned, wondering if she should tell him to look it up.  “I’m not sure.  Maybe someone in the dorm can give you a better answer, Gilbert.”

Lafayette was looking between the different sized mugs that had been left in the kitchen.  “It’s so strange that they don’t use the metric system here,” he said, distracted by an especially gaudy vacation mug.  “But this is more fun.  It’s exciting to experience foreign things like this.”

“One cup is two hundred and thirty-seven milliliters,” Adrienne said, leaning into the screen as she looked up the conversion.  “Gil, please don’t use a full mug as your measurement.”

Lafayette looked surprised and put the mug down quickly.  “Ah, no, that doesn’t sound good.  Thank you.”  He poured what looked like approximately the right amount into the bowl and went back to stirring it with the fork.

Adrienne turned the laptop so she could still see him while she worked at the stove.  She had already combined all of her ingredients and was smoothing out the batter into a tidy circle on its flat pan.

“That looks good,” Lafayette said, still trying to get the clumps out of the batter.  “How many are you making?”

“Just one.  No one else is up.”

“I hadn’t realized that I wouldn’t be able to easily find the supplies,” Lafayette said.  “And I think this box will make quite a lot.  Perhaps I should have waited for a night when Alex and John are around, but it’s difficult when they don’t have a set schedule.  They are all over each other,” Lafayette continued to her, secure in the privacy of their conversation thanks to the language barrier even as the other student and one of his friends came back to loiter.  “I think Alexander is still keeping count.”

“Count of what?”

“Everything,” Lafayette said emphatically.  “He’ll just send me numbers and I’m supposed to keep track of what exactly they correspond with.  Sometimes he’ll include emoji for ease of identification if he’s in a particularly celebratory mood.  I could ask him for an explanation, of course, I’ve done that in the past.  But you wouldn’t believe how long he can ramble on about every minute detail.”  Lafayette poured some of the batter into the pan.  “Hold on one moment.”  He turned to the other students.  “I’m going to make a lot of these.  Could one of you write a sign?”  He switched back into French as he continued talking to Adrienne, poking at the batter in the pan with the fork.  “Tonight, for example, just ‘two.’  That one is deceptively easy.  One is not a hard number to keep track of, but there are a few things that they have only done once.  Well, twice now,” he amended.  “I’m sure that he will tell me all about it tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you have friends there,” Adrienne said as she deftly slid the finished crêpe onto a plate.

“Me too.  It would be so lonely here otherwise.  Do I need to flip these?”  Lafayette tried to work the fork under the pancake and then repeated the question to the group starting to gather in the kitchen.

Adrienne carried the laptop and her plate to the dining table.  By the time she had set herself up, Lafayette had served the initial student and was chatting happily with several others as he waited for the next pancake to finish.  Adrienne settled back, waiting for him to finish serving everyone else and make his own so that they could eat.  She wondered for a moment if she could go to bed and have him wake her when he was done—it looked like this was going to take all night.

By the time Lafayette had finally finished and was left with just the one pancake for himself, Adrienne was asleep with her head in her arms on the table.

“Adrienne.”

“Mm.”  She sat up and rubbed her face.  “I’m sorry, Gilbert.”

“I didn’t think about how late it is for you,” he said apologetically, now in his room with the plate and the laptop.

“That’s all right.  Did you enjoy yourself?  They sounded nice.”

“They were,” he said brightly, unfolding his napkin and placing it in his lap.  “We friended one another.  Someone told me I should make special pancakes next time,” he continued obliviously.  “I’ll have to go back to the market and see what I can find.  I think it’s American to put chocolate chips in them.”

“It sounds like it,” Adrienne agreed, finally getting to eat her crêpe.

 

When Hamilton woke it was still dark and Laurens was nuzzling his neck.

“Mm…”  He smiled, not really thinking yet.  “This is great.  You should stay over all the time.  Don’t leave.”

“I have to go soon.”

“Your alarm didn’t go off yet.”

“I know.”

Hamilton ducked his head down and yawned behind his hand.  “So don’t get up.”

“We have about ten minutes before I need to do that.”

“Yeah?”  It clicked and Hamilton reached behind his head to run his hand along the side of Laurens’ face and through his hair, repeating himself with a different intonation.  “…Yeah?”

Laurens moved closer, pressing himself against the small of Hamilton’s back.

“I thought you’d be worn out after last night.”

“You’re not complaining, are you?”

“Hardly.”  Hamilton arched and moved against him.  “I told you I’m gonna get my face on money and when I do I’m taking off ‘in God we trust’ and captioning it ‘Alexander Hamilton: DTF.’”

Laurens paused and then laughed.

“Maybe toss in my phone number after the serial code.”

“Are you actually still asleep?”

“Not sure.  It’s still dark outside and a hot guy in my bed’s looking for a quickie.”

“Nine minutes.”

“Right.”  Hamilton rolled onto his other side, taking a pleased breath when he found himself pressed up against Laurens’ bare chest, his cock now rubbing against his front.  He traced his hand down Laurens’ chest and abs, then wrapped it around his shaft, grinning as Laurens shifted into the touch.  “God, I was right, you should stay over more.  What would you do if you were back at the dorm?”  He started moving his hand over him.  “Would you rub one out right there in bed or go to the showers?”

Laurens already sounded distracted.  “I’m not jerking off when Lafayette is right there.”

“Showers, then.  I could make you get up.  I’ve got a shower.  Keep more with the theme.”

“Alexander…”

“Right, right, time.  I guess I’ll have to be nice.  The shower is nice though, but let’s make it less than a hundred degrees in there next time.  When am I seeing you again?”

“Mm…”  Laurens had his eyes closed.  “I’ll call you after practice.”

“That soon?  You’re making me blush, J.,” Hamilton teased, picking up the pace.

“I’ve—got time.”

“Yeah, you’ve got time and you're trying to get lucky.  I’m onto you.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Laurens protested.  “I meant it, Alex.  I’ve got some free—time.”

“I’m just messing with you.  But you know,” Hamilton began, teasing just his head.  “Maybe you should plan on going back to your dorm.  Lafayette should be leaving around the time you’re done.  Maybe you pay me back.”

“Ah—”

Hamilton ran his thumb over his slit.  “Does that sound like a plan to you?”

Laurens’ hips were twitching.  “Yeah.”

Hamilton kissed his chest.  “Good.  ‘Cause I think we’re gonna run out of time and I’ll just be thinking about you all day otherwise.”  He kept teasing him as Laurens shifted uncomfortably, the sheet sliding down.

“Alex…”

“Don’t worry, J.”  Hamilton suddenly switched back to touching him more vigorously, moving his hand faster over his shaft, a grin quirking up the side of his mouth when Laurens groaned.  He tried to glance up at one of their phones but couldn’t see the time on either so he sped up further, Laurens putting his hand on his upper back and pushing him closer.

“Alexander, I’m—”

“Good,” Hamilton breathed.  “Let go.”

Laurens did, gasping as he felt the wave of pleasure wash over him.  He lay there, breathing heavily for several long seconds as Hamilton touched him slowly and then took his hand away.  His alarm went off.

“Damn.”

Hamilton kissed his collar.  “Right on time.”

Laurens made a noise between a complaint and a sigh.  “I don’t want to get up.”

“You did that to yourself.”  Hamilton sat up, holding his hand a little out in front of him and not touching anything else with it.  “I’m washing up.  Go get ready before you have to tell your coach that you’re late because your boyfriend was giving you a handy.”

Laurens flopped over onto his front, burying his face in one of the pillows and muffling his voice.  “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Who said it was a joke?”

Laurens winced and got up.

 

> G. Lafayette: 2?

> A. Hamilton: sit yo ass down 

> A. Hamilton: i got a story for you

> A. Hamilton: guess what yours truly is allowed to do more frequently now

> G. Lafayette: Come with me to the grocery store

> A. Hamilton: …wait is that a question, like a possible answer you are posing or is that a command

> A. Hamilton: See this is why punctuation is important

> G. Lafayette: It was a request.  I’d like you to come with me to the store.

> A. Hamilton: ok fine but we’re getting off topic bc what I want to tell you is way more important than whatever piece of americana you’re planning on deep-frying or bbqing this time around, if you’re going to have a heart attack it should e from my EXCELLENT NEWS and not from clogged arteries

> A. Hamilton: seriously how are you not dead yet actually don’t answer that but put a pin in it, I’m coming back to that later because it’s not actually the point of the story.

> A. Hamilton: are you sitting

> G. Lafayette: I’m walking to class.

> A. Hamilton: wait what

 

Hamilton actually stopped walking at that, already in the dorm.  He had been counting on Lafayette being around to let him into the room but instead it looked like he was going to be stuck out in the common area.  He sat at one of the tables, taking a book out of his bag and resigning himself to wait for Laurens to come back out there.  He hadn’t yet opened it to his page, however, when he saw Burr walking across the open room, heading for the elevators.  Hastily shutting the book and shoving it in his bag, Hamilton chased after him.

“Burr!”

Burr stopped, turned around, smiled.  “Alexander.”

“Right, hello, good morning, moving on,” Hamilton said, his words all on top of one another.  “Not that I’m not _loving_ our mutual unspoken agreement to not talk to one another anymore outside of meetings, but I seriously have to know the answer to this one.  Who told you I was dating Lafayette?”

Hamilton was watching closely to see if any emotion—surprise, guilt, amusement, anything—flashed over Burr’s face, but he kept it unreadable.

“I didn’t realize that was a secret.  You’re normally so open about things.  I have a couple of friends on your floor.  I’m not sure there is a delicate way to put this, but they’ve seen and heard you together.”

Hamilton frowned.  Of course people had seen him entering the room with Lafayette, but they had also seen him with Laurens.  And if anyone had heard _anything_ …

“Like, sex?  They heard me having sex?  …Do they want to, like, stick a note on the door or something, I’m pretty sure that’s the standard way to register a noise complaint.”

“I’m sure they would appreciate it if you kept it down.”

“I’ll blast the music next time,” Hamilton promised.

Burr’s smile got a little broader and a little thinner.  “I’ll let them know.”

“‘Cause I’m pretty sure they aren’t hearing it right.”

“From what I understand, you left very little to the imagination.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I didn’t tell Lafayette this, of course, but you can reassure him that he’s not the problem.  As long as he manages to gag you, no one will be any wiser.”

A light dawned in Hamilton’s eyes.  “Ohhh.  They could only hear me.  That makes sense.  That makes a lot more sense.”

Burr actually did give him a quizzical look at that but Hamilton pretended not to see it.

“Okay, yeah, sure.  I’ll keep it down.”  Hamilton paused, then laughed.  “We’ll be real discreet.”

“Good.”  Burr sounded less sure.  “They weren’t misinformed, were—”

“Alexander?”

Hamilton turned around as Laurens walked towards them.

“I thought you were meeting Lafayette.”

Hamilton started to laugh again.  “Yeah, I actually was.  Shit.  It’s been a pleasure, Burr, and for the first time in fucking ages I mean that one hundred percent.  C’mon, John, let’s get breakfast instead.”

“What was that about?”  Laurens asked once they were back outside.

Hamilton was still grinning.  “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this.  You’re too distracting.  Long story short, you don’t gotta worry about shit.  The staff may be one thing but apparently any interested members of the student body think I’m hooking up with Lafayette instead.”

Laurens actually faltered for a moment in his steps.  “What?”

“I know, I know.  Caught me off guard, too.  Lafayette was also real confused.”  Hamilton shook his head, amused.  “I mean, neither of us corrected them, ‘cause, you know, but we didn’t know why.  I’ll text him at the cafeteria because it turns out that people in our hall have real big fucking mouths and they saw us together, which, okay, totally normal.  It’s not like they saw us arm in arm or any shit like that.”

Laurens frowned.  “They’ve seen—”

“Right,” Hamilton didn’t let him finish his sentence.  “They’ve seen you and me together, I walk down that hall with both of you and you’ve both let me in or seen me off.  And like I said, no funny business.  But,” he started cracking up again, still finding the whole thing funny, “Burr says they’ve _heard_ us and I’m this close to just telling him that can’t be right ‘cause I’m pretty sure Lafayette doesn’t have some secret recording of me to play when he’s jacking off in to that can.  Then I realized he meant they can hear _me_ and some unidentifiable second voice and they’re not creepy enough to be actively tracking your and Lafayette’s comings and goings.”

Laurens was staring.  “You mean…”

“Hey, I suggested they write a note.  I guess it’s not that bad.  Or they’re getting off to it, whichever.”  Hamilton flipped his hand airily.  “The point is, John, that you can stop worrying because Lafayette’s the one being pigeonholed as a flaming homosexual, not you.  And either no one cares or it’s actually helping his rep.  Did you see his insta last night?  I’m pretty sure he’s now Lord of the Stoners.”

Laurens didn’t say anything, frowning slightly and looking ahead as they walked.

“It’s a good thing, right?  John?”

Laurens finally nodded, slowly.  “Yes.  But you can tell them that they’re mistaken.”

“Nah.  I don’t mind having a French sugar daddy.”  Hamilton paused.  “ _Un papa de sucre?_   Remind me, I want to ask him about that when we get food, too.  Seriously, John, I don’t care what people think and it didn't sound like Lafayette was particularly bothered by it either.  It sounds like this’ll be easier.”

Laurens heard the unspoken “for you” and felt a guilty twinge.  But since Lafayette didn’t mind and, frankly, it sounded like Hamilton was getting a kick out of it…

“Yeah, sure.  You’re right,” he admitted.  “It’s easier.”

 


	50. Two Dates and a Bag of Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee Date; I TAKE YOUR MEASUREMENTS AND INFORMATION AND THEN I SMUGGLE IT; Reminiscing

“You’re so strong,” Aglae said with admiration as she and Lafayette packed up at the end of their class. “You make all of the poses look so easy—if my boyfriend was here, he’d just fall on his face.”

Lafayette, dripping sweat, was pretty sure that she was flattering him but smiled anyway. “You do very well yourself.”

“I’m just flexible.”

Now Lafayette wasn’t sure if she was flirting with him or not. He'd never quite been able to make up his mind one way or the other. Some days he would leave class convinced she was blatantly hitting on him, others he felt there was no way. He remembered in a flash when he had taken Hamilton out to the Quartier Latin and what he had told him—there was no harm in a little flirtation as long as you kept your eye on where the line was.

Aglae slung her bag over her shoulder. “I'm going to grab coffee after this. What about you?”

What about him? “That sounds good. Do you mind if I join you?”

She smiled brightly. “Not at all. I’ll shower and then meet you upstairs.”

Lafayette glanced up to the front of the room where Adelaide was putting things away, her dark hair neatly held away from her face with a wide headband. “All right, I’ll wash up too.”

Aglae left and Lafayette loitered, making a show of checking his phone as he waited for the room to empty.

“Adelaide,” he began, walking over to her.

She answered in French and her accent was like honey. “Yes?”

“A friend of mine is having a party next month. If you don’t have plans yet you should bring some friends with you.”

“Next month—for Halloween?”

“Yes.”

“You’re planning very far in advance.”

“Not that far.”

“Yes. I heard you inviting some of the other students at least a week ago.”

Lafayette laughed awkwardly. “Ah, perhaps. I’m a little excited. I’ve never been to an American costume party before.”

Adelaide took out a day planner from her bag. “Mm. Tell me the time and the address and I’ll write it down.”

Lafayette had already been opening his contacts to add in her number. “Oh. Right.” He told her the information and she put the planner away.

“Your leg seems to be doing better,” she told him with a smile. “I’ll see you later, Lafayette.”

Lafayette met Aglae upstairs after he had showered off.

She stood up from the chair she had been waiting in by the door. “Are you ready to go? Where do you get your hair done, by the way?”

He touched it, still silver and lilac. “I got it touched up near campus but I did it in France over the summer.”

She looked surprised and impressed. “You did that yourself?”

“Ah, no… Adrienne, my girlfriend, she did it for me.”

“I see. Well, you should tell her that girls in America think it’s cute.”

“I’ll be sure to let her know,” Lafayette said cheerfully, taking out his phone to text her.

Aglae raised an eyebrow at that. “Wow, you talk to her a lot, huh?”

“Whenever I can,” Lafayette affirmed. “I was just telling her that I wished she would send me more messages.”

“She doesn’t text you? Does she call?”

“We have times set up. It’s hard because she is so far ahead.”

“But she could still text you,” Aglae said. “If my boyfriend were in Europe I’d be on the phone with him all the time!” She laughed a little. “I probably sound like some kind of crazy girlfriend, super clingy and paranoid…”

Lafayette shook his head. “No, I’m the same way. If we were living in a time before phones I know I would be writing her as much as possible. I’d send her a letter on every ship!”

Aglae smiled, tipping her head up at him. “That’s so romantic.”

“I try.”

Aglae sighed somewhat wistfully. “You’re such a good boyfriend. I wish Phillip were more like you.”

“Is he not attentive enough? That’s a shame. You deserve better.”

“Oh, he’s not a bad person,” Aglae said, looking up at him over her shoulder. “Maybe I should see if I could get him to do his hair like yours. You’re so cute with it.”

Lafayette smiled, pleased. “It’s a good look. I’m sure you could work it.”

“Really? Oh, here, this is where I usually go.” Aglae took his arm and pulled him into a coffee shop and bistro near the yoga studio. “You do like coffee, don’t you? The house blend is great, you should totally try it.”

They waited in line.

“What is Phillip studying?”

“Hm? Oh, he’s not in school anymore,” Aglae answered. “He’s working in his family’s business. He’s doing really well but it’s kind of hard sometimes, you know? I feel like we don’t have all that much in common to talk about. Well, in that area, at least. We go out together and things like that, so…”

“None of that matters,” Lafayette said. “Not as long as you truly love one another.”

She smiled again and playfully put her hand on his arm as they approached the front of the line. “There you go again! You’re such a romantic.” Aglae stepped away to place her order, looking back at him. “So, how about it? House blend?”

“Sure.” Lafayette handed his card over her shoulder to to cashier. “One for each of us, please.”

“You didn’t have to do that!”

“It’s my pleasure.” He took his card back. “You are introducing me to this place so it is the least I can do.”

“Well, thank you, Lafayette. You’re really spoiling me.”

He motioned for her to pick a table and she sat at one near the counter.

“So how do you like New York?”

Lafayette sat across from her, his eyes lighting up. “I love it. Paris is my home, of course, but this city is wonderful, Aglae. I might even prefer it.”

“Really? I can’t imagine that! I’ve never been to Paris but it sounds so beautiful!"

“Oh, it is,” Lafayette agreed quickly. “And it has such a spirit. But for me, New York is much more exciting. Even if I’m not doing anything, I feel like there is always adventure.”

“Even in a coffee shop?”

“Exactly. I didn’t plan on doing any of this and here I am!”

“You didn’t plan on getting coffee?”

Lafayette shook his head. “Coffee, or taking our class, or studying here at all. It was all very, how do you say… Spontaneous.”

“You’re so brave, picking up and moving a world away. I don’t think I could do a thing like that.”

“That’s not true. I’m sure if you saw something you wanted enough you would go for it.”  
Aglae leaned her chin on her hands, smiling slightly. “Maybe.” She crossed her legs and brushed him with her foot. “But I’m surprised you picked New York over Paris. Isn’t that the City of Love? It must be beautiful in the spring,” she sighed.

“You should visit one day. You would like it.”

“Oh, I would love to visit you.”

“You’re right, Paris is lovely in the spring. All the trees bloom and there are flowers and the weather isn’t too hot yet. The food is wonderful too,” he added, getting up to get their drinks and then taking them back to the table.

“And the coffee, I’m sure!”

“Yes, and the coffee.”

Aglae raised her mug to her lips and let the steam brush over her face. “I’m afraid this won’t be as good as your Parisian coffee.”

“No,” Lafayette said, a little grandly. “It will be better because I am having it right here, with you.”

Aglae laughed. “You’re such a charmer. Are all boys in France as cute as you?”

Lafayette grinned, enjoying himself. “I don’t know… I haven’t been everywhere in France…”

“Where haven’t you been? Tell me one place.”

“I’ve never been to Lourdes.”

“All right, when I go to France I am going to Paris and then I am taking the train to Lourdes and I am going to look all through it for someone who can beat you. I’ll look behind every door.”

“Check the grotto,” Lafayette said. “Since you’re searching for a true miracle.”

“I take it back. You’re awful!”

He took a sip of the coffee and glanced over at the pastries behind the glass at the front. “You were right, this is good. Would you like something to go with it? I’m interested in those macarons.”

“You don’t have to do that!”

“Please,” he said, standing and taking his wallet out again. “I’d hate to eat alone.”

She watched as he ordered and then came back with a red macaron for each of them. “I don’t know what flavor this is, but I thought the color looked nice.”

“Like a rose,” she said. “Or a strawberry.”

“Cherry?” He bit into it and blinked in surprise. “Oh.”

“Oh!” She repeated after him, taking a bite of hers. “It's bacon!”

“How strange…” He glanced warily back at the counter. “I don’t know that this will go with the coffee.”

“It’s an adventure,” she teased. “Wasn’t that what you said you wanted?”

He gave a short laugh and took another sip. “That’s true.”

 

Hamilton lay on his back, Laurens on his front next to him, his arm draped over his chest and his eyes closed. It was getting dark outside and starting to become difficult for him to read the words on the page of the book he was holding up over his head. He frowned a little as he tried to turn the page without waking Laurens or just dropping the book on his face. His phone vibrated and he looked at it, startled, then picked up.

“…Mulligan?”

“Hey—” Hamilton could hear traffic and street noise in the background and it was cutting a little over his voice. “—I’m outside, let me in.”

“Uh.” Hamilton glanced at Laurens.

“I can’t stay, I’ve got a hot date. I’m just dropping off your stuff.”

“Oh. Oh! Yeah, hold on.” Hamilton slipped out from under Laurens’ arm and buzzed him in. “I’m hanging up, just knock at the door.”

Hamilton quickly pulled on a pair of pants but before he could find and put on a shirt in the dark there was a loud series of knocks and he jumped for the door.

“Jesus, Mulligan!” He opened the door halfway and stood in the frame.

“Sorry about getting these back to you so late.” Mulligan didn’t seem to notice that Hamilton had been keeping his voice down slightly. “Here, you wanna try them on? There’s a pair of chinos in there that I picked up real cheap in London, baby, and if they fit I’m gonna grab you a couple more when I go back.”

“Uh, it’s not a great time,” Hamilton said, taking the large shopping bag from Mulligan. “But hey, thanks for the cake.”

“Not at all…” Mulligan glanced over Hamilton’s current state of dress, then back into the darkened room. “Shit, sorry, you should have said something! Hope I didn’t interrupt.”

Hamilton shrugged and shook his head. “He’s asleep.”

“You dog,” Mulligan said affectionately, slugging Hamilton on the arm. “Lucky for you I really do gotta run so I can’t stick around and embarrass you even more. You kids have fun,” he called over his shoulder as he left. “Don’t forget t’ use protection!” He shouted from the stairs. “And let me know how they fit!”

Hamilton rolled his eyes and closed the door as Laurens sat up.

“Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure he couldn’t see anything.”

“Very comforting. I’m getting dressed.”

“Aw.”

Hamilton got the light and Laurens grabbed his clothes.

“Toss me my shirt?” Hamilton caught it. “Thanks, J.” He pulled it on and then traded out his pants for the ones Mulligan had been talking about. “What do you think? They fit okay.”

Laurens, fully dressed now, looked over. “You look good.”

He did look good—the slimmer legs were a better fit on his frame than his slacks and Mulligan apparently knew his size. Hamilton turned, more because he was trying to check out how the legs of the pants fit than because he wanted to give Laurens a show, but he appreciated it anyway.

“Yeah,” Hamilton concluded. “I’ll let him know I’m keeping them.” He reached back into the bag and took out several other pairs of pants and went to put them away.

Laurens watched him curiously. “He bought you all of those too?”

“Hm? Oh, no, he was just fixing these for me. I already got you and Lafayette, I don’t need a third boyfriend.”

Laurens suddenly remembered the sewing machine in Mulligan’s apartment and laughed. “You don’t have another boyfriend, you’ve got a mom. He doesn’t do your laundry too, does he?”

“Only when the laundromat down the street closed for renovations.”

“You’re cute.”

“Stop laughing at me. And if you’re gonna call me shit like that you need to get naked again.”

Laurens lingered by his bag. “I should head back.”

“It’s not that late yet. Besides, if Mulligan hadn’t woken you up you’d still be asleep for another hour or two.”

“Yeah…” Laurens took his phone out of his pocket and unlocked the screen.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Adrienne sent me a picture of the dogs.”

“See? She’s up and online, which means she’s talking to Lafayette. You might as well stay here.”

Laurens put his phone away. “Yeah. You’re right.”

 

Adrienne was vidchatting with Lafayette, but she might have preferred if Laurens came back to the dorm.

“So I told her that she should visit Paris some day,” Lafayette was saying, organizing his books and not really paying attention to Adrienne. “She said it sounded very romantic, and she’s right, don’t you think? I said she should visiting in spring when the flowers are all in bloom.”

“Mm.”

“And, oh,” he laughed, stopping what he was doing and turning back to the laptop.  “Adrienne, it was so funny. I had bought us macarons to go with the coffee. Guess what flavor they were?”

Adrienne had been toying uncomfortably with a lock of her hair. “Vanilla?”

“Bacon.” Lafayette shook his head in disbelief. “Red macarons, Adrienne. I almost didn’t want to eat it after that but she made me feel like I had to. Oh, she didn’t pressure me,” he clarified—not that she had asked—, “She reminded me that I had just been talking about how everything in New York is such an adventure, even sitting with her in the cafe. How could I abstain after that? I had to take whatever chance placed before me.” 

"You’re very adventurous, Gilbert.”

“And you’re very sweet. The sweetest,” he said. She smiled, a little hesitantly. “I miss you, my dearheart.”

“Oh, I miss you, too.”

“I should show you more of the city. Maybe when we meet Andre and Peggy we can go back to the cafe I was at today. I think the connection there would be strong enough.”

“I’d like that,” Adrienne said.

“Would you?” He sounded earnest. “I’d like to take you to other kinds of places too, of course, but most restaurants won’t let me set up my laptop like that.”

“I know,” she assured him, “I remember.”

“Hm… Do you know what I remember?”

Adrienne looked puzzled. “What?”

“I remember that time we visited Marseilles…”

Adrienne put her hand to her mouth, pleased but embarrassed. “Gilbert!”

“Did you forget?” He teased. “Your parents rented that vacation house overlooking the ocean and left us there while they went on that dinner cruise. And we opened one of the bottles of wine and—”

“—And we only had a glass and didn’t think to cork it and they scolded me when it went bad,” Adrienne cut in.

“—And,” Lafayette continued, pushing on in spite of that, “we went back to the room I was staying in and we drank it on the bed.”

“And you kissed me,” Adrienne said, softly.

Lafayette smiled, meeting her gaze in the screen and then glancing down at the keyboard. “I knew I loved you even then, my life.”

“Gil,” Adrienne breathed. “My Lancelot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Hamilton Death Day! In some parts of the world still, whoops.


	51. Fuck Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sidelines (Apartment, Bleachers, Benched); Sex-Ed

"When do you think we should head over?”

Lafayette stopped to think, the fork still in his mouth. “‘alf an hour?”

“Yeah, okay.” Hamilton took another bite of the cake. The two of them were sitting on the floor in his apartment, the box between them. “He should have sprung for nuts along the side. That would have really made it.”

“Is this sort of thing normal in America?”

“Normal? Nah, not unless I was some chick getting married. It was just his idea of a joke.”

“It's a very tasty joke.”

“Right? I was surprised he actually sent me a quality dick cake.” Hamilton took a few more bites before speaking up again, joking. “Do you think von Steuben would let me sit down on the bench? He did invite me to hang out during practice, after all.”

“Perhaps, but only until he realized you wanted to watch the cheerleaders.”

“Hey, I’d watch the game too.”

“You would, how do you say, get whiplash from turning between the two so quickly and often.”

“Ha, yeah, you’re right. I’d rather not join the two of you with the hospital visits.”

“You’re jealous. And I never went to the hospital.”

“No, G-Wash called his personal physician out in a hurricane. That’s much better.”

“Again, you are jealous.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes. “Please. Why would I be jealous of that? It’s not like I want Washington all up in my business, I see the guy like five days a week as it is, that’s plenty.”

“You’re so unappreciative.”

“You’re a hero worshiper. I’m not saying the guy isn’t brilliant. He is. But he’s not perfect. I appreciate the job—most of the time—but I’m not about to put him up on some pedestal just because he’s accomplished. Besides,” Hamilton added, “I’d get pretty sick of seeing your face, too, if I had to chase after you with your mail all day.”

“I would be an excellent boss,” Lafayette protested.

“You’d send me to the post office at four in the morning to make sure there wasn’t a package or letter from Adrienne waiting for you. Don’t lie,” Hamilton added when Lafayette opened his mouth to protest.

“Would you actually go to check?”

“I’m gonna go ahead and say no,” Hamilton said, “because I don’t want you taking this as confirmation that you can actually do that.”

Lafayette huffed.

“You know,” Hamilton commented through another mouthful, “I’m not saying I’m glad John got hurt, but I’m pretty okay with not having to wait until January for him to put out. That would be a pretty great birthday present, though.”

“You should ask for it anyway.”

“I’m going to. You think we can get a hotel over Thanksgiving? I’m frankly a little concerned I’ll have to keep a two foot distance at all times.”

“I think it is a large house. I’m sure you can find some time to be alone.”

“He better make some time.”

“Nothing can be as bad as the holidays with Adrienne’s family. Do you know how long midnight mass goes for? And that’s not the only service they attend.”

“Yeah, okay, fine, you win. I bet you can’t even get down because baby Jesus is watching. Shit, you think we’re going to have to go to church? I’ll probably just burst into flame. I told you they wouldn’t let me into their school, right?”

“You did.”

Hamilton sat back. “Is it too late to back out?”

“You’ll hurt his feelings.”

“Fuck feelings.”

“Think of it like a test of your true—” Lafayette cut himself off and tried to find a different word as Hamilton leaned a little further away and gave him a look. “—enjoyment,” he managed, rather lamely, “of his company.”

“Fuck that too. I’m pretty sure that chivalry and white knight stuff only works on actual princesses.”

“Adrienne’s father is a duke.”

“Yeah, I see what you’re saying but you’re not helping your point.”

“My point,” Lafayette continued, “is that you should honor your word because you know going is the right thing to do.”

“Do I really?” Hamilton put both the forks in the box with the cake and closed it, getting up to store it away. “Whatever. You’re right, I’ll go. Speaking of which, we need to head over. I’ll tell you this, if John manages to get hurt again not even playing we’re not speaking to him for the rest of the day.” Hamilton looked over at Lafayette and motioned between them. “You and me, we’re not speaking to him. Got that?”

Lafayette nodded. “Shouldn’t you let him know?”

“I warned him last night. What do normal people talk about after sex?”

“I have no idea,” Lafayette answered honestly.

 

Laurens was sitting on the bench, in jeans and a team shirt, watching the formations on the field restlessly. It was already second quarter, they were up by fourteen, and every single time they went back on the offensive he felt a rising wave of frustration, made worse by the fact that he felt perfectly fine and able to play. He knew, of course, that just because he wasn’t currently in any pain didn’t mean that he had the range of motion necessary and that he was lucky he hadn’t torn or broken anything that would have sidelined him longer, but in the moment—they made another first down and Laurens got to his feet as the crowd cheered—none of that helped. 

“You’re not missing out on anything big,” von Steuben informed him, clapping one hand casually against his clipboard as his assistant further down the field shouted at the team. “We will win or I will kick all of their asses,” he continued in his heavy German accent. “If you were playing today I would probably pull you out anyway at the half.”

Laurens sighed. It was true. At least this looked like it would be an easy win. He watched as Andre was hiked the ball and threw a short pass to Tallmadge, who dodged to the left and broke away from his defender, running over ten yards before he was forced out. Another down.

Several second string players had already been subbed in and a couple of the third strings had been informed that they should be ready to go in for the last quarter.

Laurens looked up towards the student section of the stands. He knew Lafayette and Hamilton were there somewhere, but he hadn’t been able to pick them out yet. It seemed like they had not arrived early enough to get seats right up at the front and he wasn’t able to really study the crowd well enough to spot them.

“Are your friends here?”

Laurens wasn’t really sure what to think about von Steuben talking to him more. To his great relief he had never said anything around the other members of the team remotely like what he had told him in his office, and it hadn’t been like he was exactly formal before, but… Maybe it was just that being benched for so long forced smalltalk and conversation. 

“They should be.”

Von Steuben looked up at the stands as well for a second, then focused his attention back to the field. “ _Gehst du links, Andre! Filzlaus!_ ” He swore loudly, then sighed and took a step back, crossing his arms over his thick chest. “I’m glad for you, that you have such supportive friends. But if you ever need anything, let me know.”

Laurens wasn’t sure if von Steuben was still talking about his injury or not. “Sir?”

“As I said before, I like you, John.” Von Steuben was frowning at the field but standing more or less at ease as he watched the game unfold in their favor. “You remind me of myself at your age, _ein bisschen_. More importantly, you’re a good student and a good runningback. If you ever do get into trouble I will help you out.”

Laurens was suddenly uncomfortable with the generous offer and he just nodded, folding his own arms as well. “Right. Thank you, sir.”

He was relieved that a second string player fumbled the ball at that moment and von Steuben strode forward, their conversation momentarily forgotten.

“ _Du spinnst wohl, Trumbull!_ ”

 

“Are they looking at us?” Hamilton asked, reaching for the shared paper boat of nachos Lafayette was holding. “They’re totally looking at us.”

Lafayette moved the food into Hamilton’s hands and waved his arm in the air a second too late as the other two both turned away. “ _Merde_.”

Hamilton took his phone out, taking a picture of the back of Laurens’ head and sending it to him. “Proof,” he explained to Lafayette.

“Good idea. I cannot believe they wouldn’t let me bring in my selfie-stick.”

“I’m sure you could have smuggled it past them if you had really wanted to. It’s not like we were going through a pat-down. And even if they did catch you with it later, what are they going to do, throw you in the Bastille?”

“That’s not funny,” Lafayette commented, taking Hamilton’s phone from him and flipping the camera, putting his arm over his shoulder. They made dramatic faces at the screen, Hamilton making an exploding gesture with his hand. Lafayette gave the phone back so he could send that picture as well.

“Sorry. But, check it out, our first couple picture. I’m gonna upload it.” Hamilton snickered. “Actually, let’s really fuck with people. Let’s make it both of our profile picture but not change our status. You’re still ‘in a relationship’ with Adrienne, right? Leave that but—wait, fuck—” Hamilton started to laugh harder. “Okay, leave that and I’ll make mine ‘it’s complicated.’”

“I appreciate how your commitment to the part doesn’t require either of us to lie.”

“There’s a difference between letting morons think what they want to and actual deception. And I’m pretty sure that the difference is that this way it’s just really fucking funny.”

“Instead of depressing.”

“Right.”

Lafayette took a thoughtful drink of his soda. “I don’t think I could do it.”

“What are you talking about?” Hamilton looked up. “Come on, just change it for a few days at least.”

“No, not that. But isn’t it frustrating to have to dissimulate? With Adrienne, it’s not just that I don’t care who knows, I want everyone to.”

Hamilton shrugged. “The sex kind of makes up for it. I mean, yeah. Yeah. But it’s not the same. I understand why he’s so hesitant and it’s not like we’re engaged or whatever the hell your deal is. I’m just dating him, you don’t need to worry about defending my honor or some shit.”

“Maybe after you don’t have to worry about meeting his father.”

“Ha, yeah, right, he tracked him down and sent us to G-Wash’s during a hurricane. I’m pretty sure his web of connections is—” Hamilton stopped talking abruptly, his eyes widening.

“What is it?”

“…Just thinking about the possibilities,” Hamilton lied by omission. “Shit, he really does know everyone.”

Lafayette gave him a suspicious look but Hamilton bent down to put the nachos on the floor and motioned for Lafayette to turn. “Wave’s coming. You ready?”

 

“You wouldn’t even like this one,” Andre told Laurens in the second half, standing next to him on the sidelines, helmet off and resigned to not seeing any more action until the following game. He watched as the team’s second string quarterback ran the ball a few yards before being caught and dragged down. “Seriously, Laurens, we’d be standing right where we are anyway and you’d be complaining that it was a waste of time.”

“Yeah, I know.” Laurens had his arms folded across his chest. “It’s just—” He changed his wording. “I’m just restless.”

“Hey, Peggy and I are meeting up with Lafayette and Adrienne tomorrow. Do you want to come?”

Laurens didn’t take his eyes off the field as the team lined up again. He recognized what Andre was actually asking. “I don’t think we can make it.” He felt distinctly uncomfortable at the admission of a relationship even without any personal details coming out. “But do you want to do something next week? Just the two of us, uh, guys’ night out or whatever.”

“Yeah, sure.” Andre grinned. “I feel like I haven’t really seen much of you in a while, man. I’ve been really busy.”

Laurens nodded, not particularly wanting to point out that he hadn’t been making the time for much socializing apart from with Hamilton. 

“We have two classes together and I see you almost every day at practice on top of that.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I got one of those blast emails about discounts for a couple of the smaller museums. I’ll check if any of them look good. I can get extra credit if I go to and do a writeup on an art exhibit anyway and I’d rather go with company."

“Sounds good,” Laurens said. “Let me know and I’ll keep my schedule open for you.”

 

“He is good looking, isn’t he?”

“John?”

“Yeah.”

“…John Laurens?” Lafayette clarified as the two of them watched Laurens and Andre talk off the side of the field.

Hamilton laughed. “Yeah, him too.”

“I need a little bottle of water to spray you with,” Lafayette said. “Like when the cat claws up the couch.”

Hamilton shoved him lightly. “Come on, he’s pretty. He’d make a hot girl, too.”

Down below them Andre shook his dark hair out of his face and ran a hand through it. He put his hands on his narrow hips as he turned, saying something to Laurens, and grinned that broad, pop-star smile.

“You think he has a sister?”

Lafayette mimed spraying Hamilton with a squirt bottle. “No! Bad, Alex!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

Lafayette sat back. “You are lucky that I don’t tell John about any of this.”

“Ha, like he’d—Oh, that reminds me. Did you know that he thinks Andre’s hot, too?”

Lafayette looked interested. “Did he tell you that?”

“Pretty much.”

“No,” Lafayette mused, “I didn’t know." He leaned forward a little, trying to get a better look at Andre, then glanced back at Hamilton.

“…What?”

“Hm. I’m just wondering what the similarity between the two of you is.”

“Hey, excuse you. I’m just as hot as he is.”

“Hm. Of course.”

“And we both _parlons français._ ”

“Oui.” Lafayette was still looking back and forth between them. “He’s much taller than you.”

“Fuck off.”

The crowd booed as a yellow card and ten yard penalty was awarded to their team.

“We should place bets on this once John’s playing again. Or make it a drinking game or something. You know, like take a shot every time he gets a foul. Pay me ten bucks every time he gets injured—I’ll put it in a fund for his hospital fees.”

“You make it sound like that happens every game.”

“He gotten taken to the hospital in all the games I’ve seen him play so far.”

“That’s dirty statistics,” Lafayette scolded. “You know better than that, Alexander.” 

Hamilton rolled his eyes and slouched down a little in his seat. “Whatever. But speaking of John and sports, I’m allowed to play the pitcher as long as I use a glove.” Lafayette gave him a puzzled look and he reworded. “I can do the fucking if I wear a condom. Baseball metaphor. That’s, like, prime American, Lafayette, you should study up on it.”

“I’ll do that when we get back to the dorm,” Lafayette promised. “Congratulations, but isn’t that what we were celebrating with the cake today?”

“Yeah, I just forgot to tell you the rest of the story. I wasn’t thinking and didn't have anything at hand to finish into, so I had to get up—”

Lafayette gave him a shocked look. “You weren't using anything?”

“Right, because I’m so concerned about knocking him up. Do you actually use one every single time?”

“Of course I do.”

Hamilton looked skeptical. “Really?”

“Yes,” Lafayette insisted. “It’s my responsibility.”

“Okay, whatever, but like I said it’s not like John has to worry about setting off another pregnancy scare and he’s as clean and pure as new-fallen snow.”

“You’re not,” Lafayette pointed out. “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you to do something about that sooner.”

“Hey, I’m clean! I had to pay out of pocket for that test. Trust me, they stabbed me and everything.”

Lafayette still looked disapproving, so Hamilton continued.

“It was a full battery, okay? I’m good.”

Lafayette sighed and turned back to the game. “At least you figured that out before you did anything.”

“Mm-hm.”

He looked back at Hamilton, incredulous. “Alexander.”

“Okay, so maybe I didn’t get around to it for a couple months. Or until after we were back from France. Jesus, Lafayette, we weren’t actually dating until then, I didn’t think it was important.”

“You weren’t dating any of the girls before him,” Lafayette pointed out. 

“And most of them I wore something. Shit, I pulled one out for him the first time we did anything, too. It was his call.”

“You are so irresponsible.” Lafayette huffed and focused his attention back to the field.

 

“Did you tell Peggy that Adrienne won’t be there in person?” Laurens was checking his phone as he and Andre left the locker rooms after the game—final score: 42-17—and he smiled as he scrolled through his messages.

Andre glanced over. “Oh. No. Do you think it’s important?”

Laurens shrugged carefully. “You know how she likes to be kept in the loop.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll mention it. Hey, are you sure that you and, uh…”

Laurens cut Andre off before he could actually ask for a name. “Look at this.” He showed him the picture Lafayette and Hamilton had taken of themselves during the game. Andre laughed and Laurens was relieved when he ran with the topic change.

“That’s a good one. Too bad you didn’t have your phone with you or we could have sent something back.”

“Yeah, right, turn our backs to the field? With our luck their quarterback would have hit us with the ball. I haven’t seen throws consistently that bad since I tried to teach James.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s good.” Laurens searched through his phone for a different picture. “Sent me this the other day.” He showed Andre a poster board with a map of South Carolina and pictures of a chipmunk and skulls. “Tamias aristus. They’re learning about fossils.”

“Sounds ferocious.”

“Hey, it’s ten to thirty percent larger than the ones alive today.”

Andre laughed. “That’s the next Jurassic Park. I’m calling it now.”

 

“Hey, J.?” Hamilton was lying on his back later that night, Laurens lazily scrolling through his texts next to him.

“Hm?”

“I have a question.” Hamilton turned his head to look at him and Laurens shifted onto his side.

“What?”

“Did I, uh… Shit, this is awkward. Did I pressure… Why didn’t you bother using a condom?”

Laurens looked confused and put his phone off the side of the futon. “Why would I do that?”

“I gave you one the first night.”

“Honestly, I assumed you just got that automatically. It’s not like we needed one.”

Hamilton frowned. “Okay, I know why I was saying that, but show me your work.”

“It’s just…” Laurens gestured a little helplessly in the air between them. “I guess it would have been neater, but I don’t have to worry about the same things with you as I would with a girl.”

“Oh, fuck.” Hamilton turned his face back to the ceiling and covered it with his hands. “Shit, John, that’s not why I gave it to you! It wasn’t because I was worried about—Shit!”

Laurens was confused and growing embarrassed. “What is it?”

“Oh my God,” Hamilton continued, pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes. “I cannot believe I’m having this conversation with you. You’re older than me, John! I thought you had wanted to be a doctor! I gave you that fucking condom as a courtesy because you’re supposed to be suspicious of where whatever you stick your dick into has been!”

“But you’d never been with another guy,” Laurens responded a little sharply, turning red.

“That’s not how that works!”

Laurens sat up. “What are you—”

“I knew that was a new thing for both of us but I assumed someone had explained the fine print to you! Don’t tell me I should have gone with the stereotype about southern education, I was trying to take the high road, John! You’re so smart, I didn’t think—You fucking moron, it’s called protection for a reason!”

“If you knew it was that big of a deal, why didn’t you do something about it?” Laurens asked, anger masking humiliation and dawning retroactive fear.

“I figured you were making an informed choice!” Hamilton took his hands away and sat up as well, kneeling with the blankets around his lap. “You’re a consenting adult, I didn’t have anything to hide that I knew about, it was your own Goddamn choice to skip it!”

“Shit.” Laurens exhaled heavily, pushing his hand back through his hair.

“No kidding.”

“But it’s okay… Right?”

“Yeah, lucky for you. You’re not going to get the clap from me. Your next boyfriend, however…”

“That’s not funny.” Laurens stood up and Hamilton noted a little guiltily that was the second time in one day he had been told that.

“Sorry.”

Laurens was putting his pants on.

“J., I’m sorry. It freaked me out, okay? I was talking to Lafayette and he made me feel guilty—”

“You told him about this?”

Hamilton winced. “Not exactly. Look, it wasn’t even about you. Not really. He was scolding me and—can you just come back?”

Laurens, still tense, leaned on the windowsill and looked down at the street.

“John.” Hamilton got up, holding the sheet in front of himself. “It’s okay. It’s fine. If I had thought that it wasn’t I wouldn’t have asked you in the first place.”

Laurens didn’t respond.

“I feel bad, okay? I should have been clearer from the start. But there’s nothing to worry about.” Hamilton paused, trying to think of the angle he needed. “I shouldn’t’ve called you stupid,” he finally said, after replaying the conversation. “You’re not stupid.”

Laurens sighed and finally turned away from the window. “Where’s my shirt?”

Hamilton stepped to the side so he could get it. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“I should go.”

“J.—”

Laurens froze, shirt in his hand, and then finally looked at Hamilton standing there, naked except for a sheet, and staring at him with panic in his eyes. He felt his resolution crumble.

“Shit,” he muttered, sitting down on the mattress and putting the shirt on the floor. “C’mere.” He motioned towards Hamilton who quickly sat down next to him in relief. He took his hand. “I’m not leaving.”

Hamilton breathed out hard. Laurens wondered whether he knew that he had been holding it and kissed him.

Hamilton immediately deepened the kiss, grabbing Laurens’ arm so he couldn’t pull away and pushing his tongue into his mouth.

“Mm.” Laurens slowly broke the kiss. “Lie down.”

Hamilton did and Laurens lay next to him, adjusting the sheets as Hamilton curled into him, pressing his face to his collar. Laurens put his arms around him. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me, John.” Hamilton didn’t move from where he had his head tucked under Laurens’. “You don’t have practice tomorrow, do you?”

“No.”

“Good. Stay here.”

Laurens smiled. “Yeah, all right.”


	52. Figuring Things Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee Date #2; Caught; *Laundry; Mean Girls

Lafayette waited anxiously outside the cafe he and Andre had agreed upon, a casual blazer over his nice dress shirt.

 

> G. Lafayette: I’m sorry, they’re not here yet.

> A. de Noailles: It isn’t the hour yet.  We’re still early.

 

Lafayette nodded, then remembered that she couldn’t see him.  Before he could type a response he saw Andre and a blonde girl he assumed must be Peggy.

“Lafayette!”  Andre raised one hand in greeting, the other around Peggy’s waist, as he got close.  “Sorry, I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“Not at all,” Lafayette lied smoothly.  “I only just got here myself.  Shall we?”  He held the door for the other two.  “It’s a please to meet you, Peggy,” he continued, kissing her lightly on the cheek.  “Andre’s told me so much about you.”

“Only good things, I hope,” she said playfully, taking Andre’s hand and tugging him closer to her.

“I only have good things to share,” Andre protested.  “Babe, do you want to get a table?  I got your order.”

“You’re so sweet.”  She squeezed his hand and slipped away, picking out a space for them in the corner.

“So…?”

“She seems very nice,” Lafayette said, texting Adrienne that he had met up with the others and would put her through shortly.  “This will be—ah, sorry.”  A picture from Hamilton popped up on his screen and Andre glanced down at it.  It was a close up of part of a brunch menu offering a wide variety of crêpes including one named “de Lafayette.”

Lafayette clicked back to his other message and kept talking.  “This will be fun.  Maybe we can make it a regular thing?  Like I was saying to Adrienne, it would be nice to have another couple we could spend time with.”

“Sure,” Andre enthused.  “I’d love that.  I’m sure Peggy will agree, she’s really laid back.”  

They reached the front of the line and ordered, then went to sit at the table with Peggy.

“So, Lafayette,” she began, her hands folded neatly on the lap of her peach sundress.  “When will Adrienne be joining us?  Andre told me you had to go through some trouble to arrange everything.”

“Ah, yes.  One moment, please.”  Lafayette took his laptop out of the messenger bag he had been carrying and scooted a little closer to Peggy, making space for it on the table between him and Andre.  Peggy leaned out of the way of his elbows with a sideways glance at Andre as he tried to get everything set up and finally was able to sit properly again when Adrienne’s picture appeared on the screen and Lafayette moved back.

“ _Bonjour!_ ”  Adrienne waved, a mug of coffee on the table in front of her.  “Thank you for meeting us.”

“Good morning, Adrienne,” Andre said cheerfully and motioned to Peggy.  “This is Peggy, my girlfriend.”

“Hello,” Peggy smiled and leaned in a little to Andre.  “It’s nice to meet you.  Andre’s been so excited about this.”

“So has Lafayette,” Adrienne replied.  “He was afraid that we were going to be late.”

“Adrienne—Ah!”  Lafayette stood quickly, bumping the table and going to get their drinks.

“So, Adrienne,” Peggy began.  “Are you going to the University of Paris?”

“Oh, actually, I’m finishing up at the _lycée_ —I mean, I’m graduating from high school in spring.”

“Oh!”  Peggy looked surprised and glanced at Andre—like Laurens, in his fifth year.  “Oh, I didn’t realize.  …Are you excited about that?”

“Yes, I’m hoping Gilbert will be able to come back in time to see the ceremony.”

“That would be nice,” Peggy agreed as Lafayette returned with their drinks.  “Andre, you didn’t tell me that they were high school sweethearts,” she said, turning to him.  “That’s so _sweet_.”

“Before that,” Lafayette said.  “We knew each other as children.” 

Adrienne nodded and Peggy pulled her coffee to her, stirring it. 

“Wow, that’s so—well, I guess it’s not _that_ long.”  She glanced at Andre who just shrugged and nodded and took a drink.

 

Laurens was waiting on the sidewalk outside the restaurant he had gone to with Hamilton, hands in the pockets of his jacket and looking at the newspaper in one of the boxes against the building.  He caught bits and pieces of conversation as people walked past: discussing their plans for the day, family, work gossip…

“—no, that’s not it, she’s a _sweet_ girl, but don't you think it was all a little strange?  It’s like we were babysitting _children_ —” 

Laurens had finished reading the headlines and was skimming what he could of the articles on the front page when he heard his name and looked up.

“Laurens, hey!”

Peggy stopped talking as Andre called out.  She smiled and gave him a little wave.

“Good morning,” Laurens said, nodding and trying to keep a neutral expression as his heart leapt into his throat.  “Andre, Peggy.”

“I didn’t think we’d run into you,” Andre said.  “So much for being a big city, huh?”

Laurens glanced at the restaurant.  “Yeah, so much for that.”

“Oh, hey,  I won’t take up any more of your time,” Andre said as Peggy put her hand on his arm impatiently and he recognized Laurens’ uncomfortable look.  “How is this place, by the way?  Any good?  Should we go?  It looks busy.”

“Yeah,” Laurens moved back against the building as the door opened and a few people came out, the sound of conversation and cutlery pouring out with them.  “It’s a cute place.  The wait was atrocious but it’s worth it.”  He gave a little laugh.  “There’s a crêpe named after Lafayette, we almost ordered it.  You should try it and let me know how it is.”  Laurens was holding the door for an older couple and turned back just in time to see the surprised look that Andre gave him.  “…What is it?”

“Oh,” Andre said.  “That’s really unusual.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen something with that name.”

“Yeah, we thought it was pretty funny.”

“You and your girlfriend?  Does she know Lafayette, too?”

“Mm.”  Laurens changed the topic.  “Hey, you just saw him, right?  How was coffee?”

“It was good,” Peggy said.  “They’re _such_ a cute couple.  Andre, I need to get back.”  She nudged him again.

“Oh, you’re right.”  Andre said, looking down at her apologetically and then turning back to Laurens with a smile.  “Sorry to run.  I’ll see you Monday.”

“Later.”

Hamilton came out a minute or two after that.

“Jesus, sorry.  I’ve never seen a line for the guy’s that was that long.  I was tempted to just come out and piss in the street.”

“I ran into Andre and Peggy.”

“Yeah?”  They started walking and Hamilton watched Laurens closely.  “How’d the double date go?”

“I’m not sure there will be a second one.”

“Ouch.  Okay, well, let’s set Lafayette up for it gently.  What do you think, ‘it’s a really busy time of the semester and I’m sure they must be swamped’?”

“Something like that.  Maybe I should stay at the dorm tonight.”

“You’re such a good roommate.”

“…But not so good that I’m heading there immediately.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton grinned.  “You have to give him some space first.  He doesn’t know yet that he’s waiting for a call that won’t come, if you’re too pushy about it now, he’ll suspect something.”

“Exactly.”

“That place wasn't bad,” Hamilton said, looking back at the restaurant as they crossed the street, taking in the decorated chalkboard sign outside the door and the neatly groomed potted plants that framed it.  It was a far cry from a bar or, for that matter, the hole-in-the-wall they had been coming from when they last crossed paths with Andre and Peggy.  “…Crowded as fuck, though.”

“Brunch on a Sunday.”  Laurens shrugged.  “We should have known.”

“Hey, I wanted something nearby.  The pancakes were just a bonus.”

“We probably could have eaten faster if we just kept walking until we hit something else.”

“Yeah, probably.  Shit,” Hamilton said, distracted and trying to keep the conversation flowing.  “I didn’t even think of it.  Cross that and your art museum date off and I bet you’ll get stereotypical couples activities bingo.”

“It’s not a date,” Laurens protested.

“Brunch or the museum?”

“Both—the museum?”  Laurens frowned.  “This didn’t count if we weren’t thinking of it that way.”

“You paid,” Hamilton pointed out, giving the restaurant one last look over.

Laurens shrugged, a little uncomfortable.

Hamilton almost let the silence go on a beat too long but he caught the non-verbal response just in time, forcing himself to sound more in the present, even as he thought ahead.  “Relax, I think it’s funny.  If that deli was open we would have ended up there instead.”  Sunday, as Laurens had said.  Tomorrow was Monday.

“I’m just helping Andre with his assignment,” Laurens said, changing the topic slightly.

“Yeah, right.  It’s a bro-date.  Just own it, John, I’m not jealous.”  Monday and he had a meeting for student council.

“You shouldn’t be.  I’m not about to drop thirty bucks on _his_ meal.  That was a hell of a lot of carbs.”

“And syrup,” Hamilton agreed.  “Maybe you will still be a couple spaces short of bingo.  Do you think we should go up to Vermont?  We can tap some maple trees, look at the leaves, stay at one of those bed and breakfasts with names like ‘The Olde Mariner.’”  Monday and he could find Aaron Burr.

Laurens laughed.  “Who the hell would name it that?  Vermont’s inland.”

“How should I know?  Why is driving to Vermont even a thing?”  Monday and he could find out whether his cover story was actually useful or if it was only drawing more attention to something better left unsaid.

“We can go at mid-semester break,” Laurens promised.

Hamilton blinked, jerked out of his scheming.  “Wait, seriously?  Because I was just pulling your leg.”

“That’s halfway through October and I think Lancelot will have by then realized that his date did not pan out.”

“Gotcha.  We’re doing him a favor, keeping him from brooding over his failed double romance.”

 

“That could have gone better,” Lafayette admitted, talking to Adrienne over a bluetooth connected to his cell as he sorted laundry in his room.  “Not us, of course,” he amended.  “We were delightful, but that was still so awkward.”

He could hear Adrienne searching for a nicer way to word her response.

“I just don’t think it was a good fit.”

“I agree,” Lafayette said.  “Wholeheartedly.  Hopefully we will have better luck with Alex and John.  It’ll be hard enough to let Andre and Peggy down gently, I’d hate to have to dump them as well.”

“That’s not quite what I meant.  I liked talking to just Andre before, but I don’t think she is a good fit for him.”

“Mm.  Perhaps not.”

“It’s not that I really dislike her.”

“No.  But you are right, they’re not as good a match as he thinks they are.  We shouldn’t see them again, I would hate to make them jealous.”

“Do you really think we are that good together?” 

Lafayette could hear her smiling.

“My heart, of course I do!  We’re the best, even John and Alexander haven’t tried to challenge me on that and they are all over one another.”  Lafayette sniffed a shirt and tossed it over his shoulder into the basket of clothes.  “We should come up with a couple name for them.  It’s too much effort to say both of their names every time we want to discuss them.”

“I’ll think about it,” Adrienne promised.  “But, Gilbert…”

“Yes?”

“Gilbert,” Adrienne repeated and he could hear the pout in her voice.  “It’s been so long.”

“So long since—Oh.”  He realized, a little belatedly, what she was saying and felt a little rush of excitement.  “Yes, I suppose it has been a while, my dearheart.”

“I miss you,” she breathed.  And then, after a pause, “I’m not wearing anything.”

Lafayette froze, half-turned with one hand on the rim on the basket.  “Oh?”  His voice was a little choked.

“No.”  She was definitely pouting now, deliberately emphasizing the tone for his benefit.  “It’s cold.  Should I get dressed?”

“You should warm yourself up,” he said, his mouth dry.

“Oh—?”  There was a hitch in her voice and he would have had to sit down were he standing.  Not being able to see her made him that much more captivated as he tried to guess what, exactly, she was doing.  “Are you still busy, Gilbert?”

“No.”  Lafayette cleared his voice and stood up.  “No.  Not at all.”

The half-full basket of laundry was left forgotten on the floor as he started to undo his shirt.  “What are you doing?”

Her voice was breathy.  “Guess.”

His fingers were shaking slightly as he undid the buttons.  “You are touching yourself.”

“Mm.  That’s not a real answer.  I know what you’re doing,” she continued.  

“Do you?”

“You’re taking your shirt off.”

“How did you know?”

She laughed softly and it faded into a low pleased noise that made his knees weak.  

“Gil…”

“Adrienne.”  He dropped the shirt to the floor and started to undo his pants but she stopped him.

“Don’t undress all the way.”

“But—”

“Please, Gil.”

He made a little frustrated sound and got on the bed, lying on his back and listening to her.  He could hear her slightly elevated breathing and the rustle of sheets and, very faintly, a buzzing noise.

His pulse quickened.

“Are you using a vibrator?”

“Mm…  The little one.  The one we bought together.  Do you remember?”

“Of course I do.”  He could feel himself pressing uncomfortably and he was thankful he had worn dress pants instead of jeans, although he wished they were a looser cut.

“I like it.  It just fits in the palm of my hand.”  She made that pleased sound again and sent a shiver down his spine.  “Which is—oh—good, because I need my other hand for the remote.”

“Adrienne, may I?”

“Only over your pants.”

He grabbed himself and closed his eyes, listening to her soft gasps and remembering when they had first used it.

“I had the remote,” he said, a little hoarse.  “And you were in the chair in your room.  You were only wearing that robe of yours, the white satin one, and,” he bit his lip as he rubbed himself, “and it was falling open in the front.  You weren’t wearing anything underneath it.”

“Mm,” Adrienne said encouragingly.  “Tell me more.”

“And you had the bullet in your hand, like you do now.  You were holding it against yourself before I turned it on and that first jolt—”

“Like lightning,” she breathed.

Lafayette moaned.

“I told you to keep your hand on the outside,” she scolded.

“I am,” he protested, sitting up a little as if she were across from him and he needed to address her directly.  “I am, my heart.”

She gave a short laugh.  “All right.  I believe you.”

“Thank you.”  He lay back down.

“Keep going.”

“And I turned it on, just to the lowest setting, but you weren’t expecting it, and your eyes—”  He shook his head.  “I love your eyes.”

“Gil…”

“And, mn, you moved it over yourself, just like now, and you wouldn’t let me touch you, I had to stand there and watch.  I watched as you pressed it to yourself and your legs spread so wide and your cheeks turned red.  I was so hard, Adrienne.”

“Like now?”

“Yes.”  The word came out in little whine.  “Please, Adrienne.”

“All right.  But still not directly.”

Lafayette arched off the bed, quickly undoing his pants and kicking them off, rubbing his head over his underwear and groaning at the increased contact.

“Ah—!  Adrienne…” he rocked his hips into his hand, feeling his cock hard and the fabric a little wet.  He brought his other hand down, reaching below his shaft to cup himself as he stroked his cock.

“Gil,” Adrienne whispered.  “What else?”

He swallowed hard and didn’t bother trying to keep his voice steady as he kept moving his hand.  “I could see you get wet.”

“Could you?”

“Yes.”

Lafayette’s hips jerked as he heard her gasp and moan. 

“Wh—what is it, my life?”

“Oh—!  Gil—”  Adrienne’s voice was louder now, more desperate, and he realized that she had inserted the vibrator and was now only holding it by its cord.  He could hear her mattress moving and could see her lifting herself off of it, arching as if into him, and letting her head fall back on her pillow, her eyes closed and lips parted.

“Adrienne—”  Her name tore itself from his lips and he moved his hand faster and with greater urgency.

“Gil,” she gasped.  “Gil, turn over.  Gil, please, please, my Lancelot—I want to feel you—”

Lafayette didn’t need any further prompting.  He yanked off the rest of his clothes and flipped onto his front, grabbing the sheets as he braced himself on his elbows and thrust against the mattress.  He heard her whimper and his breath caught even as he repeated the motion, moaning her name as he rubbed himself against the bed, imagining that she was beneath him and that he was pushing into her with every thrust.

“Gil,” Adrienne barely managed to get out.  “I’m so close, I—”

Adrienne gave a little cry and then there was silence.  

Lafayette froze, not touching the bed, and then she let out a long, low sigh that he felt rush through his whole body as if her hands were on him and he started fucking the mattress again, quickly, with much less regard than if it were actually her, and she made little hungry noises to let him know that she was still touching herself and to urge him on.

“I can come again,” she reminded him and his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.  “If you can wait just a minute—”

“I don’t—”  Lafayette knew he should slow down to make it last that long but he couldn’t rein himself in.  The slightest contact made heat pool in his groin and he felt himself quickly losing the ability to hold it back.

“Adrienne,” he gasped.  “My heart, ah—!”  His words cut off and were broken by a whimper as he pushed himself to the mattress again and then tried desperately to keep from spilling as he pulled back.

“Come.”

The command sent a shock through his body and he obeyed it instantly, moaning loudly and feeling the warm liquid on his chest.

He dropped down to his side, then onto his front, arms trembling badly, as she sighed his name low in his ear.

“Adrienne,” he murmured, his blood pounding.  “Adrienne…”

“Yes?”  She sounded out of breath and shaky.

“Adrienne, I love you.”

“Oh…”  She smiled and he could hear it and everything seemed soft and perfect.  “I love you too, my dearheart.”

 

When Hamilton entered the conference room that the student body council met in every week he deliberately dropped into an empty seat next to Burr instead of taking his customary place at the opposite end of the room from him.

Burr looked at him with mild surprise.  Hamilton hoped that he felt more strongly than that but was just managing to hide it.

“Alexander.  This is—”

“Thought I’d mix it up.  YOLO or whatever.”

Burr gave a polite laugh.

“Besides, it’s strange that we don’t _talk_ more.  Don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, because you obviously talk about me to other people.  First year we saw a lot of each other, more than just perfunctorily once a week.  Do you miss that?  ‘Cause I’m a little flattered that you’ve apparently put a nice juicy entry about me in your burn book, Regina.”

Burr raised a brow.  “Excuse me?”

“Regina George.  Shit, didn’t you ever watch _Mean Girls_?  It’s a joke, Aaron.”

“I told you,” Burr said, delicately stepping around that whole mess, “that I was just asking about what I heard.  I didn’t mean to offend.”

“Who’s offended?  I’m _loving_ this.  An excuse to get back together with my first friend in this city—second, really, because you didn’t meet me at baggage claim.  You should have, that’s the nice thing to do now that you can’t go all the way down to the gate.”

Hamilton was talking, fast and loud as always, and aware that he was drawing attention.

“I just think we should catch up, you and me, for old time’s sake.  We’ve still got, what,” he looked up at the clock, “another five minutes, four if we actually start on time for once.  So tell me, what did I miss?”

“I don’t know what else you expect me to tell you.”  Burr was looking somewhat less than amused at how deliberately abrasive Hamilton was being, how he was stepping just up to the line of actual aggression without doing anything that he could point to as an affront.  “And I’m not certain that this is the appropriate place to discuss it.”

“You know what, you’re right.  I think I’ve still got your number in my phone.  I’ll call you, we can set something up.  I just can’t believe that that’s all the gossip you’ve got on me and I feel like an idiot for not mining this resource sooner.  You know I can’t help myself, I have to know.  It’ll drive me crazy otherwise and I’ll just drive _you_ crazy trying to figure it out meanwhile.”  Hamilton was scrolling in his contacts.  “Yep, got you in here.  Relax, I didn’t even change your name to anything hilarious but potentially offensive, I can keep things civil.”

“Can you?”

“Ooh, nice jab, I walked right into that.”  Hamilton locked his screen and put his phone down on the table.  “Glancing blow, though, you’ll have to put a little more force behind it if you’re trying to get it to really land.”

“Alexander,” Burr said with a smile, “why would you think that?  I’d be delighted to meet with you.  How about this Saturday?”

“Actually, Saturday’s no good for me.  Trustee dinner,” Hamilton explained as a brief look of surprise flickered in Burr’s eyes.  “Sunday works, though. Noon?  I’ll meet you at the library.”

“That seems fitting.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, an edge slipping into his voice, “a real freakin’ trip down memory lane.”

 


	53. Lafayette May Be Reaching a Little

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Protection; Team Meeting; Challenge Accepted; *Team Meeting Fallout

“Okay,” Hamilton was sitting at a table in the back of the library, Lafayette across from him. “You know what, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m going to call bullshit.”

Lafayette looked up from his book, raising an eyebrow and feeling pretty certain that whatever Hamilton was about to say was not worth losing the next hour of his life to an argument.

“There’s no way you guys use dental dams and shit, so don’t be so holier than thou.”

“That’s not the same,” Lafayette said, keeping his book open. “We have only ever been with each other. You on the other hand were working off of a hunch and a lack of evidence that there was anything wrong.”

Hamilton shifted, a little guiltily. “Yeah, but there wasn’t.”

“But my point still stands. Our primary concern is simply to prevent pregnancy for another few years.”

“Christ. Of course you’ve got a timeline. Put a pin in that, Lafayette, we’ll come back to that can of worms later.”

“And therefore what is important is to use a condom,” Lafayette concluded, attempting to return to his book.

Hamilton let him read for a few seconds, but just when Lafayette thought he was actually going to let it be he spoke up again.

“You mean you’ve really never gone without? Really? Ever?”

“ _Oui_.”

“What about when she’s on her period?”

Lafayette sighed and gave up, closing his book. “Her father made it very clear to me that he liked me and expected that I would remain in the family and would therefore turn a blind eye to what we did together. But also that if I ever skipped a condom he would end me.”

“A classic threat. If weirdly permissive. Is that just French?”

Lafayette shrugged. “Perhaps. Defenestration was mentioned.”

“I feel a little left out. You and de Noialles, John and the Mannings… I’ve never slept with anyone whose parents cared enough to make threats against my safety, veiled or otherwise.”

Lafayette gave Hamilton his best “you are an idiot” look. “Alexander, I am sure that it will be only too easy for you to get some very explicit threats from Henry Laurens if that is really your goal.”

“Right, right.”

Laurens walked up to the table, taking off his headphones as he sat down and opened his bag.

“Lafayette, can you proof read something for me?”

“Sure.”

“Hey!”

Laurens glanced at Hamilton. “It’s in French.”

“So? _Je parle français aussi!_ ”

“Yeah, and he’s actually from France. Remember? We visited him this summer?”

“You have more important things to do,” Lafayette assured Hamilton, taking the paper from Laurens and getting out a pen.

“Yeah, like hassle you about your house rules. John, did you know that Adrienne’s father put such the fear of God into him that he even suits up when she’s bleeding?”

Laurens looked confused for a second, then made a face. “Alex, stop.”

“I’m serious, that’s what he said!”

“We’re in the library, I’m trying to get work done. Can we not?”

“You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” Hamilton said turning back to Lafayette. “It’s like a Goddamn slip ’n’ slide.”

“Okay.” Laurens got up. “I’m leaving. Give me that paper back when you’re done with it, Lafayette.”

“I know what it’s like,” Lafayette argued, ignoring Laurens as he left. “I told you, we’ve done that.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t really. Shit, bareback is so much better. You’re missing out. I guess you need something to look forward to after you get hitched.”

Lafayette was reading the paper, marking minor corrections as he talked. “Alex, that thing that Louis and de Ségur gave me…”

“The stroker?”

“ _Oui_. It’s something else.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I fingered that thing and it did seem pretty realistic.”

“If you ever miss it,” Lafayette said, looking up at him seriously, “you should try one of those. Don’t just cheat on John.”

“Goddamn this is a weird conversation from start to finish. I’m not gonna cheat on John.”

“Because you said before…”

“I said that I missed fucking. Trust me, the show I get? Not a problem.”

Lafayette nodded. “All right. Alex, there was another reason…”

“Yeah?”

“I spoke with Louis about it once, and he was under the same restriction, which I thought was strange because Adrienne’s sister uses birth control. He said it’s actually in place because her father expects that we will be with other women…”

“Oh.” Hamilton nodded. “Kind of weird that he lets you live in his house with that assumption.”

Lafayette looked uncomfortable. “Well, he… isn’t.”

“Isn’t letting you—Ohh.” Hamilton didn’t seem particularly put off. “Gotcha. Ha, at least he learned something from it, I guess. Gotta look out for that trail.”

“Alexander,” Lafayette put the paper to the side and leaned over the table. “I don’t want to cheat on Adrienne.”

“Well that seems simple enough to do.”

“Alexander.”

“I’m serious. What do you want? Should I go buy you one of those Victorian penis cages? I’ll toss the key into the Hudson, problem solved.”

Lafayette made a frustrated noise and sat back. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“I’m sorry, it just seems like you’re freaking yourself out over nothing. You’ve been with her for literal ages, Lafayette. So you check out other girls, so what?”

“I think about them sometimes.”

Hamilton grinned. “Oh yeah? Who? What does she look like? What was she doing to you?”

“Alexander!”

“Come off it, it’s not a big deal.”

“That’s just what de Ségur said, you’re just as bad as him.”

“I think De Ségur and I should hang out.” Hamilton got a little more serious when Lafayette sullenly turned his attention back to Laurens’ paper. “I didn’t think that fantasizing,” he drew the word and his hands out in the air between them, “would be such a thing for you. You’ve been in America for too long.”

“Exactly,” Lafayette said emphatically. “Look,” he lowered his voice, glancing around to make sure they were still alone. “The other day I was thinking about Aglae—”

“Who’s Aglae?”

“—Just a girl I know. And it was so good. It was different and then I remembered Adrienne and I felt… I felt so guilty, Alex. I couldn’t even finish.”

“Calm down. It didn’t mean anything. Like you said, it was just something different.”

Lafayette nodded slowly.

“And it’s not like she’s here anyway, so…” Hamilton shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

“I suppose so.” Lafayette didn’t sound fully convinced.

“Wait. Wait,” Hamilton frowned. “Was that the time you texted me at like four in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Gross.”

“You’re not still on that, are you?” Laurens asked, coming around the corner of the shelf with a couple of books.

“Yes, but we’ll change the subject just for you.” Lafayette handed him back his paper. “There are only a few minor things. I marked them.”

Laurens took it. “Thanks.”

“Hey,” Hamilton said. “I just remembered. Your suit guy called me back. I’m supposed to go down later. Did you want to come?”

“Sure.”

“Lafayette?”

“I’ll pass.”

Laurens frowned over something on his paper and Lafayette mouthed at Hamilton to be nice this time. Hamilton waved him off.

 

 

“I was tempted to wear it out,” Hamilton said, carefully carrying his new suit in its protective plastic clothing bag. “But I’d rather not have to get it dry cleaned before this Saturday.” He glanced up at the gray sky. “You think it’s going to rain again? I’ve been meaning to get better shoes for that. Don’t get them for me,” he added quickly, looking over at Laurens. “The suit was enough. Thanks.”

Laurens smiled, hands in his pockets partially from the cool air, partially so that he was sure to keep them to himself as they neared campus. “No problem.”

“You’re too nice. You’re gonna squander your family’s wealth once you inherit. Or even before, as the prodigal son, isn’t that the Southern literature trope?”

“Rain boots aside, you need shoes for that suit. What’s your size?”

“Come on, John, I said I would—Don’t you know my size? I wear the same as you.”

“Alexander, really.”

“I do,” Hamilton insisted. “Hold up, take this,” he shoved the clothing bag at Laurens and stood on one leg, working his other shoe off. “I’ll prove it—”

Laurens cut him off. “Hello, Lee.”

Hamilton wavered and put his foot back on the ground.

“Laurens.”

“Glad I ran into you. There’s a team meeting tonight after dinner, make sure you come.”

Laurens raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little last minute.”

“Do you have a conflict?”

“I didn’t say that. I’ll be there.”

“We’re going over straight from the mess hall.”

“I said I’d be there.”

Lee left and Laurens started walking again. Hamilton hurried to catch up.

“What was that about?”

“It’s to talk about the last game and prep for the next one.”

“No, I mean the tension I could have cut with a clichéd knife. I know you said you were annoyed with him but I didn't realize what you actually meant was that you’re fantasizing about punching him in the face as soon as season’s over.”

“He’s just being a dick.”

“To you?”

Laurens didn’t react to the defensive hardness edging Hamilton’s words.

“No, to Andre.”

“...Oh.”

“He won’t let anyone forget that he’s the one who threw to me.” Laurens reached up and rubbed at his shoulder without noticing. “I tried talking to him about it. He says it shouldn't matter that I told him to do it, Andre should have seen that—it was a tight spot,” Laurens admitted. “He had to toss it high to get it to me, but that slowed me down and I didn’t have much time to spare.”

Hamilton listened quietly. This was the first time Laurens had really talked about what had happened on the field.

“I was a little surprised he still went for it, to be honest. I don’t know that I would have made that call if I were him. It’s hard to say.” Laurens shook his head. “When I’m out there, and the play is in motion, it’s all adrenaline and I—I can get tunnel vision, sometimes all I can see is the ball or the defender and I knew he was on me and that our trajectories would connect when I caught it, but that didn’t matter. It would have gone out. I could have chosen not to go for it, and it would have gone out and I would have played out the rest of the game just fine.”

“But you don’t do that.” Hamilton took the suit back from him. “Since when do you just let things ‘go out’?”

Laurens didn’t respond to that, so Hamilton prompted him to go on. “Lee’s complaining that Andre made a bad call?”

“Yeah. Pretty much. That was an important game and everyone’s still a little upset that we lost, especially when we had been up until then, and now that we’re a man short…”

“Hey, you’ll be back.”

“…I know.”

“It’s a shitty consolation prize. Knowing, that is.” Hamilton stopped and checked his watch. “Shit, I was going to go with you to your building at least, but I’m gonna be late. Do you mind if I split off here?”

“It’s fine.”

Hamilton scanned his face, trying to see if he really meant that, but was left without a clear answer one way or the other. “So you’re busy through dinner and until whenever that meeting gets out. Give me a call. Maybe I’ll think up a better consolation prize in the meantime.”

 

 

> A. Hamilton: I’m getting a bunch of likes on my profile pic

> A. Hamilton: we’re a power couple ;D

> G. Lafayette: mdr

> A. Hamilton: no one’s asked me what it means though I'm a little disappointed

> A. Hamilton: fake coming out’s not as dramatic as i thought it would be

> A. Hamilton: …….or maybe no one is asking because they already knew?

> A. Hamilton: “knew”

 

 

Lafayette looked up from his computer at Hamilton sitting on Laurens’ bed across the room from him. “I don’t think you need the quotes.”

“I know it’s tempting to pretend otherwise, but I’m not actually dating you, don’t make it weird.”

“That wasn’t what I meant. Did you ever imply anywhere before that you like men?”

Hamilton shrugged. “I don’t know. This barely even reads that way. You have to already be looking for it.”

“That’s true.”

“So it only counts in the world where I actually am fucking your brains out in here right now.”

“Please.” Lafayette scrolled down his feed. “I’d be the one fucking you.”

“Are you assigning sexist heteronormative values to these positions? Masculine-slash-aggressive as superior, feminine-slash-passive as inferior?”

“They heard you,” Lafayette pointed out. “And from what you’ve told me about how you have divided up your time so far, it seems like they heard you being fucked.”

“Not the night of the twenty-fourth, they didn’t.” Hamilton raised his hand.

Lafayette threw him a high five from across the room.

“But I guess you’re right. Again assuming in a world where what they think they heard is the reality.”

“Of course.”

“Otherwise we’d totally be mixing it up.”

“I’d have you blindfolded and hanging from the ceiling,” Lafayette promised.

“Hot. You should probably gag me for that, too. Before the RA knocks on the door.”

“Mm, but what if we wanted that?”

Hamilton considered. “True. Hey, what’s the weirdest thing you and Adrienne have ever done?”

“A gentleman does not kiss and tell, Alexander.”

“I’ll trade you.”

“For you and John? No, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“First, because you’ve already told me everything. Second, because that is not an even trade.”

“Ha, you’re right. I meant with anyone I was with, but even with just John I’ve got you beat.”

Lafayette raised both his brows, unamused. Had he jinxed it? He shouldn't have said anything to Adrienne about how well-behaved and not obnoxious the other two were being.

“Come on, Lafayette,” Hamilton pressed. “I won’t tease you. Much. I’ll start, we can count anything third base and up.”

Lafayette sighed and closed his laptop, preparing to win. “Fine.”

“Car.”

“Of course. Restaurant.”

“Nice. Club.”

“Jacuzzi.”

“School.”

“Dressing room.”

“Beach.”

“Park. Post office.”

“Post office?”

“Cafe. Courthouse. Ski lift, balcony…”

“Wait, wait. Public bathroom—”

“ _Oui_ , that was at the restaurant.”

“—office, uh, movie theater…”

“Book store, camping trip, train car, meadow,” Lafayette was counting off on his fingers now. “Zoo—”

“Fine, fine, you’ve made your point. Goddamn.” Hamilton leaned back against the wall, impressed. “I did it on your bed, though,” he added.

“Mm. Yes, I know.” Lafayette narrowed his eyes and glanced at the sheets.

 

 

Laurens kissed Hamilton as soon as he opened the door to his apartment. He slid his tongue in past his lips, parted in surprise, and then pushed him away, closing the door behind them. “Strip.”

Hamilton laughed, both delighted and caught off guard. “Shitty meeting?”

“Waste of my time.” Laurens yanked his shirt off over his head and tossed it to the floor. “Could have been back here with you.”

“Yeah…?” Hamilton wasn’t getting undressed quickly enough and Laurens put his hand on his shoulder, turning him and pushing him up against the door, pushing his hips to his and pinning him in place as he moved them in a tight circle. He put his other hand under Hamilton’s chin and jerked his faced up, kissing him hard, harder than usual, and Hamilton closed his eyes, not sure what was happening but more than willing to see where it went.

“Two hours, Alexander. Two hours of listening to that arrogant—” Laurens was roughly undoing Hamilton’s shirt, “—hypocritical—” he popped the button on his fly and yanked the zipper down, “—asshole pontificate and made worse because I knew I could be listening to something so much better instead.” He slid his hand into Hamilton’s pants and briefs to cup him directly and Hamilton gasped and grabbed his arm as his knees shook. Laurens squeezed slightly and Hamilton moaned, tightening his grip.

“J-John—!”

“That’s it exactly.” Laurens pressed his fingers to the space behind his sac and Hamilton whimpered, spreading his legs. “Finish taking your shirt off.”

Hamilton arched off the door as much as Laurens would let him, sliding it off and letting it fall and Laurens raked his gaze over his body: sharp collarbones, lean chest and abs, the cut of his hips pointing in like a v to the trail of hair stretching down to his cock, quickly hardening against his arm. Laurens took it all in, laying claim to it, and Hamilton could practically feel his gaze as a physical touch.

“J…” He pressed his hips forward, rubbing his shaft against Laurens’ forearm and gasping as Laurens pushed against him with his fingers again.

“Take my belt off.”

Hamilton quickly unbuckled it, hands and hips jerking as Laurens alternated his attention between his balls and the area just behind them, rocking his hand as he moved back and forth. He started to undo his pants and Laurens tightened his grip just a little. Hamilton made a sharp noise, a little short of nervous, and yanked his hands away.

“I didn’t tell you to do that yet.”

Hamilton tipped his head back, grinning slightly. “Mm… God, I love it when you get like this.”

“Like what?” Laurens bit at his exposed neck.

“A little rough.”

“Take off your pants.”

Hamilton hooked his thumbs into the elastic. “All of it?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” He slid it down to his thighs, unable to reach further, and Laurens pressed his leg between Hamilton’s. Hamilton bit his lip as his head rubbed against the denim of Laurens’ jeans and shifted his weight, trying to get his pants to slide further down, past his knees, so that Laurens could get closer. “Mm—”

Laurens moved just a little, just enough to pass over his head, and Hamilton gasped, putting his hands on the small of his back to urge him nearer. Laurens resisted, actually leaning away a little and taking pressure off of Hamilton’s balls. Hamilton tried to follow him but Laurens put his free hand on his chest, firmly holding him back. Hamilton whined.

Laurens was looking down, blatantly staring at Hamilton’s fully erect cock, not as thick as his own but long and jutting out from his body. Laurens moved forward again and watched as the tip just brushed over the side of his leg and heard Hamilton gasp again at the contact.

He could feel his own cock hardening and he repeated the motion, nudging it to the side and causing Hamilton to dig his nails in a little and groan.

“J…  Please…”

Laurens leaned his hand on him a little harder and Hamilton cut himself off with a frustrated exhale.

Laurens watched Hamilton’s hips jerk as he pressed his fingers against him again and then as he moved his leg further forward, forcing his pants down so that Hamilton’s whole shaft rubbed along his leg.

Hamilton slid a little down the door, legs spreading wider now that they weren’t forced close together, and angling his hips so that when Laurens moved back he brushed along the underside of his shaft. The denim was thick and rough and he was breathing faster, making a small noise when Laurens tightened his grip on him again for a moment.

Laurens could feel Hamilton’s weight on his leg and it sent a rush through him.  He didn’t object when Hamilton changed his position—he had to tighten his core to hold the angle and Laurens wanted to run his tongue and his hands up over his torso, feel the tense muscle—and gave him a better angle to see as he rubbed himself against him, desperate for contact but unable to move too forcefully without discomfort against the heavy fabric.

“John,” Hamilton managed, “take those off. Please, J., I can’t get comfortable—”

Laurens felt heat fill him as he saw a drop of liquid at his tip. He pressed up against him again and it increased, leaking out and smearing against his jeans as he pulled away.

“J.—”

“You’re getting wet.” Laurens looked up at Hamilton’s face in time to see him blush and stutter.

“Y-you’re playing with me! What did you expect?”

“I’ve never seen it before.”

“Ah—” Hamilton reddened further and swallowed hard. “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton felt heady at how completely captivated he sounded and he could tell that he was leaking more, that the precum was starting to run down his shaft and leave a trail on Laurens’ leg. His eyes were closed and he didn’t expect it when Laurens leaned in and kissed him deeply, pushing his body right up against him and sliding his hand from his chest to behind his head. Hamilton’s cock was pressed up between them and he moved his hands to his upper back, pulling him closer and moaning hungrily into the kiss.

“Touch yourself.” Laurens had his lips just off of Hamilton’s and he ran his tongue over them and bit one.

“What…?”

“Please.”

Hamilton half-laughed, just a hard lost breath, and put his hand to his own cock, unable to prevent himself from giving a low moan. “I… thought you wanted…”

“I want to watch you.”

Hamilton felt his hand get slick at that and Laurens took a half step away so he could see as Hamilton moved his hand quickly over his shaft, pausing for a moment to run his thumb over and around his head, hips shaking.

Laurens still had his other hand on his sac and he stroked it lightly, teasing it as Hamilton sped up, his head tipped back again and his breathing loud and rapid.

“J., do you want me to…?”

“Don’t rush it. But you can come when you’re ready.”

Hamilton’s breath caught. “Wh-where—?”

Laurens kissed him briefly, just slipping his tongue past his lips. “On me.”

Hamilton moaned against his mouth.

Laurens could feel the blood pounding in his own groin as Hamilton kept going, every breath turning into a whimper as he neared completion, and Laurens kissed him again, harder like before and insistent, his mind filling with images of what they would do after Hamilton had finished. He could turn him around and fuck him against the door, still standing, or fuck him on his desk with his legs wrapped around his waist and the books falling to the floor…

“J.,” Hamilton said with a note of desperation. “J., ah—” He put one hand on the side of his face as he nudged him away from the kiss and then tangled his hand in his hair, leaning his face against his chest. “J., I’m gonna—If you wanted to—” He gasped, his voice rising and shaking uncontrollably. “Don’t forget—to watch—”

Laurens pushed Hamilton away, up against the door again so he could look down and see his hand and cock unobstructed. Hamilton gasped at that and whimpered, tugging lightly at his hair.

Laurens tipped his head to the side, kissing Hamilton’s arm without looking away. His cock was flushed red and drops of precum were caught in his pubic hair and smearing the dark denim of Laurens’ jeans. Hamilton was rambling a little, the way Laurens had learned that he did sometimes when he was just off the edge and trying to hold on, not saying anything particularly coherent but repeating his name and little starts of phrases.

“J., ah, fuck—I can’t—”

Hamilton came with a desperate cry, unable to keep himself from tightening his grip on Laurens’ hair, shooting onto Laurens’ abs and leg and breathing in short gasps as he slowed his hand.

Laurens kissed him hungrily, holding him up against the door, and Hamilton made a startled noise into it as he felt his own cum slick between them. He put his arms around Laurens’ neck, sighing contentedly.

Laurens slowly broke the kiss and picked him up, slinging him partially over his shoulder.

Hamilton gave a startled laugh and pushed at the side of his head. “Hey!”

Laurens dropped him on the futon.

Hamilton looked him over, grinning. “You wanna fuck? I’ll jerk you off if you want that instead. Or blow you. Christ, John, that’s not thin denim and I can see you standing to attention.” Hamilton could see the shiver run down Laurens’ spine and blood start to rush to his face. “Come down here,” he said, a little nicer, a little less crassly, motioning for him. Laurens knelt in front of him and Hamilton ran a hand through his hair as he kissed him, deftly undoing his pants with his other.

He tugged Laurens down onto the mattress and lay down next to him, putting his hand into his pants and touching him lightly.

“You’re so hard,” he said, adjusting the angle of his head so that Laurens could tuck his face along his neck and shoulder. “I love how hard you got just from watching me.”

Laurens made a low encouraging noise, eyes closed and mouth against his skin.

“And what you were doing—Yeah, you should do that again next time. That was good, J.” He teased his slit and rim, only touching his head. “I’ll let you watch again anytime you want. Anytime,” Hamilton repeated, running his hand slowly down Laurens’ shaft. “It gets me so hot knowing that you’re getting off. I like putting on a show.”

Laurens laughed breathily. “Yeah, I—know. You’re a fucking exhibitionist.”

“Guilty,” Hamilton said lightly, moving his hand over his shaft again. “And it turns out we’re both voyeurs, so why fight it?” His voice shifted to a low purr. “Shit, J., you’re so hard already that I’ll barely have to do any work.”

Laurens bit his lip to keep from making a noise at that.

Hamilton slid his free arm under Laurens’ neck so he could cradle his head and play with his hair as he kept talking and moving his hand over him.

“I was a little disappointed about one thing. I wanted to watch myself come on your body but I couldn’t open my eyes.” Laurens moaned softly, his hips shaking, and Hamilton continued. “It just felt too good. I’ll try again next time. I bet it’d be a fucking rush to see that.” He took his hand away to run it down his chest, drawing his fingers through the drying cum.

“Mm.” Laurens tensed.

Hamilton toyed with it, tracing patterns across his abs and smiling with cocky self-satisfaction.

“Alexander.”

“Sorry.” Hamilton nudged his face lightly with his own and slipped his hand back into his pants, wrapping it around his shaft. “That better?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good.”

Laurens was breathing quickly, shallowly, letting Hamilton work him nearer to the finish and he started when Hamilton suddenly slipped his hand further back, cupping and pressing him like he had been doing earlier.

“Ah—”

“See?” That purr was still audible in his voice and it drove Laurens wild. He knew he’d still be thinking about it later, that it would come back to him at an inopportune moment. “Do you like that, too?”

Laurens swallowed hard, his voice shaking. “Y-yes.”

Hamilton was toying with his hair, lightly running his fingers along the rim of his ear, and managing to sound both devious and affectionate. “I can tell. I just like making you talk sometimes, John. I’ve told you that before.” He sat up just enough to kiss him. “Are you going to come for me?”

Laurens felt heat rush to his cheeks and his groin. “Alexander…”

Hamilton kissed him again and Laurens could feel him smiling. “Well? Are you? Just like this, without my putting my hand back?” He pressed a little harder.

Laurens couldn’t meet his gaze, looking instead at the taunt lines of his body, the angle of his ribs. “I don’t—”

“Mm, maybe that’s asking too much.” Hamilton put his hand back on his shaft and Laurens gasped, moving into it. Hamilton sped up his pace, holding Laurens to him as he did so until he jerked and grabbed his shoulder hard and Hamilton felt a sudden wet heat.

Hamilton lay down again and kissed him, slowly passing his hand over him and then moving it further back to hold him as Laurens put his arm over him.

Hamilton could feel Laurens’ breathing slow as he lay against him, his arm getting heavier as he started to drift off. Hamilton stayed still and slowly lost track of time, fading in and out of consciousness until some time later Laurens jerked and woke up.

“Hey.” Hamilton kissed him lightly, only then awake himself. “You want to get up or go to bed properly?”

“Mm. What time is it?”

“Not sure. Can’t see a clock. I need to get up for a minute, John, but you can stay.”

Laurens shook his head and sat up, yawning and then looking down at himself. “Shit.”

Hamilton looked him over and bit back a laugh. “Oh. Yeah. I guess you need to change and wash up.”

“I don’t have other clothes here,” Laurens complained, standing and pausing, not sure if it was better to strip down or not. “Let me borrow your sweatpants.”

“Sorry, spilled curry on them the other day and I haven’t gotten around to washing them yet. It’s all over the crotch,” Hamilton explained. “The bottom fell out of the container.”

“Shit…”

“Relax. Go hop in the shower and I’ll call Lafayette and tell him to bring a pair tomorrow morning. He wanted us to meet up with him and Adrienne anyway.”

Laurens looked less than pleased at that suggestion but nodded. “All right.”


	54. I Want a Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncomfortable; Art Class; *Booty Call; Looking for a Mind at Work

Lafayette showed up a little before five in the morning.  Hamilton, already dressed in preparation, got the door while Laurens stood in the back with a towel tied around his waist.

“Good morning,” Lafayette said brightly.  “Are you ready for lunch?  I brought beignets.”

“Forget the beignets,” Laurens said, stepping forward.   “Did you get my pants?”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side, confused.  “Your…?  Oh.  Ohh…”  He glanced at Hamilton.  “You didn’t say you needed John’s pants!”

“What did you think he meant?”  Laurens asked, a little sharply.

Lafayette shrugged and took a pair of his own pants out of his bag, giving them to Laurens and the beignets to Hamilton.  “Beggars cannot be choosers, John.”

Laurens, frustrated, took them into the bathroom, closing the door a little louder than necessary.

“You must have really made a mess,” Lafayette commented, sitting at the desk and setting up his laptop.

Hamilton shrugged.  “Actually wasn’t my fault this time.  He didn’t let me take them off when I tried.”

“You didn’t do anything here or on the desk, did you?”

“Nah.  Door and bed.”

“All right.  How should we do this… Alexander, you need more chairs.”

“Where am I supposed to keep them?  We’ll just stand.  You want coffee?”

“Please.”

Hamilton filled two mugs and handed one to Lafayette who accepted it and pushed his sleeve up to check the time. 

“Thank you.  We only have a minute.  I don’t want to make her wait.”

“Right.”  Hamilton went to the bathroom door and knocked at it.  “John?  Do you need help?”

“Hold on.”

“We’re gonna start the vidchat without you if you don’t hurry up.”

Hamilton could hear a clattering noise and swearing like Laurens had knocked something off the shelf.  He tried the handle but it was locked.  “You okay?”

“Shit—I said give me a minute.”

“Look, just wear the towel.  She won’t be able to see you below the waist anyway.”

“I’m not doing that!”

“He’s not doing that,” Lafayette agreed.

“Then open the door and let me—”

“I got it, Alex.”

Hamilton looked back at Lafayette who sighed and sent the chat request through without him.  Hamilton went back to stand behind his chair and was taking a drink from his mug when Adrienne, sitting by herself in a classroom, picked up.

“Hello,” she began, then tipped her head to the side.  “Where’s John?”

“He’s running a little late,” Lafayette said, as if Laurens was not separated from them by only a door.  “But I’m sure we can start without him.  Alexander?”

“Hm?  Oh, yeah, sure.  Hey, I have a question.  Apart from the hour and that Lafayette’s wearing a tie, how is this different from when we normally talk?”

“Don’t ruin it,” Lafayette scolded.

“Sorry.  Would you like a beignet?”  He offered the bag to the screen.  Adrienne politely declined.

“It’s different,” Lafayette said, accepting one of the beignets, “because it gives us an opportunity to talk about the two of you as a couple.”

“Don’t you mean it gives—”

“No, I know what I said.  You already discuss Adrienne and me as a pair, but now we are allowed to do the same.  To your face, that is.”

Hamilton leaned on the desk with one hand.  “All right…  I’m not really sure how that’s any—”

“Alex,” Lafayette cut him off again, “where’s John?  Your boyfriend isn’t usually so late.”

“Is he all right?  Should you call him?”  Adrienne added in.

“He’s getting dressed in the friggin’ bathroom, Lafayette, you know that.  I’m not calling him.”

“Why not?  I’d be worried if Adrienne didn’t show up to our date.”

“Mostly because I don’t want him to drop his phone in the toilet while he's trying to shimmy into your pants.”

“I appreciate it.”  Laurens came back out, walking stiffly in a very tight pair of jeans that were sitting rather too low on his hips.  “Good morning, Adrienne.  I’m so sorry I’m late.”

Hamilton stared at him.  “Seriously?”

“Manners.”

“Right.”

“Alexander, may I get a cup of coffee?”

“You’re taking advantage of this,” Hamilton complained, but went to get a mug.  

“Adrienne, would you like something to drink?”  Lafayette asked.

“I’m not mailing her a friggin’ americano!”

Adrienne moved her thermos into view from where it had been off the side of the screen.

“Alexander, you’re the one who set this up,” Laurens warned.  Hamilton rolled his eyes and handed him his coffee.

“I was just saying.”

“I’m sorry about him,” Laurens said to Adrienne.  “I had a meeting last night and got back late, and with the time difference we’ve only had a few hours of sleep.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Adrienne protested as Hamilton gaped.  What the hell was going on?  Since when did Laurens actually say things like that?

“How have you two been?”  Laurens continued, apparently and surprisingly in his element.

“We’ve been well,” Lafayette answered.  “Adrienne’s going to be free over break, so we’ll be able to join you in Vermont.”

“Oh, good, Alexander told you about that.  I was wondering if we should wait until the end of lunch to bring it up or not.”

“You’re tripping me out,” Hamilton muttered, but was ignored.

“It sounds beautiful,” Adrienne said, “I was looking up pictures.  Do you think the leaves will be very colorful?  Neither of you have been, have you?”

“No,” Laurens said, shaking his head and looking over at Hamilton who reined in his incredulous stare to just shrug and nurse his coffee, regretting deeply that he hadn’t thought through setting this up in the first place.  “Adrienne,” Laurens continued, running through a well-rehearsed dialogue for occasions like this, “I realized the other day that I still don’t actually know how you and Lafayette met.  I know you were friends as children…”

 

> G. Lafayette: Do you think that was a little much?

> J. Laurens: For Alex?  Definitely, he wouldn’t even look me in the eye afterwards.

> G. Lafayette: Yes, I was wondering if it would be.  He was the one who had suggested it, though, so I thought he knew where he was.

> J. Laurens:  Alexander Hamilton?  Know his own limits?

> G. Lafayette: You’re right, that was my mistake

> G. Lafayette: I’m sorry I let him talk me into it

> J. Laurens: It’s fine.  These pants on the other hand are not.  I can’t believe I don’t have a break to get back to the dorm until lunch.

 

Laurens put his phone away as he entered his classroom in the art building.  He had room on his schedule for one non-essential class this semester, and so he had decided to hell with it, he was taking art.  Portraiture, to be more exact, with the popular Professor Peale, and Andre.

“Hey.”  Andre was already sitting at one end of the long work table and he gave him a confused look as he carefully made his way over.

“…They’re Lafayette’s pants.  It’s a long story.”

“Oh.”  Andre laughed a little. 

Laurens looked at the chair.  “Do you think he’ll mind if I stand?”

Andre laughed harder.  “Yikes.”

Laurens gently lowered himself into the chair, unable to really bend his legs.

“What happened?”

“Spilled something on mine.”  Laurens heard his phone go off and took it out to check it and silence it, quickly locking the screen when he saw what it was.

 

> A. Hamilton: you still owe me a picture

 

Laurens busied himself taking his sketchbook out of his bag, unable to make conversation with Andre again until he had a little more distance between himself and that text… and the picture Hamilton had included of himself to accompany it.

“Did you think more about the first project?”  Andre asked.  “I was initially going to do a picture of Peggy, but I think I’m going to take the self-portrait option instead.  She wasn’t really keen on sitting for me.”

“Ah… Yeah…” Laurens pretended to have found everything he was looking for and turned back to Andre.  “Yeah, it’s a big time commitment.”

“Exactly.  And we have to do both eventually, so maybe her schedule will be more open later in the semester.”

Laurens doubted that, but nodded.  “So a self-portrait.  Three-quarters, bust…?”

“Not sure yet.  I haven’t gotten that far.  Did you think about it at all?”

“No,” Laurens admitted.  “I’m just glad I didn’t wreck my shoulder further into the term.  At least it didn’t cut into working on anything big like that.”  He glanced back at his bag.  “You know what, maybe I will do the self-portrait, too.”

"You're not going to ask your girlfriend?"

Laurens forced himself to turn back to Andre and was a little surprised by how closely he was watching him.  "No," he said quickly, then amended when he didn't get a response, "I don't know.  Maybe."

"You should ask her.  You're a good artist, I bet she'll find it flattering."

"Mm."  Laurens adjusted his pants (or tried to, it didn't do much).  "Maybe," he repeated.  "It's not a big deal," he said, trying not to sound on edge.  "I'll figure something out."

 

Hamilton was waiting for Laurens at his room when he finally managed to get back.

“Alexander?”  Laurens was startled to see him there.

“I know, I didn’t tell you.  No, I don’t have a lot of time.  Yes,” Hamilton continued, “I wanna fool around.  This is a booty call, J.  Take your shirt off.”

“Alex,” Laurens began.

“All right, all right, you can leave it on.  I know you’ve got class later, too.  Get the pants at least, you were going to get rid of those anyway.”  Hamilton was already undoing his own pants and he stepped to the side so Laurens could put his bag on the floor by his desk.

“Are you all right?”

“John, I’ve got literally about fifteen minutes before I need to get out the door.  I appreciate the interest in my life but we need to prioritize here.”

“Is this about—ah, damnit, finally—this morning?”  Laurens dropped the pants into Lafayette’s laundry basket.  He took off his shirt.

“We doing complete nudity?  Okay, cool.”  Hamilton yanked his shirt up over his head and sat on the edge of Laurens’ bed.  “Yeah, that was weird.  Okay?  I said it.  Now get your ass over here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Laurens said, draping his shirt over the back of his chair.  “I’m not expecting anything different from you.  That was just how I was taught you behave at events like that.”  He watched Hamilton closely and saw, or at least thought he saw, a little of the tension leave his shoulders.  “How much time do we have?”

“Thirteen minutes, thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one seconds,” Hamilton said, checking his watch.  “I set an alarm, too.”

“Perfect.”

Hamilton grinned as Laurens pulled one arm across his chest, stretching it out.  

“Can we talk about this later?”

“Yeah, sure, okay.”

“Good.  Turn over.”

Hamilton did, kneeling on the bed, and Laurens grabbed the bottle of lube he had brought with him and already set on the desk.  He ran his hand over Hamilton’s ass and got on the mattress behind him.  

“What do you want?”

“Anything.”

“That’s not entirely true.”

“I want you to let me finish before the alarm goes off.  I’m serious about having to leave at that point.”

“Got it.”

Hamilton bit his lip as he felt one of Laurens’ fingers, slick and wet, running up against him.

“I wish you had more time.”

“God, I know, so do I,” Hamilton said.  “But I’ll meet you later…”

“We’re going to talk later.”

“John, don’t ruin it.”

Laurens hesitated, not sure there was any way to respond to that, and just pushed against him without entering, kissing him very low on his back.  Hamilton let out a sharp breath.  Laurens kissed him again, running his fingers just around him and reaching up around him with his other hand to stroke him.  Hamilton was quickly hardening and he whined softly, impatient.

“J., hurry up.”

Laurens bit him lightly.  “I’m watching the time.”

Hamilton whined again.

Laurens moved his hand faster over his shaft, then paused and—Hamilton gasped in surprise, jerking as he felt Laurens’ tongue, soft and hot.

“Ah—!  J.—”

Laurens sat back a little, hand still on Hamilton’s cock and unsure.  “Was that…?”

“I, mn—I thought we were just gonna fuck.”

Laurens was still distracted, thinking about how to word what he wanted to say later, and he sidestepped.  “Do you not like this?”

“Ha.  I never—I never said that.”  Hamilton was breathing harder, and he sunk down on his elbows.  

Laurens ran his tongue over him again, back and forth, feeling his heart rate speed up as Hamilton twisted the sheets and made little needy sounds.

“Ah, fuck, J…”  Hamilton took a shaky breath and let his legs spread.

Laurens teased him, just sliding the firm tip of his tongue over and then around him.  Hamilton moaned as he felt it push in, no more than the joint of a finger, but warm and soft.  

Hamilton was fully erect in Laurens’ hand, and Laurens moved over his shaft faster, feeling his own cock starting to get hard.  He moved his face away, kissing Hamilton’s back again and pressing into him with his fingers, slowly moving them apart and then easing them further.  Hamilton pulled Laurens’ pillow to his face and bit it, rocking his hips back into the touch as Laurens put his hand to just his head.

Laurens started moving in and out of him faster, but still keeping it to about half the pace of how he was teasing his cock, rubbing his slit quickly as his fingers slipped a little in the warm precum.  Hamilton bit the pillow harder but couldn’t silence himself from letting out a needy moan.

Laurens felt his breath catch at that and he added more lube and another finger, rewarded by Hamilton swearing in encouragement and frustration.

“Shit, please, J.—”  Hamilton’s voice broke off.  “Please—”

Laurens took his hand away from Hamilton’s cock, causing him to gasp and whine, and put it on his own, quickly pumping himself until he was fully hard.  He removed his other hand but only for a moment before he had them both at Hamilton’s hips and Hamilton was already moaning in anticipation, even before he felt Laurens pressing against him.  Laurens, stopped for a moment to apply more lubricant, admired the triangle made by Hamilton’s narrow waist and sharp shoulders.  Then he pushed slowly into him, pausing just past his head and making a low hungry noise that made Hamilton’s heart race even faster.

“John…”

Laurens put his hand back on Hamilton’s shaft, working him quickly as he began to set a steady pace, aiming for the spot that he had since learned on himself made him almost see stars.  He knew he had found it when Hamilton suddenly cried out and then tried to thrust into his hand, begging him for more.  Laurens obliged, moving both his hand and his hips faster and pushing fully into him.  He was a few minutes away from his own climax when Hamilton grabbed his wrist suddenly to direct it to greater force and then spilled over his hand and onto the sheets with a sharp groan.

Laurens was still stroking Hamilton, still thrusting into him, if a little slower, and enjoying the heat starting to build within himself when the alarm suddenly went off and he jerked away in surprise.  Hamilton yelped, then swore, as much about Laurens as about the phone.  He rolled off the bed and grabbed it, silencing it.

“Sorry, John.”  He was gathering his clothes.  “I really do need to go.  I’ll see you later, I’ll finish you then.”

Laurens was just starting to get up off the bed when Hamilton was finished dressing and throwing his bag over his shoulder.  Hamilton kissed him quickly, his hand on the side of his face.  “Thanks.”

Then Hamilton was gone and Laurens was left on his own, still naked, still hard, wanting to finish but feeling awkward about how that had just ended.  He took his phone out to look at the picture Hamilton sent him (he wondered now whether it had been taken at his apartment or here at the dorm) and then hesitated, remembering the request.

Laurens turned on the camera with one hand, touching himself with the other, and tried to find a decent angle.  He sat down on the edge of his bed, slowly stroking himself and tipping the phone back and forth as he tried to figure out how to mimic what he had been sent.  He eventually took one and sent it to Hamilton, then flipped back to the picture he had received.  Laurens moved his hand quickly, trying to pretend it was Hamilton’s hand instead, that Hamilton were sitting next to or behind him and jerking him off.  He imagined Hamilton’s voice in his ear, the way he would talk while doing it, and he felt himself get closer to the point he had been at before they had been interrupted.  He could almost feel Hamilton’s lips against his ear and neck and he tried to move his hand like Hamilton would, to find the rhythm he would set, and he stared at Hamilton’s hand in his picture, at how it was just a little blurred out like he had been moving it when the shutter clicked.

Laurens grabbed a tissue from the desk and held it to himself.  He kept moving his hand, groaning softly as he remembered how Hamilton had jerked and gasped his name just minutes before.  He wished he was really there, that he was touching him and encouraging him to climax, to spill into his hand or his mouth…  Laurens came with a shudder, holding the tissue firmly to his head as he jerked into it.  He cleaned himself up and then balled it up and dropped it in the trash, tossing his phone back onto his mattress.  He sat there for a minute, still a little lost in his fantasy and imagining Hamilton’s hands running over his body and how they would then lie back on the bed and continue to touch and kiss…

He heard a key in the lock and he snapped back to reality, grabbing his pillow to cover himself as Lafayette walked in.

“—In the middle of the day, John?”  Lafayette asked after a moment of stunned silence.  “Alexander isn’t even—” He took his phone out of his pocket and checked his messages.  “Oh, I take it back, he was here.”

“Could you turn around?”  Laurens asked, embarrassed.

“Ah, right.”  Lafayette turned to face the other wall as Laurens quickly dressed.  “Did you have a good time?”

“Let’s not make smalltalk.”

“Right.”

“Actually,” Laurens said as he finished dressing and sat down at his desk.  “I need to ask you about something.”

Lafayette looked over his shoulder and, seeing that the coast was clear, sat on his bed and started going through his bag.

“You and Alex talk.”

“Constantly.”

“I just want to go over some things with him.  Do you have suggestions for how not to freak him out?”

“What kinds of things?”

“Like this morning, how he got so uncomfortable about that.  It’s not even like I want to be like you and Adrienne—no offense—he just really…”

“I told him that he was too difficult,” Lafayette said.  “He can’t make up his mind about things.”

“Yes, exactly.  And I’ll adjust to suit him, I mean, as much as I can.  But I can’t do that when he—I don’t even think he’s being indecisive, Lafayette, I think he just keeps scaring himself.”

“Yes, you are probably right.  You do know about his coping mechanism, don’t you?”

“Sex?  Yeah,” John said in a little burst of air, “he’s real subtle about that.”

Lafayette nodded and opened his laptop.  “As long as you know.”

“Oh, I know all right.”  Laurens ran a hand over the back of his head.  “It’s not that it isn’t good, but…  It’s a little strange.  I almost feel used.”

“Really?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I think it’s sweet.”

Laurens frowned.  “You think it’s…?”

Lafayette shrugged, leaning back against the wall as he called Adrienne on the laptop.  “You’re going to talk to him about it later anyway.  Don’t be too harsh on him, he’s trying.  Actually, he’s being very lenient with you as well if you ask me.  You said that you don’t want to be like Adrienne and me but the truth of the matter is that Alexander isn’t the only one who isn’t at our level yet.  Go wash your sheets before you run out of time and leave them here with me.”

Laurens looked back at the obvious mess on the bed and reddened.  “Shit.  Sorry.”

Lafayette waved a hand at him.  “Just keep what I said in mind.  _I_ think it’s endearing.”

 

Hamilton didn’t check his phone in class, especially not class with Jefferson, no matter how much he might want to make a show of not caring about what he had to say.  He hated it, but the man was very smart and he couldn’t just skim the lecture notes and keep a step ahead of him.  He had to pay attention and he had to _listen_ and listening was a problem because then he inevitably heard something he didn’t agree with and when that happened he couldn’t help but—

“You’re wrong,” Hamilton said, his hand still in the air.  He hadn’t been called on, Jefferson probably hadn’t been going to call on him at least until he had finished his train of thought, but he couldn’t wait because by then he might have said something else stupid and he _knew_ he needed to shut up and not interrupt if he wanted the grade but he also needed to fight him literally every single second he was in that room.  “Even _with_ the internet, texts are still restricted to a minority of the global population.  It doesn’t matter if you give tablets to kids in underdeveloped areas if they don’t have the bandwidth necessary to access what’s out there, fees to join hosting sites or download on a piecemeal basis aside.  The problem isn’t with individuals pirating someone else’s intellectual property—yeah, okay, that’s bad, but you’re overlooking the bigger issue that there are whole _swarths_ of the world that can connect to the internet but not _do_ anything meaningful with it because they’re shackled by the very sites that should be providing them with intellectual resources.  The fu—What’s the point of putting up a digitalized library if the people who could most benefit from ease of access can’t load the frickin’ page in the first place because it’s not a static site?”

Jefferson smiled, the expression strained.  “That is not the point of this class, Alexander.  If you would be so kind as to remember, we’re discussing copyright law this week, not the benefits of dynamic versus static websites.”

Hamilton was a little surprised that Jefferson had known what he was talking about—he had hoped that he might have been able to finally find a topic that was out of his purview—but that just egged him on.

“But that kind of legal protection is supposed to cut across the board.  You  throw up this kind of double paywall and all you're doing is—”

“Keeping people from furthering their education,” Jefferson cut him off, his words taking on an annoyed sharpness.  “And on that note, allow me to continue my lecture.  You’re verging on disrespect to your fellow students.”

“I’m right, though,” Hamilton said in a whisper, half to himself, half to the girl next to him.  He glanced over at her to see if she had heard and was vindicated by her smile. 

 

> A. Hamilton: goddamn

> A. Hamilton: im allowed to save this, yes?

> A. Hamilton: you’re not saying no so I'm going to do it

> A. Hamilton: thanks j

> A. Hamilton: aaaaand set to background

> J. Laurens: Wait, what


	55. Wise Men Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Important Clarification; *Talk; Grocery Shopping

“Can I ask you something, sir?”  Hamilton said as he dusted off and rearranged Washington’s various athletics trophies.  “So, faculty, you all talk.  Obviously, that’s not a question, that’s a statement, I’ve been around the block enough to know that.  You talk.”

Washington looked up from his desk, a set of papers in his hands.  “Yes.  What is your question, Hamilton?”

“Right, right.  You talk, and you talk about your students.  Or student employees, as the case may be.  Now, frankly, I’ve got nothing to hide, people can say what they like, except that John…”

“Not many people know about you and John.”

“Great, that’s exactly where I was going with that.  ‘Cause like I said, _I_ don’t care, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.  But it matters to him.  Well, his father-the-trustee matters to him.  Do you see where I am going with this, sir?”

“I’d have to be deaf not to, Hamilton.  It may reassure you to hear that the only people who are aware of anything as far as I know are myself and von Steuben.  Friedrich, well, I think he knew the two of you were dating from the first, but I doubt anyone else would pay close enough attention to notice.  There are many students on this campus, Hamilton, and as intelligent and charming as you both are, most professors simply do not care enough to watch your every move.”

Hamilton chewed his lip.  That was reassuring but also, somehow, felt like an ominous warning even though he was certain that Washington did not mean it that way.  “Right.  Yeah, okay.  Thank you, sir.”  He paused.  “But even after Saturday…?”

“If anything, people will assume that Henry Laurens made a few calls and pulled some strings.”  Washington put down the papers.  “Which he did.  As you might recall, he has my private number.  I told him I would get his son an invitation,” Washington smiled very slightly, amused by his own manipulation, “which I did.”

Hamilton nodded, slowly at first and then faster.  “Right, got it, got it.”  He glanced up at the clock.  “You’ve got a meeting in half an hour so I’m gonna run the copy requests down now.”  He grabbed a stack of forms off the desk and headed for the door.  “I’ll be back in time to set up for that.”

He took his phone out of his back pocket as soon as he was out of the front room and in the hall, hesitating between his contacts before deciding who he was going to text.

 

> A. Hamilton: you’re just like your father.

 

Hamilton didn’t get a response back until he was already returning from dropping off the papers, distracted by that point by the weekend and trying to figure out when he would have the chance to drop by a shoe store.

 

> G. Lafayette: My father?

> A. Hamilton: ton pere americain

> A. Hamilton: he’s just as much of a troll as you are, Lafayette 

> A. Hamilton: you know how he told me to invite john? 

> A. Hamilton: turns out that his father had already called him 

> G. Lafayette: Oh, his father asked him to have John attend but he didn’t have a good excuse.  Don’t worry, he was really going to ask you anyway and on paper he’s still there as Henry Laurens’ son.

> A. Hamilton: and he wanted him to

> A. Hamilton: gdi lafayette you're ruining my story

> A. Hamilton: of COURSE you already know

> A. Hamilton: you ever planning on sharing that

> G. Lafayette: I forgot.

> A. Hamilton: you “forgot” or you thought it would be funnier to let me ask gwash on the clock if john was going to get outed at the party for rich old white guys

> G. Lafayette: I was going to remember to tell John before Saturday

> A. Hamilton: you suck this conversation is done

> A. Hamilton: because I'm back at the office not because I'm actually mad at you but the sentiment stands

 

“Hey.”

Laurens closed the door behind Hamilton.  “Look, Alexander…”

“Hold onto that thought, two things.  One, I found out something I need to tell you, so remind me, don’t let me forget.  Two…”  Hamilton stepped forward and put his hands on either side of Laurens’ face, pulling him down gently into a long kiss.  “…Thank you,” he said, moving away finally and putting his bag on the floor.  “For the picture and for earlier.”

Laurens was a little breathless after that.  “Right, about earlier…”

“Can I cut to the chase?”  Hamilton asked, taking off his jacket and dropping it with his bag.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would be as weird as it was.  My bad, I’m the one who arranged it, it’s on me.”  He sat on the side of Laurens’ bed.  “It was just weird to all of a sudden be dropped down in that alternative universe.”

Laurens nodded, sitting next to him.

“I don’t give what people see.  They want a show, I’ll give them a show.  So if Lafayette is getting a stick up his ass about how he and Adrienne are the best couple, so close that they’re practically married, then, hell, I’m more than down for playing along.  But that was…”  Hamilton chewed on his lower lip.  “…You’re a good actor.  It almost felt real.”

Laurens was silent for a moment.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to go too far.”  He changed the topic before Hamilton could say anything else.  “There was something else.  About the sex…  It seems like you use it…”

“It feels good.  And it calms me down, quiets everything.  God, J., sometimes I can’t hear myself think over my own thoughts.  I know it sounds crazy, but—Besides, you’re good at it,” he said, leaning in a little.  “Take the compliment.”

Laurens laughed a little.  “You’re insatiable.”

“You sent me nudes,” Hamilton pointed out.  “While I was in class, no less, and then I had to think about them all through work.  I was good, I didn’t duck out, _and_ I had the stupid relationship talk you wanted.  Let me have this.”

“I don’t think having to talk is ever an issue for you.”

“I prefer some topics to others.  I’ll write a treatise on you pushing me up against that door or the time I fucked—”

“Okay, I got it.”

Hamilton grinned and turned on the bed, drawing one leg up so he could face Laurens directly.  “Yeah?  I thought maybe you needed reminding of all the things we’ve done.  Last fall semester aside, it’s been like eight months and it didn’t even _really_ pick up right away, we’re talking more like seven, seven and a half.  Turns out Lafayette still has us beat, but I bet we can give him a run for his money pretty soon.  I got a checklist of places we need to go to even the score and I’ve thought of a few that we’d be able to one up him with.  How do you feel about doing it on a boat?”

“A boat?”

“I’m sure he’d get on one if he had to but he wouldn’t enjoy it.  Automatic point for us.  What about a plane?”

“Alexander…”

Hamilton laughed.  “I’ll work up to it.  What about,” he leaned in further, cupping his hand and whispering in Laurens’ ear, “right… here.”

Even though he had seen it coming, Laurens couldn’t help the little jolt of electricity that ran down his spine and settled somewhere low inside him.

“Again?”

“I promised you.”  Hamilton lightly bit his earlobe.  “Of course, that was before you took matters into your own hands, pun very much intended.  I won’t be _too_ offended if you don’t want to—”

Laurens turned, putting his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and cutting him off by sliding his tongue into his mouth.

Hamilton grinned, feeling a rush of genuine excitement over the kiss and what might happen next that surprised him a little.  He moved to straddle Laurens’ lap, sliding his arms over his shoulders and running one hand up through his hair.  He broke the kiss with a short startled laugh as Laurens tipped them over backwards, then hit his head on the wall with a noise more of complaint than pain.

“You’re too tall for that,” Hamilton said, leaning over and pinning him as Laurens brought one hand up to touch the back of his head.  “Idiot,” he added affectionately.  “I’d tell you to turn over but I think we can work with this.”  He reached back and cupped him over his pants.  “But you should at least undo these.  We already wrecked one pair, let’s not go through your entire wardrobe.”

Laurens moved down a little, both so his head wasn’t pushed up against the wall and so he could better arch and pull his pants down, leaving his briefs.  Hamilton had lifted up to give him space to maneuver and now lowered himself again, sitting just above him and brushing over his cock as he repositioned.

“Oh, hey,” Hamilton said, running his hand up over Laurens’ chest.  “My other news.  It’s good.”  He started undoing Laurens’ shirt, intentionally shifting backwards to just barely lean against him.  Laurens took one of his hands, bringing it to his mouth so he could kiss it.

“Washington says that for this weekend officially you’re not down as my guest but as some kind of general trust fund VIP, so you don’t need to worry about it looking funny.  And—ahn—”  Hamilton’s voice wavered as Laurens, holding his wrist, turned his hand and ran his tongue between his middle and ring finger.  “—Nn, John.”  Laurens repeated the motion and then sucked on both of them slowly.  Hamilton had stopped undoing the buttons, clenching that hand against the fabric instead.  “I was trying to be nice to you, J.—”  He was quickly growing hard, suddenly and very immediately reminded of earlier that day, of Laurens’ tongue, hot and firm…

“I know.”

“So you thought you’d repay the favor?”

Laurens didn’t answer right away, sucking on his fingers again.  Hamilton resisted the urge to undo his pants.

“That’s not it.  Not really.”

“What is it?”

Laurens lowered his hand but kept his grip on it as he looked Hamilton directly in the eye.  “You’re hot as hell, Alexander.”

Hamilton had leaned forward once Laurens started playing with his hand and now he moved back and pressed up against his cock, hard and waiting.

“…Yeah, okay, fuck foreplay.”  Hamilton yanked his shirt off as Laurens sat up and finished removing his own.  “We’re doing this.”  He rolled off of him, taking a condom out of his pocket before stripping down the rest of the way and tossing it all onto the floor just in time for Laurens to grab him and pull him down next to him on the mattress, his naked cock pressing up against his leg and his arm around him, keeping him close.

Hamilton could feel the blood starting to pound in his face and groin at how easily he was manhandled and he kissed Laurens hungrily, biting and sucking on the tip of his tongue as he pushed it into his mouth and causing him to moan.

Laurens could feel the muscles in Hamilton’s back shift and tense as he moved against him, intentionally shifting in order to make him rub up against himself, and he pulled him a little closer, his other hand moving down to grasp and stoke Hamilton’s shaft.  Hamilton rocked his hips eagerly into his hand and he let him, caught up in the heat and energy and forgetting everything else—whatever Hamilton had been in the middle of explaining, what they had been talking about only minutes before, how he had just changed the sheets on his bed and would be annoyed after to have to do it again.

It took him a moment to realize that Hamilton was saying something, his lips just off of his own.

“Fuck me.”

Laurens tightened his hold on him a little further, then rolled him onto his back with a low growl, kissing him and moving his mouth down his jaw and neck.  He paused for a moment at the corner where they met before continuing down to bite his shoulder.  He was pinning him to the mattress and reached up to grab the lube from the desk, pouring a generous amount into his hand.  Hamilton watched, a needy pit forming at the base of his stomach, as Laurens worked his hand over his shaft, leaving it slick and glistening.

“J…”  Hamilton handed him the condom.

Laurens put one hand on his thigh, pushing into him with two fingers on the other, slowly, causing Hamilton to tip his head back and groan, grabbing the same pillow he had used earlier and pressing it to his face as Laurens moved in and out.

“Goddamn, J…”

Laurens leaned up and moved the pillow away.  “I like—”

“I know, I know.”  Hamilton almost laughed.  “You like my voice.”

“I like hearing you,” Laurens agreed, pushing a little further into him and making Hamilton raise his hips to him and moan.

Laurens felt his breath catch.  The feel of Hamilton tight around his fingers, his slender body bared to him… his cock, tall and erect.  Laurens licked up the underside of his shaft and Hamilton gasped, almost whimpering as his breathing picked up when Laurens moved his tongue around his head and sucked on it.

Laurens took his hand away and Hamilton, his hands balling the sheets, grinned in anticipation.  He didn’t have to wait long.  Laurens was sliding into him and Hamilton grabbed his wrists when he put his hands down on either side of him to brace himself.

“John,” he moaned as Laurens moved inside him, slowly pushing as far in as he could and sending a rush of pleasure through his body.  “God, yes—”

Laurens thrust forward, his own breath catching as Hamilton gasped and cried out, and he felt sharp pain from Hamilton’s nails digging into his wrists.  The sensation urged him on, harder, faster, and he could hear himself moaning, repeating Hamilton’s name.

Hamilton encouraged him deeper, raising up his hips to a better angle and getting louder as Laurens continued to push against him.  He let Laurens take away one of his hands and ran his hand over his face, pushing away the hair that had come loose and fallen into it.  

Laurens wrapped his hand around Hamilton’s cock, pumping it and was immediately rewarded with a loud groan and his hips jerking into the touch. 

“J., please—  Don’t stop—”

Laurens felt a little giddy, a little lightheaded and as though that broken request was a pointless one because they both knew he had no intention to stop, not now, not when everything was pleasure and touch and Hamilton with his tight grip and heavy breathing and beautiful, delicate face.  His head was tipped back and his long hair was curling on the mattress, framing his sharp high cheekbones—perfect bone structure, Laurens thought in a moment of clarity, no wonder he made a good model—and long, deep-set nose.  Laurens felt sudden heat in his cheeks and realized a little belatedly that he was blushing.

“—John, mn, hey…”

Laurens had stopped moving and he shook his head in an attempt to clear it, starting up again, faster, insistently, feeling every breath of Hamilton’s like a little spark of electricity between them and when he came, hot in his hand and up his chest, Laurens did as well.

Hamilton hadn’t yet fully realized that Laurens was finished before he collapsed on top of him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tightly.

“Oof…”  Hamilton pushed at his arm, moving it down so his face wasn’t covered and he could breathe properly.  “John?”

“Sorry.”  Laurens adjusted his position, loosening his grip just a little.  

Hamilton half-laughed.  “It’s fine, you were just crushing me.”

“Sorry,” Laurens repeated, kissing his temple.

“Mm.”  Hamilton worked his arm out and patted his shoulder.  “Lafayette’s getting back by dinner.”  Laurens didn’t get up, and Hamilton nudged him again.  “So we can’t stay like this,” he pointed out.  “I told him we’d go to the grocery store with him.  Besides, the condom...”

Laurens still wasn’t moving.  Hamilton tried to look at his face but the angle was bad.  “Hey, John?  You still with me?”

“Shh.”  He sounded awake enough.  “Sleeping.”

“Right, right.”  Hamilton wrapped his freed arm around Laurens’ shoulder and closed his own eyes, not about to fall asleep properly, but comfortable.  “I’m rolling you off the bed one way or another in about twenty minutes.”

Laurens smiled, laughing in a short breath against his hair.

“What?”  Hamilton raised a brow but didn’t bother opening his eyes.  “I’m going to.”

“You’re trapped.”

“I’ll find a way.  Jab you in the ribs.”

Laurens kissed him again, lightly, and was quiet.

“Hey,” Hamilton said after a few minutes, again trying and failing to look him in the eye.  “I have a question.”

There was a pause.  Laurens actually had drifted off this time.  “Yeah?”

“About earlier…  The rimjob, John?  Hot.  And not what I would have expected from you.  Did you see that somewhere?”  

“Nah.”  Laurens still sounded half-asleep.  “Heard about it, of course.  I can’t help thinking about doing things to you.”

Hamilton closed his eyes again, grinning and tracing a little pleased pattern on his shoulder.  “Damn, John.  You’re dirtier than I thought.  All right.  Just wondering.  Go back to sleep.”

 

“Do you have a list?”  Hamilton asked as Laurens took a shopping cart and they both followed Lafayette through the grocery store.

“ _Oui_.”  He took the folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.  “I need flour, eggs, milk, butter, buttermilk…  Yes, I think I have the rest.  Oh, and things to make them special.”

“Special?”  Laurens asked, trailing behind the other two.  “Syrup?  Whipped cream?”

“Is that traditional?”

“Sure,” Laurens shrugged, “but I don’t know that I would call it special.”

Lafayette looked at Hamilton who put his hands up.  “Don’t ask me.  You want to swing through the baking aisle first and see if they have chocolate chips or something?”

“All right.”  

They headed that way and Laurens watched as Hamilton, jacket zipped up against the cool night outside and the air conditioning inside, walked with his hands in his pockets and shoulders back.

“You could get berries too, right?  That’s a thing, isn’t it?”  Hamilton looked back at Laurens who had been leaning on the handle of the cart and straightened up a little, pretending that he hadn’t been staring. 

“Yeah.  Fresh is better, but if they don’t have what you want we can try the frozen aisle.  Are you trying to make the same thing as Adrienne?”

“No,” Lafayette sighed, “I don’t have the proper equipment here to make crêpes and I don’t want to force her to switch recipes.”  He paused to pick up the flour and then continued to the racks of chocolate and other additions.  “Semi-sweet?”

“No idea.  I don’t bake.”

Lafayette looked over at Laurens next, who just shrugged again.  “That sounds good to me.”

Lafayette added a couple of bags to the cart and then, after some consideration, a bag of milk chocolate as well.  “There.  That should make for some special pancakes, don’t you think?”

Hamilton was looking between the ingredients in the cart and at Lafayette with a frown.  Something was just off but he couldn’t remember some crucial detail that would bring it all together.

“You said that this isn’t a thing you’re doing with Adrienne.”

“No.  The first time it was, and that was such a hit I decided to take people up on their suggestion to do it again, but properly this time.”

“Properly… With special pancakes.”

“Yes.”

Hamilton started to snicker.  “Well, shit, John, we’re at the wrong sort of store for that.”

Lafayette had begun walking again and he stopped and looked back, confused.  “What do you mean?”

“As tempting as it is to drag it out, that would just be cruel.  It’s not your fault this one went over your head.”  Hamilton laughed harder.  “It was a little too high.”

Lafayette looked at Laurens who was studiously reading the back of one of the bags of chocolate.

“Alexander…”

“Sorry, sorry.  They wanted you to put pot in them.  Marijuana,” he clarified.  “You were distributing baked,” he bit his lip to keep from cracking up again, “goods at like two in the freakin’ morning, Lafayette, what did you expect?”

Lafayette’s eyes widened as he realized his mistake.  “Oh.  Ohhh.”

“You’ll have to ask your new friends to supply their own stash,” Hamilton continued.  “You’re not going to find that in the produce section and I don’t have a guy for you.”

Lafayette frowned.  “Then should I put this back?”

“Nah, I’m sure they’ll appreciate.  Actually, I do have a guy-guy, so if you want to go through another party…”

“He already almost got kicked out of the country once,” Laurens pointed out.

“Right.  Scratch that.  You’ll have to refrain from distributing any illicit substances.”

Lafayette was thinking, hand to his mouth.  “You said that berries would be good?  Maybe strawberries and blueberries would be nice.  Stay here.  I’m going to check.  Can you look at the rest of this and decide if anything else would work?”

“You want coconut for the stars in that American pancake you are obviously making?”

“Please.”

Lafayette left them and Hamilton crouched down, checking what was available.  “Did you get any last time?  I think he should have saved us some.”

Laurens knelt next to him, one knee raised with his hand on it.  “Alex.”

“Yeah?”

Laurens kissed him and Hamilton was too surprised to close his eyes but just felt his mouth—soft, his lips slightly parted—against his own.

Laurens stood up.  Hamilton’s heart was racing.

“What was…?”

“It’s all up here.  You missed it.”

“Huh?  Oh.”  Hamilton stood and picked a bag off the shelf, glancing back at Laurens who was leaning one arm on the cart, giving no indication of what he had just done.  Hamilton dropped the bag into the cart as Lafayette came back with the fruit.  “Did you find it all?”

“Yes.”  He put it in and stepped back.  “Let’s get the milk and eggs.  Are you two going to help me make them this time or are you going back to your apartment?”

Hamilton glanced at Laurens, who just looked as though he were politely waiting for him to make up his mind.

“Uh.  Sure.  We can help.” 

 


	56. We're Just Aliens to Other Aliens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Too Many Cooks; Baked; (*Preview)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't do drugs, kids. Also underage drinking is bad. Stay in school, etc.
> 
> Sorry this one is long.

“You’re not being liberal enough with the flour, John.”

“Lafayette, I’m just following the recipe.  Stop correcting me.”

“There is no recipe,” Hamilton pointed out.  “I mean, there was, at one point, but then he added a bunch of shit to it.”

Laurens paused, holding a bowl of flour and a measuring cup.  “If there’s no recipe then what are we doing?”

“Cooking,” Lafayette said, tipping his hand with the cup to pour out a little more flour.

“Wasting food,” Laurens retorted.  “This is your second time making this—actually, your first, if you’re changing it that much.  Don’t—stop that—”  He pulled his hand away, irritated.  “—Don’t just waste all of this.”

“I’m not wasting it,” Lafayette explained patiently.  “I know what I’m doing and we will need more flour.  It will be too wet.”

“You guys should have a bake-off.”

“We’re not having a bake-off.”

“There’s not enough room and it would not be a fair contest.”

Laurens rolled his eyes but let Lafayette take the measuring cup from him and add flour to the bowl.

Hamilton leaned against the counter, watching the other two.  “You guys are cute.  Very domestic.  Kind of like a college version of the _Odd Couple_.  I’m getting you aprons for Christmas.”

“Great, now we’re _both_ dating Lafayette?”

“Yeah, it’s some weird incestuous love triangle thing.  Real Thursday Night Line-Up.  You’re relatable and normal, Lafayette’s the quirky and weird but strangely charming one.  Spoiler alert, you meet me on the season finale exotic vacation episode and I steal your man.  Classic fade to black in the bedroom, that’s where it cuts.  Big ratings boost for next year.”

Lafayette and Laurens were both staring at him, then looked at each other.

“…Well, you do have the hair for it,” Laurens finally said.

“Next season: a deadly secret surfaces and a lost heirloom is the key to uncovering someone’s past!  _¡Ahora son tres pero manaña—solamente dos!_ ”  He paused, holding up two fingers.  Lafayette and Laurens were staring at him again.  “…I got kind of caught up in _novelas_ the other day.”

“Alexander, why don’t you cut the strawberries,” Lafayette suggested.

“Right.”

“John,” Lafayette continued, as Hamilton got to work, “does it help if I tell you that I have made plenty of things like this before?  I’ve baked at home as well as with Adrienne.  I have some sense of what I’m doing.”  He brushed flour off his hands over the sink and took out his phone, scrolling far back into its history until he could show Laurens pictures of assorted baked goods.  

“Are those macaroons?”

“Macarons,” Lafayette corrected.  “And if I can make those then I can certainly make a pancake.”

Laurens still looked a little skeptical.  “How much of the work did you actually do?”

Lafayette locked the screen and put his phone away.  “Did you know that a ‘cup’ varies even among countries that use it?  This size is shared between the United States and Liberia.  Pass me the eggs.”

Laurens was sufficiently distracted and he handed over the carton.  “No, I didn’t know that.  That makes sense, though.”

Lafayette took out four eggs and cracked them into the bowl.  “There.”  The carton back on the counter, he picked up a fork to beat them with.  “Now you have eight more for your hot chocolate.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Now _that_ I bet would taste better high.”  Hamilton suddenly cut back into the conversation, seizing the opportunity to tease Laurens a little.  “To you, that is, I thought it was fine, but I’m not as particular as you are.”

Laurens paused, surprised.  “Probably,” he admitted, holding the bowl as Lafayette mixed in milk and butter.  

“That mean I should tell Mulligan to find someone before the next time we crash at G-Wash’s?”

“Please don’t smoke at the Washingtons’.”

“I’d just have you bake it into some brownies,” Hamilton assured Lafayette.  “Relax, I’m joking.  I tried it once and I didn’t like it.  Just made me anxious.”  Hamilton had been going for the low-key brag, assuming that any kind of illicit experimentation as a teenager would bump him up above the other two, but Lafayette only nodded with an understanding expression and Laurens glanced up at the ceiling.  

“Wait,” Hamilton said, putting the knife down.  “Really?  John, I thought you were all straight-laced and shit!  First it was the—”  He cut himself off, turning slightly red at what he almost said.  

Lafayette looked decidedly interested at that.  “First what—”

“I was popular in high school.”  Laurens quickly cut him off.  “Don’t act so surprised.  It’s not my thing, I prefer alcohol, but, yeah.”

“…Do you get all jittery too?  I thought that was just me.”

“Uh.”  Laurens shook his head.  “No.”

“Aw.”  Hamilton’s shoulders sagged, then he perked up as he turned to Lafayette.  “And you?  When you didn’t say anything in the grocery store I assumed you were in uncharted waters.”

“As John said,” Lafayette began, taking the bowl to stir with greater force.  “I was also very popular.”

“You’re both perpetuating damaging stereotypes, here.”

“ _Mon ami_ , de Seguer, he threw many parties.  We liked to have a good time.”

“You can’t hold your liquor for shit.”

“That’s unfair, Alex.”  Laurens said.  “His tolerance is about the same as yours, you just—surprisingly—pace yourself better.”

“Bullshit.”

The corner of Laurens’ mouth edged up in a smile and he looked away.

“I don’t like cigarettes,” Lafayette continued.  “They’re so unhealthy.  But,” he shrugged, still stirring.  “This was fun.  I won’t try to brag unnecessarily, unlike you.  I haven’t done it very much.”

Hamilton leaned back against the counter.  “Why not?  If it actually worked I’d have been all over it.”

Lafayette looked a little embarrassed.  “Adrienne doesn’t approve.”

“Ha.  Did you go to see her stoned once and make an ass out of yourself?”  Lafayette made a noncommittal noise and Hamilton grinned.  “I bet you get so obnoxious, a real pothead philosopher expounding on the rights of man.  ‘Adrienne, Adrienne… Do you realize, we’re just aliens to other aliens.’”

“Hey!”  Lafayette protested while Laurens laughed in spite of himself.

“It’s fine, you’re French, you’re supposed to philosophize.  I’m just sad you didn’t take us to one of your salons while we were in the country.”

“De Segeur was busy.  Perhaps next time.”

“You say that like it’s not a—”

“Are you giving these out again?”

Hamilton looked over at the doorway to the communal kitchen.  “Gouverneur?”

The student in the door raised his hand in greeting.  “Alexander.  Did he take my suggestion for how to improve the recipe?”

Hamilton laughed.  “Shit, that was you?  Not surprised.”  He turned to the other two to explain.  “This is Gouverneur Morris, we’re on the student council together.  Lafayette, you met him already.”

“Ah, right,” Lafayette said as Gouverneur shook hands with him and Laurens.  “I didn’t realize the two of you knew one another.  We’re not ready yet, but if you come back in about ten minutes…”

“You know what, I’ve got an errand to run and I feel bad that you’re going through all this trouble twice.  Why don't I come by your room in a couple of hours?  Save me a few and I’ll compensate you.”

“Sounds good,” Hamilton answered for them.  “See you then.”

Gouverneur left and Hamilton turned to Lafayette.  “What do you know, I do have a guy for that.  Maybe you should consider calling Adrienne early because he’s gonna hook you up.”

 

“Clarendon, gingham, moon, lark, reyes…” 

Lafayette and Gouverneur were sitting on the floor alongside Lafayette’s bed, bent over his phone and scrolling through filters on his Instagram.

“…Juno, slumber, crema…”

“Did they take a selfie?”

Hamilton, sitting next to them, looked up at Laurens at his desk and shook his head.  “Picture of toast.”

“Ah.”

Lafayette started laughing as Gouverneur turned crema on and off, the picture alternating between unfiltered and with a gray-purple tint.

“You’re changing the flavor of the jam!”

“How high are you?”  Gouverneur asked, laughing as well.

“Look—grape, strawberry, grape, strawberry, grape—”  Lafayette said in time with the filter changing.

“Go back to moon,” Hamilton suggested, drawing his legs up and leaning his chin on them, head cocked a little to the side as he watched. 

“That one’s boring.”

“It’s black and white, makes it more dramatic.”

Gouverneur considered that, then looked at Lafayette.  “Black and white is more artistic.”

Lafayette flipped the filter back.  “Alex, what do you think?”

“ _I_ like it.  Real deep.  Emotional.  It speaks to me.”

“All right,” Lafayette agreed, clicking through.  “What should we caption it?  Hashtag toast, hashtag dinner—”

“Dessert,” Gouverneur pointed out.

“Hashtag dessert,” Lafayette agreed.  “Hashtag black and white, hashtag black and white photography…”

“Hashtag hash,” Gouverneur laughed.  Hamilton snickered.

“You know that Adrienne is going to see this,” Laurens pointed out.

Lafayette lowered his phone.  “But this isn’t bad.  There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“So long as he doesn’t _actually_ tag it ‘hash’ she’ll probably just think he’s drunk,” Hamilton pointed out. 

“Add in ‘hash.’”  Gouverneur nudged Lafayette.  “It makes a statement.”

“Lafayette,” Laurens began, but dropped it when Hamilton caught his eye and shrugged.

“No, no, I can’t.  I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Who’s gonna get you in trouble?  It’s just a joke picture.”

“John is right, Adrienne will know.  Alex,” Lafayette pushed the phone at Hamilton.  “You tag it.  I trust you; I love you.  You’re like a brother to me.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Morris, he only just met you.”

“That’s not true,” Lafayette said.  “Of course I do.  What do we have without trust?  All people are equal, Alexander.  Men are born and remain free and equal in rights, social distinctions may be based only on common utility.  You and Gouverneur are the same and you both have the same rights to my account and to write what you would like, if I don’t hold to that belief, then we descend to the cruelest stratification and divisive bias.” 

Lafayette had switched into French towards the end of that and Gouverneur, although he didn’t quite follow along, got the gist.

“Right, give me the phone.”

“Hold on,” Hamilton said, not turning it over.  “If there’s a validity to making distinction based upon utility then I still get this because I’m of more sober mind.”

“Write drunk, edit sober.”

“Hemmingway’s an ass.”  Hamilton was typing.  “—And uploaded.  There you go, Lafayette, I love you too.”

“Get a room.”

“I have a room.”  Lafayette looked at Gouverneur, confused.  “You’re in it.”

Gouverneur cracked up.  “It’s a turn of phrase.”  He leaned forward to talk past Lafayette to Hamilton.  “You sure you don’t want any?  I’ve got half a brownie still.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton shook his head.  “Thanks anyway.  Someone has to play d.d.”

“You got, uh, shit,” Gouverneur laughed again, turning to Laurens.  “Sorry, man.  What was your name again?”

“John.”

“That’s John,” Lafayette said, a moment after Laurens spoke.

“He complains he always gets stuck on babysitting duty.  Isn’t that right?”

“I’m going to be babysitting anyway,” Laurens pointed out.  “I’m the one who lives here.”

“I’m fine, you don’t need to watch me.  I’m fine.”

“Just put on a movie,” Hamilton suggested.  “But maybe not _Saving Private Ryan_ this time.”

Lafayette got up to dig through the bottom drawer of his desk.

“What’re you looking for?”

“I had chips in here…”  Lafayette sat back down between the other two with a bag of cheetos. 

“Nice,” Gouverneur said approvingly, taking a handful once he had the bag open.  “Puffed, even more appropriate.”

“Are we having a competition over who can fit in the most shitty pot jokes?”  Hamilton asked.  “Because I got at least two before you even showed up, Morris, so make sure you add those to my total.”

“Morris,” Lafayette began, “why does Alexander call you by your last name?  We should call you Governor.”

“Gouverneur,” Morris and Hamilton corrected him, their voices overlapping.

“Gouverneur,” Lafayette agreed.

“Either way is fine.  It doesn’t matter to me.”

“It matters to me,” Lafayette insisted.  “Names are important, Gouverneur.  Lafayette—that’s a title, not my name, and yet I go by it anyway.  Why?  It’s a nod to,” he waved his hand in the air as he spoke, “this defunct system of nobility.  A title by blood sets one apart by something other than utility.”

Laurens looked over from his desk.  “Jesus, Alex.  How high did you get him?”

Hamilton put his hands up to protest his innocence.  “I didn’t do anything!”

“I’m not saying this just now,” Lafayette argued, handing Gouverneur the bag so he could gesture better.  “It’s true, it’s always been true, I just don’t always hold to it.  This is all bullshit,” he continued, pointing to his phone.  “Why should I have anything more than anyone from the _banlieue_?  We breathe the same air, we bleed the same blood.  Sometimes I get so caught up in the game of _noblesse oblige_ that I accept its justification as valid.  John, _John_ , you agree with me, I know you do.  Why accept the position of inherited duty if it implies that someone else has inherited a debt?  I should delete this all, I came to America to find a genuinity—”

“That’s not a word,” Hamilton pointed out.

“—not to waste my time with social standing.  I’ve had enough of that back home, it drove me mad.  I can sink _into_ it, Alexander,” Lafayette said, turning to Hamilton since he was the last one to speak, “and I can feel it corrupting my soul.  It destroys me.  It’s eaten away at all of my friends, even Adrienne plays into it at times when she thinks it will please me.”  He leaned heavily on Hamilton’s shoulder, burying his face in it.  “It’s all my fault,” he continued, his voice muffled.  “She’s so pure.”

Hamilton patted him on the back a little awkwardly.  “Morris, uh, Gouverneur, show him your leg.”

“Oh, right.  Hey, Lafayette,” sitting on Lafayette’s other side, he patted him as well and pulled up his left pants leg.  “Check this out.”

Lafayette turned around. Gouverneur, grinning, was baring several inches of a prosthetic limb.  “What happened?”

“Do you want the real story or the good story?”  Hamilton asked.

“They’re the same thing, don’t listen to him.”  Gouverneur leaned back against the bed, leaving his leg exposed.  “Had to get it amputated after a car accident a couple years ago.  I was hauling ass after my girlfriend’s husband walked in on us and made a bad turn.”

Lafayette’s eyes were wide.  “I’m sorry.”

“Why?  It’s not your fault.”  Gouverneur shrugged.  “Not like it’s slowed me down anyway.  Not like it was my dick— _Thank you_ John Jay for pointing that out, really helped put it all in perspective.”

Lafayette wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not so he just nodded.

“Look.”  Gouverneur took out his own phone and scrolled through his Facebook feed, photo upon photo of him at parties surrounded by people and flirting with girls.  “I told you, I still do well,” he said as he checked his unread messages.

Lafayette slowly shook his head.  “I admire you.”

“I know.  I’m dashing.” Gouverneur put his phone away and tugged his pants leg back down before standing.  “This has been fun, but I’ve got another engagement this evening.”  

“At one in the morning?”  Hamilton nodded appreciatively.  “Nice.”

Gouverneur grinned.  “Keep it.”  He tossed the other half-brownie to Hamilton.  “I owe you and your boyfriend’s a charmer.”

Laurens glanced over as Gouverneur ruffled Lafayette’s hair.

“I’ll see you all around,” he said over his shoulder as he let himself out.

“What do you owe him for?”  Laurens asked as soon as the door had closed.

Hamilton had unwrapped the brownie and sniffed it curiously.  “We’re both in the student council.  I back his shit all the time.”  He took a bite.  “Two hours for this to kick in, right?  If I start texting you crap like the marquis here at three then we’ll know that this isn’t any better.”

Lafayette frowned and took it from him.  “Don’t try it just because we are.”

“I’m just curious.”

“You said it wasn’t good.”  Lafayette leaned with it out of reach.  “I’m confiscating this.”

“John,” Hamilton began.

Laurens shrugged.  “I’m with Lafayette.”

“John is smart,” Lafayette agreed, slinging his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders.  “You should listen to him more.”

“Yeah,” Laurens laughed, finishing the assignment he had been working on and putting his pencil down.  “You should listen to me more.”

“Hey, I listen to you plenty.  Like earlier today, when—”

Lafayette’s phone went off and he glanced down at it and then yelped and dropped it to the ground.  “It’s Adrienne!”  He looked at Hamilton in panic.  “She’ll know!  I forgot to call her earlier and tell her I was going out, but now I have to pick up or she’ll worry and if I talk to her then she’ll know something is going on and she’ll be mad with me!”

“Calm down,” Hamilton said, sliding the phone across the floor to Laurens.  “John will talk to her.  Won’t you, John?”

“Do I have a choice?”  He bent down and picked it up, answering on audio only.  “Hello, Adrienne?”

Lafayette and Hamilton watched him.

“Yes, this is John.  I’m sorry, he’s with Alexander.”

“That’s true,” Hamilton said in a loud whisper to Lafayette who nodded vigorously.

“Did you have a message for him?  I’ll pass it on to him.  Mmhmm.  Oh, how are they coming along?”

Lafayette sat up straight, looking between Hamilton and Laurens, obviously torn between wanting to ask for the phone and wanting Adrienne to hang up.

Laurens motioned for him to sit back without looking over at him.  “Great.  You’re really putting in a lot of work.  How many hours have you spent on this?”

Hamilton reached for the brownie and Lafayette moved it out of range.

“I feel bad,” Laurens laughed a little.  “You deserve some kind of compensation for that.  No, I know, but still.”

“They’re bonding,” Lafayette whispered to Hamilton.  “She already sends him pictures of the animals.  He’ll be her second favorite soon.”

Laurens put his hand over the speaker and turned to them.  “Please, I already am her favorite.”

Lafayette and Hamilton glanced at one another.  

“Second favorite,” Lafayette attempted to clarify, but Laurens was talking to Adrienne again and didn’t respond.  Lafayette took a bite of the brownie.

“Don’t worry,” Hamilton reassured him.  “I’m sure you’re the favorite.”

“That’s not what he said.”

“He’s messing with you.”

Lafayette whined.

“Shh!”

Laurens had meanwhile switched into French to practice and was telling her about his class.

“He’s replacing me,” Lafayette said in hurried hushed tones to Hamilton as they heard Adrienne laugh on the other end of the line and Laurens apologize and quickly try to fix his grammar.  “See?  Listen, she’s all over him!”

“Lafayette, she’s laughing because he messed up the past continuous.  _Nous étudiions_ , John,” he said to Laurens.  “Double ‘i.’”

Lafayette didn’t seem to have heard Hamilton.  “He’s so beautiful,” he said, a little desperately.  “He even won over you, of course he’s bound to defeat me.”

“John Laurens is not after your girl,” Hamilton said, a little irritated.  “He’s as gay as the fucking _jour est longue._ ”

“Excuse me, Adrienne.”  Laurens put his hand over the phone again.  “You know, if you want me to cover for you then you’re going to have to keep it down.  I’m not hitting on your girlfriend.  And thank you, Alexander, for making _that_ the basis of your argument.”

“Right, sorry.  Lafayette, John Laurens is not after your girl because he is in a monogamous relationship and has high moral fibre.”

“Thank you.”

Lafayette just looked guilty instead of anxious, eating more as he thought.

“No, no, I’m not sure when he’ll be free.  Yes, I’ll tell him right now to give you a call when he can.  Don’t worry about it.  Take care, Adrienne.” 

Hamilton stood once Laurens hung up.  “I should go, too.  I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”  

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

Laurens caught his wrist and pulled him down into a slow kiss.  Lafayette watched as Hamilton stayed like that, one hand on the desk, for several seconds before straightening up. 

“Nice.  Right, I need to head out.  See you both later.  Here, I’ll toss that.”  Hamilton took the empty wrapper from Lafayette.  “Shit, you ate a lot of that.  You know it’s stronger when it’s baked, don’t you?  Whatever, John, lock the door, I’m leaving you in charge.”

 

“I love her.”

The lights were off and Lafayette was lying on his back in his bed, staring up at the ceiling as it seemed to sway in the darkness.

Laurens sighed and rolled over to face him from his own bed.  “I know you do.”

“No,” Lafayette insisted.  “I _really_ love her.”

“I know,” Laurens repeated, then reached over his head to take his phone off the desk.  “Lafayette, it’s almost three in the morning.”

“I can’t stand how far away she is.”

Laurens sighed again and dropped the phone onto the mattress

“I wish I could go back and forth between here and there more quickly.  Weeks at sea is too long.”

“Lafayette,” Laurens began for a third time, groaning and running his hand over his face, “you fly on a plane.”

Lafayette didn’t seem to be paying attention.  “It’s such a hardship.  I can’t ask her to put herself through that for me.  I can’t _live_ there, John, not until I figure things out.  But how can I stay here?  It tears me up.”  He raised one hand to reach for the ceiling.  “I wish she was here.  I’m a better man with her around.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came here.”

“You’re just like Alex, both of you think too highly of me.”

“That’s not true, if anything we’re both like you.  You think too highly of everyone.  You’re even friends with Jefferson and I bet you’ll be on good terms with half of campus by the time you graduate.”

“People deserve as much,” Lafayette insisted.  “I’m here to learn, not to teach, and there’s something to learn from everyone.”

“See?”  Laurens rolled onto his back again.  “That’s exactly what I mean.  You’re a good person, Lafayette.  It’s not your fault if people see that.”

There was a long pause.

“If I were to write my autobiography,” Lafayette finally said, just when Laurens was hoping he had dropped off, “I would write the parts in France in the first person and the parts in America in the third.”

“Because your heart is in France?”

“Oh!  I like that.”

“What was your reasoning?”

“‘He talked to his roommate, John Laurens, in New York one night.  It was autumn, the same year the hurricane had struck the city, and before Laurens won the championships in spite of great physical difficulty.’”

“Don’t jinx it, Lafayette.”

“‘He had been enjoying the company of his friends that evening and it was there in the dark that he voiced aloud for the first time in a manner that could not be taken as a joke what he had known to be a serious matter for years: that he was going to ask Adrienne to marry him.’”

“What?”

Lafayette was silent again, but not for as long this time.  “‘Perhaps it was because he was less than sober at the time, but he realized that it was not just that he was not afraid to be bound to her in holy matrimony, but that he was fearful of what might happen were he _not_.’”  He waited a beat.  “‘Emphasis in original.’”

“Jesus.”  Laurens exhaled slowly in the darkness.

“Adrienne doesn’t like it when I take the lord’s name in vain.”

“Adrienne isn’t here, you dumbass, or you would have just proposed to her without a ring.”

“John.”

“Yes?”

“I need a ring.”

“You need to sleep it off.”

“John,” Lafayette insisted, starting to sit up and then slowly lying back down.  “I need a ring.”

Laurens meant to complain about how ridiculous he was being but he just laughed, not meanly.  “You’re irrepressible.  No wonder you’re so popular.”

“Adrienne is like me.  She can make friends with anyone.  What if she finds someone better than me?”

“Don’t be stupid.  She won’t find anyone better than you.”

“You’re right.  But what if she finds someone almost as good as me?”

“You’ll just have to remind her what she would be giving up.”

“Then I should call her.”

“Call her in the morning.  Isn’t she in class right now?”

“John, where did you put my phone?”

“I told you, I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”

“It’s after midnight.”

“Technically I hid it after midnight as well, so if you want to go by that logic…”

Lafayette sighed.  “I miss Andre.”

“Excuse me?”

“Andre would give me back my phone.  He understands me.”

“Andre’s a romantic sap, just like you,” Laurens agreed.

“I miss Andre.”

“You said that.”

“I miss Andre.  Do you miss Alex?”

“I miss sleep, Lafayette.  I have to get up in a couple of hours.”

“Sleep later.  Stay up and talk to me.  I’m lonely, John.”

Laurens groaned and sat up, giving up for the time being at least on sleep.  “You better fucking stay with Adrienne, Lafayette, because most people aren’t patient enough to put up with this crap.”

“You’re not Adrienne.”  Lafayette paused.  “I wish you were Adrienne.  She’s much prettier than you.”

“Thank you,” Laurens said dryly.  His phone lit up and he picked it up with a yawn.

 

> A. Hamilton: hey

> A. Hamilton: are you still up?

> A. Hamilton: I bet lancelot is tripping off the walls

> A. Hamilton: shit i hope this is on silent or something 

> A. Hamilton: yo ucan ignore this if you’re asleep

> A. Hamilton: i mean, obviously you WILL ignore it nt that you will be intending to ignore it.  Just that you will be asleep.

> A. Hamilton: Are you asleep?

 

Laurens responded.

 

> J. Laurens: Yeah, I’m up.  Lafayette is very chatty.  What’s up?

 

“Who is that?”

“No one,” Laurens lied.

Lafayette put his hand back up like he was trying to grab hold of the ceiling.  “John.”

“Yes?”

“John, you should get your hair cut.”

“I should do what?”  Laurens asked as Hamilton started texting him again.

 

> A. Hamilton: Great!  I’m up too, obviously.  I cant sleep, but I can’t concentrate for shit probably because guess what it’s three in the fucking morning 

> A. Hamilton: do you think he's going to drop off soon?

> J. Laurens: I don’t think so.

 

“You should get your hair cut,” Lafayette repeated.  “It looks so… It’s not good.  You look like you should get your hair cut.”

Laurens ran a hand through his hair, frowning.  “It’s been a while, yeah.  It slipped my mind.”

“Probably because Alex likes it so much,” Lafayette said as if he was agreeing with him somehow.  “He wants it longer so that he can run his hands through it.  He likes to play with it.  He tells me things.”

“I know he does.”  Laurens was still frowning slightly.  “I’m trying to make my peace with it.”

“Don’t be upset!”  Lafayette struggled to sit up again and almost fell off the mattress.  “I’m on your side, John.  I help you all the time.”

“Yeah, I—Hold on.”

 

> A. Hamilton: aw

> A. Hamilton: [image loading]

 

Laurens opened the image and was promptly too distracted to listen to Lafayette as he kept talking in spite of being told to wait.

 

> A. Hamilton: you want to come over?

> A. Hamilton: I bet if you tell him he;s locked in then he won’t leave

 

Laurens mentally whined.  Of course he wanted to go over, but… He looked across the darkened room where Lafayette was in the middle of explaining something to him about the different cats at Adrienne’s house and why they wouldn’t be able to stay with the Washingtons.

 

> J. Laurens: Alex, I can’t, I’m sorry.  Trust me, I’d love to.

> A. Hamilton: yeah, I know

> A. Hamilton: shouldn't have asked, don’t apologize 

> A. Hamilton: 

 

Laurens watched as the screen said that Hamilton was typing for longer than usual.  

“I’m cutting both of you off next time,” he informed Lafayette.  “You get about half of what you had tonight and he doesn’t get any.”

“Oh,” Lafayette looked over.  “Is Alexander on the phone?  May I call Adrienne?”

“No,” Laurens snapped.  “Go to sleep.”

Lafayette lay back down.  “Do you know that cats sleep eighteen hours a day, John?  Cats sleep more than they live.”

Laurens groaned and dropped his head into his hands.  “Why couldn’t you two do this over the weekend? Why start at eleven PM on a Tuesday?  Why couldn’t Alexander be your roommate instead of me?”

“You will come with me tomorrow.  Yes?”

“Where am I going?”  Laurens asked wearily as Hamilton still didn’t send him whatever he had been typing.

 

> J. Laurens: You okay?

 

“To the salon.”  Lafayette yawned and draped his arm over his face, suddenly sounding tired instead of just out of it.  “I need to touch up my roots.  They like me.  They’ll let you in.”

“You really think I should get it cut?  I can’t believe I’m asking your advice right now,” he added as an aside to himself.

“It looks sloppy.”

“I’ll get it trimmed.”

“No.  No, you should come with me.  I think you should celebrate with something different.”

“Celebrate what?”  Laurens asked as a video file from Hamilton showed up in the chat.

 

> A. Hamilton: Watch it with the sound off.

 

Laurens felt his pulse quicken.

 

> A. Hamilton: Night, J.

 

“I saw how you were looking at him all evening.”  Lafayette yawned again.  “I’m very perceptive.”

“You’re brilliant,” Laurens agreed without paying the slightest attention and pressing play, the volume on mute.  The video opened with Hamilton, the lights on in his apartment and sitting on his heels, taking his cock out of his pants and stroking it, quickly working it hard and rocking his hips slightly into his hand.

Laurens stared, completely enraptured and fully hard by the time he realized Lafayette was trying to get his attention.

“John.  _John_.”

“Shh.”  

“John,” Lafayette whispered.

“Go to bed,” Laurens said, his hand over his boxers.

“John, I’m going to schedule you into your schedule to come with me Friday.  It’s in the afternoon.  They’ll fix you.”

“Right,” Laurens said irritably.  “Fine.”

“John.”

“ _What_.”

“John, I need my phone to schedule you in.”

Laurens ignored him.

On the screen Hamilton was moving his hand faster.

Lafayette rolled away from him.

Laurens didn’t even notice, too distracted by the silenced video and he realized suddenly that by telling him to mute it, Hamilton was actually saying that there was something worth listening to.  He lay down, facing the wall and still touching himself, torn between trying to sleep now that the room was finally quiet and getting himself off.  He wanted so badly to jerk off and he felt himself hard under the fabric.  If he went to sleep now he could get a little over two hours…

Hamilton came onto the floor between his legs and there was a pause before he reached over and turned the recording off.  Laurens forced himself to take his hand away and lock the screen, but not before downloading the video for later.


	57. Long Day's Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Museum and Invite; *Rewatch; Father/Son Time; *Blindfold; Alone

Laurens sat heavily down on the bench in the locker room after practice, rubbing his eyes with the base of his hand.

“You okay?”

He looked up at Andre.  “Tired as fuck.  I had about two hours last night.”

Andre nodded sympathetically.  “So I guess this is a bad time to tell you that I checked and we can get in free to the modern art gallery near campus if we go before noon.”

Laurens yawned, covering his mouth a little belatedly.  “Nah, it’s fine, Al—”  He caught himself.  “—all I have to do today is show up for class in the afternoon.  I did the work already.”  He stood up abruptly.  “I’m hitting the shower.”  He kept talking as he stripped down and grabbed his towel, using the activity as an excuse to not look at Andre.  “Did you want to head over after this?”

“Sure.”  Andre was digging in his own locker.  “I’m pretty sure they have coffee there.”

“Great.”

As soon as they had showered and changed they headed over, Andre guiding them to a small gallery tucked into the basement level of a building only about a twenty minute walk from the gym.  It was too small to really classify as a proper gallery, but Andre, after walking around the single large room, decided it was good enough for the purposes of his assignment, and Laurens was glad to see that they offered free, if poor quality, coffee.

“I won’t say that we could do better,” Laurens said as he came to stand next to Andre with his styrofoam cup of coffee, “but I’m pretty sure we could arrange this better.  I can’t follow the signs at all.”

“I don’t _think_ they’re out of order…  But it’s not clear what they correspond to.”

“I spent five minutes reading one before I realized I couldn't make sense of it because the charcoal drawing was not, in fact, pottery.”

“Yeah, but you also said you’d take that coffee like a shot if it wasn’t so hot.  Why didn’t you get any sleep last night?  Too much partying?”

“Yes, but not by me.  Lafayette kept me up until after three.  I was this close to knocking him out myself.”

“You’re a good roommate.”

“Give me a medal.”

“I’ll make you one if it’s a slow day at work.”

Laurens yawned behind his hand.  “At least I’m done at three.  I usually get lunch then but maybe I’ll just pass out instead.”

“Hey,” Andre said.  “I’m going to have some of the guys over this weekend.  Are you free?”

Laurens hesitated, not sure how he wanted to divide his time.  “I have to go to that trustee dinner…”

“Right, you said.  We’ll still be up by the time that dies down.  Hey, bring Lafayette and Alexander,” Andre said, turning slowly to take in the room and then to face Laurens once more.  “Peggy will be there with a few friends, too, so it’s not like it will be just the team.”

“All right,” Laurens finally conceded.  “I’ll invite them.  Lafayette—it might not be a good hour for him.  I don’t know if he said—”

“Right, the time difference.  Bring Alexander, then.  You’ll be doing me a favor.”

“I guess I’ll be with him anyway,” Laurens said.  Was that appropriately casual and nonchalant?

Andre nodded.  “Great, I’ll be expecting the two of you.”

 

As soon as Laurens got back from class that afternoon he called Hamilton.  The line rang once and then went to voice mail and a moment later he received a text.

 

> A. Hamilton: at work

> J. Laurens: I want to see you.

> A. Hamilton: I’m at work

> A. Hamilton: seriously j i am literally taking minutes in a conference right now i’ll ttyl

 

Laurens, alone in his room, dropped in frustration onto his bed.  He paused, leaned over to make sure the door was locked, then grabbed the tissue box and his headphones off his desk and lay down, undoing his fly and opening the saved video.  This time he raised the volume until he could clearly hear Hamilton’s voice.

“Did you save this for later or are you just using headphones?  I don’t know which is dirtier, but I like it.”

Laurens smiled, amused that Hamilton had known to call him out on it, even if he hadn’t guessed that the correct answer was—

“Actually, I hope it’s both.  I like the idea of just whispering in your ear, and it’s so hot to know that you liked this enough to download it.”

Laurens shook his head slightly, still smiling, but his attention was quickly being drawn elsewhere as Hamilton began to stroke his exposed cock.

“I’ll have to do this again since you liked it that much.  Maybe I’ll just send you this before your games, if you won’t let me actually touch you.  Make you think about it the whole time instead, what you have to look forward to.”

Laurens moved his hand in time with Hamilton’s, pretending that he was there with him, that it was his hand on his cock and that he really was, like he said, whispering in his ear.  He was quickly getting hard, urged on by the fantasy, and he could almost feel Hamilton’s breath against him.

Laurens listened as Hamilton kept talking, somehow managing to hold a better conversation than he normally did when Laurens tried to get him to speak.

“I hope you’re thinking about my touching you, John.  If you had said you could come over I would have waited for you, but since you’re busy I see no need.  It’s not as good as if you were here, of course, if I could push you down against my bed and grab your cock, work it until you were hot and wet and _moaning_ for me. I always have a hard time choosing what to do to you, but I’d just _tease_ you, keep you needy and hard until you were rubbing up against me—a little taste of your own medicine, J.  Deny you, maybe force to you grind against my leg for once instead of the other way around.”

The fact that the footage was so clearly intended for him and him only made him even more excited by it and soon he was feeling his orgasm build within him, brought nearer with every word Hamilton spoke, by the way he could see his shaft getting slick, by that sudden sharp gasp in his ear—

“—Ah…  Mn, even just thinking about you I get so turned on.  Thinking about your hard body up against mine, of the _smell_ of you, J.  It’s almost as hot as afterwards, when I’ve got the taste of your cum in my mouth and everything just smells like sweat and sex.  Shit…”

Laurens’ heart was beating quickly and his face was flushed.  He knew exactly what Hamilton meant and his words seemed to bring it to life around him, flooding his senses as he moved his hand more quickly, unable to keep the slower pace that Hamilton was setting and Hamilton’s words starting to blur into one another as he focused instead on the sound of his voice, the confidence almost like a physical touch, overwhelming him…  Laurens caught himself in a tissue, lifting his head and shoulders off the mattress and then falling back, lying there as the video continued to play and Hamilton’s voice continued low over the headphones.

“Goddamnit, J., I can’t wait until I can see you again.”

Once the video had finished, Laurens began typing.

 

> J. Laurens: I miss you.  When will you be done?

> A. Hamilton: jfc john i told you I can’t talk now

> A. Hamilton: it’s been six—oh

> A. Hamilton: lmao nice

> A. Hamilton: don’t worry, I’ll see you after this is done

 

Lafayette was waiting in Washington's office, trying not to be _too_ impatient as the meeting that both he and Hamilton were trapped in stretched on past the hour.  He walked around the room, able to see Hamilton’s hand at work in the way everything had been reorganized, labeled, made more efficient.

“You would never guess his apartment is a disaster,” Lafayette commented to himself as he crouched down and ran his hand over a row of binders, labeled by date and arranged by topic.  He pulled one off the shelf.  A neatly typed index page behind a plastic sheet protector explained what could be found where, Hamilton taking credit with his name in the bottom right corner.  Lafayette put the binder back and stood as he heard the outer door open and close and then Washington’s voice.

“Son?”

“I’m here.”  Lafayette came out into the main room, locking the door behind him.

“I’m sorry I made you wait.  Do you still have time for dinner?  I told Martha and the kids that I’d be late, but if you don’t mind eating out we can grab a bite nearby.”

“That sounds great,” Lafayette enthused, still thrilled to be included in Washington’s personal life.  “Did I tell you about the costumes Adrienne is making?”  He asked as he followed Washington back into the hall.

Washington laughed fondly.  “Yes.”

“They’re wonderful, aren’t they?  She’s so talented.  She sent me some more pictures today, would you like to see?”  Lafayette was already opening them on the screen and he handed his phone over.  “I think they’re coming along so well, don’t you?”

“They really are,” Washington agreed, handing the phone back after looking through them.  “I imagine that when she delivers them to you I won’t see hide nor hair of you until her return to France,” he teased.

“I _wish_ she was hand delivering them.  She’ll mail them.”  Lafayette didn’t quite get that it had been a joke, too enthusiastic to be talking to his idol.

“That’s too bad.  You should tell her that she’d be welcome to stay with us if she were to visit.”

“Really?”  Lafayette’s eyes widened.  “Thank you, of course, I will make sure that she knows!”

“She sounds like a lovely girl,” Washington continued.  “You make it very hard not to love her.”

“Oh, that’s not me,” Lafayette gushed, “I cannot do her justice!  She is so much kinder and more intelligent than I’ve let on!  It’s so easy to talk about her physical charms that I forget to elaborate on the rest of it sometimes.  But my Adrienne is an avid reader as well, and I’m sure she would be fascinated by your library and gardens.”

“Well, then she must visit,” Washington said.  “And I shall talk to her about them until she is sick of me and wishes to return to France.”

“That won’t happen,” Lafayette protested, not sure why Washington sounded so amused by the prospect.  “She would be delighted and honored to learn about them.”

“I’m sure she would,” Washington said kindly.  “Let her know that when she does come to America, my house is open to her.”

 

“You’re kidding,” Hamilton said, running his hand through Laurens’ hair as he undid his shirt.  “I thought you were finally growing it out.”

Laurens shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and then shrugged again, properly.  “Lafayette said it’s getting messy.  I want to look nice for this weekend.”

“Well, shit, John.  I don’t think you can just show up naked.”

“Tell me you didn’t eat the rest of that brownie.”

“Pretty sure Lafayette got to it all before I even left last night.  But I’m serious.”  He raked his eyes with intentional blatantness over his bare chest.  “I like what I’m seeing.  You’d just have a little extra _je ne sais quoi_ if you grew it out.  And then I could—”

“Any kind of riding or reins joke won’t really help your point.”

“—We’d match,” Hamilton said, switching tactics.  “Come on, you matched our fucking shirts that one day, just let it grow out a few more inches.  The weird awkward part in the middle doesn’t last that long and you’re hot enough that you’ll probably be able to work it anyway.”

“Still not helping your point.”

Hamilton sighed and reached up to run his hand through it again.  “I’ll miss you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m not talking to you.”

Laurens backed him up against the door.  “I’m talking to you, though.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton grinned, that damn self-satisfied grin that made Laurens’ chest tighten now.  “Yeah, you are.  All right, tiger, what did you want?”

“‘Tiger?’  Are you sure you didn’t steal any?”

“Come on,” Hamilton said, drawing the words out and slipping his hands into Laurens’ back pockets.  “You get that look in your eye.  Like you want to fuck me into the ground.  Or start a bar fight,” he added after a moment’s reflection.  “Either one, really.”

“Ha.”

“Did you never see yourself like that?  It’s a fucking panty-drop, John.”

“Don’t phrase it like that.”

“Right, right.  Is this better?  You get me so hard.”  Hamilton pushed his hips against Laurens’ rotating them in a tight circle, his head tipped back to watch as his eyes darkened with desire.  “What did you think about that video, J.?  I think I’ve got a career in cinematography.  I’ll give you the live show if you’d like.  Or if you’d rather do something else…”

Laurens could feel his voice catching in his throat and he just shook his head and kissed him.

Hamilton was smiling into the kiss and he lightly bit Laurens’ lower lip.  “You gotta tell me, J.  Or I’m going to take matters into my own hands.”  He cupped him over his pants. 

“I want to hear your voice.”  Laurens’ own voice was trembling a little.  “This afternoon—shit, Alex—”

Hamilton’s grin broadened a little.  “Sit on the bed.”

Laurens sat at the edge of his bed and Hamilton grabbed the lube and looked around.  “Hold on a moment.”  He opened his closet and started sorting through his drawers.

Laurens watched him, confused as he held up a plain red tie.

“This isn’t worth an obscene amount of money, is it?”

Laurens shook his head.  “No.”

“Excellent.”  Hamilton came back over to the bed and leaned down, his hands on his shoulders and kissing him hard.

“Alexander…”

“Hold that thought.”  Hamilton knelt on the mattress behind him and quickly blindfolded him, tying it tight.

Laurens took a sharp breath, then arched back as he suddenly felt Hamilton’s arms slide around him and his hands undo his pants.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Hamilton’s voice was in his ear and he stiffened, reaching back with one hand to grab his thigh.  His heart was already racing and he started to blush, a little embarrassed by his reaction, when Hamilton laughed softly.

“All right, I guess not.”  Hamilton kissed his cheek lightly.  “You said you wanted to hear me.  I thought this might help you concentrate.”

Laurens swallowed hard.  “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton slid his hand into his pants and Laurens leaned his hips towards him.

“Yes.”

“I wasn't correcting your grammar, John.”

Laurens bit back the urge to apologize.

Hamilton was quiet for a moment as if he was thinking, and he rubbed Laurens over his briefs.

“You like hearing me talk.”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Hamilton said, his voice low and the side of his face alongside Laurens’.  “I like touching you when you’re this turned on.  You’re so receptive, John,” he continued, moving his fingers over just his head.  Laurens whimpered slightly and involuntarily and Hamilton kept teasing him.  “I thought you might not like being blindfolded because then you wouldn’t be able to see me as well.  I know that for me, I love looking at you.  Damn, it gets me so hot.  You’re like a walking pinup except better because I can do shit like this to you.”  He ran his tongue up along his neck and Laurens jerked his head to the side to give him better access.  “Do you want to be tied up, too?”  Hamilton asked, moving his hand with him as Laurens tried to press his hips forward and denying him more contact.  Laurens faltered for a moment at that, not sure how to answer and his breath catching.

“John?”

“Ah…”

“Maybe that’s too much,” Hamilton agreed, still teasing his head.  “I’m definitely not thinking about gagging you, at least.  It’s not fair if I have to talk and I can’t get you to respond to me sometimes.”

Laurens moaned softly.  Hamilton kissed the side of his face again.

“Move your pants down more for me.”

Laurens lifted himself off the mattress a little and pulled his pants down to his knees.  “These too?”  He had his thumbs hooked into the elastic of his briefs.

“Leave them.”  Hamilton was grinning again, Laurens could hear it in his voice.

 Hamilton lightly traced his other hand up Laurens’ bare chest, making him arch into the touch, and ran his thumb over his nipple even as he kept playing with his head.  “I’m going to let you take those off eventually,” he said, and Laurens nodded slightly, “but I’m not ready yet.  Once they’re getting properly wet, then they can go.  Until then,” he added, “I’m not going to touch you any further than this.  Do you think I can get you far enough along like this?”

Laurens could feel his cheeks burning.  This wasn’t exactly what he had been thinking of when he told Hamilton that he wanted to hear him talk, and yet his arousal was only growing with every statement or question.  He nodded.

“What was that?  Come on, J., use your words.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”  Hamilton prompted.

“Yes.  I think—that will work.”

“What will work?”

“Alexander,” Laurens said, pleading slightly.

Hamilton pushed on a little harder, moving his hand faster over Laurens’ head, just tracing his fingers around the rim.  “J.  Say it.”

Laurens hesitated.  “I think—you will be able to—get me off like this.”

“That’s above and beyond what I was going for,” Hamilton pointed out, kissing him just off the side of his mouth and moving his hand up from his chest to stroke his face.  “God, J.,” he murmured in his ear.  “I can’t believe how hot you are like this.”

Laurens exhaled, long and deliberate but ending in a sharp hiss, as Hamilton tugged at the fabric of his briefs then rubbed his slit.

“I was so frustrated when you texted me at work.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.  I mean I was so _frustrated_.  Stuck there, boring as sin, and all I could think about was coming back here and throwing myself at you.”

Laurens felt his heart skip a beat.

“After every single motion, I was thinking, ‘Hurry up, let’s be done already, I have more important things to do.’  Quite literally,” he added with a clear grin.

“Mm…  I was—waiting for you.”

“Oh, yeah, I can tell.  I mean, you jacked off, but I knew you were going to, I _wanted_ you to do that.  But I would have felt a little left out if you had done it again while I was still stuck at the office.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you would have had to make it up to me at least.  Tell me about it, for starters.”

“Ha.”

“Maybe you should still do that,” Hamilton said mischievously.

Laurens shifted, uncomfortable.  “Alexander, I don’t…  It was just—normal.  I don’t think I can—”

“Talk about it?”  Hamilton teased.  “John, you are always making me talk to you.  Even now.  That’s not fair at all.”

Laurens whimpered.

“Don’t you agree?”

Laurens nodded.  “Yes.”

“Shit, John,” Hamilton laughed breathily.  “You’re getting soaked.”

Laurens bit back a whine.

“I guess you were right.”  He took away his hand and Laurens gasped and jerked his hips forward.  “Take these off.”

Laurens quickly pulled them down and leaned back against Hamilton who frowned and shifted to adjust to the weight.

“C’mon.”  Hamilton moved back so he was leaning against the wall and tugged at Laurens’ arm so that he followed him.  He pushed on his shoulder lightly, sliding him down between his legs so that Laurens could tip his face into his neck.  Hamilton frowned again, twisting a little to the side so he could still reach.

“Should I send you another video later?”  Hamilton asked, and Laurens jerked and gasped when he felt his hand, slick with lubricant.  “I could do it whenever we don’t have time to get together at night.  I like that idea, I’ll have to do it more at least.  I have to admit that I like the idea of you touching yourself as you watch it.  It reminds me of when you watched me.”

“I liked that.  Watching you,” Laurens managed, then took a sharp breath as Hamilton ran his hand slowly over his shaft.

“We’ll do that again,” Hamilton assured him, then leaned down a little so he could whisper in his ear, just like it had sounded like he was doing earlier that day.  “But next time I’m going to tie you up, J.”

Laurens couldn’t hold back the low moan that escaped his lips and he put his hand back on Hamilton’s leg.  Hamilton was still talking to him, his voice soft and urging.

“Not here—when we’re back at my apartment.  I’m gonna bind your wrists so you can’t touch yourself and then I’m going to come up behind you, just like this, and touch you.  I’m going to wait until you’re just on the verge, like you were that other time, and then ring you, make you wait for it.”

Laurens’ hand tightened its grip on Hamilton’s leg.

“You’ll be pleading for it, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Laurens answered without thinking.

“What was that?”

“Yes,” Laurens repeated, louder.

Hamilton was moving his hand faster, and he ran his other one up through Laurens’ hair fondly.  “Don’t cut all your hair off, J.”

Laurens’ hips were shaking slightly and he sounded a little confused from the topic change.

“I…  Okay?”

Hamilton laughed lightly and tugged on his hair a little.

“You promise?”

Laurens nodded, his throat dry.

“I just love how it feels through my fingers, John.  Your hair is so soft and I know you think it doesn’t look neat enough, but it’s just so sexy when it’s longer.”

Laurens tipped his head back, leaning into the touch with a low pleased noise.  Hamilton kept moving his hand through his hair, then tugged it lightly.  “Sit up a little more, J.  I can’t reach you well.”

Laurens moved back, sitting up taller, and gasping as Hamilton suddenly returned his attention to his cock.

Hamilton was moving his hand quickly over his shaft and gently bit his earlobe.

“Ask me what I’m looking forward to.”

“What—are you looking forward to?”

“Guess.”

Laurens gave a breath of a laugh.  “The next time we’re—at your apartment.”

“No.  Guess again.”

“Alex…”

Hamilton lowered his voice.  “I miss your eyes.”

Laurens felt a rush of heat move through his body and he faintly heard Hamilton over the blood pounding in his ears.

“Did I embarrass you, J.?”

Hamilton’s hand was moving faster, more insistently, and he could tell by the way Laurens was trying to move into it that he was getting close.  He watched as he slid a little down his chest again, tipping his head to the side and breathing heavily, his face and cock flushed.  Hamilton bit his earlobe, then gently turned Laurens’ face to him, kissing him and pushing his tongue into his mouth.

Laurens moved into the kiss, putting one hand behind Hamilton’s head as his heart raced, his conscious thoughts quickly vanishing into just the realization of how close he was as he managed to hold back the wave of pleasure for just a second before he came, breaking the kiss to press his face against Hamilton’s shoulder with a strangled moan.

Hamilton let him stay there, tense and shaking, for a moment, before he nudged his face up and slipped the tie off his face.  “I told you, J.  I want to see your eyes.”

Hamilton tipped Laurens face up and paused.  Laurens eyes were dark, much more so than normal, even as his pupils quickly shrunk in the sudden light, and both heavy with the lust Hamilton had been looking for and desperately, surprisingly, tender.  Hamilton couldn’t hold his gaze for long and looked away, embarrassed.  

“Hey.”  Laurens’ voice was thick with that combination as well and Hamilton felt a jolt run down his back although he wasn't sure if it was fear or excitement.  “Alex.  Alexander.”

“Yeah?”  He made himself look back as Laurens took his hand and sat up properly.

“Did you want a turn?”

“You look dead tired.  Are you actually going to stay awake long enough?”

“I want to get you off.”

Hamilton laughed a little.  “Hey, if you insist…”

Laurens kissed him, long and slow.  “Take your clothes off.”

“All of it?”

“I like looking at you, too.”

Hamilton grinned.  “All right, I won’t argue with that.”  He stripped down and glanced around.  “Did you want me to…?”

Laurens was pouring lube into his hand.  “Stand up.”

Hamilton did and was quickly backed up against the door again.  Before he could comment on how this was where they started off, Laurens’ hand was between his legs and he grabbed Laurens’ arm to steady himself, his legs slipping apart.

“J-John—”

“Yes?”  Laurens’ voice was low, edged with that same aggressiveness that Hamilton had mentioned before.  Hamilton tipped his head back against the door, eyes closed.

Laurens had his hand on Hamilton’s shaft and was moving it quickly.  Hamilton had already been partially hard but now he quickly got fully erect, pressing the wrist of his free hand to his mouth.

“This—door isn’t soundproof,” he said by way of explanation before Laurens could tell him to move it.  “I’m gonna—say your name otherwise—”  His last word quickly turned into a moan as Laurens bit his neck and earlobe, still working his shaft.

“John,” Hamilton gasped, then pressed harder against his mouth, biting the skin.  “S-sorry.”

“Don’t.”  Laurens was moving his hand over his entire shaft, from the base all the way up until Hamilton thought he might slide off of it before coming back down, and he was leaning over him, trapping him against the door.

Hamilton whimpered, leaning hard against the door to brace himself and tipping his hips towards him.  Laurens kissed his neck and jaw, letting Hamilton brush up against his leg for a moment as he leaned in.

“John,” Hamilton said again, making a great effort to keep his voice down.  “J…”

Laurens could feel the rush of adrenaline and desire starting to lose the battle against how tired he was and he pushed himself harder, moving his hand quicker as Hamilton stifled a moan and rocked his hips into his hand.  He brought his other hand down to stroke and tease his balls, causing Hamilton to give a little sharp gasp and jerk forward, his breath speeding up.

“John, I’m gonna—”

“Good,” Laurens said, relieved and cupping him for a moment as he bit his neck.

Hamilton moaned, slipping a little down the door and then leaning forward and bracing himself on Laurens’ arm as he came, gasping out his name.

Laurens kissed Hamilton as soon as he straightened up enough and Hamilton leaned up and into it, sliding his arms over Laurens’ shoulders.

“Nice.”  He was grinning.  “Standing, even.”

Laurens stepped away and pulled him to the bed, practically collapsing onto it.  “Stay,” he said, sounding half asleep already.

Hamilton laughed.  “Did you just fucking sleep-wank me?  You’re incredible.”

Laurens smiled, his eyes closed.

“Roll over.”

Laurens did and Hamilton rescued the covers, pulling them over them.  Laurens turned to lie facing him and put his arms around him, tucking his face down so it was in his hair.  He was asleep before Hamilton could finish getting comfortable or close his eyes.

 

Lafayette came back to the room, cradling his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he unlocked the door, and talking happily in French to Adrienne.

“I was going to ask John if he would like to get dinner with me, since I didn’t have the chance to pick something up before work.  Would you like to come with us?  It’ll just be down to the cafeteria and it might be a little noisy, but we can text.  I know he’d like to see more—”  He turned the light on and stopped talking abruptly.

The sheet from Laurens bed was on the floor and Laurens was still asleep, completely naked and having obviously been put through the wringer.

“ _Oh mon dieu.”_ Lafayette dropped his voice to a whisper and spoke behind his hand.  “Adrienne, I’m sorry, I’ll have to call you back.  John isn’t decent.”

Once he hung up, Lafayette looked down at the sheet with trepidation and then shielded his eyes and grabbed Laurens’ towel from where it was hanging up on his closet and tossed it on top of him.

“Huh?”  Laurens woke, confused and disoriented, and sat up, holding the towel over himself.

“Have a little self-respect, John,” Lafayette scolded, putting his things away.

Laurens blinked slowly, obviously not entirely awake yet, and touched his bare chest and then his hair.  He looked at his desk, left just how it had been before.  “…Where’s Alex?”

“I don’t know.  Probably home.”

Lafayette glanced carefully back at the bed a minute or two after that didn’t get a response, expecting Laurens to be asleep again.  Instead he was sitting right where he had been, the towel still in his lap and staring down at his hands.

“John?  Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”  He sounded awake but subdued.

“Are you okay?”  Lafayette asked, more gently.

“Yeah.”

“What’s the matter?”

Laurens didn’t answer at first.  “He said he would stay.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette nodded slowly, understanding.  “John.  I’m sure he’s planning on coming back.  He must have needed something.”

Laurens glanced back at the desk.  No note appeared.

“John,” Lafayette said again, sympathetically, “do you want to shower?  I’ll call Alex and ask where he is.”

“…Yeah.”  Laurens got up and got dressed as Lafayette turned around to give him privacy.  “You don’t have to call him,” he said as he headed out.  “It’s fine.”

“Obviously not,” Lafayette commented to himself once the door closed.  He put his phone back to his ear and waited impatiently for the call to go through.  “Hello?  Alexander, where the hell are you?”

“—ette.  I’m in the—”

“Hello?”  Lafayette put his hand to his other ear to listen better.  “Alexander?”

“—brary.  I’m trying to—cks.  What’s—”

“Alexander, can you hear me?  I need you to come—”

The line cut.  Lafayette swore colorfully in two languages.

As soon as Laurens came back, Lafayette handed him his metal thermos, only half-full of water.

“I’m going to collect Alex.  Here.”

“Don’t,” Laurens said, putting the bottle down on his bed and sorting through his closet.  “I’m going out.”

“You’re going out?”  Lafayette sounded mildly alarmed.  “Where?”

“Not sure yet.  Not too far.”  He took out clean clothes and a jacket.  “Just going to grab a beer or something.”

“But…”

“I’m not a child,” Laurens said, a little harshly.  “Stop hovering.”

Lafayette relented uneasily, turning away as Laurens changed again.  “Don’t forget your phone.”

“Lafayette.”

“And your keys.”

“Lafayette, stop.”

Laurens finished dressing and left.

Lafayette gave him a minute to get out of the building in privacy and then hurried out.


	58. I Knew Her Before That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beating Some Sense into Him; Out; Apology; Dear Adrienne, Have You Forgiven Me Yet?

Laurens took his phone out of his pocket once he was a few yards away from the building.  The air was cold and the movement felt good, but he was so restless and felt as though everything that had been hanging in fragile balance was threatening to fall.

He dialed.  The phone rang and then was picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”  Laurens paused a moment to check the street before crossing it.  “Andre.  Are you busy?  Can you meet me at the bar?”

There was a brief silence.  “Yeah.  Yeah, sure, Laurens.  I’ll meet you there.”

 

“Alexander.”

Hamilton turned around and got smacked in the face with a—blessedly paperback—book.

“Ow—What the shit, Lafayette!”

“What is the matter with you?”

“Uh, excuse me, that’s my line.”  Hamilton rubbed his cheek, the skin stinging.  “And keep your voice down, we’re in a Goddamn library, for fuck’s sake!”

“What did you do to him?  _Why_ do you keep breaking John?  Don’t you like him?  You’re supposed to be nice to him!”

“Uh…”  Hamilton looked genuinely confused and he shifted the books in his arms.  “Don’t look at me, pretty sure I _was_ nice to him.  Real nice.  Did his father call or something?”

“No.  I’m positive that you were the last one he saw before I came back.”

“Hey, we didn’t touch any of your stuff this time—”

“That’s not the point.  You were supposed to stay and yet here I am tracking you down in the library.”  Lafayette had switched into French and lowered his voice slightly as someone else entered the floor of the stacks they were arguing in.  “You’re a disgrace, Alexander Hamilton.”

“Hey,” Hamilton switched to French as well, interjecting the English words that he didn’t know how to translate.  “Screw you, it’s not like I ditched him.  I blindfolded him, we fooled around, he fell asleep immediately, I went to get some work done.  What was I supposed to do, I figured he wouldn’t get up until tomorrow!”

“If someone asks you to _stay_ ,” Lafayette emphasized, “you stay!  Especially if you get up to that kind of thing first.”  Hamilton raised his hand for a high five but Lafayette ignored him.  “We’ve been over this before, Alexander.  This is worse than the time with the suit.”

Hamilton looked a little guilty and lowered his hand, rubbing at his arm.  “Don’t yell at me.  I really did think he was just going to sleep until the morning and I needed to get some work done.”

“So leave a note next time,” Lafayette said, exasperated.  “Honestly, Alex, common sense.”

Hamilton paused, debating whether or not to tell Lafayette about that expression he had seen on Laurens’ face but decided it would likely end up incriminating him further and he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to say anyway.

“Yeah, okay.  So I’ll come back with you.  Or do you want to stay at my apartment again?”

“John went out.  I don’t know where.”

“What?  You came down here to yell at me and meanwhile you lost him?”

“I didn’t lose him.  I just couldn’t stop him.”

“…Whatever.”  Hamilton held his hand out for the paperback.  “You want me to just check that out with the rest of this?”

“Please.”

 

Laurens was sitting at a booth in a small sports bar just about equidistant from campus and some of the more popular clubs students frequented.  It was a place he and his teammates would sometimes go to celebrate birthdays or more low-key home victories but pushing eight on a Wednesday night it was slow.  He was toying with an empty whiskey glass,  one eye on the door and he raised his hand as Andre walked in, putting his wallet back in his pocket.

“Hey.  What’s up?”  Andre sat across from him, looking at the glass.  “You started without me?  Should I catch up?”

“If you want.”  Laurens motioned for the waitress and bought them a round of lower-range whiskey.  

“How much are you having?  I probably shouldn’t go too hard, I’ve got work in the morning.”

“That’s fine.”  Laurens picked up the drink menu, tapping it on the table instead of reading it.  “Thanks for meeting me.”

“No problem.  So what’s going on?” Andre asked again as they were brought their drinks.  “I get the feeling that you didn’t ask me to meet you just so we could keep complaining about how that gallery had poor label placement on that found art section.  Seriously, it was all bad but that was illegible.”

Laurens took his drink like a shot while Andre took a sip from his own glass.  He put the glass down a little too hard.

“I’m in love.  And I hate it.  Fuck,” he said, not looking at Andre and raising his hand again.  “I’m not drunk enough for this shit.”

“Who…”  Andre began after Laurens handed over his empty glass and was brought a new one.  

“It doesn’t matter.”  Laurens downed half the glass this time and waited a moment to see if it helped.  “I know she doesn’t feel the same way.”

Andre didn’t say anything, then raised his glass and they both finished their drinks.

“Are you sure?”  Andre asked after they put their glasses back on the table.

“About what?”

“How both of you feel.”

Laurens laughed bitterly.  “I wish I wasn’t.  It just keeps getting worse, Andre.  It’s like there’s something wrong with me.  I wish I could turn it off, I don’t know why I let it happen in the first place.  I didn’t think it would—I thought it would be fun.  It’s just… It’s been a long time.  I thought, I thought I could finally enjoy myself a little.  My father isn’t here, I’m graduating in the spring…”

“How long has it been?  Maybe you just need to give her more time.  Take things slow.”

“Close to a year.  Or since this summer.  That’s when we officially started dating.”

“I’m going to order some fries to split.” 

Laurens waved his hand in general agreement.

“How did it happen?”  Andre had to try hard to keep from sounding too curious.

“We were fighting.  I never told her about my ex.  I’m not sure how we ended up dating from there,” Laurens admitted.  “When I came back to make up, she just said we were.”

Andre laughed a little.  “That’s not what I was expecting but I’m not surprised.  You’re so private, I have a hard time imagining you making the first move.  She must have really gotten you.”

Laurens smiled but it wasn’t a happy one.  “Yeah.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She’s a genius,” Laurens said immediately.  “I’ve never met anyone so smart.  And she’s brave.  She moved here by herself, not even knowing anyone in the states, and she’s worked for everything in her life.  Nothing was ever just handed to her, Andre, she had to fight for it all, even as a child.”  The liquor was starting to hit him, quicker than he had anticipated.  “She made her way up from nothing and she deserves so much more than what she has.  She’ll do something incredible one day,” Laurens said, shaking his head a little, smiling fondly down at his empty glass. 

“Is she a student as well?  Is that how you met last year?”

“I knew him before that,” Laurens said, completely oblivious to the slip and how Andre looked quickly at him as the room started to blur a little.  “We were on good terms for a while but I never expected anything.”

The waitress came back with the fries and asked if they wanted anything else.

“Another?”  Laurens asked Andre, handing over his glass.

Andre glanced uncertainly between Laurens and the waitress.  “Could you bring us two beers instead?”

The woman left and Laurens reached for the fries and then frowned.  “Did I eat today?”

“Dude.”  Andre pushed the basket towards him.  “Order some actual food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re also not usually such a lightweight.”

“I had a couple before you showed up.”

“So what happened today?  She must have done something pretty bad.”

Laurens shrugged, eating the fries.  “She came over and we fooled around.  I don’t know, I thought she was going to stay over but she was gone by the time I woke up.”

“She was gone?”

Laurens ran a hand back through his hair.  “I asked her to stay.  And she said she would and then she didn’t.”

Andre nodded.  “Oh, yeah, I get that.”

Laurens had been staring past Andre but now he made surprised eye contact.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah, Peggy—I mean, not to make it about me—But I hate that.  It’s one thing if she was really busy, but it’s just mean.  Or careless.”

Laurens nodded, looking down at the food.  “Careless,” he agreed.  “She didn’t even leave a note.”

“Peggy never leaves a note, either!  What the hell, it’s common courtesy!”

Laurens nodded, surprised and relieved that Andre was on the same page as him.  “It is!  When I have to go somewhere I explain.  I’ve even left food before!”

“Oh, totally, I always try to drop off food.”

Laurens nodded again, sounding more energetic than he had since getting up.  “It’s not like manners should just be tossed aside like that.  And, also—Excuse me, can I get buffalo wings?” He ordered dinner when the waitress brought them their beers and then started talking to Andre again, a little more quietly, once she had left.  “Sometimes I feel like I’m just being used.  Like, you know…”

Andre leaned a little over the table, his voice lower as well.  “Like for sex?”

“Yeah.”

Andre nodded.  “I know what you mean.  Like, not complaining, the sex is great.  It’s not that I want any less of it.  But just the _tone_ sometimes, I kind of feel like just a piece of meat.”

“She basically told me I’m a means to an end.”

Andre winced.  “Ouch.”

“I mean, it’s…  When it’s going well, it’s amazing.  We just get along so well, and I—Sometimes I feel like she really cares about me.  I know she likes me.  But I’m…”

Andre stole a fry.  “Yeah, I hear you.”

“It’s bullshit.”

“Yeah.”

“I shouldn’t be this upset about it.”

“It’s okay.”

“Not really.  I’m overreacting.  I just don’t have anyone to complain to.”

“Hey, you can bitch about your girlfriend to me whenever you want.  I’m always whining, so I can’t judge you.”

“Ha.  Yeah.”  

“It was nice to hang out again.”

“Twice in one day,” Andre agreed.  “We should do that more.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens tried to find a different topic.  “Did you do the writeup you needed to yet?”

“I started it.  I’m not really sure what to say.  I was thinking of focusing on the earlier exhibits.”

“That little corner of European photos by the entryway?  Thank you.”  Laurens took a drink as the waitress brought him his food.

“Yeah, that one.  Something about _fin de siècle_ France, the artist as _flâneur_ , you know.  It’s a little bit of an earlier periodization than I was initially thinking about but it would be fine.”

“The _flâneur_ ,” Laurens repeated, taking another drink and offering Andre his plate.  “It would be nice, wouldn't it?  To go back to turn of the century Paris and watch the world go by.”

Andre nodded.  “When I get my time machine working I’ll take you with me.  We can sit outside one of the cafes and watch all the people on the street.”

“In our twenty-first century clothes?  I think people will be staring at us instead.”

“The city morgue was open to the public,” Andre pointed out.  “People just liked to look at things.  Hey, humor me and come to the Moulin Rouge.  I’ve been curious ever since the movie came out.”

Laurens shrugged.  “All right.  I’ve never seen it.”

“You mean the actual Moulin Rouge or the movie? Because I was joking about the trip but I’m making you watch that if you haven’t seen it.”

Laurens frowned.  “Isn’t it a little…”

“Do you believe in beauty?”

“Yes.”

“Freedom?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Truth and love?”

“Are you just quoting a line at me?”

“Not quite, I messed it up.  Come on,” Andre said, “it’s a love movie, you said you were in love.”

Laurens, no longer as distressed as he was earlier that night, glanced away and took out his phone, seeing that he had several missed messages.

 

> A. Hamilton: Hey, J, where are you?  I’m done with the library.

> A. Hamilton: Do you want to come over?

> A. Hamilton: Not a booty call, I swear.

 

“Who is it?”

Laurens could tell that he was smiling and he wasn’t in control enough to hide it.  “Hm?”

“You guys make up?”

“…Yeah, maybe.  For now.”  Laurens was typing a response and didn’t see how closely Andre was watching him.  “I’m going to go over after this.”

 

When Laurens showed up at Hamilton’s apartment he was surprised to see that he had already changed out of his regular clothes and contacts.

“Were you waiting?”

“Yeah.  Christ, J., you smell like a bar.”

“I had a drink with Andre.”

Hamilton closed the door behind him.  “Did you eat?  I got—well, Lafayette said I should pick up dinner, I didn’t know—anyway, it’s the middle of the freaking night and more importantly because this is New York City and things are always open anyway, I only had eight dollars, I got sandwiches.  You can have them both if you want.”

Laurens saw the plastic bag on the desk.  The bed was made and Hamilton was obviously uncomfortable.  He fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie.  “You want coffee?”

Laurens shook his head.  “I want to actually sleep tonight.  I need to head back to the dorm early to get my things.”

“Oh!”  Hamilton pointed to his bag by the door.  “I picked it all up.  Got your books and computer and gym clothes and regular clothes.  You’re good.”

Laurens looked over, surprised.  “Thank you.”

“You should change.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens didn’t move, so Hamilton took his hand.  

“J.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re staying?”

Laurens smiled slightly.  “Yeah, I am.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton crouched on the floor by his bag and opened it.  “You can sleep in gym shorts, right?  And the shirt.”

“Alex.”

Hamilton looked back over his shoulder.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Oh, right.”  Hamilton relaxed a little and stood up, handing Laurens his clothes.  “Go wash up.  I’m putting the food away if you don’t want it.”

Laurens vanished into the bathroom and Hamilton waited for him to come back out before getting the light.  Laurens pulled back the blankets and sat on the mattress in the dark and could dimly make out Hamilton as he paused by the desk to put his glasses down.

“Lie down, J.”

Laurens did, and the room swayed not uncomfortably.

Hamilton sat on the futon next to him, running his hand across the side of his face and through his hair.  “You wanna know something weird?”

“Hm?”  Laurens closed his eyes, feeling some of the tension leave his body.

“Lafayette’s into pulp fiction now.  He made me check him out some bad sci-fi novel about Jupiter.”

“Ha.”

“I know.”  Hamilton was quiet, playing with his hair.  “I’m sorry I left earlier.  I figured you were gonna sleep.”

“I wasn’t upset that you wanted to go to the library.”  Laurens moved over, putting his head in his lap.  “It was just that you obviously weren’t planning on coming back.”

Hamilton nodded.  “Got it.”

“I don’t want to fight with you about it.”

“I’m not arguing with you, J.”

“But at least leave a note.”

“Yeah, apparently that’s standard.  The more you know.”

“You’re careless sometimes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to fight.” 

Laurens didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Hamilton said again.  “Really.  You’re right, I wasn’t thinking.”  Laurens made a low contented noise as Hamilton kept moving his fingers through his hair.  “I don’t get it,” Hamilton admitted after a minute.  “You seriously went and got drunk just because I cut out?”

“I missed you.”

“…Yeah.  You wanna stay over tomorrow night?  I’m probably going to be stuck at the office late, there’re all kinds of stupid last minute things coming up, but I can give you my keys if you want and meet you back here.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens was starting to drift off and rolled off of Hamilton to lie on his back.  “C’mere.”

Hamilton lay down and kissed him lightly, letting him roll into him.  He put his arm over his shoulder, curling his hand at the base of his neck.

“Night, John.”

 

“It was just ridiculous,” Lafayette said, spreading jam on a slice of bread as he sat at his desk, Adrienne on the laptop in front of him.  “He’s such a smart boy, I can’t believe how stupid he is sometimes.”

“That’s not nice,” Adrienne commented, sitting at a proper table, a proper meal in front of her.  “He’s your friend.”

“I know he is, and John is, and we like John.”

“We do like John,” Adrienne agreed.

“He’s a nice boy.”

“He is.”

“Please don’t text him more than me.”

“Gilbert…”

Lafayette changed the subject back.  “But we like John and that’s why I had to do something about it.  Fortunately it turned out that he hadn’t wandered off to do anything stupid.  We like Andre, too,” he added.

“Of course.  Is there anyone you don’t like?”

“Only a few people, and I don’t truly dislike them like John and Alexander do.”

Adrienne nodded.  “And they are all right now?”

“John and Alex?  Yes, I think so.  I told Alexander what he did wrong and I think he got the message.  I would never just leave someone without any notice.”

There was a sudden tense silence.  Lafayette’s eyes widened when he realized what he had just said but Adrienne just took a sip of her drink and deliberately did not make eye contact.

“…So Alexander told me that John will be going directly back to his apartment tonight,” Lafayette said, a little nervously as he tried to regain the flow of conversation.  “And tomorrow I’ll take him to the salon.  As much as I am enjoying this, I should take the color out.”

“I was thinking of dying mine back,” Adrienne said, still sounding a little distant if perfectly polite.

“I like your natural color,” Lafayette quickly agreed.  “It’s lovely.”

“It was fun,” Adrienne said, nodding and folding her napkin.

“—You’re not going already, are you?”

“I need to get back to work on the costumes.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said suddenly, a little more urgently, “Forget the costumes.  I don’t care about that.”

“Your friends need them.  You told them you would get them.”

“It doesn’t matter, Adrienne.  We were supposed to have lunch for another half hour.”

She hesitated.

“My life.  Please.”

He really was pleading now and she relented.

“All right.”  She spread her napkin back out.

Lafayette smiled, relieved.  “I’ve been talking for too long.  Tell me about how your week has gone.”

“You know,” Adrienne said carefully, “this would be better if you just acknowledged that you left without saying anything.  I’m glad that you are enjoying yourself in America, Gilbert, truly, I’m not just saying that.  I liked meeting your friends and the packages have been very interesting.  I know you miss me, but…”

Lafayette just nodded guiltily.

“I miss you too.  It was so humiliating when I realized that you had left.  People talked about it and I couldn’t just leave it all behind like you did.”

“—Do you still love me?”  Lafayette spoke without thinking.

Adrienne smiled at him gently, taking pity on him.  “You said that you would have the room to yourself tonight?  I wonder if you won’t have privacy Friday or Saturday as well.  Perhaps we should make tentative plans.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said insistently.

“They can be solid enough for tonight.”

“Adrienne, I love you.”  Lafayette was talking rapidly, his words jumbling together.  “I don’t know how to tell you how much I miss you but I’m constantly thinking about you and trying to imagine where you are and what you are doing.  It’s no consolation for not being there with you, but it’s all I can manage and—Adrienne, it’s so pathetic!  You would pity me if you knew all I suffered, but I don’t deserve that, I almost wish you would forget me if it would cause you less harm but I can’t—I’m so selfish, Adrienne,  I can’t bare to think that I might have actually lost you already, you can ask my friends, they know that I’m not just trying to win you over right now.  My dearest life, I’m so afraid—”

“Gil,” Adrienne said, mild alarm in her voice.  “Gilbert.”

“Do you still love me—”

Adrienne wiped at her eyes.  “Of course I do, my Lancelot.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette’s voice was slower and although he still sounded distressed it was for a different reason.  “My dearheart, don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry.  You’re just so far away.”

“I love you, Adrienne.”

“I know.  I love you," she said, less than reassuringly.


	59. Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things Are Better with a Decent Night's Sleep; Desperately Trying to Fix Things, Featuring Angelica; Public Signifiers of Intimacy; *Shared Experiences; Editing

Laurens woke to his alarm and a slight headache, a necessary reminder of what had happened or he would have assumed he was still back at the dorm. Hamilton was next to him, taking his arm off of him as he sat up.

“Mmph. I’m up. Get the damn alarm, J.”

“You can go back to sleep,” Laurens said, silencing his phone and carefully climbing over Hamilton and off the futon.

“I have work to do. Might as well do it now. Thanks.” He took his glasses when Laurens offered them to him.

By the time Laurens came back out of the bathroom the light was on and Hamilton was at his desk.

“You leaving?”

Laurens checked the time on his phone.

“Yeah.”

“Catch.” Hamilton tossed his keys to him and Laurens caught them automatically. “Don’t lose those, I don’t have spares.”

“What’s…?”

“You’re coming back here, right? Don’t you remember?”

Laurens didn’t, but he smiled. “Yes.”

 

Lafayette was waiting for Laurens outside his class when it let out. Laurens glanced down the hall, confused. He wasn’t Hamilton.

“Yes, yes, it’s only me. I need to talk to you.”

Laurens nodded. “All right. What’s going on?”

“Well, first—I didn’t get to speak with you again after you left yesterday. Is everything all right? Was Andre helpful?”

“Yeah.” Laurens paused. “You’re not offended that I called him, are you? We’ve been friends since we were freshmen, and you and Alex—”

“No, not at all,” Lafayette reassured him. “Well, that’s not true. A little. But it’s not your fault and I will survive.”

“Right.”

“John,” Lafayette began again, “John, I’m afraid that Adrienne is going to break up with me.”

Laurens had started walking but he stopped at that. “What?” He turned to face him.

Lafayette was staring at him desperately.

“Are you serious? What happened?”

“We were on our date and I wasn’t thinking, John, I told her that I would never leave and she almost hung up on me right then! Then after I convinced her to stay, she scolded me, John!”

“Well,” Laurens raised his hands and shrugged, “good. You fucked up that one, Lafayette. Alex was right, you could have left a note before you got on the plane. You want to take a minute to appreciate that irony?”

Lafayette’s expression got even sadder and Laurens relented.

“Fine. What happened after she told you off?”

“I panicked. I told her how I felt, or at least what I could manage, and I made her cry.”

“You made her cry? What’s the matter with you?”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“Doesn’t she have lunch with you while she’s at school? She had to face all of her friends and classmates like that.”

“John!”

“If they weren’t already telling her to break it off they will be now.”

“John!”

Laurens sighed. “Look, I don’t think she’s actually going to break up with you. Probably. Do you want me to feel her out?”

Lafayette looked scandalized and Laurens clarified.

“Out, feel her out. Do you want me to talk to her for you?”

Lafayette sounded torn. “No… I want her to talk to me.”

“I’ll just check in,” Laurens assured him.  “Don’t worry, I like you.  I’ll help you. It wouldn’t feel right if you two broke up and I don’t think I could handle you suffering that.”

“You’re a good friend.”

“So are you, and I’m grateful. You’re just a shitty boyfriend sometimes but fortunately I’m not the one dating you.”

“I’m not worse than Alexander.”

“No, but you've been dating the same girl for years and you’re still worse than me. Maybe you’re just getting lazy, Lafayette.”

“What do you mean?”

“Put some effort in, make a gesture. Surprise her.”

“Like buying a suit? Or special flowers… You’re right, John, I have been too distracted with the two of you and your drama. It’s been distracting my attention from _mon coeur_.”

“Right,” Laurens said, then quickly added, “but don’t smother her, Lafayette. She still needs some space, you don’t need to devote all of your attention to winning her back over.”

“It’s all right,” Lafayette assured him. “I won’t abandon you and Alex. I know you’d fall apart without my help.”

Laurens winced but didn’t fight him on it.  “Thanks. I’ll help you find something to send her.”

 

> G. Lafayette: Aisy do tout rhibk or rhum?

> A. Hamilton: the fuck

> G. Lafayette: Sorry, French keyboard. What do you think of this?

 

“Sorry, hold on a sec.” Hamilton leaned back in his seat, breaking off his conversation. The picture came through—a pair of gold-set pearl earrings—and he glanced over at the girl next to him and shrugged, tipping the phone to show her. “Not really my style. You think I should tell him to keep looking?”

“Who are they for?”

“Good question. I knew we were friends for a reason, Angelica,” Hamilton said as he asked Lafayette.

“Friends might be pushing it a little,” Angelica pointed out, amused anyway.

“Friends, classmates, whatever. No, you know what, we share a deep loathing of the figure of authority we’re bound to, we’re friends. Also I’m pretty sure you’re the only one in here who doesn’t open the door every day praying that it’ll be the day I finally lose my voice. He says they’re for his girlfriend,” Hamilton added, the whole thing coming out in one stream of words without a break between the topics.

“Is it her birthday? Their anniversary? An apology?” Angelica asked. “I need more than that to go off of. At least tell me how long they’ve been dating.”

“Since puberty. I don’t know what it’s for, probably just because they’re rich and French and it's a Thursday afternoon.”

“Ask him,” Angelica instructed. “I don’t hate the professor,” she added as Hamilton typed.

“What?” Hamilton looked up, genuinely surprised. “Why not?”

“He’s smart.”

“He’s scum. Come on, Angelica, I thought we had a good thing going here, don’t tell me I need to find someone else to be my class friend.”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Angelica assured him. “Unlike everyone else, I sometimes find your outbursts amusing.”

“Sometimes,” Hamilton muttered, still put out. “He says it’s an apology present.”

“I think they’re lovely, but that’s quite a warm gold. Will it match the rest of her things?”

“Uh.” Hamilton conveyed the question. “I’m not sure.”

“It would be safer to go with something more neutral if neither of you know.”

“He says they’re warmer than most of what she wears but he thinks it will be okay because you can’t see much of it.”

“Hm, a judgement call. Do you trust his taste?"

“Yes,” Hamilton answered truthfully.

“Then tell him I approve of them.”

“All right. He says thank you.”

 

“I could have told you that,” Laurens pointed out, arms folded and slightly bored as he stood behind Lafayette at the jewelry store. “Alex—or, rather, whomever he was asking—was right, that’s a yellow gold and Adrienne wears more champagne.”

“I will never stop being amazed that Alexander didn’t believe me about you,” Lafayette commented as the sales attendant rang up the purchase.

“What was that?”

“Although to be fair, I also thought that Alexander would be a better shopping companion than he is. We all make mistakes.”

“He’s not bad.”

“He’s superficial. You actually pay attention to detail.”

“He’s not superficial. He has a good eye for things. So he’s just not used to shopping for jewelry—”

“John,” Lafayette cut him off, taking the bag from the sales attendant and thanking him. “It’s all right. You don’t need to defend his honor.”

“He was good at the tailors,” Laurens continued to argue as they left the store. “Although I guess his friend does buy him clothes…”

“Speaking of which,” Lafayette said, checking the time on his watch. “Should we pick up shoes for him while we are out?”

“I don’t know. He said not to buy them for him.”

“He told you not to buy them,” Lafayette said. “He said nothing of the sort to me. Come, let’s get something so that the first time he meets your father he won’t be wearing sneakers.”

“He’d probably go for the converses,” Laurens said, following Lafayette down the street. “But I see your point. Besides, if you get them he can always pay you back later.”

“Exactly. I’m just doing him a favor since we all know that he is short on time.”

“Could you just make it clear that they are from you and not me?” Laurens asked. “I’ve got enough going on without having to worry about spooking him again.”

“Of course. You know, it’s not that Alexander doesn’t like displays of affection. He’s very public about some things. Only a few weeks ago he was complaining to me about how you weren’t demonstrative enough.” Lafayette paused to look in a storefront then kept walking. “So what changed?”

“What do you mean?” Laurens asked cautiously, feeling as though he was walking into a trap.

“I cannot believe that he’s changed his mind on that so easily. He thrives on attention. He hasn’t been the least upset when anyone has found out about it. In fact, I think he would be even happier if you two were entirely public.”

“All right. Where are you going with this, Lafayette?”

“Hm, where indeed.” Lafayette spotted the store he wanted across the street and led them to the crosswalk where they stopped to wait for the light to turn. “John, I’m drawing a blank on the word. What’s the opposite of ‘public’?”

“‘Private.’”

“Alex is very comfortable with public signifiers of intimacy—”

“You supposedly forgot ‘private’ but remembered ‘signifier’ and ‘intimacy,’ you’re full of shit.”

“—but he’s not at all at ease confronting the private. Something must have changed there for him to be reacting so poorly. It’s becoming quite the pattern.”

“The only pattern I see is how you keep spouting armchair psychology bullshit after your class.”

“—‘Armchair psychology,’ is that actually the term? I never heard that one before.”

Lafayette was momentarily distracted and he took a small notebook out of his back pocket to copy it down. “But you’re just being stubborn, you know I’m right. Think about it, John. He didn’t tell you about his fears until the hurricane was actually upon us and even then his response was to distract himself. He’s barely mentioned his parents. He brags, of course, but don’t you have the feeling it’s to cover something up?”

Laurens didn’t say anything. He couldn't argue back.

“Alexander wants the external validation but falters when he senses there’s something deeper beneath it. Like I said,” Lafayette concluded as they crossed the street and doubled back to the store, “he is very superficial.”

Laurens was still silent as they came up to the store, speaking only as they entered.

“So…”

“Be patient with him. You might fall faster than he does but I suspect that his will be all-consuming.”

 

“Adrienne.” Lafayette was practically vibrating as he sat, legs folded, on his bed. “Adrienne, I got something for you.”

“Oh?” Adrienne looked up from her work, drawing the needle through the fabric, the red thread cutting across the frame.

“Yes, but I can’t show you. It’s a surprise.”

Adrienne smiled. “If it’s a surprise, why are you telling me?”

“I can’t help it. John came down with me to pick it out.”

“That’s nice,” she said as she went back to her sewing. “John has good taste.”

“I’ll tell him you said that, I think he will like to hear it. I’ll send it out tomorrow,” Lafayette promised.

“There’s no rush, Gilbert.”

“No, there isn’t,” Lafayette agreed. “After all, John won’t be back all night…”

Adrienne laughed a little, still sewing. “That’s true.”

“Adrienne.”

Something in his voice made her blush and look up.

“Adrienne, did you ever see what the others sent me?”

“Louis and de Seguer?” Adrienne put down the needle and thread. “My sister described it all after she found out. But, no, I didn’t see for myself.”

“Would you like to?”

Adrienne hesitated. “Yes.”

“It’s no stranger than what you have,” Lafayette said. “At first I was uncertain as well, but it’s just natural, isn’t it? We have different needs, that’s all it is.”

Adrienne nodded, a little reassured. “That’s true.”

Lafayette got up from the bed and vanished momentarily from view.

“My heart,” he began as he sat back down, holding a bottle and small box. “Are you watching?”

Adrienne laughed and moved the sewing to the side. “Yes, Gil.”

He adjusted the screen and moved away so more of his body was in the frame, then pulled his shirt up over his head. She watched as he unbuttoned his fly and reached inside.

“Adrienne,” he began, letting her name trail off into a soft pleased moan. “I miss you. I think about you all day long.”

“You’re supposed to be thinking about school,” Adrienne said with a smile.

“I can’t help it. Thoughts of you keep coming to me. I hear John or Alex talk about their own problems and it reminds me how lucky I am to have you.”

“You’re a flatterer.”

“I’m a charmer,” he insisted. “There’s a difference—Ah…” He arched a little, stretching his chest and tipping his head back. “Mn.” He bit his lip. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

“I said I would show you what they sent.” He was quickly working himself hard and took himself out, letting her watch. Lafayette opened the lube and the box with one hand, slowing his pace a little as he as distracted with that task, and then slid the thin silicone sheath onto himself with a low exhale. He had been looking away from the screen but he turned back to see if Adrienne was paying attention and his heart quickened when they made eye contact.

“My heart,” Lafayette said, rocking his hips forward into his hand and biting his lip again. He closed his eyes, not needing to look now to know that she was watching, and ran his hand slowly down over his shaft, the textured sheath rubbing against him and almost forcing him to think about how it would feel to be inside her. Images flooded his mind just like they had before but this time they were solely of Adrienne.

“Ah—” Lafayette gasped sharply. “Adrienne… Do you remember—that time we snuck out in the afternoon onto the grounds—”

“I wouldn’t call it sneaking out,” Adrienne said, but her voice was a little breathy.

Lafayette smiled. “But you remember. You had that—short blue skirt on, and your white shirt with the buttons—” He had his head tipped back, intentionally showing her the lines of his jaw and neck, knowing what angle to display himself at. “I remember… I remember what you were wearing, because I can replay that whole—scene in my mind. We were at the bottom of the hill and you were in my lap.”

Adrienne made a little needy sound and Lafayette felt himself automatically jerk in his own hand as if she were beneath him and he was pushing into her. He had to regain the ability to speak before he could continue the story.

“Your legs were so soft, Adrienne. I moved my hands up and then between them and—I could feel you with just a little—piece of cotton separating us.” His voice caught occasionally, breaking up his narrative. “So soft,” he repeated, but meaning something else entirely.

“Gil…”

“I teased you,” Lafayette continued, “with my fingers and you held onto my shoulders and we kissed—” He broke off with a short whimper, feeling a tightness in his chest. “I miss you, my dearheart.”

“Gil,” Adrienne said again, but this time with a note of concern.

He pushed the knot away, moving his hand faster and more insistently. “Oh—and then I felt you get so wet.”

She made a little embarrassed noise of agreement.

“Adrienne—”

“Lancelot,” she said in a whisper. “My Lancelot.”

He gasped, her voice almost as if her hands were on him, and his voice broke. “I—”

“Yes?”

He could tell from the tremor in her voice that she was touching herself, that she had been for some time, and he was distracted by the mental image of her hands, of her delicate fingers pulling aside the fabric of her underwear and rubbing herself until they were wet. How gently and slowly she would enter herself with just one finger, just a centimeter, then she would slide in, soft and warm and slick. Lafayette heard himself moan. She was using two fingers now, touching herself for her own pleasure, not to prepare herself for him, and when she curled them and pressed—

“Lancelot—”

Lafayette hadn’t been expecting to hear her voice, much less to hear her calling out for him and he felt the rush of heat and pleasure threaten to overwhelm him. He leaned forward a little, allowing himself to imagine that he was inside of her, that she really had been waiting for him, that she had moved her hand aside and put it on his back, sticky and hot, and pulled him down against her body and let him push—

Lafayette came, gasping out Adrienne’s name and putting his free hand down heavily on the mattress in front of him.

He could hear her—sharp breaths and a long, aching moan—but his eyes were closed. Lafayette finally regained composure enough to steady his breathing and look up.

Adrienne was still there, watching him, her face pink.

“I love you,” he said breathlessly.

Adrienne smiled and he couldn’t help but smile back automatically.

She looked away a little coyly. “Gilbert?”

“Yes, my heart?”

“Finish your story.”

 

“Hey—wow.” Hamilton stopped dead just inside his apartment, looking around. Instead of the state of relative disaster he had left it in, all the books were neatly put away, the bed was made, and the surfaces cleared. “When I said you could come over before I got back, I meant you could chill, maybe do homework. I didn’t mean you had to clean everything.”

Laurens shrugged. “I didn’t really.”

“Okay, so you didn’t deep clean,” Hamilton said, putting his bag down by his desk. “But still. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Laurens looked away, over at the fridge. “I wasn’t sure if you’d have time to get dinner so I picked something up.”

“Nice. I’m starving.” Hamilton got the takeout boxes out of the fridge. “I should invite you to stay over more often. Is this Greek?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent.” Hamilton sat on the floor and dug through his bag, the boxes still closed and on the ground next to him. “Are you eating too? I’ve got shit to do. Don’t worry,” he added, looking up as Laurens sat across from him. “I’ll still eat, I’m just going to multitask.”

Laurens nodded, his own book in his hand. “That’s fine. I have to read, anyway.”

Hamilton took out his laptop and put it in front of him, tucking his legs under him then unlocking it and opening a document. “Actually, it’s good that you’re here.”

Laurens looked up from his book, swearing at his heart for skipping a beat. “Yeah?”

“You have to do that proposal for graduation, right? For poli-sci. You’re resubmitting, aren’t you? Do you have your laptop? Can I see yours? I want to make sure I got all the boxes checked.”

“Oh, sure.” Laurens got up to fetch him his laptop.

“Thanks.” Hamilton took it from him, the right document open on the screen. He sat back, reading it over and pulling over the carton of dolmades. “Good intro,” he commented, talking with his mouth full. “Punchy. I think you should move the bit that’s basically your resume up earlier, though. You’ve got it almost after your actual statement of intent. Do you mind?” He wiped his fingers off on his jeans and hovered his hand over the touchpad, looking at Laurens and waiting for his approval.

Laurens nodded. “Go ahead.”

Hamilton moved the section and added in a transition sentence, paused, deleted it, wrote a new one. He was quiet for a little longer as Laurens read.

“John?”

“Mm?”

“Second paragraph, first line. ‘Therefore a study of similar movements is crucial to our understanding of this campaign.’ It’s a little…” Hamilton made a so-so gesture with his hand. “Nothing wrong with it, it’s fine. It could stand out more. Actually,” he amended, “that’s your thesis, it should stand out more.”

Laurens nodded again. “I guess so.”

“I’m going to tweak it. Nothing big,” Hamilton promised. “Just emphasize it.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, and the next line—"

“Are you rewriting my proposal?”

Hamilton looked up, guilty. “I’m not.”

“I thought you said you wanted to see it so you could check your own.”

“Yeah, I do,” Hamilton protested. “I’m just reading yours first and it’s always better to have a second set of eyes go over your work. I’ve done a lot of this thing before, that’s all. Now with Washington but before essays and stuff. You ever see my ad? I don’t have time for that kind of thing anymore on a larger scale, but any of your friends ever need someone to look something over, give them my number, I’ve still got my Paypal set up.”

“Alex, it was fine last year. It’ll be fine this year. They don’t even grade this, I just need to pass it around and get it signed off on again.”

“Yeah, and now Jefferson is in the department,” Hamilton argued. “He didn’t get a say last year but he will this time. I don’t want him to be able to say a damn word, John.”

Laurens was quiet at that.

“Look, this is good, really, it—shit,” Hamilton said, gesturing at and then accidentally hitting the screen. “Sorry. Like you said, obviously it’s good enough but we both know he’s going to be looking for a reason to mess with you. You’re going to need to set that bar real high and then make sure not to even brush it when you sail over.”

Laurens looked away, then back at Hamilton.

“What about yours?”

“What about mine?”

“I made nice, Alexander. You called his bluff.”

Hamilton hesitated, quickly weighing his options, then shrugged nonchalantly and slid his laptop over. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Laurens put his book aside and picked it up.

Hamilton glanced up a couple of times in between making notes in the margins or small corrections right in the body of the text.

Laurens was reading his proposal carefully, brow furrowed in concentration. Hamilton was just wondering how to tell him nicely that he didn’t have to change anything if nothing jumped out at him when Laurens clicked on the page and started typing first in one place, then in another, and a third…

“Uh,” Hamilton started, surprised and frankly a little put off by how many points he seemed to think needed fixing. “What’re your suggestions?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Excuse me?” Hamilton couldn’t help but be offended.

Laurens looked at him over the screen. “It’s not bad, Alexander.”

“Yeah, I know it’s not."

“You just need to be clearer.”

“Okay, fine.” Hamilton was trying to take it in stride but it was hard. “Let me see.”

Laurens’ laptop to the side, Hamilton moved over to squat next to him. “What’s not clear enough?”

Laurens turned the laptop for him. “You’re going too quickly. Your reader won’t be able to keep up if you don’t explain your reasoning.”

“It makes sense.”

“To you,” Laurens pointed out. “But, look, Alex—” He moved the cursor over to one portion of the proposal. “You start off talking about the Virgin Islands and suddenly you’ve jumped ahead to humanitarian aid without any explanation for how you got there.”

“I put the date in,” Hamilton argued, quickly getting more defensive. “That’s when the hurricane hit.”

“I know,” Laurens said patiently. “But you need to say that outright, not just allude to it and assume that your audience is as smart as you are.”

“You’re a kiss-ass,” Hamilton muttered, leaning back on his heels. “Fine, I’ll change it.” He intentionally did not use the word “fix.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Laurens said as he continued to read through it.

Hamilton tried not to look like he was sulking.

“You said you wanted to make sure it was air-tight.”

“I know. Don’t rub it in, I know you’re right. Actually,” Hamilton said, considering, “I know I’m right. It was my idea.”

“There you go,” Laurens said, marking another place as needing clarification.

Hamilton, secure enough with this rearranging of the facts in his mind, sat back, crossing his legs and picking up one of the take-out boxes. “You’re a good editor,” he commented after another minute. “You’ve got a good eye and you know how to sugarcoat things a little. Tact,” he added, “that’s what it is.”

Laurens smiled slightly as he put the laptop down. “Everyone already knows that you're smart. You don't need to be so showy in this.”

“Yeah, okay.” Hamilton took his laptop back. “Thanks, John.” He settled in to make the corrections as Laurens picked up his book again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I got asked this before, I did make a tumblr (because-cur-non). I'm very bad with the social media but it'll be used for authors notes and things like that. Carry on with your days!


	60. Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Planning a Makeover; *Haircut

Lafayette woke at about seven that Friday to the luxury of a room all to his own and planned as such in advance.  He stretched out on his bed, smiling to himself, and rolled over to where his laptop, plugged in so as to not die during the night, was still open to his vidchat with with Adrienne.

“Good morning,” he said happily, brushing his hair out of his face and propping himself up on one arm.

Adrienne, in her bedroom, looked up from her sewing and smiled back.  “Good morning, Gilbert.”

“I’m glad our schedules lined up so conveniently,” he said.  “And this is just so relaxing, Adrienne.  Maybe next year when John has graduated I’ll ask to move into a single.”

“Won’t you be lonely?”

“Maybe.  You’ll have to come visit me.”

“Gil…”

“Just for a little while,” Lafayette said, trying to make the prospect sound non-threatening.  “Washington would love to meet you as well.  He told me himself.”

“You’re talking me up to him.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You could.”

“All right, I don't want to.”  Lafayette yawned, covering it with his hand.  “Excuse me.  I should get up, but I don't want to leave you.  I missed sleeping with you.”

Adrienne smiled softly.  “It will be nice when you’re back here and we can do that properly.”

He put his hand out as if he was reaching for hers, but just laid it on the keyboard.  “I wish I could wake up like this with you every morning.”

“I don’t think John would like it if you kept the camera on all night.”

“No,” Lafayette agreed, “he wouldn’t.”

But if he won’t be here for a few days…”

“He might be coming back tonight.  I’m not sure.  Adrienne,” Lafayette said, finally sitting up and tipping the screen so she could still see him.  “Help me make John so sexy that he won’t be allowed to come back here.”

Adrienne laughed.

“I’m serious,” Lafayette insisted.  “The dinner is tomorrow, so he’ll be so restless anyway if he’s here.  He won’t get any work done and he won’t be good company.  He’s not very explorative with his appearance, but we both have good taste so I’m sure that between the two of us we’ll be able to come up with something that will work.” 

“Hm…”  Adrienne leaned forward, typing something into her computer.  “Go get ready for the day,” she instructed.  “I’ll see what I can find.”

 

“Yeah, you’re frightening me a little,” Hamilton said, phone trapped between his ear and his shoulder.  “Lafayette’s a good judge, they’re professionals, I’m sure it looks fine.  Just come up,” he continued, buzzing Laurens in.  “I’ve got a pair of scissors somewhere, help me find them and we can make it a little less trendy.  I promise not to do the bowl over your head trick.”

“That’s really not reassuring.”

Hamilton laughed.  “You forget that I _want_ you to look good.  Hang on, I hear you, I’ll get the door.”  He hung up and tossed his phone back onto the futon, then let him in.  “Hey, J.—”

Laurens did, in all fairness, look a little fresh from the salon in that everything was almost _too_ neat and crisp, but that was hardly a bad thing.  His hair, which had been about two months past due for getting cropped back like he normally wore it was instead shaved and cut into a classic fade, very close on the sides and back and transitioning in a smooth gradient up to where it was long and held out of his face on the top.

“Well?”  Laurens asked awkwardly.

Hamilton stared.  “I feel bad for you, J., that’s a long gauntlet to run from the hairdresser’s to my apartment, you must have had to fend people off with a fucking stick.”

“I take it that you think it looks good?”

“You had me thinking they ruined it!”  Hamilton was still staring and he took a few steps to the side to see it from a different angle.  “God damn, John.  Did they put product in that?  Is it still soft?  Can I wreck it a little?”

Laurens laughed, relieved, and Hamilton put his hand on his arm, stepping in close.

“You don’t have any plans for tonight, do you…?”

Laurens grinned and shook his head.  Hamilton ran his hand up along the side of his face, feeling the short, almost sharp shave and how it grew out smoothly to longer hair that slid between his fingers.

“‘Cause I want to do all _kinds_ of things to you.  You’re a fucking Adonis, J.”

“You’re eager.”

“Hey, we didn’t have sex at _all_ yesterday.  I’d say that’s a damn tragedy but then I had no idea you could even _get_ hotter.”  Hamilton had his hand to his own mouth and was toying with his lip, still staring.  “Take off your shirt.  I’m turning both our phones off because if Lafayette ruins this for me I’m going to fucking fight him.”

Laurens took off his jacket and undid his shirt.  “You know, I’m almost offended by how—”  He started when Hamilton slipped his hand into his pocket to get out his phone.

“I can’t help myself,” Hamilton said, almost in a purr as he took his hand out a little too slowly.  “You know I can’t shut up normally, how do you expect me to be quiet when you knock on my door looking like—Shit, John, my heart’s already racing.”

Laurens felt his own pulse quicken at that admission and he dropped his shirt to the floor.  He put his hand under Hamilton’s chin and turned his face to his, kissing him.  Laurens had just slid his tongue into Hamilton’s mouth when Hamilton grabbed his cock and he let out a startled noise, not stopping Hamilton when he moved his face away.  Hamilton was grinning, pleased—excited, Laurens thought, almost impatient—, and moved his hand back and forth, rubbing him over his pants.

“Mm…”  Laurens couldn’t help the low needy moan and he put his hand hard on Hamilton’s shoulder.

“Get on the bed, J.”  Hamilton kissed him again, lighter and more playful this time, and stepped back, taking off his own shirt and putting both their phones on his desk. 

“Do you want me to…?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, going into the bathroom.  “Take those off, too.”

Laurens stripped the rest of the way and turned around as Hamilton came back out, lube and a condom and, confusingly, two neckties in his hand.  

“I had them hanging over the curtain rod to dry,” Hamilton said, as if that explained everything.  “They’re actually silk, I can’t just stick them in the industrial drier with the rest of my things.”

Laurens nodded.  Hamilton tossed it all onto the bed and leaned up, his hands on either side of Laurens’ face again and kissing him deeply.  Laurens put his hands on his waist and pulled him to him, pressing Hamilton’s hips against him and feeling him jerk just a little at the contact.

Hamilton started to move one of his hands up into his hair again and let out a low contented breath.  Laurens pulled him a little closer, sucking lightly on his tongue and teasing it with his own, his heart picking up as Hamilton entwined his hand in his hair.

“John,” Hamilton said, tugging him down onto the mattress.  “John.”

“Yes?”

Hamilton’s grin broadened at that.  “‘Yes’?”

Laurens, not catching the reference, just gave him a confused look.

“Never mind.  Hey,” Hamilton continued, kissing him again, running his hand all the way through his hair.  “I want to make up the other time to you.  I can do a better job.”

“What are you—”  Laurens had closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of Hamilton’s hand through his hair, and he cut himself off abruptly as he felt the silk of one of the ties pressing against his arm.  Hamilton had a hold of them again and had grabbed him with that same hand as he kissed him.  Laurens felt a rush of heat throughout his body.

“I said I’d like to tie you up,” Hamilton reminded him after another minute, sounding a little breathless as he broke the kiss.  “Are you still interested?”

“Ha.”  Laurens sat up slightly, running a hand back over his hair and very aware of how his cock was fully erect and just off of Hamilton’s leg.  “Yeah, sure.  Go ahead.”

Hamilton sat up and kissed him again, hard, one hand behind his head.  Laurens’ eyes closed and he leaned into it, then Hamilton moved away and quickly blindfolded him with one of the ties, taking a moment to make sure it wouldn't slip off.  Laurens was still feeling that first thrill of excitement when Hamilton lightly bit his lip and he tightened his hand in the sheets with a moan.

“I like that you’re open to trying new things,” Hamilton said, leaning away.

Laurens could picture the pleased look on his face and he half-laughed.  “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Hamilton corrected him with an obvious grin.

Laurens reddened slightly.  “Alexander.”

“You were so worried about your grammar last time,” Hamilton teased, running his hands down Laurens’ neck and chest, moving them down his arms to take his wrists.  “Tell me if I’m hurting you, J.”  

Laurens felt rather than saw Hamilton move around him and then he pulled his arms behind his back.  He tensed and Hamilton tied his wrists tightly together, then leaned in, sliding one hand over his back and shoulder and his other over his chest.  His mouth was just off of his ear when he spoke, and Laurens could feel his breath on his skin.

“How is that?”

Laurens nodded, knowing that he needed a moment before he would be able to speak without his voice catching.

“J.?”  Hamilton nipped at his earlobe.

Laurens swallowed hard, a slight tremor to his voice anyway when he answered.  “Yes.  That’s good.”

“Good.”  Hamilton moved his hand from his chest up over his neck and the side of his face, sliding it through his hair again.  “You kept it long on top,” he said, toying with it.

Laurens nodded, a rush like a current of electricity spreading through him from Hamilton’s hand down to his groin.  “Yes.”

“You remembered that I like it like that.”

Laurens nodded again.  “Yes—”  

Hamilton turned his head to face him, gently pulling on his hair to do so, and then tipped his head back, kissing and biting his neck.  Laurens arched, trying without thinking to grab Hamilton and finding himself unable to.  Hamilton still had his hand in his hair and was controlling him that way, keeping him at the angle he wanted.  Laurens made a frustrated noise.

“What did they put in it?”  Hamilton’s hand was greasy from playing with it.  “It’s not gel, is it?”

“Pomade.  They, ah—”  Laurens gasped as Hamilton put his other hand on him without warning.  “They said it would—hold the look better.”

“I see.”  Hamilton was teasing his head and Laurens arched sharply, trying to move into the touch but unable to.  “I hope they sold you some as well.” 

Laurens nodded.

“Good.”  Hamilton kissed his jaw lightly.  “Then I don’t feel so bad about this.”  He tugged on his hair again, aware that normally Laurens would tell him off for it but right now his only response was a pleading whimper.

“God, John,” Hamilton said, his voice breathy and eager.  “I can’t believe you’re real.”

“What?”

“I just…”  

Laurens felt Hamilton move away a little, his grip on his hair weaken.  Without being able to see him he couldn’t put an expression to the voice, but he sounded more unsure than he had a moment before.

“…You know, you were right?”  Hamilton said after a second, now sounding distinctly like he was having a very different kind of conversation with him than he had been.  “About my proposal.  I was being, well, an arrogant jackass, but you were right and I did need to fix things and I hadn’t noticed, but—”

“Alexander?”  Laurens frowned.  He couldn’t see him or reach out to him and this was strange.

“—You had a good point.  Points, plural.  I was looking it over again today and it’s much better now that I fixed the places you marked out, and I didn’t really thank you for that, and I should have.  I’m not used to having someone edit my stuff, usually it’s the other way around.  You’re smart, those were good comments.  Sorry.  I’m getting distracted.”  Laurens could tell Hamilton was shaking his head, refocusing himself.  “It’s just, sometimes— _damn_ , J.”

Laurens felt his heart skip at the intensity in his voice.  He could feel the weight of Hamilton’s gaze and couldn’t help but feel a little giddy spark.  He had sounded more awed or even tender than hungry.

“But that’s another story.”  Hamilton had taken his hand off of his cock while he was talking and he put it back now, stroking his entire length and pulling his face to his so he could kiss him.  Hamilton pressed forward, moving to straddle his lap, and Laurens moaned into his mouth as he rubbed up against him.

Hamilton switched hands, draping his arm over his shoulder and still kissing him.  He leaned forward, letting the tip of Laurens’ cock rub up against the top of his pants and his bare torso, his hand sliding a little more easily over him after having been coated thinly from the pomade.  Hamilton stroked him more aggressively, sucking on Laurens’ tongue when he pushed it into his mouth.  He moved slowly on and off of it as if teasing him with what he planned to do later.

“Mm—”  Laurens’ voice was shaking when Hamilton ended the kiss, and he leaned forward automatically to continue it.  “Alexander…”

“I like the way you say my name,” Hamilton said, the clear grin back in his voice.  “‘Alex-ander.’  With that break in it, right there, as if the whole thing is too long for you to get out properly.”  Hamilton watched as Laurens’ cheeks turned a little redder.  “Say it again,” he prompted.  “Alexander.”

“Alex…”

“Close,” Hamilton said, kissing just the side of his mouth.  He dropped his voice to a whisper.  “Please, J.”

Laurens breathed out hard, desperate.  “Alexander,” he said, a waver in his voice.  “Alex—  Alexander…”

Hamilton was moving his hand over him more quickly and he ducked his head to run his tongue down his neck and over his collarbone.  Laurens arched into it, pulling his shoulders back and tipping his head up.

Hamilton made a low pleased noise against his skin, slowing his hand as he backed up so he could trail his tongue over his chest and abs.  Laurens’ breath caught with a hitch as Hamilton, now kneeling on the ground in front of him, flicked his tongue just over his inner thigh.

“Alexander—” 

“Yes, just like that,” Hamilton encouraged him, kissing the spot and taking his hand off of his cock and moving it to rest high on his leg.

Hamilton looked up at Laurens, all tight muscle and desperation.  The blindfold was still securely in place and his head was tipped back, lips parted and face flushed.  His hair was still, in spite of Hamilton’s toying with and pulling on it, more or less in place.  It was disheveled and falling a little into his face but that only served to emphasize, somehow, his chiseled jaw and strong nose—or maybe it just underscored the needy whine that slipped out past his lips after every few breaths.  He was arched against his restraints, the muscles in his arms flexed against the ties.  Hamilton felt himself pressing uncomfortably against his pants.

“Again,” Hamilton said, still watching and his own voice a little hoarse.

“Alexander,” Laurens said immediately.  “Alex—ander…”

Hamilton took Laurens’ cock into his mouth and Laurens groaned and jerked like he wanted to bring his arms forward and put his hands on him, hold him down.  

Fortunately he couldn’t.  Hamilton quickly pulled off of him, almost gagging at the unexpected bitter taste of the pomade.  Laurens didn’t notice his discomfort and gasped out his name again.

Hamilton made a face, swallowing and trying to get the taste out of his mouth.  He licked the back of his own hand.

Laurens, unable to see any of this and not knowing why he had stopped made an impatient noise.

“Sorry.”  Hamilton couldn’t get up to get a drink and he tried to not let any hint of his distaste appear in his voice.  “John.”

“Yes—?”

Hamilton had his hand back on his cock, stroking it, and he brought his other one down, trailing it over his sac and then pressing behind it.  Laurens moaned and let his legs spread a little.  When Hamilton looked up again he could see that he was biting his lip.

“I’m gonna untie you for a second.”  Hamilton grinned when he saw the confused look pass over Laurens’ face.  “Just for a second.  I changed my mind about something.  Is that okay?”

Laurens nodded.  “Yes.”

“Good.”  Hamilton got up and knelt behind him.  “Turn this way,” he said, nudging and moving with him, his hands on his upper arms.  “Good.”  He kissed just below his ear, causing Laurens to tip his head towards him.

Hamilton undid the tie with one hand, undoing his fly with the other, and was completely caught off guard when Laurens twisted free as soon as the knot was loosened enough, pulling the blindfold off and pushing him down, pinning him securely against the mattress.

“John!”  Hamilton yelped, eyes wide then fluttering closed when Laurens grabbed one wrist tightly and yanked his arm up above his head as he kissed him, his other hand roughly turning his face up.  Hamilton moaned into the kiss without meaning to, making a fist with his free hand against Laurens’ chest.  His heart was racing and all his previous plans were forgotten as he felt how much more effectively he was restrained than he had thought that Laurens had been.  Hamilton recognized in a flash that Laurens had been letting him hold him back before, that if he had really wanted to he could have broken free earlier, that he had been voluntarily submitting even more than he had thought.  Hamilton was lightheaded and a little overwhelmed at the realization and didn’t react when Laurens took his other hand and moved it up over his head as well, tying them together.

“Arch,” Laurens commanded.  Hamilton did so immediately and Laurens finished undressing him.

“Should I blindfold you as well?”  Laurens asked, more to himself than to Hamilton.  Hamilton saw the way he was looking at him, recognized it as the expression he himself often wore, and was embarrassed by it.  “I’m not sure which I’d like more.  I feel like I should show you what it’s like,” he continued, “but I also don’t know that I want to keep you from seeing what I’m doing to you.”

Hamilton opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t know what it was and just closed it again.  Laurens saw and laughed.

“I’ll leave it off.  This time, at least.”

Hamilton just nodded, his mouth dry.

Laurens reached down, leaning on Hamilton’s arms so that he couldn’t move them, and stroked him lightly, running his hand over his shaft, flicking his thumb over his head and slit, and then repeating it.  Hamilton moaned loudly, arching off the mattress, his eyes closed again.

Laurens kissed the side of his face and then his mouth, biting and sucking his tongue when Hamilton kissed him back, and, after a pause, continuing to work his cock, now slick with precum and lubricant.

Hamilton, startled, jerked into Laurens’ hand as Laurens dropped the bottle off side of the futon.  “Ah—J.—!”

“Should I make you say my name, too?”  Laurens asked with a grin.  “You were so insistent… Alex-ander.”

Hamilton blushed and tried for a moment to pull his arms free, wanting to put his hand to his face.  Laurens didn’t let him move.

“John,” Hamilton managed, and Laurens cut him off before he could say anything more.

“That’s it.”

Hamilton turned redder, embarrassed that he had walked right into that and about how flustered it was getting him.

“Should I tell you how hot I find you as well?”  Laurens kissed just where his jaw met his neck and nipped at his shoulder.  “You’re so quiet suddenly, Alexander.”  Hamilton shivered at his name.  “You were so talkative just a minute ago.  What’s the matter?”  Laurens slid his hand down further to cup his balls.  Hamilton gasped and jerked his hips again.

“I know what I’m going to do,” Laurens said.  He let go of his sac and put his hand on his hip, leaning his weight onto the mattress instead of Hamilton’s arms and flipping him over, pushing him roughly to his knees.  Hamilton felt them threaten to buckle.  Laurens had his arm across his upper back, keeping him in place and preventing him from rising up and forcing him to keep his weight on his arms so that he couldn’t use his hands.  He moved his other hand over Hamilton’s shaft for a few strokes, then took it off, making a loose fist on the mattress.

“You wanted to fuck, right?”

Laurens’ voice was low and Hamilton whined.

“Right?”

“Y-yes.”  Hamilton spread his legs a little as he adjusted his stance, waiting.

Laurens laughed, dark and hungry.  “Oh, no, you were the one who wanted to, Alexander.  You’re still going to do it.”

“John,” Hamilton said, a clear note of confusion in his voice.

“You’re not blindfolded, Alexander,” Laurens continued, making sure to draw out his name every time.  “Fuck my hand.”

“—What?”  Hamilton was startled into opening his eyes and he looked down, seeing Laurens’ fist for the first time.

“Go ahead,” Laurens said, leaning up and kissing his back just below where he had his arm.  “I’m letting you.  Isn’t that what you wanted?  You got a condom, you were going to move my hands…”  Laurens leaned his weight on Hamilton a little more, pushing him down into a modified plank.  Hamilton’s cock pressed against Laurens’ hand and he groaned as he tipped his hips forward and slid into the tight fit.  He could feel Laurens hard and hot against the back of his thighs and he moved his hips back and then forward, experimentally thrusting into his fist and finding that even though he couldn’t push fully into it, it sent a rush of pleasure through his body.

“God, J.,” Hamilton gasped, moving faster, the sensation heightened by Laurens’ weight on him, keeping him in place, and his erection pressing against him.

Hamilton let his eyes close again, losing himself in the feeling and the competing sets of stimuli.  He couldn’t stop himself from moaning loudly or thrusting harder, pushing up against the mattress.  He twisted the sheet with his hands, forced to keep them up over his head, and felt Laurens move forward, his cock rubbing over his body.

Hamilton jerked, his orgasm suddenly threatening to overtake him.  “John—”  He pleaded, shaking from the strain of holding the position, especially with Laurens leaning on him, and from trying to keep control.  “John, I’m going to— Please, I don’t want—”

Laurens quickly moved his hand away and took his weight off of him, causing Hamilton to gasp and slide forward, pressing his forehead against the mattress.

“J…”  Hamilton said in a needy whine that turned into a moan as Laurens put both his hands on him again.  He was holding his shaft tightly at the base, applying an uncomfortable pressure that kept him from falling over the edge as he pushed a finger into him with his other hand.  

“Ah—!”  Hamilton bit his lip to keep from shouting Laurens’ name.

“If you’re done for now, is it my turn?”  

Hamilton shivered, whining slightly at Laurens’ voice and how clearly he wanted him, how the words were heavy with desire.  “Yes.”

“Yes?”  Laurens repeated, slowly adding a second finger.  Hamilton made a very undignified desperate noise and nodded.  Laurens moved them in further and kissed Hamilton’s back.  Hamilton felt his mouth like a burst of electricity and he sucked in a sharp breath.  “You have to tell me, Alexander,” he said, and Hamilton cursed at how he had told him how much he liked his name said like that, drawn out slow and with a slight hitch after the first syllable. 

“Yes,” Hamilton said again with effort.  “I want you to—fuck me.” He gasped loudly when Laurens spread his fingers, clearly preparing him.

“Can you hold on?”

Hamilton bit his lip, eyes tightly closed, and gave another short nod.

“I don’t think you can.”  Laurens took his hand off his shaft, keeping otherwise still.

Hamilton heard the amusement, not quite wry, in Laurens’ voice, and then his hair, already starting to fall from its tie, slid over his shoulders and into his face.  He shifted his weight to one arm so he could brush it aside with his other hand and then suddenly cried out in surprise and dropped back down.

“J.!”

Hamilton realized instantly that Laurens had taken a play from his book and stolen his hair tie to ring him.  

“What’s the matter?  Is that too tight?”  Laurens was grinning, Hamilton knew it, as he moved his hand over his shaft to test the efficiency.  Hamilton bucked his hips but felt no release and he buried his face in the sheets.

“That’s not a bad angle,” Laurens commented, running his hand over Hamilton’s ass and rubbing a finger between his cheeks.  Hamilton’s hips jerked again and Laurens heard him make some kind of muffled comment.

“What was that?”

Hamilton turned his head to the side.  “You’re an ass.”

Laurens laughed but quickly managed to stop.  “You’re cute.”

The typically feminine compliment and the way Laurens said it without bite or even really sounding like he was teasing made Hamilton blush and he hid his face in his arms again.  “It’s fine.  H-hurry the fuck up.”

“So impatient.”

Laurens pushed into him slowly, his hands at his hips.  

Hamilton, for all that he didn't want to give him the satisfaction after that, groaned loudly, the noise clearly audible even with his face ducked down.

“Alex,” Laurens breathed, stopping once he was fully inside.  “God, Alexander…”

He started moving again then, not pulling out more than halfway but staying deep within him and pressing up against him so that Hamilton was quickly moaning out his name and praise and curses.

“Fuck, J.—”

Laurens resisted the urge to go faster or harder, instead sticking to his pace and moving one of his hands to Hamilton’s shaft.  When he first wrapped his hand around it Hamilton gasped and pushed into it, then when he began to stroke it Hamilton’s voice grew louder, until he was practically shouting.

“John—John, yes, please—”

Laurens kept going, continuing until Hamilton was pleading him, his voice breaking.

“John, I— _Please_ , J.—!”

Hamilton’s desperation sent a thrill through Laurens but he didn't free him yet, instead moving faster, allowing himself to enjoy his building orgasm.

By the time it ripped through him a minute later Hamilton was incoherent, the sheets ripped off the mattress and held tightly in front of his face, his loose hair sticking to his back and neck.  Laurens gasped out his name as he came and, hand shaking as the long wave of pleasure trailed away, managed to pull off the tie keeping Hamilton hostage.

Hamilton came immediately, shooting with force onto his own chest with a cry.

Laurens slid out of him and rolled onto the mattress, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him to his chest.  Hamilton let him, shaking, and grabbed his arm with one hand, ducking his face down.

Laurens kissed the top of his head, then tried to nudge it up.  Hamilton jerked his face away.

“Hey.”  Laurens’ voice was thick.  “C’mon, Alex.”  He put his hand on his cheek to tip his face to his own and brushed his thumb over wet skin.  “…Alexander?”

“ _Shit_ ,” Hamilton muttered, pushing away from Laurens and rubbing his hand over his eyes.

“Alexander?”  Laurens’ voice was clearer now and he was looking at him with alarm and concern.  “God, I’m so sorry, I didn't mean to—”

“You didn’t hurt me, you—”  Hamilton cut himself off, his voice shaking as badly as his hand was as he passed it over his face again.  “Shit,” he repeated, as he had to wipe his eyes once more.  “Don’t say a fucking word,” he threatened.

Laurens leaned down and kissed him slowly, quieting him.

Hamilton, grateful, slipped his arms around his neck, kissing him back.

After a minute Laurens pulled away and brushed Hamilton’s hair out of his face, taking the opportunity to look at him.  He was relieved to see that he didn’t look distressed, although his eyes were slightly red and he could faintly see where salt had been left behind on his cheeks.

“What?”  Hamilton asked, a little suspicious, a little unsure.

“I have to get up.”  Laurens kissed his forehead and sat up, carefully taking the condom off.  “Give me your contacts and I’ll throw them away, too.”

“Oh.  Right.”  Hamilton sat and took them out, dropping them into Laurens’ outstretched hand.  He was still sitting there, looking a little disoriented, when Laurens came back out of the bathroom with a damp paper towel.

“Hold on.”  He wiped off his chest and abs.

“I can get that myself, you know.”

Laurens just shrugged and went back into the bathroom to toss it out.

Hamilton lay down, feeling drained.

Laurens settled himself in next to him, straightening and pulling the blanket and sheets over them.  He put his arms back around him.  Hamilton curled into him, his arms across his shoulders again and his eyes closed, face against his chest.

“So you like my hair,” Laurens said after a moment.

“I like you,” Hamilton clarified.

Laurens smiled.

“Mm.  That’s what I was trying to say before,” Hamilton continued, making the effort to stay awake and coherent.  Somehow it was harder than usual.  “I’m not trying t’ just use you for sex, J.  I’m sorry if I offended you.  Didn’t mean to.  Not an excuse.”  He yawned, tightening his grip a little.  “But I didn’t mean to.  You’re just so… I can’t help myself sometimes.  I mean, shit, you’re hot, smart, you’ve got integrity and this drive…”  He trailed off for a moment then then came back to it.  “I wasn’t kidding, by the way.  About your proposal.  It was good, you’re good.  You don’t need me, I just want to make you untouchable, J., you’re gonna fix this entire broken world one day.”

Laurens had gone still as Hamilton talked and he waited until he had clearly fallen asleep, his breathing slow, before he gently kissed the top of his head.

“You have a lot of faith in me, Alexander.”


	61. Sympathy for the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trustee Dinner

The trustee dinner was a bit of a misnomer, it was really more of a buffet and cocktail party and the guest list had never been strictly limited to trustees and their plus ones, even before Lafayette had begged for friends to attend.  Hamilton had spotted a few other familiar student faces—mostly people Laurens knew and who had their own important family connections to get them squeezed on the list in one role or another.  Hamilton had felt slightly disappointed when he had noticed them as he sent out the invitations.  It had sounded more special when he had been under the impression that he was the only student invited, not, as he now realized, that he was the only student invited who wasn’t heir to some valuable legacy.  He ran a finger along the edge of his stiff white collar, trying to ignore how he felt like he was wearing a costume rather than a suit.

Laurens and Hamilton had arrived with Lafayette, who seemed to somehow know and be on good terms with half the room already.  He moved about, occasionally showing up next to the other two again to introduce them to someone.  Hamilton had to admit that he was good person to know because he did half the work of mingling for you, working the parts of the room that Hamilton was unable to attend to while he was (only slightly aggressively) presenting himself to people.

“John,” Hamilton said, tapping Laurens on the shoulder in a lull in the conversation and motioning for him to turn.  

Laurens excused himself to the person he was speaking with and turned around.  Hamilton saw the way he was holding himself stiffen automatically and he knew that he was correct, that the man walking towards them—looking stunningly like Laurens if Laurens was fully white and going gray—was his father.

Laurens stepped towards him, holding out his hand.  “Good evening, sir.”

Hamilton couldn’t stop the brief glance at Laurens even though he didn’t comment on it.  Sir?  Really?

“Evening, Jack.”  Henry Laurens shook his hand cordially.  “Did you get your hair cut?”

Hamilton watched as Laurens froze for a second before drawing his hand back.  “Yes, sir.”

“It looks good.”

Laurens relaxed visibly.  “Thank you, sir.  I just had it done.  Have you met Alexander Hamilton?”  He motioned and Hamilton stepped forward, hand extended.  

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Laurens.  I’m Dr. Washington’s secretary.”  Hamilton had changed tones automatically to be a little less abrasive, a little more professional.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alexander.”

“—Oh!”  They were interrupted by Lafayette, his hair no longer silver but back to black and neatly pulled away from his face, who had just reappeared with a somberly dressed older woman.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you arrive.  Alexander, this is Mr. Laurens.”

Laurens and Hamilton both stared at Lafayette incredulously. 

“Yes,” Laurens finally said, “I just introduced them.”

“Lafayette,” Henry Laurens said, familiarly shaking his hand, “It’s good to see you again.  Am I correct in understanding that you are one of the friends my son has invited to visit over Thanksgiving?”

“Yes, I am.  Thank you again for having us.”

“Not at all.  I would have invited you myself if he hadn’t.  You would have been welcome last year, you know, if you weren’t already dining with the Washingtons.”

“You’re too kind,” Lafayette said, and then added with an apologetic look at the other two, “Alexander is the other one who will be coming.  He is Washington’s personal secretary.”

“Yes, he mentioned that.”

Lafayette mouthed “Sorry” to Hamilton then quickly turned back to the woman he had brought over.  “Ah, _excusez-moi_ , this is Mrs. Abigail Adams.”  Hamilton stiffed a little at the last name.  “She is a professor emerita from this institution.”

“Dr. Abigail Adams,” she corrected him.  “My husband and I met Lafayette through some friends while we were traveling in France,” she explained.  “We had a pleasant lunch with, forgive me, I’m forgetting her name.  That girl you were with when we dropped by—quite plain.”

“…Adrienne?”  Lafayette filled in, for the first time that night a little unsure.

“Yes, her.”  Adams touched his arm briefly in thanks.  “Not at all like the other girls we had to suffer through in France.  Give her my regards.”

“I will,” Lafayette assured her with a bright smile that Hamilton noticed was suddenly faked.  

“And Alexander,” she turned to him.  “You are the Alexander Hamilton who is working as Washington’s assistant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You of course remember my husband, then.”

“Yes, ma’am.  I’m sorry that he couldn’t make it tonight,” Hamilton lied. 

“I’ll let him know that I saw you.”

“Good, good, thank you,” Hamilton said, not quite convincingly.  

“Do you know if he can expect to hear back on his proposal by the next board meeting?  It’s already been two rounds and at this pace changes will need to be submitted by Thanksgiving break if anything is to go into effect by next year.”

Lafayette and Laurens both glanced at Hamilton, very obviously chafing under a practiced customer service smile.  “I can’t actually speak to the length of time it takes for any motion to be read and turned back in.  Dr. Washington isn’t the only one who has to look it over, but I’m sure both you and your husband know that.  Any recommendation or amendment that’ll have extended or recurring effects on the university in some fashion has to go out to a panel of readers, as per policy, before it even can be brought back to the table.  I sent it out but I can’t force anyone to read it in a timely fashion.”

“Encourage them,” Adams said simply.  Hamilton twitched. 

“I’ll call around first thing on Monday.”

“Do I understand you’re from the Caribbean?  How do you like America?”

“Well,” pause.  “The mainland,” pause.  “Is quite nice.”

“Did it take you long to acclimate?”

“I’d prefer it warmer.”

“I can only imagine.  That’s quite a change.”  She was studying his face with sharp, inquisitive eyes, and her words, while far from accusatory, were questioning.  “You’re mixed, aren’t you?”  There was a note of sympathy there.

“Dr. Adams,” Henry Laurens, to Hamilton’s great surprise, cut in.  “I have to know, what is it like to be a professor emeritus?  How much involvement do you still have with the institution?”

“Emerita,” Adams said sharply, but she took the bait, giving Hamilton the chance to smooth down his haunches and Laurens to round properly on Lafayette.

“You know my _father_?”  Laurens asked immediately in a whisper.  “Were you _ever_ going to mention that?”

“I forgot!”  Lafayette was genuinely flustered.  “I met him when he was in France several years ago.  I didn’t even remember that was his name until I saw him tonight.”

“Jesus, Lafayette, do you know literally everyone?”  Hamilton asked, glancing back with irritation at Henry Laurens and Abigail Adams.

Lafayette looked uncomfortable and made a gesture with his hands like he was weighing two things against one another.  “I know many, many people.  It’s not my fault.  My grandfather and father had many connections and so I was introduced to…  That’s how I met Washington, of course,” he said, changing the subject slightly, “and sometimes I would meet people through others I had already been presented to, and if they brought colleagues or friends…  It is a lot of names to remember!”  His English was becoming more stilted as he nervously tried to explain himself.

“But my father,” Laurens said again, keeping his voice low.  “We live together, Lafayette!”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette said.  “Really, John, I didn’t remember his name.  It was a while ago.”

“I’m surprised he never said anything,” Hamilton commented, glancing back over at Henry Laurens. 

“He mentioned Lafayette before,” Laurens admitted, “but the way he said it I didn’t realized you two had actually met.”  He adjusted his tie, still a little high strung.

“Well, it’s done,” Hamilton said.  “At least he likes him,” he told Laurens.  “That’s one less thing to bother with over break.”

“…You’re right.”  Laurens admitted.  “Fine.  It’s a good thing, I suppose.”

“Yes, now you only have to worry about Alexander.”

Laurens looked at Lafayette, not amused.

“…Sorry.”

“Should I suck up to him?”  Hamilton asked, looking back over.  “I don’t think I can do that well.”  He glanced back at Laurens who seemed nervous about that suggestion.  “Yeah, I think I’ll just keep my distance.”

“Jack.”

“Yessir.”  Laurens broke away from Lafayette and Hamilton to speak with his father, not glancing back at either of them.

 

“This place is a friggin’ minefield,” Hamilton commented as he and Lafayette headed over to the buffet, leaving Laurens behind.  “Professors, old white people, Henry Laurens, rich jocks—All of whom you are somehow friends with, how did that happen?”  

Lafayette lifted a hand in greeting to Tench Tilghman from across the room.  “Hm?”

“Lafayette.”

“People are generally nice, Alexander.  They want a reason to like you.”

“Yeah, maybe to like _you_ ,” Hamilton muttered, making to shove his hands in the pockets of his jacket, forgetting that he couldn’t do that in the suit.  “I’m not so lucky.”

“I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Thanks,” Hamilton said, a little bitter.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter.  This is just stupid.  If he had to like one of us,” Hamilton continued, negating what he had just said, “why does it have to be you?  No offense, but couldn’t it have been me?  Or, you know, John?”

“He likes John.”

“Have you heard the two of them?  He’s an asshole.  For that matter, Jefferson’s an asshole.  Why are all of your friends assholes?”

Lafayette debated whether or not to mention that Hamilton was also his friend and, in the current conversation, was not coming off much better.

“He stepped in,” Lafayette pointed out.

“Are you sure about that?  I think he just got tired of being ignored.  Look at him, don’t tell me he’s used to not being the center of attention.  That was probably the only time in his life a woman and a couple of brown people talked in his presence about something other than how great he is.”

“You’re very touchy about him.”

“ _I’m_ touchy?  Lafayette, John’s obviously got issues with the guy.  You’re his roommate, you should know that!”

“And you should know,” Lafayette said, pausing to briefly greet another guest, “that he doesn’t want to make a scene, especially since Henry Laurens was kind enough to agree to let us stay next month.  Right now John needs to be the good son and you need to not insult people where they can hear you,” Lafayette finished through his teeth as he smiled at someone else.

“You're a frickin’ socialite,” Hamilton complained.  "Like an actual one, I’m not just calling you that as an insult.”

“Stop.  When you were in a better mood you were working the room, too.”

Hamilton took a plate and handed one to Lafayette.  “I hate it when you’re right.  Do you know that?  I love it because you’re my friend and you're smart and you generally choose to use your powers for good and not evil, but, damnit, I hate it.”

“I know,” Lafayette said soothingly.

 

Later that night Hamilton and Laurens were sitting in a couple of the chairs off to the side of the room.  Lafayette had run into someone else he knew from before and was catching up, happily telling them about France and his time there in the summer.

“Is that one of your ties from last night?”

Hamilton glanced down, touching the navy silk.  “This?  Well, yeah, I’ve only got two.  I didn’t have a suit or shoes—remind me, I need to thank Lafayette properly—, why would I have a bunch of ties?”

Laurens laughed and took a drink from his glass of water.  “You need a new wardrobe.  How are you supposed to be a professional when you only have two ties?”

“Excuse me, not all careers require me to dress like some kind of Young Republican.”

“You want to be a lawyer,” Laurens pointed out.  

“Maybe I want to take charity cases.”

“Do you?”

“Well,” Hamilton paused, “Yeah.  I mean, it’s not like I want to work corporate law.  Fuck that.  The point is to provide a voice to people who won’t be heard otherwise.  You know?”

Laurens nodded, watching him intensely.  “Yes.”

Hamilton smiled and Laurens felt himself mirroring it.

“I knew you’d get it.  I mean, of course you do.  We’re two sides of the same coin sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and me—okay, and Lafayette, too, he’s great—, we might kid around sometimes about what hot shots we want to be, but at the end of the day that’s not what it’s about and we both know that.  I want to be on the ten,” Hamilton said, falling back on an old joke, “but that’s because money makes the world go round, John, and what I really want is to fix this structure and make it available to everyone.  I’m a damn dirty capitalist,” he continued, “and an elitist. I’ve _seen_ what it’s like outside of this ivory tower.  I don’t want to knock this to the dust and mud—I want to throw down a ladder.”

Laurens shook his head admiringly.  “Alexander, that’s—“

“Hey.”  Tench came up.  “Excuse me, sorry to interrupt.  Laurens,” he put out his hand, giving Laurens more of a high five than a handshake.  “I keep losing track of you, sorry for not saying hi earlier.”

“That’s all right.  Tench, this is Alexander.  Have you two met?”

“Alexander Hamilton.”  He stood up, hand out, introducing himself.  “You’re one of John’s teammates, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.  That reminds me, Laurens, James McHenry and Will Grayson are here, too.  We were going to see what the drinks are like at the bar.”

“Oh, okay.”

Tench paused, obviously expecting Laurens to take his open invitation.  Laurens just looked at him, still sitting.

Tench waited a moment longer, then added more explicitly, turning to include Hamilton, “Do you want to join us?”

“Still twenty and my boss is here, sorry.”

“That sucks,” Tench sympathized.  “Laurens?”

“Maybe later.”

“You sure?”  Hamilton asked him.  “Speaking of the devil, I should probably go find Washington soon anyway.”

“It’s all right.  I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Laurens said.

Tench nodded, mildly surprised.  “See you later.”

“John,” Hamilton said once Tench had left, “you can go get a drink with your friends, I don’t mind.  I’m serious, I should go check in with G-Wash at some point.”

“I’d rather talk to you,” Laurens said simply.  “I see them all the time.”

“You see me all the time.”

“I’ll find them when you’re busy with Washington,” Laurens promised.  “Tell me more about what you plan to do.”

Hamilton paused, then laughed.  “Oh my God.  You’re a flirt!  You’re hitting on me, John Laurens.”

"I am not,” Laurens protested.

Hamilton laughed harder.  “You so are.  Don’t try to deny it, I know exactly how this game is played.  Look,” he continued, almost putting his hand on his leg and then catching himself before he could complete the gesture.  “Flattered as I happen to be, this is not the time.  We’ve been practically joined at the hip and we need to split up and mingle before someone says something.”

Laurens looked unhappy about that proposition but reluctantly nodded.  “All right.”

“Hey.  Go be a charming southern gentleman, get a drink with your friends, show off in front of your father, I’ll do my best to stay out of his sight, and in a few hours we can meet up again and complain about what a pain this all was while we head over to an actual party.  Okay?”

Laurens nodded again.  “Yeah.”  He stood and waited for Hamilton to get up as well.  “I’ll see you in a little while.”

 

“I’m bored,” Lafayette complained, coming up to Hamilton.

“I’m not your dad.  Go bitch to Washington.”

“It’s so late and this is so dull.”

“Jesus, Lafayette, I thought you did this sort of thing all the time.  Besides, it’s only eight, that’s not that late.”

“That’s one in the morning.”

“You’re not actually on Central European Time.”

“Adrienne is,” Lafayette sighed.  “I miss her.  This would be a lot more fun if she were here.”

Hamilton privately doubted that if Adrienne were there Lafayette would have actually spent much time with her judging by how quickly he had been flitting from person to person.

“All right, so you burnt yourself out.  I didn’t think you would be the first one to crack.”

“I’ve already talked to everyone here.”

“Did you meet John’s other football friends?”

“We were in class together.”

“God damn, Lafayette.  Seriously, how do you know literally everyone?”

“I just said—”

“Right, right.”  Hamilton cut him off.  “Whatever, I’m about ready to ditch, too.  Turns out this is not as fun as an actual party, who knew?  Do you know where John is?  I told him to meet his friends at the bar, but…”

“He’s with his father.”  Lafayette motioned across the room.  “They really do look similar next to each other, I should have realized.  The same height, and he has his nose.”

Hamilton made a face.  “Don’t say that.”

Laurens looked up from the conversation, happened to see them across the way, and smiled at Hamilton.

“Talk to your dad, ignore us,” Hamilton said, although more for Lafayette’s benefit than Laurens’.  “He’s not going to come over here, is he?  I told him we’d meet up later.”

“Are you going to be staying at your place?”  Lafayette asked hopefully. 

“Is Adrienne even still up?  But, yeah, I’ll get him out of your hair.”

“Thank you, Alexander, that is just the motivation I need to get through the rest of this,” Lafayette said, suddenly cheerful.  “I’m going to find the head of the language department and finish our discussion on that endowment.”

“See if they’ll at least name an award after you.”

“Don’t be tacky,” Lafayette chided as he left.

Hamilton had just scanned the room and was about to join in with another group when he saw Laurens gesture towards him as he said something to his father.

“Oh, shit, John, come on, I gave you _one_ task…”

Hamilton waited as Laurens broke away and came over. 

“Hey.” 

"Not the end of the night, John.”

“I know.  But you were all by yourself…"

“I know how to mingle.  I don’t shut up, remember?”  Hamilton glanced awkwardly over at Henry Laurens and saw that he was watching them carefully.

“John, aren't you worried about your father picking up on something?”

“What’s there to notice?”  Laurens was standing just an inch closer than he should have been.  “He introduced me to some people he knows, I told him about classes and practice.  It’s fine if I want to talk to my friends a little, too.”

Henry Laurens was no longer paying attention to them.

“Alex, he’s my father.  I know him.  It’s fine, he doesn’t think anything of it.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Hamilton gave in.  “So are you ever going to tell him or what?”

“Yes.”

“Not on his deathbed?”

“Come on.  Let’s not talk about this right now.”

Hamilton forced himself to let it go.  “Before I forget—as if I could forget—you’re coming back with me tonight after Andre’s.  I promised Lafayette that he could have some space.”

“We’re going to spoil him.”

“I know, right?  Two nights in a row.  But,” Hamilton considered, “he’s a good friend.  I suppose we could even give him three nights to himself.”

Laurens grinned.  “We might be able to work something out.”

“I think so.  Right, now go get a drink with your teammates.”  Hamilton resisted the urge to close the gap between them.  “If I remember the schedule correctly, and I do because I had to look at the stupid thing about a dozen times a day, we’ve got another hour until this winds down.”  He checked his watch.  “Your father likes Andre, right?  Does he approve of parties?”

Laurens shrugged.

“It’s the weekend, anyway.  Whatever, do what you think is best.  I don’t mind showing up late—hell, we’re already going to be late.  Should be a better scene than this, though.”  Hamilton took a step away.  “Go on.  I’ll catch you later.” 


	62. The Art of Not Fitting in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outclassed; *Privacy; What Are You

“Later,” Laurens noted gratefully in retrospect, meant after the dinner had wound down and after saying goodbye to his father.

Hamilton had been waiting for him outside and talking to Tench.  Laurens heard him laugh before he could make out any words, and then they both spotted him and waved him over.

“Finally managed to escape?  Alexander was just telling me about all the work that went into this thing, I’m surprised he got out of there before you did.”

“I’m not on the clean up crew,” Hamilton said, sounding smug about his newfound status.  “They’ve got _other_ people for that.”

“I didn’t realize anyone our age was actually involved with arranging any of this,” Tench said, and Laurens had to smile at how puffed up Hamilton was getting.  “It’s impressive.  You knew, right?”  Laurens nodded and Tench continued.  “Laurens and I just got invited as a courtesy, you actually had a reason to be here.”

“Alexander’s put a lot of time in,” Laurens agreed.  “He’ll talk your ear off about all the issues he’s had to deal with.”

“That’s true,” Hamilton agreed as they started walking.  “I can go on for ages, just tell me to shut up.”

“It’s very interesting,” Tench said, then added jokingly, “do you think you can get me a position?”

“Me?”

“You’re the one to ask, right?  You’re Washington’s right hand man.”

Hamilton grinned broadly.  “Yeah, I am.  If you’re serious about getting a job, just let me know and I’ll put in a good word.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I have the time,” Tench said.  “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Me neither,” Laurens said truthfully.  “Alexander’s got a talent for multitasking.”

Hamilton glanced at him.  Was Laurens still hitting on him?  Either way, Tench didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

“McHenry and Grayson ducked out,” he was saying to Laurens.  “I didn’t think it was all that late yet, though.  It’s the weekend, anyway, and it’s not like I have to be anywhere in the morning.”

“I like your thinking,” Hamilton said, picking up his pace for a couple of steps to keep up with the other two.  “Why’d the other two skip out?  They don’t have French girlfriends to Skype with too, do they?”

“Whoa.”

“Hm?”  Hamilton looked up at Laurens.

Laurens locked the screen on his phone.  “Sorry.  Just checking scores.”

“Gamecocks win?”

“Yeah.  I’m going to have to look up that one later.”

“Is it online?  We can stream it after we get back to—”  Hamilton cut himself off, realizing what a dead giveaway that would be.  He corrected himself.  “—to Andre’s.”

Laurens had looked quickly up at Tench but he was yawning behind his hand and not paying attention, looking up at the night sky.

“I wish it was clearer,” he said.  “That’s the one thing about living in the city.  There’s so much light pollution, you can’t see shit.”

“It’s weird,” Hamilton agreed quickly, eager for the topic change.  “Where are you from?”

“Talbot County.  It’s pretty rural.”

“That still in New York?”

“Maryland.”

“Maryland,” Hamilton nodded.  “Never been.”

Tench shrugged.  “It’s nice.”  He took his phone out and looked it up, swiping through pictures of red brick buildings set in green fields.

“Very picturesque,” Hamilton agreed.  “I don’t think I could do something that peaceful, though.  I need more stimuli.  What do you think, John?”

“I like New York,” Laurens said.

“Yeah, but you also like the country.  Maybe not to live in?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I could do it.”

“I couldn’t,” Hamilton told Tench.  “I’d go wild, too much all in my own head.  Oh, hey, should we enter here?”  He asked as they approached the first metro stop.  “I think this should work but I’ll defer to the two of you since I’ve never actually been to Andre’s.  Is it a nice place?  He strikes me like the kind of guy who’d have a classy apartment.”

Tench looked over Hamilton at Laurens—not as obviously as it was sometimes, at least, since he was between both of them in height.  “Yeah, it’s nice.  A little…”  He made a so-so gesture with his hand.

“It’s only okay?”

“No, that’s not it,” Laurens said.  “It’s very nice.”

“It’s kind of fancy,” Tench said.  “You can tell his dad’s someone important overseas.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said, a clear note of curiosity in his voice.  “I see.”

They swiped into the station and followed the signs to their platform.  It was relatively empty, although there were still passed occasionally as they walked down the tunnel.

“How’s your father?”

“He’s fine.”  Laurens adjusted his tie.  “I know he’s been very busy with work, so it was nice for him to get a night off.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything to that.  It was probably better not to get into an argument over the amount of work Henry Laurens did or the ends he was pushing for with it.

They waited at the platform and Laurens tried unsuccessfully to get signal on his phone.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Tell Andre we’re on our way.  I forgot to message him when we left.”

“I talked to him,” Tench offered.  “Told him we were going to head over.  It sounded like there were a few other people still there.”

The train pulled up and they got into a car, empty enough to have seating by the door.

“What does Andre’s father do?”  Hamilton asked as they started moving.

Tench answered from Laurens’ other side.  “Business,” he said.  “I’m not sure exactly, you’ll have to ask him.  I just know that he’s been bounced around Europe.  I think he’s in Geneva right now.”  He looked to Laurens to confirm.

Laurens nodded.  “I visited them after my freshman year.”

“How were their digs?”  Hamilton asked, unable to restrain himself.  “Better than Lafayette’s?”

“Not quite.”

“Not as big or not as fancy?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Both.”

“Do you have pictures?”

Laurens frowned a little.  “I got a new phone since then.  I don’t have them on here.”

“Too bad.”  Hamilton sat back, facing forward and kicking his legs out in front of him.  “I’d like to see a place ‘not quite’ as nice as the marquis’ chateaux.”

 

Andre met them at the door to his apartment—Hamilton had noticed the doorman, clean and smoothly functioning elevator, and quiet hallways with interest—and welcomed them inside.

“Glad you guys could make it.  Humphreys and Tallmadge just left, did you pass them on your way in?”

Laurens shook his head and raised a hand in greeting to the rest of the room, trying not to feel disappointed that apart from John Trumbull, a first year and third string placekicker, the only other guests at this point were Peggy and another girl he didn’t recognize.

“Beth,” she said, offering her hand.  “I’m Peggy’s older sister.”  The other three introduced themselves and Hamilton sat on the couch, Laurens and Tench taking two empty chairs.  Andre sat back down between Hamilton and Peggy.

“Your brother left already?”  Laurens asked Trumbull.

He nodded, adjusting his thick glasses.  “He has an interview in the morning.”

“Oh yeah?  How come we didn’t hear about it?”

Trumbull shrugged.  “It’s some internship.  Politics.  I dunno.”

“Was it last minute?”  Tench continued to press. “Laurens’ dad’s politics, it’s not like he needs to keep quiet about it.”

“I don’t know,” Trumbull repeated.  “It’s not my deal.  I don’t think it’s anything fancy like that.”

“I love how you decorated this place.”  Hamilton’s voice cut through the conversation, at least for Laurens.  He was talking to Andre as he looked around.  There were several framed pieces of art on the walls between a set of large and intricate mirrors and on various surfaces—a few sketched charcoal portraits and a couple larger watercolor landscapes.

“Oh, thanks,” Andre said, sounding pleased.  “Yeah, I did those myself,” he said, indicating the various works of art.  “Uh, the little one on the bookshelf, that’s my sister.  That one’s just a model I had in class once.  I’ve got a self portrait in the other room…”

“Can you believe this man?”  Peggy asked, putting her hand on Andre’s arm and interjecting with a laugh.  “Who else would be self-centered enough to frame a picture they drew of themselves? It’s a good thing you’re talented,” she told him.

Andre gave a little embarrassed laugh, but Hamilton was too distracted to pay much attention to their exchange.

“I bet a self-portrait is very challenging.  How are you supposed to play the role of model and artist at the same time?  It must be difficult to make it seem natural,” he said, repeating back what he had heard while sitting for Laurens.

“It is,” Andre said as Peggy took his hand.  “I mean, it can be.  I think you have to be in the right kind of mood for it, introspective enough.  Mine isn’t as good as Peggy makes it sound,” he said, squeezing her hand.  “It’s not as detailed as some of these others.”

“What are the paintings of?”  Hamilton asked, angling his body so he was facing him more directly.  “Those are watercolors?”

“Yeah.  I did them—well, I did that larger one at Peggy’s parents’ house one summer.  That’s the view in the back, with the wide lawn and the trees and the hedge.  It’s really peaceful there, so I just set up on the back deck.  I wanted to capture that feeling.”  Peggy leaned her head against his shoulder.

Hamilton whistled.  “You ever think of selling these?  I bet you could make a chunk of money.”

“It’s so much work,” Andre said.  “And the market…  I don’t know that it would be worth the amount of time and effort it would take.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”  Hamilton backtracked.  “Yeah, that’s true.  I don’t know much about art.”

“Besides,” Andre said, “I don’t want to ruin it by making it into work, you know?”

“Right.”

Hamilton was quiet as he looked around the room again.  The mirrors on the walls were wrought metal.  He wondered now if they were silver.

“We’ve got quite the gathering of artists in this room,” Peggy commented, turning briefly away from Andre to look at her sister.  “Both the Johns paint and draw,” she told her.  “Actually, all three of them do,” she said, indicating Trumbull.  “Is it a trait of the name, I wonder?”  She asked teasingly.

“It must be,” Beth said.  “But then again, Peggy, you’re an actress.”

“The performing arts,” Peggy agreed,  “and you’re not a bad musician yourself.  What about you two?”  She asked Tench and Hamilton.  “How do you round out our little salon?”

“I won a stage performance competition once,” Tench said quickly, then looked over at Hamilton.

“I’ve published poems,” Hamilton said, feeling put on the spot and defensive.

“Poems?”  Beth asked, leaning around Peggy to study him more closely.  Hamilton remembered Adams’ eyes on him earlier that evening and he sat up taller, his back straight.  “What kind of poems?  Romantic ones?”

“Yes,” Hamilton said, deliberately not looking at Laurens, who he was certain was either judging him or trying not to laugh.  “They were published in the newspaper.”

“That’s so sweet,” Beth said.  “Were they for someone in particular?”

“My girlfriend,” Hamilton only mostly lied.

“Cute,” Trumbull said.  “Do you remember it?”

“I couldn’t recite it.”  More lies.

“We could look it up online,” Tench suggested.  “What’s the name of the paper?”

Hamilton had to hold himself back from just launching into the piece.  “It’s not online,” he said after a brief tense pause.

“Oh.  Are you sure?  Even if it’s a few years old it might have been archived.  Or I don’t mind paying to access—”

“It’s not online,” Hamilton repeated.  “The paper isn’t online.”

There was a longer, awkward silence.

“You should look up Tench’s mime show,” Laurens finally said, with completely casual air.  “I’d rather watch that again than listen to a poetry recital.”

“Hey!”  Tench protested, whipping around to look at him.  “It was a legitimate stage performance!”

“I never said it wasn’t, just that the prize you won was, and I quote, a ‘certificate in mimes’ and you played a tree.”

“You played a tree?”  Trumbull asked incredulously.

“I, well, yeah, it was a very moving role,” Tench fumbled.  All attention was on him now instead of Hamilton.  “We were highlighting environmental awareness and the spiritual importance of nature.”

“You got cut down.”

“I _died_ ,” Tench protested with dignity.  “And we won first place, thank you.”  He took out his phone.  “Here, you’ll see.”  He motioned for people to lean in as he hit play on an obviously cell phone quality youtube video.  “Prepare to concede that I _earned_ that certificate.”

 

Back in his room, alone—finally, blissfully alone—, Lafayette had one last toy to test out.  He was almost positive that they had been sent to him without the intention of his actually using or appreciating them, but he was so far from France and Adrienne had been asleep for hours.

Sitting on his bed he had already taken that last one from its box and was turning it over in his hands.  It was a small device, like a sort of cup, and the instructions had indicated that it was to be placed over just the head of his cock.  Lafayette was a little skeptical but if he was ever going to give it a try this was the time.  He didn’t know when the next time would be that Laurens would be guaranteed not to walk in on him and when Adrienne wouldn’t be on the line.

He turned it on experimentally, just holding it in his hand to see how it worked.  It vibrated as intended and he flicked through the settings, then turned it off again, putting it on the mattress and taking himself out.

He pretended his hand was someone else’s.  It was Adrienne’s hand, small and soft, stroking him.  He imagined she was sitting next to him, leaning against him and fully nude.  Lafayette closed his eyes and imagined that he could touch her breasts and run his hands down her sides, set them at her hips.  He envisioned himself moving them back up her body, how she would move into his touch, her skin almost powder soft.

Lafayette remembered in a flash how both Hamilton and de Ségeur had encouraged him to think about other girls.  It wasn’t cheating, Hamilton had reasoned, quite logically.  And Adrienne hadn’t minded when he had mentioned it before…  Lafayette was still imagining Adrienne, his Adrienne, his Adrienne who was letting him touch her and who had her hand on him…

Lafayette made a little frustrated noise.  His fantasy was interrupted again by Hamilton in the library, laughing at him and his concerns.  

He tried again to focus in on Adrienne, her pretty face and—

“ _Merde_.”  Lafayette opened his eyes and took his hand away, his cock still flaccid.  He flopped over onto his back, cursing the image of Abigail Adams that had intruded and refused to leave.

“What happened to my privacy?”  He complained to himself.  

Lafayette turned his head to the side, looking across the room to Laurens’ empty bed.  This wasn’t fair.

Lafayette arched off of the mattress, pulling his pants down all the way and then tossing them to the floor.  He was determined to take advantage of the night and he poured a generous amount of lube into his hand, dropping the bottle back to the mattress.  He took his cock back into his hand and slowly worked it, closing his eyes and focusing this time on Aglae.

Lafayette concentrated on Aglae’s mouth and its prominent cupid’s bow.  He tried to imagine what she would sound like, how her voice might get louder and what she would say if they were in bed together.  Would she call out his name or encourage him on?  He imagined her biting her lower lip, her head tossed back and her hair spread out on the mattress beneath her.  

Lafayette still wasn’t fully erect but he picked up the toy, deciding to use it a little earlier than he had intended and ease his way into it.  Eyes still closed, still focusing on Aglae twisting beneath him, Lafayette put the toy over the tip of his cock and turned it on.

Even though he knew it was coming, the sudden vibration startled him and made him jerk violently, letting out a sharp gasp.  He almost yanked it off of himself, then a wave of pleasure rushed through him and he let out a long low moan, feeling his orgasm already building with every fast beat of his heart, coiling and then being pulled out of him before he had the chance to even think if he wanted to change his fantasy back to his previous one of Adrienne.  It seemed to go on longer than normal and he relished it, pushing into it.

Then it was done and he had to quickly turn the toy off since as the pleasure faded the vibrations tipped over from enjoyable to uncomfortable and he was left feeling oddly exhausted and not sure whether or not he was satisfied.

“Adrienne,” he said aloud in a shaky voice, “I’m setting my alarm so I can tell you about that when you wake up.”

 

“He also said that Martha got her license, so she’ll be picking us up at the airport in November.”

Hamilton was in the middle of undoing his tie, his jacket already back on its hanger.  “Who?”

“Martha,” Laurens repeated.  “My sister.”

“Oh.”

“And he’s going to sign Mary Eleanor up for piano lessons, which is a little ironic considering that Harry threw such a fit about orchestra—”

“John,” Hamilton said, cutting him off and leaning back on his desk, the top couple buttons of his shirt open.  “Can I stop you there?  You’re really going to need to fill me in a little more first.  Other than James I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention your siblings more than in passing, and I… No, never mind, I’ve got nothing on him either besides the name.  For being such a family guy you sure don’t talk about them much.”

Laurens, just in his undershirt and slacks now, carefully folded his shirt and jacket and laid them on the desk.  “I guess not.  It’s private, you know?  I don’t bring any of them up often.”

“I’m supposed to be meeting them,” Hamilton pointed out, arms crossed loosely and head tipped to the side as he watched Laurens straighten the clothes.  “So you’re the oldest, I got that.  And then Martha.  She’s sixteen?”

“About to turn seventeen.  Harry’s fourteen, he’s real quiet.  Mary’s the baby.  Actually, we’ll be visiting for Jemmy’s twelfth birthday,” Laurens added.  “I need to get him something still.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton tilted his head to the other side.  “Do I—should Lafayette and I get him a present?”

“It’s fine.”  Laurens turned his face up and kissed him.  “I don’t expect you to.  If you forget _my_ birthday, on the other hand…”

“Oh, I know _exactly_ what I’m giving you,” Hamilton teased, putting his arms around his waist.  “It’s a pretty big package.  Actually, maybe you should try it for size now.  So we know that it fits.”

Laurens laughed.  “You are the worst.”

Hamilton took a step away.  “Maybe, but I don’t really want to wreck these pants.  Dry clean only is some bullshit, J.  But speaking of huge dicks,” he continued as he stripped down and got into the bed.  “I’m meeting Aaron Burr at the library tomorrow so you’re on your own for lunch unless you want to do it at an odd hour.”

“Aaron Burr?”  Laurens asked, finishing undressing as well and lying next to him after turning off the light.  “Why?”

“I just want to know what exactly the rumor mill says so I know how to play along.”

“Alex…”  Laurens leaned on his elbow.  “I don’t know.”

“It’s all right, we’re just going to talk.  I promise it won’t end in blood.”

“That’s not it.”  Laurens hesitated.  “I don’t… want you to pretend to date Lafayette.”

Hamilton was momentarily surprised into silence.  “Then you want to just be open about it?  Because I’m fine with that, too.”

“No,” Laurens said, a little too quickly.  “No.  I don’t know.  Sorry.”

Hamilton half-smiled.  “It’s fine.”  He kissed him, slowly, siding his hand up his arm and to his shoulder, leaning into him.  “I like keeping you all to myself, anyway.”

“It’s just…”  Laurens kissed him back, putting his hand on his waist and keeping him from moving away.  “I don’t like seeing the two of you pretending to be together when I can’t do the same thing.  I can’t even correct people when they get it wrong right in front of me.”

Hamilton’s smile broadened and he moved his hand from his shoulder up the back of his neck to play with his hair.  “You do get jealous.”

“Alexander.”

“I like it,” Hamilton assured him, kissing him again.  “Let me find out how far this goes and what people are saying and I won’t tell him anything one way or the other.”

Laurens sighed and didn’t respond.  He also didn’t move away as Hamilton continued to toy with his hair.

“Hey, J.?”  Hamilton spoke again after a couple of minutes.

“Mm?”

“Thanks.”  He sounded a little unsteady.  “For distracting people earlier.”

“No problem.”

Hamilton paused again before speaking and his voice was a little tense.  “Whatever.  I mean.  I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but thanks.”

Laurens kissed him.  “I just didn’t want to subject everyone else to your poetry.  It’s not your strong suit.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Hamilton fake complained.  “None of you appreciate my genius.”

“I appreciate you plenty,” Laurens yawned.

“Yeah,” Hamilton smiled, stroking the back of his neck, “that’s true.”  He was quiet.  Laurens had just begun to drop off when he spoke up again.  “It’s just frustrating, you know?”

Laurens made an effort to be awake.  “What is?”

“To not, to not fit in anywhere.  Most of the time I don’t give a crap, I am who I am and everyone can just deal with it.”

“You’re very loud,” Laurens agreed sleepily.

“Scrappy,” Hamilton agreed.  “I’m good at yelling until people notice me.  But that’s the hard way to do it, J.  I’m just _between_ everything and sometimes it gets to me.  It’s that damn party,” he said, a little bitterly.  “All those people in that room and I’m only superficially fitting in.  Not even the suit could compensate, John.  I’m there ten minutes and I’m singled out for not belonging.  ‘What are you?’  Like I’m some animal in a cage.  I know she didn't say those exact words, but you know that was the meaning behind them.  ‘What _are_ you?’  How invasive is that?  Shit.  It’s no one’s damn _business_ what I ‘am.’”

“Would you have wanted me to say something?”  Laurens leaned up on his arm to look Hamilton in the eye.

“No need.”  He waved his hand dismissively.  “Your father cut her off, as Lafayette pointed out.  I don’t know,” he answered more directly.  “I don’t think so.  It’s not your—I don’t know.  I like being different,” he said after a beat.  “Sure as hell beats forgettable.  I just get tired sometimes of not fitting in _any_ box, you know?  I’m not gay, but I’m dating you.  I’ve got no money, but I’m at this institution anyway.  I’m not…”  He trailed off.

Laurens lay back down and Hamilton rolled over onto his back with a sigh, draping one arm up above his head.  Laurens put his arm over his chest.  Hamilton ran his hand through his hair and he made a low contented noise.  The corner of Hamilton’s mouth turned up, a little sadly.  “It’s okay.  Go to sleep, J.”


	63. On Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Welcome Distraction; Fraternité; Breaking the Boys' Club; Movies

“You were thinking about Aglae?”

Lafayette didn't notice the hurt in her voice.  “Not at first, but I couldn’t get into it.”

“Oh.”  Adrienne hesitated, toying with the sleeve of her cardigan.  “Why not?”

“There was too much else going on,” Lafayette said.  “I tried to think of you but first de Séguer interrupted me, then Alexander…  Oh, just in my mind, of course.”

“Of course,” Adrienne repeated back to him.

“I needed someone less distracting.”

“Of course,” Adrienne said once more.

“But…”  Lafayette looked a little guilty.  “It is all right, isn’t it?  I was going to involve you again, but there was no time.  It was all over so quickly.”

“Well…”  

There was the sound of a key in the door and then Laurens entered.

“Good morning.  Lafayette, Adrienne.”

Adrienne quickly changed the subject, switching into English.  “John, did Gilbert tell you?  I am almost finished with your costumes.”

“Already?  Thank you, Adrienne.”

“What are you doing here?”  Lafayette asked, moving over on the bed so Laurens could sit next to him and join the conversation.  “I thought you would be with Alexander.”

“He’s busy.  I’ll head back over later.”

“I see.”

“Don’t tell me you’re kicking me out of my own room.  I had to come back to get a change of clothes, anyway.”

“Why don’t you just leave a set there?”

“Like you do at Washington’s?”  Laurens made a face.  “I don’t know, Lafayette, that seems presumptuous.”

“You have a toothbrush there,” Lafayette pointed out.  “And a pillow.  Is it really that much worse to take up part of a drawer?  And then you wouldn't have had to walk back in half a suit.”

Laurens glanced down at himself.  He hadn’t put the jacket and tie on again, but he was wearing the slacks and shirt.  

“It’s a little obvious you were doing the walk of shame,” Lafayette continued.  “He should leave a comb and some pomade there, too, don’t you think, Adrienne?”

“And deodorant.”

“Look.”  Laurens was flustered now.  “I really wasn’t joking, Alex is busy.  I’ll get out of your hair as soon as he’s done!”

 

Hamilton pulled out a seat at the long wooden table, kicking his legs out underneath it.

“Aaron Burr, sir.”

“Alexander.”  Burr smiled and offered his hand.  

Hamilton shook it, then sat back.  “So let’s get down to business.  Show me what you’ve got.”

“How straight-forward.”

“Yeah, I’m all about that.  Straight,” Hamilton said, clearing his throat and unscrewing the lid of his water bottle and taking a drink.  “—Forward, excuse me.  I don’t know about you, but this frickin’ change of seasons shit is killer.  I never got around to figuring out if it’s the air pressure or humidity changing that does it.”

“I told you, Alexander, you know everything I do.”

“No, I don’t think so.”  Hamilton set the bottle down and folded his hands on the table.  “I don’t know who you got your information from, for one, when you heard it, when _they_ heard it, pardon my play on words.  Spill, Burr.  Neither of us want to waste the whole day here, but if you didn’t want to tell me anything you wouldn’t have come.”

“If you must know—”

“I must.”

“—My good friend Aaron Ogden shares a wall with Lafayette.”

“He’s got an older brother?”  Hamilton asked.  “I think I took an upper-level  politics class with him a couple years ago.”

Burr’s smile grew a little strained.  Hamilton was showing off.

“Yes, that’s right.  And I’m afraid I don’t know when it came to light.  I didn’t exactly care to push for details.”

“Bullshit, come on, Burr.  Gimme a week at least.”

“Why is this so important to you?”  Burr asked, narrowing his eyes, a little suspicious.  “Surely you know your own timeline, Alexander, and this obsessive grilling is a little much, even for you.”

“Hm?  I don’t know, I get off to it,” Hamilton said flippantly.  “Does it matter why I want to know?”

“Perhaps not.”

“So?”

Burr sighed, thinking back.  “I suppose it must have been a week or two after the storm.”

“Right.”  Hamilton debated for a moment if he could get anything more specific out of him, but let it go.  “He hear anything he like?”

Burr just looked at him, unamused.

“What?  Seems to me like he’s got a good thing going.  Free pay-per-view.  I should send him an invoice after every night I stay over.”

“What a unique business model,” Burr said with the air of someone delicately picking a piece of trash off the table.

“Nah, it’s just a rip-off of the oldest one in the book.  Hey, I have a new question for you.  Did he ever see us in public?”

“No,” Burr said, “not that I know of.”

“And he put two and two together anyway,” Hamilton mused.  “Friggin’ genius.  I have to know, how many other people did you tell this to?”

“It’s a rumor, Alexander,” Burr replied.  “You know I can’t control it.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” Hamilton pointed out.  “I get it, you’re not the town gossip.  I assume all of the other Aaron’s friends know.  Other people in the student council?”

Burr shrugged.  “I believe so.”

“Excellent.  I needed something else to be offended about,” Hamilton explained, not sounded offended in the slightest, when Burr gave him an inquisitive look.  “Indignant anger is my anti-drug, Burr.”

Burr shook his head.  “You haven’t grown up at all, have you?”

“Oh, come off it.  It’s been two years so, A, sorry that I’m still recognizable as the same person, and B, get over it.”

“Get over it?  Alexander, you’re the one who has a hard time letting things go.  Isn’t that why we’re here, after all?”

“Come _on_.”  Hamilton picked up his thermos and passed it from hand to hand before putting it back down and leaning his arms and weight forward on the table.  “Look, real talk for a second.  We used to be friends.”

“I don’t see why that had to end.”

“You don’t—”  Hamilton sat up straight again, motioning somewhat helplessly.  “You could’ve gotten me frickin’ kicked out on my ass and shipped back to St. Croix!”

“I didn’t,” Burr pointed out.  “Because I thought of you as my friend, albeit a misguided one.”

“No, you know what, you know what an actual friend does?  An _actual_ friend puts himself on the line for you.  You don’t just wave around some half-baked threat and expect that I’ll jump into formation.”

“It wasn’t a threat,” Burr said, finally starting to sound frustrated.

“Maybe not for someone like you.”  The words were clipped.  “Someone here on legacy, someone the system would be more than willing to give a slap on the wrist to and conveniently forget to record anything of the event.  It’s not fair, you know that?”  Hamilton was talking a little too loud for their surroundings.  “It’s not _fair_ , Aaron, and, ironically, all I was trying to do was level the playing field a bit.”

“You were ghost writing papers!”

“I was outlining them,” Hamilton shot back.  “‘Cause it sucks to be this far from home and unable to get the ideas from your head onto the paper.  If I was supposedly foreign, everyone else in that program was from deep space.  And, fight me, they’re good people, especially the ones who actually had to work their asses off to get in.  That’s why I kept coming back to their stupid meetings.  I knew what they were trying to say was so much _better_ than the words on the page and it was bullshit how hard that was for them.”

“They came here to learn the language,” Burr replied, his own tone indicating that he was done with the conversation.

“Yeah, sure, and it’s a freakin’ immersion program.  But what about the kid who’s planning on leaving again in a year or four?  Does it really _matter_ if she knows the most eloquent use of a preposition?  It doesn’t and you know it, and _furthermore_ , if you had that much of a problem with it why didn’t you sit me down—you were my assigned touch guy,  Burr, stuff like that is sort of your _job_ —instead of waiting until it’s finals week and I’m trying to help draft a ridiculously long essay so Bartow won’t tear into her again for her ‘poor command.’  Of course she’s got freaking ‘poor command,’ I’d like to see _you_ write something in Chinese.”  He trailed off, his tone cooling to a simmer.

Burr was tight-lipped and didn’t say a word, much less the apology part of Hamilton still hoped for.

After several long seconds Hamilton stood.  “Well, I’m sure you’ve got places to be.  Tell your friends that I’m off to pound my French boytoy in the ass in the name of _fraternité_.”  He paused, his things gathered already.  “Tell them that’s what we’ve named it,” he added.  “ _Fraternité_ , I like that.  _Liberté_?  Whatever, the revolution was a fucking fiasco so just pick your favorite, I’ll let you do the honors.  See you around, Burr.”

 

“Alexander?”

Hamilton had barely left the library when he heard his voice called.  He turned and smiled, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.  “Hi.”

Angelica, bag over her shoulder, fell into step alongside him.  “What are you doing down here?  Studying?”

“Good guess, but I was meeting with my dear friend and colleague, Aaron Burr.  Do you know him?”

“Aaron Burr?”  Angelica raised a perfectly maintained eyebrow.

“Ah, I see you are familiar with the name.  You know, if you weren’t also graduating I would say that you should join student council.  It’s a lot of fun.  We take a cut of the funds to buy ourselves lunch and scream at one another for a few hours a month.  Plus it looks good on your resume.”

“Even if I was planning on staying here, I would have to say no.  I’ve got enough on my plate and, more to the point, I’ve gone up before your old boys club enough to know that I’d rather use it as a tool to my own ends instead of trying to force my way in.  It’s more productive this way.”

“I know what you mean,” Hamilton said.  “They’re a bunch of elitists.  ‘The public is a private club,’ and all that.  Edward—”

“Muir,” Angelica said.  “They might call you abrasive, but I’d be a bitch.  I don’t want to waste my time with boys playing at being men.”

Hamilton seemed almost cowed but she smiled at him.

“I do appreciate your help last year, Alexander.  I know you twisted some arms to get the campus safety improvements even looked at in the first place.”

“Not a problem!”  Hamilton was back to sounding as upbeat as before.  “You’ve got good points and I’m good at yelling at people about money until they crack.  We’re an excellent team.”

“I didn’t think you did group projects,” Angelica teased.

“You mean those things invented by Satan with the sole purpose of unfairly redistributing points?  They’re like a Goddamn communist plot, Angelica, punish whoever’s actually been working in the class and reward the slackers.”

“Take from the rich and give to the poor.”

“That’s different,” Hamilton said, suddenly slightly more serious.  “If whoever has that A didn’t earn it, then, yeah, fuck ‘im.  I’m all for an actual meritocracy.”

“I know,” Angelica said truthfully.  “So did you really come down here just to speak with Aaron?  You live off campus, don’t you?”

“It’s not that far.  I’ve got some other errands I can run while I’m here.”  Hamilton took a drink of water.  “I should check my mailbox, I need to get down to the health center,” he pushed up his sleeve and checked his watch, “I’ve got time.  Plus, I want to hit up the bodega.  What about you?”

“Unlike you, I actually was studying.”

“How scholastic.”

Angelica smiled.  “Not all of us make a habit out of meeting our rivals for coffee.”

“I bet Burr’s a tea guy.  I bet he drinks it with his pinky out.”

Angelica laughed.  “What _is_ the deal with you two?”

“Long story.  Another time.”

“Over coffee, maybe.”

“Sure,” Hamilton agreed.  “Do you have my number?  I was thinking that I should get business cards made, I’ll add that to my to-do list and give you one next class.”

“That sounds good,” Angelica agreed.  “Long story aside, why were you meeting with Aaron?  You never answered me and I have to admit that not getting an answer just makes me want one more.”

“God, I know, right?”  Hamilton glanced around to make sure they were relatively isolated.  “You won’t spread this around, will you?”

“I’ll only tell my sister,” Angelica promised, teasing a little.

“Good enough.  So we run in overlapping circles.  You ever hear about my supposed beau?”

“Lafayette?  It’s come up.”

“Right, and we both know it’s false.”

“The girlfriend in France was a bit of a give away.  I know people who have pretended to have a date abroad, but they tend to stop short of actually buying fine jewelry to keep up the charade.”

“Well, it turns out that Burr knows the guys who started that one.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “I just wanted to get some info so I made a scene until he agreed to spill.”

“Does it really bother you that much?  I thought you’d use the publicity to your advantage somehow.”

“Eh,” Hamilton made a so-so gesture.  “You’re right, I don’t really care.  I’ve heard worse, you know?  You gotta at least _pretend_ to have a thick skin, but I wanted to make sure there weren't any weird details that were gonna ricochet off and hit John.  _He’s_ the touchy one.”

Angelica hid any surprise at that admission.  “I see.  That’s sweet of you, to want to protect him.”

“Ha, sweet.  That’s a new one.  I’m more used to meddling pain-in-the-ass.”

“I think you’re a pain,” Angelica teased, nudging him a little.  “But I’m sure my sister will call it sweet and I’ll have to defer to her.”

“Thank her for me.”  Hamilton said.  “I could use someone who doesn’t think the worst of me.”

“You’re being too self-deprecating,” Angelica said.  “Especially for someone who has two boyfriends.”

Hamilton laughed.  “You’re right.  I should turn up the bravado.”

“Don’t take it too far,” Angelica warned.  “I still like you, Alexander, so don’t ruin it.”

“Sure, sure.  Feel free to let me know if the fragility of my masculine ego is too apparent.”

“It is,” Angelica assured him, “almost constantly.  Why else would you pick a fight with Aaron over a silly rumor instead of just letting it blow over or accepting that it would deflect attention?  Honestly, Alexander, if anything you made him wonder what it is you’re really up to.”

Hamilton chewed his lip.  He hadn’t thought that far through it.  “I didn’t say anything.  Besides, he’s probably distracted by how I put my incredible wit to use coming up with dick jokes on the spot.  They were French Revolution themed,” he informed her.

Angelica shook her head, amused.  “Give me your number later.  I have a feeing you need someone else in your life to yell at you when you're about to do something stupid.”

“Almost constantly,” Hamilton agreed, repeating her words back to her.

 

“What do you think?”

Laurens was still in the doorway to Hamilton’s apartment, full backpack slung over his shoulder.  “What is this?  A card?”  He took the business card Hamilton was offering him.

“Yeah, I thought about making a dirty version too as a joke, but it seemed like a waste of money when I’m not allowed to go around handing those out anymore.”

“They feel kind of cheap.”  Laurens walked past him and set his bag down by the bed.  

“Don’t be salty.  But yeah, it was a rush job.  I got impatient and I wanted to see what they would look like.  Is that the stuff you’re leaving here?”  Hamilton asked, motioning to the bag.  “Lafayette texted me.  He said he and Adrienne helped you make a whole kit.”

“I got tired of roughing it.”

“I thought you were a veritable boy scout,” Hamilton said, teasing.  “Camping under the stars, catching your own food, all that bullshit.”

“I’ll take you sometime,” Laurens offered, catching him off guard.  He saw the look on Hamilton’s face change abruptly from playful to surprised.

“Like some…  Is that a date thing in South Carolina?”

“Not any of the times I’ve been.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “I guess we can go.”

“Would you have said no if it had been?”

“No,” Hamilton said defensively.  “I was just asking.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, on the topic of _asking_ , don’t you want to know how my meeting with Burr went?”

“Not really.”

“Come on.”  Hamilton leaned back against the desk.  “Humor me.”

“I got the gist from the obscene text you sent Lafayette.”

“He’s such a useful node in our communications network,” Hamilton said, pleased.  “It’s like back in the old days when letters had to be passed on to third parties to be delivered.  Do you ever wonder about what people must have found out that way?  Like, ‘oh, shit, turns out that the guy I’m sleeping with is actually married—’”

“Alexander.”

“You said you already knew, John.”

“You’re still talking about it.”

“It’s okay,” Hamilton said reassuringly.  “I was just messing with him a little, that was the only dirty part.  Unfortunately I didn’t learn much else new, at least nothing I couldn’t have guessed at—”

Laurens, in an attempt to get Hamilton to stop running his mouth, grabbed his arm hard and kissed him.

“—Ow, Jesus fuck—!”  Hamilton pushed him away.

Laurens stepped back, eyes wide.  “I’m sorry!”

“Fuck, no, it’s okay.”  Hamilton was rubbing his upper arm.  “I wasn’t expecting that.  It’s fine, John,” he insisted, since Laurens wasn’t moving back.

“What did I do?”

“Flu shot.  Whatever.  Come on, J., where were we?”

“Are you sure…?”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “Yes, I’m sure.  My tricep is swollen, not my dick.”  Hamilton paused, thinking over what he just said.  “We could fix that.”  Laurens still looked unsure, so Hamilton stepped forward, sliding his arms over his shoulders.  “If I recall, you were trying to shut me up.  You wanna give that another go?”

Laurens leaned down, kissing him slowly, putting his hands at his waist this time.  

He straightened back up.  “Do you want to go catch a movie or something?”

“I…”  Hamilton was thrown off guard, not expecting a proposition that would require actually leaving the apartment.  No, he didn’t really want to go out, he wanted to pull Laurens down onto the mattress and undo his pants…  He took a breath.  “Yeah.  Okay.  Sure.  Check the show times.”

Laurens took his phone out and ran a search.  “Is there anything you want to see?”

“Not really.  Whatever.”  Hamilton sat at his desk, watching as he scrolled.  “Hey,” he said after a moment, “I didn't know Andre was an artist.”

“We take class together,” Laurens pointed out without looking up.

“Well, yeah, but technically I could sign up for an art class but that doesn’t mean I’m actually any good.”

Laurens shrugged.  “He’s an artist.”

“Which does he prefer?  Drawing or painting?”

“Drawing.”

“Hm…”

Laurens glanced over at him.  “What?”

“Nothing.  I just didn’t, I don’t know.  He’s very good.”

Laurens frowned slightly as he turned his attention back to his phone.  “Yes.”

“I mean, it’s not his major.  He’s actually studying languages.”

“And I’m studying politics.”

“How close is he to fluent in them?  I mean, I’m sure it varies.  He’s basically fluent in French, isn’t he?  What about the rest of it.”

“His German is only okay.”

“ _Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache_.”

Laurens raised an eyebrow at that.  “Since when do you know German?”

“Andre taught me that one, we talked a little after you got your shoulder busted.”

Laurens caught himself before he told Hamilton that was fine.  Of course it was fine, they were allowed to talk.  That didn’t need to be said.

“Find anything good?”

Laurens forgot what he had been looking for.  “What?”

“Movies, John.  Find anything good?”

“No.”

“All right,” Hamilton said, getting up and heading for the door.  “Then let’s just find a bad one and make out.”

 


	64. Set Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out in the Open; Planning; Getting Closer; Attempt at Modeling; Extending the Invitation

“How are you and Peggy doing?” Lafayette asked Andre as he waited for his first client of the week to show.

“Oh, we’re great.”  Andre was sitting at the same table as him, both of them pretending like they were actually going to get work done instead of just gossiping the whole time.

“How is—”

Lafayette assumed he was going to ask about Adrienne and he picked up his phone, ready to show him the latest pictures she had sent.

“—Laurens?”

Lafayette stopped, surprised.  “Laurens?  He’s fine.”

Andre nodded.  “I know his father was at that dinner he had to go to.  He came over afterwards but I didn’t really get the chance to ask him about it.  There were other people there, and Peggy’s sister, and it didn’t feel like a good time.”

Lafayette watched as Andre toyed with his pen, obviously wanting to say something else but holding back.  “You also met him the other evening, didn’t you?”  Lafayette prompted.

“At the bar, yeah.”

Lafayette was only getting more curious.  “He was upset.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he talk to you about it?”

“Yeah.”

They looked at one another, trying to gauge what could be said.

“You know,” Andre finally said, turning his worksheet over and then back again.  “Laurens is real popular.  On the team, I mean.  Not quite like how you are, but he’s very well-liked.  The guys respect him.  And they should,” he added, “he’s hard working and determined and generous.  I don’t think that’d change.  Regardless of what anyone found out about his… father,” Andre added.

Lafayette was watching him closely, curiously, and he nodded.  “I’m sure you’re right.”

“And, like, he’s my friend, you know?  Even if we’re not as close as we used to be.  But he’s a good guy.  I want good things for him.”  Andre turned the paper over again.  “So you know both of them better than I do.  Laurens and his father, I mean,” he said quickly, looking up.  “I don’t know.  What do you think?”

Lafayette was chewing his bottom lip.  “What do I think?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think you’re talking about Henry Laurens at all.”

Andre looked guilty.

“Aha,” Lafayette leaned forward a little, eyes lighting up.  “I was right.  Then that means…”

“You know too?”  Andre asked hopefully.

“Of course I know!  I share a room with him!  No, forget that part, I’m the one who set them up!”

“You did?”  Andre was getting more enthusiastic.  “Okay, because when I asked him how that happened he wouldn’t give me a proper answer.  Did you know about them before?”

“Please,” Lafayette said, putting his hand on Andre’s shoulder.  “I know everyone and everything.”

“Okay, so tell me, does it actually work?  I can’t see it.  I mean I _guess_ I can, but…  It was so weird, Lafayette, he was so upset the other day.  I thought something else must have happened to his brother at first.”

“They’re very cute together,” Lafayette assured him.  “Alexander is just—”  He stopped himself, eyes wide.  “—Laurens did say that part, didn’t he?”

“To tell the truth, I’d figured it out a couple days before,” Andre admitted.  “He never actually mentioned him.  He told me that he’s dating some girl.  Even when they were at my place they kept distance and everything.”

“Ah, that makes more sense.  Alexander didn’t make it sound like he was _that_ drunk.”

“He mostly let it slip.”

Lafayette shook his head in dismay.  “Laurens, no.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“No other students.  He’s very private about it all.”

“I guess I can understand that.  But then it’s not like he talks about his previous dating history, either…”

“I know.  And Alexander won’t shut up if you get him on the topic.”  Lafayette shook his head as he texted Adrienne the good news.  “We’re the only two with _any_ moderation.”

 

“Alexander?”

“Yes?”  Hamilton was lying on his back on Laurens’ bed, a pen in one hand and a printed out article in the other.

“Would you mind,” Lafayette continued as he closed the door behind him, “not being quite so graphic the next time you speak about our purported sex life?”

“I told you it was too much,” Laurens, at his desk, said.

“You thought it was funny when I texted you,” Hamilton protested.

“Yes, that was before I had it mentioned to me by a third party.”

“Fine, I’ll issue a retraction.”  Hamilton turned his attention back to the reading.  “Post it around campus.  What part didn’t you like?  The position or the naming?  Did the name stick?”  The article lost his attention again and he looked over at Lafayette.  “What did Burr go with?”

“ _Fraternité_.”

Lafayette and Hamilton both turned to Laurens in surprise.

“…Someone on the team asked me if you had broken up with Adrienne.”

“ _Please_ correct them,” Lafayette demanded from Hamilton more forcefully.  “I told Adrienne about your charade but I don’t want her to get wind of any concerning rumors.”

“I didn't think it would blow up so quickly,” Hamilton protested, sitting up.  “Burr’s so quiet!”

“He might be, but his friends aren’t,” Laurens pointed out.  “Besides, I thought you said that you were just going to ask him about what he had heard and that you weren’t going to tell him anything.”

“I didn’t tell him anything _real_ ,” Hamilton said guiltily.  “I couldn’t help it.  He goaded me into it!”

“I don’t care what he did,” Lafayette said.  “Fix it, Alexander.”

“Not everyone believes it,” Laurens offered, getting his wallet out of his bag and rifling through it.  “Andre at least realized it was too stupid to be true.”

Lafayette looked a little uncomfortable suddenly, but while Hamilton noticed, Laurens did not and kept talking.

“Of course, you work with him, so I’m sure you’ve talked his ear off about Adrienne.  He’d know right away if anything was wrong in paradise.  I was serious about getting out of the city, by the way,” he added to Hamilton, taking his credit card out.  “I’m going to get the rental.  We don’t have to go out of state but mid-semester break is this weekend…”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”  Hamilton forced himself to look at Laurens instead of trying to figure out what had made Lafayette nervous or just avoiding his gaze altogether.  “Sure,” he repeated.  “Upstate, I guess?  See the leaves and shit.  I don’t know that I want to drive all the way to Vermont, I mean, we might as well go to Canada at that point.  But I hear Niagara Falls is nice?  That’s a date-thing, right?” 

Laurens was grinning as he glanced over at Lafayette.  Hamilton looked at him as well, confused.

“Alexander,” Lafayette said, putting his hand on his shoulder.  “I already told John I would be going too.”

Hamilton reddened as he realized he had made an assumption about the kind of get away it was supposed to be.

“—You and Adrienne,” Hamilton said quickly, not really sure how to cover for his slip.  “I was there for the initial conversation.  It was going to be a double date!”

“I thought you said that was too weird,” Laurens teased, unable to get the smile off his face.  

“How was I supposed to know you changed the intention!  You kept the damn format the same!”

“Should I ask Lafayette to leave?  Should just the two of us go somewhere?”  
“Don’t you dare.”

“Don’t I dare take you up on your offer?”

Hamilton threw the pen at him.  “Jackass.”  He turned to Lafayette.  “Right, you pick.  Upstate?  Atlantic City?”

“Atlantic City?”

“Let’s not do Atlantic City.  Neither of you can even drink.”

“I’ve got a fake ID.”

“And I don’t want to bail you out over a long weekend that’s going to see lots of underage college students swarming the area.  It’ll be too crowded and security will be higher than normal.  No.”

“Fine,” Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “Lafayette?”

“I want to see as many states as possible.  Can we go to Vermont by way of Connecticut and Massachusetts?”

“Hold up, you said you wanted to rent a car?  You seriously want to drive in the city?  That’ll be a bitch and a half.”

“It won’t be that bad.”

“Besides, we’re all under twenty-five.”

“That’s fine.  The rate will just be higher.”

“Rich people,” Hamilton muttered, slouching down a little.

“Oh, before I forget…”  Lafayette reached into his bag and took out a couple of fliers, handing one to Hamilton and one to Laurens.  “Washington,” he paused a little, per usual, to really emphasize who he had been meeting with, “told me to give these to you.”

“…From the health center?”  Laurens turned it over to make sure he wasn’t missing anything on the back.

“Lafayette, I don’t need this, hell, I _approved_ this because the kid dropped by when everyone else was out to lunch.”

“They’re a listing of times the health center will be giving flu shots,” Lafayette informed Laurens, who had already read it and was tossing it into the trash, turning back to his laptop.  “It’s—hey!”

“Got it.”

“You’re going to forget,” Lafayette scolded.

“I will not.  It’s basically every day for the next couple weeks.  I’ll remember.”

“He’ll probably get injured again and wind up back down there anyway,” Hamilton said, tossing his own copy as well. 

Lafayette clicked his tongue.

“I already went.  Washington friggin’ talked my ear off about them as soon as it started getting cold out.  The guy swears by them, honestly, not like I wasn’t planning on getting one, but I never thought I’d want to hear him talk more about his stupid garden instead.  It’s fine.”

“You know what’s not fine?”  Lafayette mused, leaning on Hamilton’s shoulder.

Laurens looked up from punching in his credit card number on the rental site.  “How Alex—”

“How Alexander started a very obscene rumor about me to the detriment of my actual relationship,” Lafayette agreed.  “Yes, exactly.”

 

“I feel like I’m always at my laptop,” Lafayette, sitting on his yoga mat, clicking through his email on his cell phone, complained in French.  “It seems so unnatural.  I don’t like it.  But I need it for classwork and to speak with my friends and family back in France.”

“You should get a standing desk,” Adelaide suggested as she set up the speakers.  “They brought them in for us at my other job and they’re not as difficult to adjust to as people think.”

Lafayette looked up.  “I’ve heard of those before.  Do you really like it?”

“I feel like I’m more productive,” Adelaide said.  “Besides, sitting is so bad for you.”

“I know,” Lafayette complained.  “It’s awful.  But…”  He opened a new tab and ran a search.  “I will look for one.  Thank you, Adelaide.”

She smiled at him.  “Not at all, Lafayette.”

“You don’t need to call me that,” he said as she walked by him.

She stopped, raised a brow, her smile becoming a little wry.  “What should I call you instead?  That’s your name.”

“It’s my…”  Lafayette stopped short.  It wasn’t really his surname and he didn’t want to call it his title.  “My first name is Gilbert,” he said instead.

“Gilbert.”  It rolled—he had the image of hills passing by on a long drive in the countryside—off of her tongue, even more so when Adrienne said it.

“Or Gil,” he added.  

“All right.”  Adelaide stepped past him.  “Gilbert.”

 

“Just like… This?”

“Right, good.”

“You sure, John?”

“Stop fidgeting.”

Hamilton tried to sit still, tried not to toy nervously with his hands in his lap.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take off my pants?  Shirt?  Something?  Last time you just brought me a stool and had me strip.”

Laurens, sitting on the ground just a foot away from him, looked up from his sketchbook.  “This is for class, Alex.  It’s a portrait study.”

“Are you sure you don’t want the chair?  I can sit on the table.”

“I like this angle,” Laurens said.  He expected Hamilton to make some dirty joke about how he liked to see him at that angle too, looking up at him from the floor.  Instead he was met with silence, Hamilton frowning slightly in concentration and finally folding his hands and holding them still.  He was looking at the window and Laurens sketched the line of his jaw, how it connected almost at a sharp angle to his neck and slid past it, curving up towards his ear.  Hamilton was still sitting quiet and still, obedient, clearly trying to do what Laurens had asked and to take it seriously.  Laurens had made a light mark to come back to later, indicating his high cheekbones and the way the shadows caught under them.  He was sketching his broad mouth, lips touching so lightly they were almost parted, the way one side always looked a little quirked up as if he had a remark ready and waiting.  Outside a bus went noisily by and Hamilton’s hands twitched but he didn’t otherwise react.  Laurens was working slower now.  He had drawn the most basic contours of his nose and brow and set where his eyes should be but he was getting too distracted studying his subject to actually move the pencil across the paper.  Instead he was watching his eyes—bright and intelligent even when Hamilton wasn’t engaged in any active task, showing surprising patience—Laurens realized, although of course he already knew, that Hamilton was sitting there as a favor to _him._   It wasn’t fun for him like it had been the other time, and he wasn’t complaining over the slightest inconvenience like he had been then either.  Laurens had only had to ask him once, casually, and he had taken a seat and tried his best to arrange things as he wanted.

Laurens let the pencil drop from the paper as another thought formed itself, clear as the image on the page.  Hamilton was his boyfriend.  They weren’t just dating, he was actually—although he had tended to use the word lightly and in jest and even just the previous month had put the breaks hard on a more structured date—but then, since that time hadn’t he been a little nicer, hadn’t he actually asked about his family and tried to save his image in front of his father?—he was _actually_ …

Laurens put the sketchbook to the side.  “I can’t do this.”

Hamilton, startled out of his own (much less convoluted than Laurens’) thoughts, looked down.  “What?  Why not?”

“Where were you staying when the hurricane hit?”

“With our old landlord; my mother had died already,” Hamilton answered automatically, comfortable enough with Laurens that he offered up the real answer, not “in the Caribbean” or “In St. Croix” or even “with you at Washington’s place, did you forget?”  He was confused.  “Why?”

“I was just wondering.”  Laurens stood up.  “I’m sorry.  I need to see if Lafayette will sit for me instead.  I’m getting too distracted.”

“Okay…”  Hamilton watched him.  “J., we can go somewhere else.  I know it’s noisy and my place is kind of a mess.”

“That’s not it,” Laurens tried to carefully explain.  “This is fine.  I just can’t concentrate on drawing when I’m looking at you like that.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton paused, then laughed.  “So that’s how it is.  You really are a flirt.  Is that the southern hospitality coming out?”  He got up, working a kink out of his neck and dropping the teasing tone.  “But you're not heading over now, are you?  Stay.”

 

“…Andre?”  Lafayette let him into the room after class on Wednesday.  “Laurens is out.”

“Oh.  I texted him, I guess he didn’t get it.”  He looked around awkwardly.

Lafayette motioned to Laurens’ desk and his own bed.  “Would you like a seat?”

Andre sat heavily on the side of the bed.  Lafayette cocked his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Peggy and I are fighting.”

Lafayette sat next to him.  “I’m sorry.  How are you?”

Andre laughed, bitterly.  “Well, I’m pretty sure I’m about to be dumped.  So that’s great.  I’m great.  I’m sorry,” he sighed.  “I’m such a moron.”

Lafayette patted him on the back.  “Would you like me to see if I can get in touch with Laurens for you?”

“No, I don’t want to… If he’s busy, I mean… I was just going to ask him if he wanted to go get a drink.”  Andre looked up at Lafayette.  “Are you…?”

“I could be free,” Lafayette said, nodding a little too enthusiastically.  “Tomorrow is the start of break, after all.”

“All right.”  Andre didn’t get up.

Lafayette took out his phone.  “I’m not old enough to drink in this country.”

“Oh.  Right, I forgot…”

Lafayette waved his hand.  “That’s all right, do you mind if I call a friend?  He doesn’t have to stay if you don’t want him to, but then we won’t have to go out.”

Andre shrugged.  “Is he in a happy relationship?”

“I think he is, how do you say, playing the field.”  Lafayette was typing.  “I’ll ask him to keep the topic of his exploits to himself.”

“No, it’s fine.  Maybe he’ll have suggestions for how I can be less of a loser.  You know how people say they’d like to live in another time period?  I’m pretty sure that if I was born in another century I’d just end up a serf or working with exposed mercury or hung as a scapegoat and traitor or something.”

“I’d stand up for you,” Lafayette assured him.

“Ha.  Yeah.  Everyone loves you, maybe that’ll be enough.”

“People like you.”

Andre shrugged.  

“Laurens and Alexander and I are going on a trip over break,” Lafayette said.  “Why don’t you come with us?  It’s just up to Vermont but it will be good for you to get some distance.”

Andre hesitated.

“You’d be doing me a favor,” Lafayette continued.  “Then I’ll have someone else to talk to while Laurens and Alex pretend they are not just slipping off to fool around.”

Andre half-laughed.  “Yeah, okay.  Why not?”

“Good.  I’ll tell them to expect you.”  There was a knock at the door and Lafayette got up, already typing as he let Gouverneur in.

“Hey, I was already upstairs when I got your message.  Where’s Alexander?”  Gouverneur glanced around and offered Andre his hand.  “Nice to meet you.  You’re Andre?”  Andre nodded.  “Gouverneur Morris.”  He slung his bag off his shoulder.  “First things first, Lafayette, did you finish that book I recommended?”

Lafayette frowned and handed him two boxes of Girl Scout cookies.  “It was… not the best.”

“Dude, you gotta read it when you’re high.”  He took a plastic container out of his bag and offered the brownies inside to the other two.  “This is what I’ve got.  Someday we’ll actually smoke and you can tell me how it compares to France.  I’ll stick around for a while but I’m not going to join you boys today.  My parents are in town and we’re meeting up later.”

“That’s nice,” Lafayette said.  

“My parents are in France,” Andre said sadly.  Lafayette patted him on the shoulder and refrained from pointing out that his parents were dead.

“France, huh?  That’s neat.  Are you from there as well?”  Andre nodded and Gouverneur continued.  “Is that how you two got to know one another?  Lafayette, didn’t you say you’re good friends with that French girl from your gym?  You’re making a harem.”

Lafayette laughed awkwardly.  He didn’t remember bringing up Adelaide.  “Ah…  Well…  I… Suppose so.”

“I’ll direct other French people I meet to you,” Gouverneur promised.  “Get you feeling like you’re back at court, only without the posturing you were complaining about.  Just all, ‘ _Oui, oui, mon ami_ ,’ and none of that Sun King business.”

Lafayette laughed more easily now that the topic was shifting away.  “That’s a little before my time.”

“Pulp fiction is a little before my time,” Gouverneur argued lightly, “and I see the appeal of that.”

“I don’t think that is the same thing,” Lafayette said.  “And aren’t books like that still being written?”

“Nah, I mean the early twentieth century stuff.  You know what I mean, don’t you?”  Gouverneur turned to Andre.  “Titles like _Cowgirls on Planet X_ and then those cheesy covers.  They’re art, if you know how to read them.  Try it again later,” he assured Lafayette.  

 


	65. Stamina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Preemptive; Basil Farm

Laurens had just gotten out of the shower and was only wearing a towel around his waist for some semblance of modesty when Hamilton came back from work.  

“Oh.”  Hamilton closed the door behind him, unable to keep himself from giving him a very obvious once-over.  “Hello.”

Laurens pushed his hair back.  Hamilton raked his eyes over his chest and arm and jaw. 

“Take off your shirt.”

Hamilton dropped his bag and then coat to the floor.  “Right.  Letting you take my key again this morning was a great idea, thanks past me.”  His shirt followed in short succession. 

Laurens stepped forward, grabbing his arm and pushing him up against the desk.  “Andre is coming with us to Vermont,” he said, popping the button on Hamilton’s pants and roughly yanking his fly down, pushing his hand inside and against him.

“This is—”  Hamilton arched into him, bracing himself against the desk, “Kind of weird foreplay, John.”

“I can’t do anything to you there.”  Laurens was biting at his neck, pressing harder until Hamilton’s knees buckled and he leaned back to sharply tip his hips to him.  “So I’m going to do it here.”

“Oh—”  Hamilton gasped.  “Right.  Got it.  You wanna fuck?”

“Not now.”  Laurens was rubbing him now, slowly, and Hamilton groaned.  “How many times do you think you were going to finish over the weekend?”

“Th-Thursday to—Monday?”  

“Yes.”  Laurens moved his free hand over Hamilton’s side and chest, then teased his nipple as he stroked him.

Hamilton bit his lip.  “Mn.  I don’t know.”  He was speaking a little faster, his words shaking.  “God, J., I don’t—Five?”

“Just five?”  Laurens bit the lobe of his ear and Hamilton shivered and tilted his head so he could reach it easier.  “Be a little more confident”

“S-seven?”  Hamilton grinned suddenly.  “Nah, more like—Seventeen.”

“What a challenge.”  Laurens bit him again, lightly, then turned his attention more forcefully to his cock.

Hamilton gasped again, taking much of his weight off of his legs as he leaned more heavily against the desk.  “J…”

“Keep your eyes open.”

Hamilton hadn’t realized he had closed them but he opened them with a start.  “Wh—”

“I’m going to jerk you off,” Laurens said, his voice low and smooth and it moved over Hamilton like velvet.  “And you’re going to watch.”

Hamilton made a small, desperate, pleading noise as Laurens slid his pants down just a little to give himself more space, keeping his hand outside of his briefs.  “Don’t you remember?  You told me before that you wanted to watch.”

Hamilton ducked his head in a quick nod.

“What do you think?”  Laurens asked.  “Should I let you strip or not?  This will be easier to clean up.”

Hamilton rocked his hips towards him, the heat and pressure starting to build more in his groin.  “John…”

“But then after this you’ve still got sixteen more to go.”

Hamilton took one of his hands off the table and gripped his arm.  “J.—”

Laurens took that as encouragement and moved his hand faster, concentrating on just finishing him quickly.

Hamilton came, still half dressed and eyes fluttering shut, digging his nails into Laurens’ arm.

Laurens kissed him lightly and stepped back, removing the towel.  “Now you can strip,” he said.

Hamilton, a little flushed and grinning, quickly did so.  “Your turn.”

Laurens moved forward again, pushing Hamilton back up against the desk so that he had to rise up on his toes a little.  He put his hands down firmly on either side of him, trapping him in place.  Hamilton’s breath caught in his throat.

“No,” Laurens said simply, “I told you that I was going to get you off.”

“Ah—”  Hamilton swallowed dryly.  “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Laurens confirmed, taking one hand off of the desk to stroke and tease his cockhead.  Hamilton squirmed.

“Mn, John…”

“You’ve gone more than once before,” Laurens said, not stopping.

“Not like— Well, okay, yes, but not—”  Hamilton’s hips jerked.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“Don’t stop.”

“Good.”  Laurens kissed the side of his mouth, then down his jaw.

Hamilton leaned into it.

“I want to see how long it will take you to get hard again.  Probably not long.  You never seem to get slowed down.”

“Mm…”  Hamilton laughed shakily.  “I’ve got an excellent refractory.”  He gave a low moan as Laurens briefly slid his hand down over the rest of his shaft.  “God, J…”

“Next time I’m taking you somewhere without anyone else around,” Laurens said in his ear, back to teasing his head.  Hamilton’s hips jerked into his hand as he moved his attention back and Laurens continued.  “Away from the city and everyone else in it.  No Andre, no Lafayette.  Just you and me.”

“And a—bed.”  Hamilton tried to joke, but his voice caught halfway through the sentence.

“Right,” Laurens agreed, his hand wrapped around Hamilton’s shaft and moving slowly.  “A bed.  It doesn’t matter where we go.  We’re never leaving that damn bed.”  His voice lowered a little and Hamilton could feel his lips brushing against his ear.  “I’ll fuck you into the mattress.”

Hamilton whimpered and shifted his legs a little further apart.  “J.,” he said, his voice shaky, “please, do that…”

“Do this?”  Laurens picked up the pace.

“Fuck me,” Hamilton said, frustrated.  “Please, J., let’s just—”  He took in a sharp breath, biting his lower lip.  “Just—The bed is right there—”

“Stand up straighter,” Laurens said, nudging his leg hard and bringing his other hand down to cup him.  Hamilton straightened up, taking his weight off of the desk and sliding his hands up Laurens’ arms and over his shoulders. 

“You’re starting to get hard again,” Laurens commented, flicking his tongue across the rim of his ear. 

Hamilton sucked in a sharp breath, thinking about what else his tongue might do…

“I want to make you work for it,” Laurens explained.  “Make you come over and over, make up for what we’re going to miss out on.”

“Q-quality, John, not—”  Hamilton’s voice broke off and he tensed, leaning in towards Laurens so he could steady himself on him.

“Not quantity?”  Laurens asked.  “I thought you said not to stop.”

“John,” Hamilton whined—he could hear the tone in his voice, he couldn’t stop it—and pressed his forehead to his chest.

“Shit,” Laurens laughed.  “I should have timed you.”

Hamilton just whimpered in response.

“Are you going to actually keep your eyes open this time?  Or will you have to wait for the third?”

“How many—Mn…”  Hamilton swallowed.  “How many times—Are we doing this?”

“Until you’re completely dry.”  Laurens pressed his fingers to the soft skin behind Hamilton’s sac, still pumping his cock, and Hamilton moaned.

“Ah, J.—”  He could feel his orgasm building again, gathering speed quicker once it started and he knew that it wouldn’t reach the same threshold but that he would lose his hold on it sooner.  “What about…”  He lost track of where he was going with that, distracted by the view of Laurens’ hand on his cock.  Watching Laurens work it was somehow even better than just the sensation alone.  He felt a thrill from seeing Laurens touch him, being faced with the proof of how hard it was making him.  

Laurens pushed against him a little harder and was rewarded when Hamilton gave a short moan, his legs shaking.

“Don’t stop,” he commanded, his voice getting more urgent as he got closer.  “John—Yes—!”

Laurens obeyed, continuing until Hamilton suddenly tensed, sliding one hand up into his damp hair and digging the nails of his other one into his shoulder as he gasped out his name and spilled up his arm.  

Hamilton leaned heavily on him, breathing hard, until Laurens released him and Hamilton turned his face up and kissed him, pulling him down into it.

Laurens put his arms around him, one hand low on his back and the other high.  He felt a slight pang when Hamilton finally moved away.

“I want to sit, J.”

“Right.”  Laurens motioned towards the bed and went into the bathroom to wash himself off.  He was turning off the water when he noticed the bottle of lube still sitting out and he grabbed it, taking it with him into the main room.

Hamilton was sitting naked, legs crossed, on top of the sheets, checking his phone.

“Andre got dumped?”

“Yeah.”

“Got it.  That makes a lot more sense.”  He glanced up as Laurens sat next to him.  “You never told me why he was coming with us.”

“I feel bad for him,” Laurens started to explain, a little guiltily.

“John, it’s fine.”  Hamilton turned and kissed him again.  “I’ll just have to remember that I can’t feel you up in—did you bring back lube?  And here people think _I’m_ the horndog.”

“I thought it would be useful.”

“Probably,” Hamilton agreed.  “I need to pack it.  That and a handful of condoms because I’d feel kind of weird wrecking the place’s sheets.”

“Alex, I’m not really…”

“Yeah, sensation, whatever, I thought you’d agree with me on that one, John.  Seemed like it would be rude.”

“No, that’s not it.”  Laurens shifted uncomfortably.  “I meant it, I’m not messing around over break if Andre is there.”

“Come _on_ , J.,” Hamilton said, taking his hand.  “He’s going to be sharing a room with Lafayette, right?  He won’t know.”  He sensed that Laurens was not swayed so he continued.  “I’ll keep my hands to myself in public.  But that’s a long time and, I mean, _hotel sex_.”

“He just broke up.”

“And I said I wouldn’t try to jump you right there in the lobby.  It’ll be kind of hot to sneak around.”

“How is that any different from what we’re already doing?”

Hamilton, still holding his hand, raised an eyebrow.  “Do you really want to pull at that thread?”

“…No.”  Laurens took his hand away and ran it through his hair.  “Sorry.  Look.  It just doesn't feel right.”

“Because he’s upset or because you’re embarrassed?”

“Both.”

Hamilton leaned back on the mattress.  “At least you’re honest, J.”

“It’s not you,” Laurens explained.  “I haven’t told him.  If I do, it’s practically the same thing as telling the entire team.”

“Your coach already knows.”

“That’s different.”

“Because he’s a flaming homosexual or because he’s not one of your peers?”

“Alexander.”

“I’m just asking.”

Laurens sighed.  “Because he’s not one of my friends.”

“If they were really your friends, John…”

“Look, I know.  Okay?”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, and to Laurens’ relief he didn’t sound bitter.  “I have a question.  You’re so private about this—don’t look guilty, I wasn’t trying to criticize you—but Lafayette said you just ran with it last year when he slipped it into the conversation.”

“It’s not…”  Laurens gave him his hand back.  “…If it’s already understood that you’re from the Virgin Islands, then that’s one thing.  But don’t tell me you wouldn’t hate having to bring it up and defend it every time.”

Hamilton intertwined their fingers.  “Yeah, okay.”

“I just want it to be normalized.  Lafayette’s good at that.”

“He makes everyone feel accepted,” Hamilton agreed.  “I think it’s because he’s so weird.”

Laurens laughed.

“No, I mean it.  He strikes the balance between popular and freak real well. It’s one of his strongest attributes.  Makes him accessible but also makes you want him to think highly of you.  It’s easy to be friends with him, but it feels special.”

“You’re right,” Laurens agreed.  “Hey, you want to hear something good?”  He asked as he got up and went to the fridge.  “I’m definitely going to get to play next week.  Coach said he’d put me in.”

“Great,” Hamilton said as Laurens brought back a couple containers of leftover Caribbean food.  “You’ve been waiting—Hey, wait a minute.”  He took one from him and a plastic fork.  “Wait, shit, so you're cockblocking me this weekend _and_ until the end of season now?  What the fuck, John.”

“Nah,” Laurens sat down next to him and opened the other container.  “Just until I get injured and benched again.”

Hamilton hit him.  “Not funny.”  He took a bite of saltfish, talking with his mouth full.  “God damn, I hate your stupid rule.”

“We had settled on a compromise,” Laurens pointed out.

“Yeah, hand stuff.”  Hamilton gestured crassly down at his crotch.  “Just what I’m getting tonight anyway.  If this is the last time we can fuck until December I want to get my dick wet.”

“I seem to remember you asking me to fuck you.”

“I’m not fucking exactly picky over here, J.”

“It’s less than two months.”

“I’m almost offended.  It’s almost like you don’t think the sex is fucking mindblowing.”

“Where would you rank it?”  Laurens asked abruptly.

“What do you mean, like better than food or…?”

“You slept with seventeen other people before.”

“Seventeen _girls_ ,” Hamilton clarified.  “Totally different thing.”

“So…”

Hamilton laughed.  “So there are two reasons why it’s not a contest.”

“That’s not an answer,” Laurens insisted. 

“You know, you’ve got this real competitive streak,” Hamilton pointed out.  “You’re just like me, no wonder I like you.”

“Shouldn’t that make it so that we don’t get along?”

“Nah.  We’re not going head to head against each other.”  Hamilton kept eating, looking up when he realized Laurens was still waiting for an answer.  He put the food off to the side.  “Shit, I don’t know, John, _I_ know where you rank but maybe you gotta make an argument in your favor before I count up the points and tell you what your score is.”

Laurens was on him, tongue in his mouth and hand on his cock, pushing him down against the mattress and pinning him in place with one knee between his legs.

Hamilton hadn't been expecting such a quick reaction and he made a surprised noise into the kiss before sliding one hand up over Laurens’ shoulders and into his hand and the other down to touch him—

Laurens grabbed his wrist and pulled it away, breaking the kiss.  “I said I was doing it.”

“For fuck’s sake, John!  Let me fucking touch you!”

Laurens was startled and his eyes widened, a shiver of heat running through him.

Hamilton jerked his hand away and put it back on him, wrapping it around his shaft without any resistance.  Laurens leaned his hips into it and Hamilton grinned, kissing him lightly and looking up at him.  “I told you.  I like getting you off, too.”  He kissed him again, then slowly trailed his tongue down his jaw and neck, working his shaft and tightening his grip in his hair.

“Alex…”

“Mm.”  Hamilton kissed the dip in his collarbone.  “Yeah?”

Laurens shifted back, taking Hamilton’s hand away again to a displeased whine.  “After.”

“J…”

“After,” Laurens promised, running his thumb over the slit in Hamilton’s cockhead.

Hamilton made a frustrated noise.

“Don’t sound so put out,” Laurens teased.

“I’m not,” Hamilton began, trying to move forward enough that Laurens was forced to touch him more.  “I like that you’re—mn—enthusiastic, John…”  Laurens’ name turned into a moan.

“How many times have you gotten off in one day?”

Hamilton laughed breathily.  “You’re asking all the hard questions today, aren’t you?”

“Not all the way yet.”

Hamilton shoved the side of his head.  “Shut up, I already went twice.”

Laurens ducked his head, trying not to laugh.

“You’re a jerk sometimes,” Hamilton said, not really sounding put out.  He ran his hand through Lauren’s hair again.  “I didn’t think you’d be able to—resist for so long.  Did you rub one out in the shower?  ‘Cause I’m okay with that, J.”  Hamilton was grinning, his eyes closed.  “You can jerk it in there.  It’ll give me something to think about when I do.”

“What do you think about?”  Laurens was stroking him, coaxing him erect.

“You,” Hamilton said.  “That time you shoved me up against the wall in the shower.  Intercrural, didn’t know how hot that could be.”  Hamilton leaned up, kissing Laurens slowly, then lowered his head back to the mattress.  “When I finally got to—fuck you.”  His grin broadened.  “Shit, J.”

Laurens bit Hamilton lightly where his neck met his shoulder and he tipped his head away to give him better access.  

“Mm…  You should’ve—seen your face.  You just—”  Hamilton’s breath caught.  “You felt so _good_ , J.  I felt so—fucking lucky.”

Laurens half laughed, a little embarrassed.  

“Don’t,” Hamilton insisted a little harder than normal.  “John—”  He had his eyes open again and he tugged at Laurens’ hair to get his attention, looking at him seriously.  “I meant it, okay?  You have shit to be embarrassed about.  There’s no one else I’d rather be with.”

Laurens had gone still.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton pulled him down and kissed him, long and hot and slow, sucking on Laurens’ tongue when he slid it into his mouth and stroking it with his own.  He moaned low into the kiss when Laurens started to move his hand again, tightening his grip in his hair.  “John,” he began, his voice starting to shake.  “Fuck me.  Please, John…”

“I said—”

“I know, I know what you—said.”  Hamilton was rocking his hips.  “I just—need a little more.  Please.”

Laurens hesitated and Hamilton continued in a rush.

“Just once, just—once, please, J., I want to feel you, it’ll be so long, you’re not—gonna let me again, please—”

Laurens felt a rush of power at having Hamilton beneath him, _begging_ him, and he kissed him lightly, pulling away and sitting up as Hamilton parted his lips for him.

“J…?”

“Hold on.”  Laurens opened the bottle of lube and poured some out.  Hamilton propped himself up on his elbows and watched, unable to look away, as he rubbed it onto his cock, leaving it hard and shining.  Laurens glanced up and made eye contact.  He raised a brow.  “Yes?”

Hamilton felt the blood rush to his cheeks without really knowing what he was so embarrassed about.  “Hey.”

“You’re staring,” Laurens teased.  “You’ve been begging me all night and now you can’t take your eyes off of it.”

Hamilton turned redder and turned away.

“Look back at me,” Laurens commanded.  Hamilton did so, staring at his cock again, watching as Laurens moved his hand over it.

Hamilton couldn’t help but imagine taking it into his mouth, moving on and off of it, sucking on him and making Laurens pull at his hand and keep his head down…

“Are you still sure you want this?”  Laurens asked, taking his hand away as Hamilton continued to stare at his thick and flushed cock.  “With the way you’re looking at me, I almost feel like you’re going to ask me for something else.”

Hamilton couldn’t find his voice so he just motioned silently for Laurens with one hand, eyes still fixed.

“Turn over.”

Hamilton exhaled hard, almost a short laugh but too distracted, and did as he was told, getting on his arms and knees.  He heard Laurens come up behind him and then suddenly felt his tongue, hot between his legs.

“Ah—!”  He pressed his hand to his mouth, face burning, as he knew Laurens was behind him biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“Sh-shut up, John.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Hamilton could hear the amusement in his voice and he muffled a loud moan behind his hand when Laurens repeated the motion.  

Laurens ran his hands up the backs of his legs and then to his ass, spreading it further and running just the tip of his tongue around his rim.  Hamilton whimpered against his fist, eyes closed, and his voice broke when he tried to speak.  “J.—!”  He felt a heat slowly coiling within him and gasped when Laurens pushed against him again.  Then he felt him lightly kiss his lower back and press one slick finger into him.  Hamilton moaned, ducking his head down and running his hand up through and then grabbing his own hair.  “Shit, John…”

“Are you going to tell me what my rank is?”

“You’re—fuckin’ kidding me—”

“I still want to know.  I’m not going to let it drop,” Laurens said, moving his hand back and forth and cupping him with the other.

“Not—the time to be a s-smartass, J.”

“I’m not,” Laurens pointed out.  “Are you already having trouble talking?  I only just started.”  He added a second finger.

“You started—ages ago—!”  Hamilton managed to get out, frustrated and needy.

“We stopped for dinner.”

“Like ten m-minutes.”

“If that,” Laurens agreed.

Hamilton whined.

“Will you come if I fuck you now?”  Laurens asked.

“N-no.”

“Really?”

“Not—right away.”

“That’s disappointing.”  Laurens spread his fingers and wrapped his other hand around Hamilton’s cock.  Hamilton pulled his pillow to his face.  “We’ve got a long way to go if we’re to hit seventeen.”

“I was fuckin’ joking,” Hamilton said, his words jumbling together and muffled.  “ _Now_ you’re being a—smartass, John.”

Laurens added a third finger and Hamilton wrapped his arm around the pillow, holding it tighter against him.

“Don’t suffocate yourself.”

Hamilton didn’t respond but he was still breathing so Laurens took his hand away and slowly pushed in to him.  He stopped halfway in, letting his eyes close for a moment, relishing the tightness and the heat, and then stayed there as he slowly pumped Hamilton’s cock.  He leaned into it more, sliding in further and pressing against him.

Hamilton was biting the pillow, his hips shaking.  Laurens was mostly still but he was moving very slightly with every stroke of his hand, rubbing against him and sending little jolts of pleasure through him even as he was working his cock.  “Please…”

Laurens pulled out a little and Hamilton gasped.

“J.—” 

“I’m right here.”

Hamilton sounded frustrated.  “I know that!”

“I want you to come before I do.”

“I already—”

“You can do more than two.”

“Yeah, I—”  Hamilton’s hips jerked and he tightened his grip on the pillow again.  “I—know, but—”

“You wanted me to prove a point,” Laurens said.  “Right?”

Hamilton made an incoherent but possibly affirmative noise.

“So I’m proving it.”

“Bullshit,” Hamilton gasped, rocking his hips as far as possible back towards Laurens in an attempt to get more contact.  “You’re—I mean, you had already—decided—what you were gonna do—”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton bit his lip.  “Mn…  John…”  He was really starting to plead with him, the tone becoming more uncontrollably desperate.  “Just a little—” 

“What’s my standing?” 

“I’ll tell you once you—”

“Tell me now.” Laurens cut him off, pushing back into him fully, causing Hamilton to moan.

“Better now than it—was a moment ago.”

Laurens was teasing his head again, just running his thumb lightly over it as he pulled back and thrust slowly into him again.  He wanted so badly to fuck him properly, to make Hamilton collapse onto the mattress and scream his name…  He took a bracing breath.  Some other time.

“Only better?”  Laurens ran his hand back down his shaft, matching the slow pace of his hips.  “I want to hear you tell me that I’m the best.”

“Fuckin’ cocky bastard.”  Hamilton tried to rock himself into Laurens’ hand, press into it, set his own faster speed.  He gasped sharply when Laurens simply let go of him instead.

“Stop that.”

“But—”

“I didn’t say you could do that this time.”

“J., you said—you wanted me to—”

“ _I_ want to make you come,” Laurens clarified, stressing the first word and putting his hand back as Hamilton’s knees buckled for a second.  “I want to do it.”

“You’re—”  Hamilton shifted his legs very slightly further apart.  “Driving me—”

“Yes?”

“Crazy—”  Hamilton finished the sentence after a long wordless silence, his mouth open but unable to form sounds.  “John, please, I need—”

“I like that,” Laurens said, his voice low.  “‘I need.’  I never heard you say that one before tonight.”

“ _J._ ”  The word was a pleading moan.  His legs were shaking badly.  “John.”

“God,” Laurens breathed, a heady mix of tender and feral that made Hamilton’s head swim.  “I can’t stand how hot you are.”  He took his hand off of him and put it on his shoulder, pushing him down into the mattress.  

Hamilton made a startled noise but before he could roll over or say anything Laurens was back on him, fucking him and wrapping one arm across his chest as he kissed and bit his neck and shoulder.

Hamilton felt himself pressed up against the mattress, his cock rubbing into the sheets, Laurens’ weight on him and the strength of his arm pulling him to him. 

“John, yes—yes—”  Hamilton finally felt himself get close to the edge.

“Say it.”  Laurens’ voice was soft and hungry in his ear.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton moaned at his name, his own voice getting more frantic.  “Yes—John—!”

Laurens still had his mouth just off of Hamilton’s ear and he could feel that he was close as well, but he repeated himself anyway.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton’s lips were parted but he was incapable of making sound.  

“Alex—”  Laurens’ breath caught and he finished his name shakily, “—ander.  Do I win?”

He was rewarded with a sudden gasp and then a whispered “—Yes.”

Laurens could hear in his voice that he had just come and the sound tipped him over his limit.

Laurens lay there on top of him for a few seconds after he had come, then rolled off of him and sat up, taking off the condom and knotting it.  Hamilton’s hand was shaking a little when he put it on Laurens’ leg, then used it to push himself up.

“I didn’t even know you put one on.  Sh-shit.”  He laughed, and then laughed again, a little harder, at how unstable it sounded.  “Yeah.”  He stroked the side of Laurens’ face and then lay back down heavily on the futon.  “You blow them all away.”

Laurens brushed Hamilton’s hair from his face, then got up.  He came back from the bathroom a minute later and tossed a damp washcloth on Hamilton, who took it and wiped off his face before cleaning himself up.

Hamilton tossed it to the side, roughly in the direction of his laundry basket.  Laurens lay down next to him.

“I have to get my things for this weekend still.”

“Go in the morning.”

“I’m picking up the car in the morning.”

“Pick up the car and drive it to the dorm.”  Hamilton took his hand and kissed it.  “It’ll be faster that way.”

 

Lafayette was laughing as he finished stacking up a layer of books on his desk to an appropriate height to hold his laptop at a comfortable level for typing while standing.

“John, Andre,” he corrected himself, “this is better for you.  And do you know what?  If you are healthier in body you will be healthier in mind, that’s why Laurens has been a better roommate ever since your coach let him participate more.”

“I don’t know.”  Andre was lying on his back on Laurens’ bed, staring up at the ceiling, a crumpled napkin on the sheet next to him.  

“It’s true, a very beautiful foreign coach told me so.”

“…Von Steuben?”

Lafayette laughed again.  “No, no, he is too old and too masculine.”

“He has a very nice dog,” Andre said.  He picked a crumb of chocolate off of his shirt and ate it.

“Adrienne has dogs.”

“Peggy doesn’t like animals.”

“Adrienne has cats as well.”

“I miss Peggy.”

“I don’t like her very much,” Lafayette admitted, setting his laptop on the books and stepping back carefully to see if it would hold.

“What?”  Andre sat up.  “Why not?  She’s a goddess.”

“All right.”  Lafayette frowned at the books.  “Never say that again.”

“It’s true,” Andre said despondently, lying back down.  “I had one chance and I blew it.  I’m such a loser.”

“Andre, you’re not a loser,” Lafayette said kindly.  “I like you.”

“My old girlfriend broke up with me to date someone else too,” Andre said.  “They both liked someone else better than me.”

“Were they cheating on you?”  Lafayette asked, a little more seriously, looking at him.

“No.”

Lafayette looked away. 

“They didn’t even care about me enough to cheat on me,” Andre said despondently. 

“Is that true?”  Lafayette asked.  “It’s worse if you don’t cheat?”

“Absolutely,” Andre said emphatically.  “They didn’t and I couldn’t feel worse.”

“I’ve never cheated on Adrienne,” Lafayette said slowly.

“That’s because you’re too pure.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“I don’t know.  I’m hungry.  We should get dinner.  When is Laurens coming back?  I miss Laurens.  He understands about Peggy, he doesn’t hate her like you do.”

“I don’t hate Peggy,”  Lafayette said carefully.  “I just don’t think you two were good for one another.  Adrienne agreed.”

Andre didn’t say anything.

“We didn’t think you two were on the same page,” Lafayette explained.  “It’s not that you weren’t good enough for her.”

“…Lafayette?”

“Yes?”

Andre dropped his arm off the side of the bed.  “I miss Laurens.  He should come back so we can get dinner.”

“I don’t think Laurens is going to come back tonight.”

“What?”  Andre sat up again, eyes wide.  “Why not?”

“Because it is very late and he is still with Alexander.”

“Oh.”  Andre drew his legs up and buried his face in his knees.  “I’m very happy for him,” he explained brokenly and not very convincingly.

Lafayette sat next to him on the bed, his arm around his shoulder.  “Andre, why don’t you stay here tonight?  We’ll be leaving early in the morning anyway and Laurens won’t mind if you use his bed.  You can even borrow my clothes for the trip.  You’ll look a lot less silly in them than the other two did.”

Andre nodded without looking up.  “I’m going to die alone in 1780,” he said, muffled.

“Andre, I’m going to order us a pizza.  You won’t die alone in 2018.”

“1780,” Andre corrected him.  “They’re going to have hung me as a traitor, remember?”

Lafayette frowned.  “Well…  No, actually, I wasn’t there.” 

“You said you would argue my case.”

Lafayette rubbed his back soothingly with one hand, using Twitter to get them a pizza with the other.  “It’ll be all right.”

“I bet Lee would get away with it.  He gets everything.”

“You are still very high strung.  I thought this would calm you down.”

Andre shrugged without looking up.

Lafayette looked over at his completely untouched brownie on the desk.  “Would you like mine?”  

Andre didn’t say anything.  Lafayette changed tactics. 

“But even if they do hang you, you will have received a hero’s burial.”

Andre, his cheeks wet, looked up finally.  “Really?”

“Of course,” Lafayette asserted.  “I remember seeing that.”

“Do you think then Peggy will love me?”

“Everyone will love you,” Lafayette assured him.  “Even when they have to condemn you, you’ll still be well-respected and admired.”

Andre nodded slowly.  “You’re so lucky.  Adrienne really loves you.”

Lafayette’s smile faltered.  “Yes.  She does.”

“She does,” Andre agreed.

“Andre,” Lafayette said, putting his phone down and dropping any last pretense at being less than sober.  “I have a confession.”

“What?”

“I…  I haven’t been as good to her as I could have been and I’m afraid that she’s about to break up with me.”

Andre’s eyes widened.  “No!”

“She dyed her hair back.  Don’t girls always change their hair when they break up with someone?”

Andre paused.  “I think that’s after.  Not before.  And you took out the purple from yours.”

“Still,” Lafayette continued miserably, “I can’t help it, I am so lonely here without her that I…”

“Did you sleep with someone else?”

“Not entirely.  I just keep _thinking_ about other girls.  But not accidentally,” Lafayette clarified.  

“What?”

Lafayette hung his head.  “I know, I know.  Everyone else said that—no, that’s not true, Alexander and de Ségur said that it was all right, a good thing, even.  De Ségur told me that I should enjoy America and Alexander said that it didn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” Andre said, “If you don’t want to be with her then you should just tell her.”

“I do want to be with her,” Lafayette protested, “I love her.  I just think about other people sometimes.  Isn’t that human?  I don’t know.”

“You’re not like everyone else,” Andre said, putting his hands on his shoulders.  “You’re the hero, and you have to be held to a higher standard.”

“I’m the hero?”  Lafayette repeated back, confused.

“Of course you are.  Doesn’t Adrienne call you Lancelot?” 

“It’s just a nickname from when we were younger, Andre.”

“Look…”  Andre trailed off for a second, then regained his train of thought.  “You traveled to a foreign land in spite of the hardships of doing so, you found… a new king to serve and he adopted you as his son.  You have charmed everyone.  You’re generous and friendly and people love you.”

Lafayette patted one of Andre’s arms.  “Thank you, you’re very kind.  But I just like people.  I enjoy being around them.  Besides,” he hesitated, “I sometimes…  I think I made a mistake coming here.  I know I’ve made friends, but I also hurt those dearest to me.  I never should have left.”

Andre shook his head.  “You had to.”

“I could have continued to study in Paris.”

“You had to,” Andre insisted, leaning in a little.  “You fixed Laurens.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened very slightly.

“I knew him since we were both freshmen, before the school year even started,” Andre continued, rambling a little.  “And, I mean, even after that, he was… Fine, I suppose.  But—You know, Lafayette, you remember when you first came here.  He wasn’t happy.  I think he was something like it on the field or in practice, or maybe at dinner or after a good party.  But he was always worrying about his father and his family and it’s…  It’s not just that he told me that he’s in love.  Because, like, he was upset about that, but he wouldn’t even have been there at all if it weren’t for you first meeting him and getting the ball rolling.”

Andre stopped talking.  Lafayette was looking at him in confusion, unable to follow the contorted stream of consciousness.

“…You’re a catalyst,” Andre said simply.  

“They are quite sweet together sometimes,” Lafayette said after a long pause.  “I know I told you that before, but…  Usually you can’t really tell unless you already know, so I don’t think you’ll see what I mean.  Laurens is very private and Alexander,” he paused as his phone went off, alerting him that their pizza was outside.  “Alexander is not exactly ‘cute.’”  He stood.  “I’ll be back with the pizza.”

“You’re making pizza?”

Lafayette patted him on the head, taking a lighter tone.  “No.  When I get back let’s eat and talk about how we will end up old and alone on a basil farm.”

“A basil farm?”

“ _Cur non?_   We can’t have a lavender farm like two women in a platonic relationship, so we have to do the opposite.”

“That’s a lavender marriage—Wait, no, a Boston marriage?”

Lafayette shrugged.  “Close enough.”


	66. Getting Comfortable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sketches; *Wake up Call and Shower, Part Two

The room was dark and Laurens was awake.

He was lying on his side, arm over Hamilton’s shoulders, listening to his breathing and the distant noises of the traffic below.  Somewhere in the distance he heard a siren and Hamilton didn’t stir.  

The longer he kept his eyes open the more they adjusted to the lack of light and he realized it wasn’t as bad as he had initially thought.  He could see well enough from the light through the window to make out color, if faintly, and the freckles scattered across Hamilton’s face.  Laurens carefully pulled his arm back and sat up.

He moved further down the mattress, adjusting the sheet over himself so he was still covered, and stretched to pull his backpack over to him.  Very quietly, trying to muffle the noise as much as possible, he unzipped it and took out his sketchbook and pencil, turning to a fresh page.  Sitting in the half-light, Laurens drew.

He covered the paper in sketches: Hamilton on his side with one arm in front of his bare chest and the blankets sliding down, Hamilton’s face with his hair curling into his closed eyes, Hamilton’s hand not quite forming a fist with the nails cut short and neat.  Laurens had to lean forward to see that from the angle he wanted.  He had the brief thought that he wouldn’t be able to draw in that awkward position if his shoulder was still injured and he remembered waking up that first night, disoriented and in pain, with Hamilton in his bed.  Laurens thought he might be starting to remember earlier that day, but it was so blurry that he couldn’t tell if he was making it up or if it was a partial memory coming back to him.  Something about Hamilton reaching up to him and touching his hair—indoors somewhere, with bright lights.  They must have been standing.

A car alarm went off outside and Laurens sat back, shifting the mattress and waking Hamilton.

“Mm.  J.?”  He rubbed his eyes and propped himself up on his arm.  “You okay?”

That was what Hamilton had asked him when he had accidentally woken him while trying to get out of the bed after coming back from the hospital.  This time he seemed much less worried.  Laurens hadn’t realized until now how anxious he had sounded.

“J.?”  Hamilton repeated, still only half awake.  “What’re you doing?”

“I woke up,” Laurens said.  “I didn’t mean to wake you too, sorry.”

Hamilton lay back down onto the futon.  “C’mere.”

Laurens moved over to sit next to him and Hamilton slid his arms around his waist, pressing his forehead to his thigh.

Laurens smiled and ran his hand through his loose hair.  “You’re handsome.”

“I know.”  The words were a little slurred.  “Fuckin’ gorgeous.”

Laurens was quiet, waiting for him to drop off again.

“What’re you doin’?  Before.”

“I was drawing.”

“’S dark, John.”

“I know.”

Hamilton was tracing a pattern high on his leg, just a few seconds at at time before his hand would drop back down.

“Drawing what?”

“You.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens could hear him grin a little.  “You gonna show me?”

Laurens leaned away to pick up his sketchbook and Hamilton let his arm fall limply across his hip before rolling away.

“Here.”

Hamilton took the sketchbook from Laurens and frowned, moving it closer so he could make it out in the poor lighting.

“John,” he said after several seconds, sounding more awake now.  “You’re amazing.”

Laurens gave a little embarrassed laugh.  “They’re just sketches.”

“You are,” Hamilton insisted.  “I could never do something like this, and you just casually…  I mean, I know you’re talented, obviously, I’ve seen your finished stuff before.  But, like, there’s hardly anything down on the paper and I would still know that’s _me_.”

“I like drawing you.”

“Can I see the other picture?  The one you started.”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton turned the pages, pausing to look at the drawing Laurens had begun of Lafayette, and stopped when he found it.  It was roughly sketched out, slight marks indicating where features and shadows should go, and the lower half of his face filled in in decent detail.  Hamilton looked at it for a long time and then touched the corner of its mouth.

“I didn’t know it always does that.  I thought it just turned up when I was smiling.”

“You smile to express more things than just happiness.  I don’t know if that’s because it’s your natural resting expression or if it’s there when you don’t realize because you’ve carved it into your face.”

“Nature v. nurture.  Probably a combination.  I love it, John.”

Laurens could feel that he was about to say something else and he changed the words because he couldn’t stop them.  “I love drawing you.  You’re a good model.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton didn’t seem to notice, turning back to the picture of Lafayette and the sketches of himself.  “It took you a long time to finish the other one and you called off this one.”

“I could have shown you that first one earlier,” Laurens admitted.  “I was sitting on it a little.”

“J., it’s fine.  I’m only playing.”  Hamilton gave him back the book.  “Can I see it again in the morning?  With proper light.”

“Of course.”

Hamilton yawned behind his hand.  “You should sleep.  You’re driving us tomorrow.  I can offer you something, antihistamine or something, but I don’t know how well it’ll keep you from getting up in the morning.”

“I’m all right.”  Laurens lay down and Hamilton curled back into him.  “It would be nice if it was just the two of us, though.”

“It’ll be fun,” Hamilton promised.  He slipped one hand up and stroked the side of his face.  “Lafayette and Andre are your friends too, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Besides, Lafayette will probably get distracted photographing everything for Adrienne and Andre, well, he’s got his own problems right now.  They’ll both be off in their own worlds.”

Laurens sighed and pulled him a little closer.

“It’ll be fine.  Lafayette’s smart and he’s on your side.  Talk to him tomorrow and he’ll work out a way to keep the two of them preoccupied.”

 

When Laurens woke it was early morning and Hamilton was curled into him, his arms around his neck.  Laurens gently moved them away and Hamilton rolled over, still fast asleep.  Laurens carefully got up and checked the time, pulling on a pair of boxer briefs before brushing his teeth and making coffee.  He knelt by the edge of the futon and was about to put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder to wake him when he had a better idea.

Laurens pulled the sheets off of him and nudged his legs apart, kneeling between them and lightly running his tongue up along Hamilton’s cock, feeling the soft skin on the side of his face when he paused, his head between it and his inner thigh.

Hamilton woke with his heart in his throat.  The blanket was off of him and he was lying on his back, Laurens’ mouth hot and wet on his cock.

“Mm, J…”  He reached down with one hand, running it through his hair without opening his eyes.  He could recognize now the way he slowly moved over him, one hand gently cupping his sac.

Laurens hummed a low note of assent and Hamilton moaned softly, arching his hips towards him, face already starting to flush.

Laurens let him move into it, letting him grow hard in his mouth, and wrapped one arm around his leg.  He varied the pressure, rubbing his tongue underneath it.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Laurens said, his lips just brushing against his head.  “I wanted to let you sleep in.”  Laurens leaned back, gently kissing his leg.  “I couldn’t help myself,” he said.  “You’re too hot, Alexander.”

“John…”  Hamilton groaned, running his hand through Laurens’ hair again as he moved back onto him.  “Helluva—wake up call.”

“Mm.”

Hamilton’s hips jerked.  “Shit,” he mumbled, still not fully awake and coherent.  “You wanna—get me up like this every day?”

Laurens half-laughed and Hamilton bit his lip.  

Laurens took him back into his mouth as far as he comfortably could then slid off him, just enough to use his hand as well.  He worked him fully erect, never pulling off all the way again, and keeping the pace slow.

Hamilton’s heart was beating faster, his breathing getting rapid.  “J…”

Laurens sucked on just the head of his cock, a little harder now, and Hamilton gave a short whine.

“J.,” he put his hand on the side of his face, nudging him.  “J., I’m gonna come.”

Laurens didn’t pull off and Hamilton nudged him again, a little harder.

“John, I’m—not kidding, I—”

Laurens took his hand away and Hamilton felt a thrill.

“Ah…”  Hamilton gasped as Laurens slid further down, pressing his tongue against him as he moved, and he came into his mouth with a short rush of pleasure.

Hamilton felt Laurens swallow against him and he gave an involuntary whimper.  “John.”

Laurens moved off of him, slowly licking his cockhead.  He had guessed correctly that there wouldn't be much to take if he let Hamilton finish while he was still on him.

“John,” Hamilton repeated, squeezing his hand and pulling at it.

“You have to get up.”

“John…”

“Come on.”  Laurens stood, pulling him up and to his feet.  “We have to get the car and I still need to go back to the dorm.  You need to shower still, Alexander.”

“Yeah…?  You should get in there with me.”  Hamilton still had his hand but he stepped in close and ran his other up over Laurens’ bare chest.  “You didn’t shower yet, did you?  We’ll save on time.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

Hamilton was still stroking his chest, eyes lidded as he looked up at him.  “So we’ll be a little late.”

“Alex, that was your fourth time in about ten hours.”

Hamilton yawned and stepped away, leading him by the hand.  “No wonder I’m tired.  Sorry if I just sleep the whole drive up.”  He got in the shower, holding the curtain open until Laurens stripped down and joined him.  Only then did he let go of him to get the water, standing directly under the spray in an attempt to wake up more and working the forgotten tie out of his messy and tangled hair.  

Laurens tried to concentrate on the task at hand, focusing his attention on washing off and reminding himself that they were on a schedule.  He was successfully distracted by running through his checklist of things to do when Hamilton turned back around and put his hands on his chest, leaning up and kissing him slowly, his lips only slightly parted.  Laurens was startled and at first he thought Hamilton had intended on tricking him all along but it was so soft and languid that he realized that hadn’t been the intent after all.  Laurens put his hands at his waist, felt his smooth wet skin, and his heart quickened.  Hamilton kept kissing him, sliding one hand up to the side of his face and leaning against him with a soft contented noise.

Laurens wanted to enjoy the moment as it was—tender, relaxed—and he cursed at his body as he felt himself get aroused.

Hamilton was pressing against him.  There was no way not to have noticed.

Laurens winced, turning his head away.  “Shit, sorry.  Ignore that.”

“J.”  Hamilton sounded almost serious as he turned his face down and kissed him again, still slowly.  “…Let me.”

Laurens didn’t know what to do about Hamilton sounding _affectionate_ , not just eager or playful, and he didn’t stop him when he put his hand on him, even though he knew they would be late.  He leaned back against the wall, bracing himself on it.  Hamilton was still leaning against him, wet and naked, even as he touched him.  Laurens put one arm around his shoulders and felt him breathe in and out deeply before tucking his head down against his neck and shoulder.

Hamilton kept his eyes half-open, watching the pulse in Laurens’ neck and feeling his grip on his shoulder tighten as he kept a consistent pace on his cock.  He felt so comfortable, mind completely devoid of its usual running commentary, and for once like time could just stand still.  Laurens groaned his name softly and he smiled.

“You like that?”  He was teasing a little again and paused to toy with his slit. 

“You know I do.”  Laurens tipped his head back against the wall.  “God, Alexander…”

Hamilton kissed his neck.  “I love your voice.”  He let go of him to trail his hand up his body, lightly running his fingers up his neck and under his jaw.  Laurens lifted his head a little further as his nails flicked over him.

“Alexander, we—”

“I know, I know.  We’re short on time.”  Hamilton put his hand back on his cock.  “It’s not fair, I want to appreciate this.”  He was stroking him.  “You said we’re not going to do anything there, and we won’t be able to once we get back.  I almost think we should just blow the whole thing off.”

“Alexander.”

“I said ‘almost,’ J.”  Hamilton kissed him again.  “But I’m already packed.  Just need to get dressed and grab my bag after we’re done in here.”

He was definitely sounding more alert the longer this went on and Laurens by contrast was having a harder time keeping track of how long they were taking and what the plan for the day was.  The water was still hitting them and it reminded him of course of the other time they had made use of his shower, how he had pressed Hamilton to the wall and bit his neck and shoulder and touched him…

Hamilton took his hand off of him again for a few seconds but before Laurens could ask what he was doing he felt him on him again, his hand slippery with soap and his hips jerked in surprise.  Laurens tightened his grip on Hamilton’s shoulder with a moan.  “Alex—”

Hamilton ducked out of his grasp, moving between his legs and running his hands up over his torso, trailing a lather over his abs and chest and kissing his collar, pressing against him so that Laurens’ cock rubbed up against his body.

Hamilton grabbed the bottle of shampoo without moving away, pouring some into his hand and moving them both up behind his head and into his hair.  Laurens moaned low at the sensation, turning his head to the side to make it easier for him to reach and Hamilton kissed him, rising up and putting almost all of his weight against him so that Laurens’ shaft was trapped between them, sliding against Hamilton’s body in the soapy water.

“Turn around.”

“What…?”

Hamilton moved back a little and nudged his shoulder.  “Turn around so I can get your back.”

Laurens obliged, putting his hands on the wall, and Hamilton stepped in again, going back to massaging his scalp, his hips just touching Laurens’ ass.

Laurens bit his lip, his eyes closed.  He knew they weren’t going to do that, but still, the suggestion… 

Hamiton ran his hands over his arms, shoulders, back, ass—he dropped to his knees—legs, sliding them up between them so Laurens automatically took a slightly broader stance for balance.  Hamilton moved his hands up right to the top of his inner legs then raised one higher, briefly cupping his balls and moving his hand over them.  Laurens, even though he had been half-expecting that, gasped and leaned harder against the wall.  Hamilton moved them forward and rubbed then pressed against his perineum with two fingers on his other hand.  Laurens groaned, feeling his cock twitch.

“Alex—ander, I—”

“I just wanted to make sure you get clean _everywhere_ , J.,” Hamilton said, obviously playful instead of defensive.  He licked a trailing bead of water from his upper thigh to his ass.

Laurens, biting his lip, drew in a hiss of a breath.  Hamilton pressed a little harder and bit at his inner thigh.  Laurens made a startled noise and Hamilton repeated it, then sucked lightly on the skin.  Laurens was shifting uncomfortably and Hamilton, encouraged, sucked harder, moving away and licking the spot after a minute, pleased to see a small but dark mark left behind.

“We should finish up in here,” he commented, kissing his leg again and getting very slowly to his feet, running his hands up the backs of his legs.

Hamilton didn’t touch Laurens’ shaft again until he was standing, one hand back in his hair, the other in a thick lather of soap and wrapped around it.

Laurens moaned as Hamilton moved his hand quickly, urging him to completion as he brushed his lips over his neck and shoulder, occasionally licking water from his skin.  Laurens could feel that he was close, how could he hold back when Hamilton’s hand was so slick and his wet body was still rubbing against him from behind?  He wished he could draw it out longer but Hamilton wasn’t letting him catch his breath or push back the wave of pleasure that had been growing within him and it rushed through him, his cum shooting onto the wall.

Hamilton slowed, pulling gently on Laurens’ hair and then turning him back around and tugging his face down to kiss him.

“…We have to go.”  Hamilton stepped away after a couple minutes.  “You done with the water?”  He turned it off and got out when Laurens nodded.  “God, you’re hot all dripping wet like that.”

Laurens took a towel from Hamilton when he offered it and dried himself off.  Hamilton had his towel wrapped around his waist and his toothbrush in his mouth. 

“Get dressed, J.,”  he said around it.  “I’m gonna grab my bag and we can be out the door in five minutes.”

 


	67. Redneval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road Trip Road Trip Road Trip

“Hey, Lafayette,” Laurens said as he swung open the door to the dorm room, “I need to finish packing quickly, but give me—”

He stopped mid-sentence, realizing first that Lafayette wasn’t alone and then that Hamilton had put one hand lightly on his back as he had opened the door.

“Uh.  Hey.”  Laurens made very uncomfortable eye contact with Andre, not really willing to tell Hamilton to stop touching him and not sure how to do that unobtrusively anyway.  “Sorry, were you waiting long?  I went to get the car.”

Andre, wearing borrowed clothes that actually fit him quite nicely, glanced at Lafayette.

“Andre stayed over,” Lafayette said helpfully.  “I thought it would be easier since we were going to get an early start and we were up late anyway.”

“Oh.”  Laurens’ heart jumped into his throat and he felt himself turning red.  “I see.”  He felt Hamilton quickly and not particularly subtly take his hand off of him.

“…We finished packing your bag,” Lafayette offered.  Andre held it out to him.

Laurens took it.  “Thank you.”

Andre shrugged.  “It’s fine.”

“So,” Lafayette said, clapping his hands to break the awkward silence.  “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s go.”

Laurens had parked the car—a sleek black model that definitely wasn't the cheapest option available—downstairs in a loading zone.

“It’s a long drive,” Laurens said defensively before anyone could comment.  “This’ll handle the turns better and be more comfortable, especially when we’re off the interstate.”

“We didn’t say anything,” Lafayette pointed out.

Hamilton took his bag off his shoulder as Laurens popped the trunk with a press of a button.  “I did.”

“Ah.”

Andre opened one of the back doors and Laurens looked up from loading the bags in the trunk.  “Do you want shotgun?”

“It’s fine.”  He slid in.  “Alexander can have it.”

Hamilton glanced quickly at Lafayette and then tried to make eye contact with Laurens, but he was busying himself with the luggage and didn’t signal if that was okay or not.  “I’m shorter,” he finally said.  “Lafayette, do you want it?”

“You can just move the seat up,” Laurens said, slamming the trunk closed and getting behind he wheel.  “Come on.  It’s over a six hour drive and we’re already behind schedule.  I want to stop for lunch in Albany.”

“Right.”  Hamilton hopped into the front passenger seat and Lafayette got in behind him.  He slid the seat up, a little further than was really comfortable, and leaned over onto the divider to fiddle with the air conditioning and radio as Laurens pulled the car out and into traffic.  “No idea what I’m looking for,” he commented, glancing back at the other two.  “Someone want to just give me their phone and I’ll set it to play off of that.”

“I want to keep my phone on me,” Lafayette said.  “Andre?”

“No way,” Laurens vetoed.  “He’s still trying to get me to listen to that soundtrack.  I told you I’d watch your movie, Andre, but I’m not listening to it on repeat until dinner.”

“What movie?”  Lafayette asked Andre curiously.  He explained while Laurens shifted his weight to the side, reaching back to get his phone from his pocket.  Hamilton slipped his hand in without commenting on it, taking it out for him and hooking it up.  He tucked his left leg up onto the seat, leaning more heavily on the divider, and put his hand on Laurens’ leg.

Laurens glanced down at it.  It was very casual; he wasn’t trying to get a reaction.  He shot a glance at Hamilton, but he was just looking out the window and didn’t seem to notice he was doing anything out of the ordinary.  Andre and Lafayette in the back were talking to one another, either oblivious or ignoring them, much more invested in the plot synopsis than Hamilton’s hand on his thigh as they slowly made their way through traffic.

Laurens didn’t move it away.

“It’s just like—”

“Shh, shh,” Lafayette said, his hand on Andre’s shoulder.  “Forget about all of that.  We have our basil farm now.”

“Your basil farm?”  Laurens couldn’t help himself. 

Lafayette looked up and made eye contact with him in the rearview mirror as he made an abrupt merge into a further lane to avoid a car with its emergency lights on.

“Exactly.  That’s where Andre and I will live.  I’ll send you our address so that you and Alexander can visit sometimes.”

“…Thanks.  But why do you have a basil farm?”

“Because Andre and I are doomed to die alone,” Lafayette said lightly.  “We’ll get a place on the coast,” he told Andre.  “We can have seals.”

“Okay, I have to ask, when you say ‘basil’ you actually do mean ‘basil,’ right?”

“It’s the opposite of lavender,” Andre explained, completely unhelpfully.

“Redneval is the opposite of lavender,” Hamilton said without moving away.

“Are you all high?  Not you, I know you’re just tired,” Laurens added, glancing down at Hamilton as he stopped at a light.

“SIRI,” Lafayette said into his phone, “What is the opposite of lavender?”

“Don’t ask SIRI—”

“The answer is RGB color | red 250 | green 250 | blue 230,” SIRI responded.

“Is that basil?”  Andre asked, looking curiously at the screen.

“It says it’s 94% gray.”

“Lavender isn’t gray.”

“It’s kind of gray.  I had it in my hair.”

“I’m an artist,” Andre argued, “It’s not gray.  Laurens, remember when we had to make color wheels?  Tell him I’m right.”

“Is this what it’s like to be on a bus with your teammates?”  Hamilton asked.  “I thought it would be more about pounding stuff, less about color swatches.”

“They weren’t swatches,” Andre said, “we had to blend them.”

“I did invite Gouverneur over last night,” Lafayette admitted, “but that was last night.”

“Ah.  I’m surprised you actually got up this time.”

“I didn't have any,” Lafayette said.  “I had a date with Adrienne this morning.”

“Okay,” Laurens started, “it doesn’t sound to me like she’s dumped you yet.  Did she get the earrings?”

“She hasn’t mentioned them.  But it’s an inevitability.”

Andre nodded as the car started forward again.  “That’s why we had to get the farm.”

“Should I put in an order for a bunch of cats for you too as well?”

“Don’t be silly,” Lafayette scolded Laurens.  “We’re getting seals.  Those are—”

“Sea cats,” Andre jumped in.  “The opposite of land cats.”

“…I gave him my brownie for breakfast by mistake,” Lafayette admitted.  “He was hungry and you’re supposed to feed your guests.  This would have all been averted if you two had shown up on time.”

“We had to shower,” Hamilton said and yawned into his other hand, not really thinking about what he was saying.

“Hey, I’m the one driving, you don’t get to complain about my being late—damnit,” Laurens swore as he was prevented by a police officer from making the left they needed.  

“I told you it would be a bad idea to drive in the city,” Hamilton said with another yawn.

Laurens frowned but didn’t say anything to that.  “Lafayette, I know I said you were being an idiot and she would be in her right to break it off, but I don’t think she’s actually going to, at least not right now.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I have her number, I could ask her.”

Lafayette sat up straight.  “ _Please_ do not.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll give her ideas.”

Laurens rolled his eyes.

“Hey.”  Hamilton squeezed Laurens leg.  “Let’s get coffee.  I need coffee.”

“Right.”  Laurens looked around.  “Is there a drive-through after the bridge?  Lafayette, check your phone for me.”

“I’m surprised you’re willing to make a detour,” Lafayette said, routing them on his phone.  “I thought you would be one of those drivers who insists on sticking to their schedule.”

“We’re already behind and the point was for you two to be awake to see the countryside.  I could take the I-91 if we weren’t trying to make this scenic.”

“I feel like I’m the kid in the backseat,” Andre commented to Lafayette.  “Is that just me?”

“No,” Lafayette replied, “it’s not just you.”

“Christ, you’re right, I feel like I’m your dad.  Stop making me be the dad.”

Hamilton had been drifting off but he woke up at that.  “Wait, why do I have to be mom?”

“He called dad,” Lafayette pointed out.

“You’re prettier than me,” Laurens teased.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Hamilton said, closing his eyes again and not really making it clear which one of them he was replying to.

 

“Did you have a long night?”  Andre asked Laurens after he had gotten them over the bridge and out of the city.

“So how are you?”  Laurens asked, completely avoiding the topic.  “I feel really bad about missing your call.  Do you need anything?  You want a coffee too?  A burger?  This isn’t my car, you can eat in the back if you want.”

“Can I get _des_ _frites_?”  Lafayette asked as Laurens made a sharp turn into a drive-through line.  

“Sure, but you’re paying for them.  I’m only buying food for people going through an actual breakup.”

Lafayette sounded offended.  “That’s not true.  You were going to get Alexander’s coffee, too!”

“That’s different.” 

“I’m the only one left out,” Lafayette complained.  “You shouldn’t pick favorites like this.  You’ll give me a complex.”

Laurens shushed him and rolled down the window to place his order.  “Good morning.  Can I get two tall coffees and a kids meal?”  He looked back.  “You boys okay with sharing or should I get two?”

“Get two.  And something for the two of you since I doubt you managed to find time for breakfast.”  Lafayette leaned over Hamilton to hand him his wallet.  “Because you are driving.”

“Oh.”  Laurens was surprised.  “Thank you.”

“Not at all.”

 

By the time they got away from the city, Hamilton was properly awake and twisted around in his seat, talking rapidly to Lafayette and Andre in the back.

“It is not, it doesn’t count if it’s just in his head.  It doesn’t count,” he repeated to Lafayette directly this time, his hand on Laurens’ seat just above his shoulder.  “You can’t _help_ thinking things, what matters is how you act on them.”

“But I could help it,” Lafayette argued.  “I’m just not stopping it.”

“Really?”  Hamilton sounded skeptical.  “I mean, I can’t stop it.  I know better than to _act_ on anything, but I can’t turn it off in my head.”

Laurens glanced at him, not sure if that was a thread he wanted to pull at.

“Like…”  Hamilton slid his hand down onto Laurens’ shoulder, rubbing it out of view behind the back the chair and not looking away from the other two.  “Don’t you just have a stream of consciousness monologue?  It doesn’t shut up, and if I see something,” he squeezed it lightly, “it filters into it automatically.  Like right now,” he continued, “I’m talking to you but there’s this incessant narration about _how_ I’m talking to you and what I just said and what I might say next and how I don’t always slow down my words enough to let that latter part work effectively.”

Andre looked at him blankly but Lafayette nodded.  

“I think the difference, Alexander, is that most of us know how to tune that out.”

“Lucky.”

“Have you tried to ignore it?”

“I _can’t_ ignore it.  It dims if I’ve had something to drink, but not in any kind of decent proportion to how much I have to have.”  Hamilton grinned, running his hand up into Laurens’ hair now.  “Actually, there is one thing that does work…”

Laurens cleared his throat.  “Alexander, could you face forward?  There’s a cop just right there.”

“Sorry.”  He sat down properly, hands in his lap.

“How much farther is it to Albany?”  Lafayette asked, leaning forward.

“Far enough.  Are we really going to play are we there yet?”

“SIRI,” Lafayette said into his phone.  Laurens groaned.

“Can I piggyback off someone’s signal?”  Hamilton asked, getting his own phone out.  “You all got hella plans, right?  One of you has to be able to do that convert to hot spot thing.  Actually, John, do we have—”

“We have wifi,” Laurens confirmed.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“Where are we staying?”  Andre asked.  “Lafayette just mentioned that it’s north of the capital.”

“I found a bed and breakfast.  It’s supposed to have a great view.”

Lafayette patted Andre’s shoulder.  “Don’t worry, I booked a separate room from them, you can share with me.”

“Hey!”  Hamilton said suddenly and a little louder than he meant to.  “Wait, shit, J., does this mean we get to—”

Laurens cleared his throat again, even louder this time, and turned the radio up.  “Both of you put your phones away, I’m not driving the scenic route just so you can burn your data.”

“Were you really not planning on—”

“Lafayette, look at the Goddamn leaves.”

 

“So,” Laurens said dropping their bags onto the floor once he and Hamilton were in their room, “that’s out in the open now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, who knew he was going to stay over.”

Laurens was frustrated, made worse by six hours in the car with the other three.  “It was still unspoken, Alex.  You didn’t have to be so direct about it.”

“Oh, come on.  They knew.  They knew _and_ they didn’t care.  You said you wanted normal, didn’t you?  I’m pretty sure normal is your friends actually being allowed to talk about things like this instead of having to tiptoe around them.”

Laurens crossed the room to open the curtains and Hamilton followed him.

“I’m sorry I put you on the spot, but not for the rest of it.  Look around, J.  We’re away from the city, you’re with your friends, and all they care about is that you’re happy.  Well,” Hamilton amended after a pause, “and their own dead or dying relationships.”

Laurens didn’t say anything, just standing in front of the open window and looking out at the orange and red trees all around them.  Hamilton leaned against him, his arms folded.  “Gotta say, J., you were right.  It’s a great view.”

Laurens smiled, putting his arm over his shoulder.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  Thanks for setting it up and driving.”  Hamilton was quiet for a minute.  “I can be good,” he finally said.  “Really.  I won’t say anything.  I don’t want to get into a stupid fight just because I let my mouth run.”  He looked away from the window up at Laurens.  “I swear.  Okay?”

Laurens knew he had been irritated when he entered the room and knew _why_ but the feeling was so dashed to pieces that it felt almost like he couldn’t remember. 

“All right,” he said, leaning down and kissing him slowly, deeply, his arm still over him and Hamilton clenching his hand in his jacket after a moment of surprise.  Laurens backed Hamilton up, carefully pushing him down against the bed and intertwining one hand in his hair, cradling his head, his other stroking this side of his face.  He ran his thumb up over his cheekbone and Hamilton tightened his grip on his clothes, keeping both his hands high on his body.  Hamilton drew in a long slow breath, sinking deep into that same unusual feeling of relaxation and security that he had experienced earlier that morning in the shower and that had kept him touching Laurens on the arm or back or leg for longer than was really prudent.  It was like a drug, he thought languidly, like a drawn out afterglow.  He didn’t try to encourage Laurens on, even when he pressed a little closer to him and he could feel the solid weight of his body against his own.

Laurens started to pull away and Hamilton tugged lightly on his jacket.  

“A little longer.”

“They’re going to come looking for us.”

“A little longer,” Hamilton repeated, brushing his lips over his.  Laurens was about to relent when there was a tentative knock at the door.  Laurens froze, Hamilton didn’t let go of him.  The knock repeated again, more assertively.

Laurens sighed and got up, Hamilton rolling to his feet with him and following him to the door, one hand slipped under the back of his jacket although over his shirt for contact.

“Yes?”  Laurens opened the door to the other two.

“Oh.”  Lafayette glanced between him and Hamilton, taking in their outerwear and relatively unrumpled appearance.  “Andre, you win.”  He took his wallet out of his pocket.

Laurens crossed his arms.  “Seriously?”

“I thought you would change your mind,” Lafayette said simply.  “This is very strange,” he informed Andre as he handed over the money.  “I’m not used to being wrong.”

Hamilton slipped his jacket off and tossed it onto a nearby chair before sliding his hand back.  “We’re not going out anywhere, right?  It’s already getting late.  You want to just hang out for a while?”

“ _Cur non?_ We were going to head down to the main desk to pick up some brochures and ask about the wifi password, but since you two are decent…”

“There’s no internet,” Hamilton said as Laurens closed the door behind the others.  “There was a sign on the door.  It’s been down since the, well, it wasn’t a hurricane by the time it got here, but since the storm.”

Lafayette whipped around.  “What?”

“Relax, you’ve got unlimited data, remember?”

“I can’t get a signal here!  That’s why I was trying to connect to the internet!”

“So you’ll be off the grid tonight, I’m sure we can find somewhere tomorrow with connection,” Laurens said, leaving his jacket on even though it was getting uncomfortably warm.

“You don’t understand,” Lafayette argued, a little frantic, “I need to find a signal.  I can’t get in touch with Adrienne without it!”

“We know that,” Laurens said patiently.  “But, Lafayette, it’s already late in France and I’m not driving you an hour back to the last town just so you can wake her up.”

Lafayette looked at the others pleadingly.

Hamilton shrugged.  “Sorry.  Ask about a landline."


	68. Above All Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie Night; Impending Loss of Money; (No) Signal

“Do you want to see something interesting?”  Lafayette asked André in a whisper.  André’s computer had been brought along specifically to play _Moulin Rouge_ and was open at the base of the bed.  Laurens had his phone out next to him in spite of the lack of service and he tipped it towards him again, lighting up the screen and checking how much longer was still left in the movie.  Hamilton was watching the film but was also sitting behind Laurens and was literally draped over him, his arms around his shoulders, and was probably more interested in whatever he was saying quietly in his ear than in the actors.

“What is it?”

“It’s a game I came up with.  Watch.”  Lafayette cleared his throat and leaned forward, making a general gesture at the screen as a view of Paris flashed by.  “Haussmannization.” 

“Bad example,” Hamilton said automatically.  “You gotta wait for them to pull up some shots of the Eiffel Tower again, but without all the CGI clouds blocking out the streets.  This is too decentralized, Haussmann was all about efficiency.  Well,” Hamilton clarified, shifting so he had the side of his face against the back of Laurens’ head and could look at the other two while he spoke.  “‘Efficiency,’ I mean, you gotta keep in mind who he was actually working for.  Bullshit if it was actually more efficient for the majority of the people.  It’s a commonplace that he wanted his roads wide enough for an army to march down—pretty ironic if you ask me, seeing as how most of the shots you see of that happening it’s the Nazis and not actually the French—, nothing against the military but you look at the time and the place and that’s got some obvious implications.  Even beyond that,” Hamilton was getting more emphatic, “it wasn’t _just_ that the boulevards were designed to be a straight shot to the center of the city, they deliberately broke up impoverished neighborhoods, completely re _routing_ circulation.  That’s the actual problem, not that it effaced the charm of the city or facilitated militarization.  You want stability, yeah, we all want stability, but the fuck’s the point of fracturing a community like that?  Sure,” Hamilton conceded, continuing his argument with no one in particular, “it increased social visibility, forcing people into contact with one another on the quote-unquote legitimate streets, but you want to talk about something _real_ fucked up,” he sat up properly, just one hand on Laurens’ back now, “I’m gonna call it the flaneurization, make up my own noun, because it’s this assumed _right_ to—”

Lafayette looked over at a very surprised André.  “One word.  Keep track of the time.”

“Alex.”

“ _Merde_ ,” Lafayette muttered as Laurens cut his game short by reaching around and tugging Hamilton back down.  “We’ll play later,” he assured André.  “You’ll get the hang of it.  Once he’s really going you can get him to switch topics in the middle of each other.  You get bonus points for making a chain like that.”

 

By the end of the movie, three out of four of them were watching in rapt attention and, well, Laurens was still messing around on his phone and wishing he had more apps that didn’t require an internet connection to run.

“I told you,” André sighed as the credits, soft at first and then more loudly, kicked in.  “It’s just like me and Peggy.”

Lafayette looked very skeptical.  “Maybe the part where she leaves him for the duke, but that was a ruse.”

“Do you think this is a ruse?”  André was hopeful.

Lafayette just patted him on the back and didn’t answer his question.

“Besides, they are French, clearly it reflects my and Adrienne’s love.”

“You can’t keep going back and forth on if you’re breaking up or not,” Hamilton said.  “Pick a side and stick with it.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Lafayette complained, a little desperately.  “I don’t have signal!”

“None of us have a signal, Lafayette.”  Laurens leaned forward to eject the disk but stopped when the other three protested.  “Oh, come on!  The movie is over!”

“But you have to wait for the end of the credits,” André explained.  “There’s another little bit.” 

Laurens sighed and sat back.

“Did you really not like it?”  André asked, disappointed.  “I thought you would since you said—”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t like it,” Laurens said, very quickly cutting him of before he could finish that sentence.  “It was fine, it’s just not my kind of movie.”

“He made me watch _Saving Private Ryan_ ,” Lafayette told André.

“Hey, you liked that!”

Lafayette shrugged, not really wanting to admit that right then.

“It’s just not my style, all right?  It was fine.”

“Alexander,” Lafayette said, “You enjoyed it.  Convince him otherwise.”

Hamilton frowned, still sitting behind Laurens but now with his arms around his waist.  “I don’t…  He’s allowed to not like it.  I’m not going to tell him otherwise.”

Lafayette stared incredulously.  “But you love to argue!  I’m giving you a new challenge!”  

Hamilton shrugged as best he could.  

Lafayette looked over at André.  Wrong two out of three times.  This was a new record.

“Thank you.”  Laurens put his hand on one of Hamilton’s for a moment and Hamilton sat up a little straighter, practically beaming.

Lafayette narrowed his eyes.  Come to think of it, even though he was all over him he was being very good and keeping his hands to himself.  The crassest he had been was in the car and even there it was brief and Laurens easily nipped it in the bud.

“ _J’y crois pas_ …  André,” he said abruptly.  “I want to cancel my other bets.”

“You have other bets?”  Laurens didn’t sound amused.

“Why do you want to cancel them?”  André asked.

“Are you betting—”  Laurens glanced back at Hamilton.  “You shouldn’t place bets on your friends, Lafayette,” he scolded.  “That’s not nice.  Think about what Washington would say, I’m sure he disapproves of gambling.”

“You bet he doesn’t like betting,” Hamilton commented.  Laurens patted his hand.  Yes, yes, very good.

“I’m—”  Lafayette wasn’t give a suitable answer to both conversations at once, especially not with Hamilton in the room.  “I need to entertain myself somehow,” he finally said.  “There’s no internet and—”

“Christ, Lafayette, we know there’s no internet!”

“Then you will understand that I have to make my own fun,” Lafayette said with as much dignity as he could muster.  “André, I would like to cancel my bets.  Alternatively, if you would still like to play I would like to reverse them all.  The odds are the same,” he assured him.

“Don’t do it,” Laurens warned.  “He’s trying to trick you.  Badly,” he added.

“Or maybe that is just what I want him to think,” Lafayette argued.

“I think I’ll keep them as is,” André said carefully.

Hamilton was only paying half attention to the conversation, taking one of Laurens’ hands meanwhile and playing with his fingers. 

“ _Putain_ ,” Lafayette muttered.  

“Hey,” André said, “if I’m going to be pathetic and alone then I might as well get some money out of it.”  Spoiler alert: André would be walking away from this weekend about two hundred dollars richer than when he went in.

Laurens looked at Lafayette and André suspiciously but couldn’t bring himself to tell Hamilton.  He was sure that as soon as Hamilton picked up on it he would try to make a bargain with one or the other to play along appropriately in exchange for a cut and, well, it was _nice_ that he was just sitting there, leaning up against him, toying with his hand—and all of his own volition!  Laurens glared at Lafayette.  Don’t ruin it.

The sudden pulse of orchestral music caught their attention and they looked back at the laptop in time for the very end of the credits, the part that André had said they needed to wait for.  The words, “freedom, beauty, truth, and love” appeared one after the other on the screen and Lafayette leaned forward, enthralled once more.

“…That was it?”  Laurens asked, looking back at André, who nodded.  “Can I eject it now?”

“You don’t get it,” André complained as Laurens handed him back the DVD and he put it away.  “There’s a reason I actually have a hard copy of this, Laurens.  How can you not be moved?”

“He called her a whore and then she died,” Laurens said bluntly.

“Stop acting macho,” Lafayette complained.  “I liked it, André.”  He turned to him.  “I want all four of those in my life.  Freedom, beauty, truth, and—”

“Above all else,” André cut in.

“—Love.  What better motives?”  He looked over at Hamilton who caught his gaze and turned to face forward, resting his chin on Laurens’ shoulder. 

“I call truth.  André,” he said, “you can have beauty because I’m pretty sure John deserves freedom and Lafayette will fight anyone who picks love.”

“I will,” Lafayette said, nodding.

“André’s a good artist,” Laurens said.  “That works.”

“You think so too?”  Hamilton asked, resting his head sideways on Laurens’ shoulder so he could look at him.  “I thought so, but I’m not an expert.”

“I’m not bad,” André agreed.

“You’re being modest.  He’s better than I am.”

“No,” Hamilton started, then caught himself and laughed.  “Sorry, André.”

“And he’s a good writer,” Laurens continued.  “You’d like his stuff, Alexander, you should see it sometime.  He’s a good writer too,” Laurens said to André, pointing at Hamilton. 

André smiled.  “Yeah, you said that before.”

Laurens ducked his head, embarrassed.  “Well, I mean it.  You two should swap work sometime.”

Hamilton laughed again.  “The stuff I showed him hardly counts,” Hamilton clarified for André.  “Doggerel.  Really bad stuff.”  He sat up properly and shoved the back of Laurens’ head lightly.  “ _And_ you made fun of me for it before, jerk.”

“It’s growing on me.”

“It shouldn’t be, it was garbage.”

“It was published, though,” André said, trying to nicely protest.

“No,” Lafayette cut in, “I read it.  He didn’t suddenly develop a sense of false modesty.  It’s quite bad.”

“Do you do anything else?”  Hamilton asked.  “John’s a triple threat.”

“He’s in choir.”

“Really?”

“You told me you play the flute,” Lafayette said.  “Is it both?”

André was looking very flustered.  “I’ve got a tiger mom,” he managed.  “It was flute or violin.”

“Wow.”  Hamilton sounded genuinely impressed and Laurens felt a little stab of jealously in spite of himself and in spite of the fact that he had been the one talking André up in the first place.  “That’s a lot.  And you’re quarterback.”

“Yeah, well, I mean I’m taking five years, though,”  André caught himself and quickly added, “not that there’s anything wrong with that!  It just wasn’t what I had planned, I mean, it wasn’t… Ideal…”  He glanced at Lafayette for help getting him out of the corner he had accidentally backed into.

Lafayette was messing with his phone again, trying to get it to connect, and missed it at first.  

“Hm?  Oh.  But you don’t have a date and Laurens does.”

André nodded, enthusiastically at first and then less so.  “Yes!  …Yes.”

Hamilton kissed the back of Laurens’ neck and he blushed.

“All right, it’s late, and I want to get up at a decent hour.”

“Dad’s kicking us out,” André commented to Lafayette, who snickered as they got up.  He tucked his laptop under his arm and followed Lafayette, still refreshing pages on his phone, out the door.  “Good night.”

“Night.”

“You hear that?”  Hamilton teased.  “I’m your date.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens got up to change and get ready for bed.  “I guess so.”

“Come on,” Hamilton encouraged, flopping down onto the mattress.  “Say it with more conviction than that.  Remember, back in France?”  His eyes were closed but he was still talking.  “I told you to be more enthusiastic.  Did you forget?  We were in the kitchen on that last night…”

Hamilton felt Laurens’ lips against his and he smiled.

“You were right.”  Laurens straightened up and took a step away.  “You’re a catch, Alexander Hamilton.”

 

Very, very early in the morning Hamilton pulled Laurens’ jacket on over his own, grabbed the room key, and quietly closed the door behind him.  He put his shoes on in the hallway and headed down to the small lobby, surprised to see black hair pulled up into a thick bun over the back of the sofa in front of the still-burning fireplace.

“…Hey.”  He sat down next to Lafayette.  “Still no luck?”

Lafayette shook his head, hitting send one more time just to see.

“Did you sleep at all?”

Lafayette shook his head again.  

“She knows you were going away for the weekend, doesn’t she?  She probably figures you just can’t get through.  Adrienne’s a nice girl, I’m sure she’ll—”

“She wasn’t talking to me as much before I left, either.”

Hamilton leaned back against the couch.  “Yeah?”

“Alex…  I know I sound crazy.  We’re already separated so what do a few days matter?  I shouldn’t be online all the time anyway.”

“Washington tell you that?  He’s a fan of that getting off the grid stuff.”

“Yes.  But,” Lafayette looked up at Hamilton, his eyes desperate.  “If I put it down then it’s not just that she’s in France and we will talk to each other later.  It’s that she is completely, utterly gone.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything to that.

“What use is love if that’s how fragile it is?  It doesn’t matter if I remember being with her because I’m _not_.”  

Neither of them said anything.  Hamilton tugged down the sleeve of Laurens’ jacket.

“She’s not here and it hurts, Alexander,” Lafayette finally continued after several minutes, dropping his head into his hands and pressing the bases of his palms to his eyes.

“Hey, c’mon.”  Hamilton scooted closer to him, putting his arm over his shoulders.  “It’ll be okay.  You’re tough.”

“I’m nothing without her.  I thought I could manage on my own but I was still leaning on her and once you take that away…  I love it here and I know that I had to come, but I wish I had managed to do so without ruining everything else.”

“Yeah, maybe next time you make a major life change you actually clue people in first.  But, I mean, you didn’t ruin everything.  Whatever rough patch you’re going through, you can work it out.  Win her back, whatever.”

“She won’t break up with me.”

“There you go.”

“I know her.  She’s too kind.  She’ll just stay with me and regret it more each day.”

“Okay, not where I thought you were going to take that.  Lafayette, please recognize this is coming from me and therefore how much it apparently needs to be said.  You should sleep.  You had André over last night, too, did you even sleep then?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Right, come on, we’re going back to your room.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yes, you can, I know the feeling.  You’re so worked up it feels like your heart is gonna trip over itself and just stop beating.  You can’t close your eyes without feeling like you’re gonna hurl.  It’s not going to fix itself until you get some rest, trust me.”  He pulled him to his feet.  “Come on, you want to sleep in our room?  John’s a good body pillow, real warm.  The weight’s nice so long as you’re not already feeling like you’re being suffocated.  Take a shower, I’ll give you something, you’ll feel better in the morning.”  Hamilton opened the door to his room and quietly led Lafayette through the dark to the adjourning bathroom.  “Seriously, hot shower.  Don’t make me force you in there, I can take you.”

Hamilton closed the door and took off his shoes and Laurens’ jacket, draping it over the arm of the chair but leaving his own on.  He sat down gently on the side of the bed and put his hand on Laurens’ shoulder.  He was just debating waking him when there was a sudden and long chain of message alerts from the bathroom.

Hamilton stood in surprise and knocked on the door.  “Lafayette?”

“ _Un moment_.”  He sounded excited.  The toilet flushed and the sink ran, then the door opened.  “Alex!”

Hamilton shushed him.

“Alex,” Lafayette repeated again, still just as enthusiastic and his voice only marginally softer.  “ _I found reception_.”

“Is it only—”

Lafayette was moving the phone around the bathroom, checking the bars from various angles and heights.  Hamilton closed the door to keep the light from spilling out onto the bed and watched.

“It’s only right here,” Lafayette declared after a couple of minutes, waving his hand in the air about a foot above the toilet.

“Okay.”  Hamilton nodded.  “One, happy for you.  Two, really weird.”

Lafayette was sitting on top of the closed toilet, excitedly typing away.

“So are you planning on just camping out here now?”

“Yes.”

“Right, you can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can, you can use our bathroom.”

“Lafayette, you still need to sleep.”

“I’ll sleep here.”

“You’re not sleeping on a friggin’ toilet, Lafayette.  Seriously, finish explaining to her what happened then get in the Goddamn shower and go to bed.”

“Shh,” Lafayette waved a hand at him, motioning for him to leave him alone without even looking up.  Hamilton rolled his eyes and went back into the main room.

 

> A. de Noailles: <3

> A. de Noailles: You too.

> A. de Noailles: Oh, after school I’m going to go out with my friends, I think, but I hope you have fun!  I hope the ride is nice, it sounds beautiful even if you had to sit in the back.

> A. de Noailles: Send me pictures of the trees <3

> A. de Noailles: Did you get in safely?

> G. Lafayette: MY LIFE I MISSED YOU SO MUCH


	69. (They Don't Go to the Club)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing a Bed; Ben Walker; Clearing the Air; Stick Shift

When Laurens woke he was dimly aware that it was still early in the morning, at about the time he’d have gotten up to go down to the gym.  He didn’t need to get out of bed, though, and he smiled, relishing that, and slid his arm up from draped loosely over Hamilton’s side to cradle his shoulder and moved his face up from his neck to bury it in his hair.

It took him several seconds before he realized that something didn’t feel right and he lifted his hand to brush whatever was getting in the way out of his face.

Lafayette, even less awake, reached back without opening his eyes and swatted Laurens—in the face, although he had been meaning to get his hand—and muttered sharply, “ _Casse-toi_.”

Laurens sat up quickly at that, pulling his hand back from Lafayette’s hair and looking around.  The door to the bathroom was closed and the shower was running.  He got out of bed, being careful not to disturb Lafayette who, he noticed, was fast asleep in the same clothes he had been wearing the day before, and knocked on the bathroom door.  The shower turned off.

“Hold on—”  A few seconds later Hamilton, his hair still dripping and a towel around his waist, opened the door.  “Good morning.”

Laurens made the effort not to take his eyes from his face.  “Morning.  You’re up early.  Why is he here?”

“Yeah, I’ve been awake since freakin’ four.  You’d think we crossed into a different timezone.  Goddamn,” Hamilton swore, shivering and wringing his hair out into the sink.  “It’s cold out of the shower.  Turn the heat up, J.”

Laurens obediently went to adjust the thermostat and Hamilton kept talking.  “He couldn’t sleep so I brought him back here.  I figured that was okay, you’re roommates and it’s not like you were naked.”

Laurens glanced over just in time to see Hamilton drop the towel and start to dress.  He quickly looked up at the ceiling.

“Good news, though, Lancelot figured out where to get reception.  I can get signal too, so you should have no problem.”

“Oh?  Where is it?”

Hamilton, fully dressed, hung up his towel and waved his hand around in the area right about the toilet.  “Right here.”

Laurens made a face.  “Really?”

“Don’t act like you don’t do it.  Everyone brings their phone in.”  He sat down on the bed and motioned for Laurens to join him.  “I missed you.”

“Just now?”

“Earlier.  I ran into him in the lobby.  He said some things and…  I don’t know, my sleep schedule is probably just fucked, but it actually made sense.”

Laurens sat next to him.  “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Hamilton admitted.  “But I missed you.”

Laurens smiled and Hamilton watched his lips curve slowly up.

“Kiss me.”

“Alexander, he’s right here.”

“I know.  Nothing has to happen. Just—kiss me.”

Laurens put his hand behind his head, leaning down and kissing him slowly, his lips only very slightly parted.  Hamilton closed his eyes and sighed, putting his hand on his arm and gently pulling him down onto the mattress, catching and lifting the blankets so they could lie under them.  Laurens rolled over him so he was lying between Hamilton and Lafayette, his hand still in his wet hair, and their legs intertwining.  Hamilton, true to his word, didn’t make a move on him, keeping a slight distance between their hips and his hands on the side of his face and his arms.

Laurens pulled him a little closer, still kissing him, and lightly teased his lower lip between his teeth.

Hamilton tightened his grip on his arm, his heart suddenly quickening, overcome by a need to be close to him, to have him constantly within reach, and he realized with a sting that he wouldn’t be able to after the weekend.  That was fine, he told himself as Laurens played with his hair, that was fine.  He had a few days to drown in the feeling and by the time Monday rolled around he would have slept it off and could go back to pretending that everything was normal in public and taking full advantage of just how hot Laurens was in private.

“Hey,” Laurens said, pulling away from the kiss.  “You said we weren’t going to do anything.”

Hamilton opened his eyes in surprise and saw Laurens watching him, eyes teasing.  He put his hand to his mouth and quickly looked away, feeling his face turn red.  “I wasn’t—”  he muttered, then realized there was no way to finish that sentence that wouldn’t just make the situation more embarrassing.  “Don’t accuse me of breaking my word, John,” he finally managed.

Laurens, unable to reach his mouth, kissed his cheek instead.  “You’re blushing.”

“Fuck off.”

“I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“Liar.”

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you that much.”

“Better.”

“You both embarrass me,” Lafayette said with a groan, pulling the blankets up over his face. 

 

“Can we switch rooms?”  Lafayette asked, changed for the day and pacing the floor.  “I’m just going to sleep in here otherwise anyway and André will be lonely.”

“It’s okay—”

“André will be lonely,” Lafayette repeated, talking over him.  “Won’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, really lonely.”

“See?”

Hamilton was standing in the bathroom, typing on his phone.  “Relax, Lafayette.  I’m not stealing all the service, I’m just checking my messages.”

“You’re having a conversation,” Lafayette complained.  “I can hear it vibrating.”

Hamilton didn’t bother to silence it.

“Who are you talking to?”  Laurens asked.

“Angelica.  She’s in my poli-sci class.”

“I thought you said you did all the work for that.”  Lafayette stopped walking for a second, then started up again.

“I did.”

“You’re just talking?”

“Yeah.”

Lafayette looked over at Laurens but he seemed completely unbothered, continuing to sort through his backpack.

“We can trade rooms later today,” he said to Lafayette.

“After Alexander is done talking with Angelica?”

“I meant later than that.  Are you almost ready to go?”  He asked Hamilton.

“Hm?  Oh, yeah, let me just say goodbye.”

Laurens zipped his bag up.

Lafayette turned around to an expectantly waiting André and made an irritated noise, handing over a ten.  “I reserve the right to take that back if he gets jealous later,” he said.

“You’re betting on me, too?”  Laurens asked, annoyed as André pocketed the money.

“You go together,” Lafayette explained.

“Not a good answer.  I’d tell you to cut it out but you’re on a losing streak and I think that’s punishment enough.”

“What’s punishment for what?”  Hamilton asked, putting his phone in his pocket and coming back out of the bathroom.

“Nothing important.”

“Right.  So I checked and it’s frickin’ forty-five out.  J., I’m taking your jacket.”

“Instead of your own?”

“No, on top of.  I didn’t realize we were going to the Yukon or I would have brought a coat.”

“All right.”

André prodded Lafayette.  “‘J.’”

Lafayette grudgingly handed over a one.

“Ready?”  Hamilton was standing by the door, both jackets on.  “Where are we headed again?”

“Bridge museum.”

“A bridge museum?”  André asked, skeptical.

Lafayette joined in.  “Really?”

“I think it sounds interesting,” Hamilton said, rocking on his heels as he waited impatiently, holding the door open. 

“Do you really?”  Lafayette asked.

“Yes.”  Hamilton leaned up and kissed Laurens lightly before closing the door behind them.

André nudged Lafayette.

“It doesn’t count,” Lafayette complained.  “This isn’t really public.”

“I’m here.”

“You don’t count.”

“Would you two stop that,” Laurens said, getting the rental keys out of the pocket of his jeans as they headed out.  “Honestly, it’s embarrassing.  _Secondhand_ embarrassment,” he clarified.

Lafayette and André looked at each other.  Whatever.

Outside in the small parking lot Laurens unlocked the car as the approached it and announced, “Lafayette and André—You two are in the back.”

“Again?”

“Always,” Laurens said, opening the front passenger side door and then going around to the driver’s side.  “Or until you’re less annoying.”

Hamilton got in and immediately put his hand back on Laurens’ leg as soon as he was settled.

“As if we’re the annoying ones,” Lafayette said quietly to André, getting out his wallet again and handing over another dollar.

“I was your first friend here,” André pointed out to Laurens, taking the dollar.  “I should get shotgun privileges.”

“Ha.  Too bad.  You wouldn’t have let me ride up front if you had taken me somewhere with you and Peggy.”

“That’s different,” André argued.  “Peggy’s a girl.”

“It’s still manners, André,” Laurens responded.

“John,” Lafayette started, “English is my second language.  Does ‘manners’ mean putting your hand on your boyfriend’s thigh.”

Hamilton started to pull his hand away.  Laurens grabbed it and put it back.

“Don’t.  I like it.”

Hamilton looked up at him and then away, out the passenger window.

“Just pay me at the end of the day,” André said.  “I’ll feel like I’m going to a strip club if I keep collecting ones.”

Hamilton perked up and twisted in his seat.  “A strip club!  André, you’re a genius.  John, we should go to a strip club.”

“No.”

“It’s a tradition!  Come on, one of our own has had his heart stomped on, another one of us is _about_ to get his heart stomped on, we need to go let them lick their wounds.”

“No.”  Laurens made the lane merge a little sharper than he needed to.

“I won’t touch.  Hands off.”  Hamilton lifted both of his to make the point and Laurens scowled.

“Ah,” Lafayette said happily, “this is more normal.  I was starting to be reminded a little too strongly of _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_.  John, I’ve never been to a strip club before.  I want the full American experience.”

“I’d be down,” André said.  “Maybe we could find, like, a co-ed one—”

“ _No._ ” 

André sighed and leaned back against the seat.  “I miss Peggy.”

“ _Please_ let us go to a strip club,” Lafayette started again.  “Look at how you’re hurting him!”

“No.  It’s exploitative and gross.  Besides, Lafayette, they wouldn’t let you in anyway.  You’re not old enough.”  Laurens took Hamilton’s hand, holding it over the gear shift.  “Do you know how to drive stick?”

“Course I know how to drive stick.”

André turned his head to look at Lafayette without lifting it off the backrest.  “Boys flirt weird.  Oh,” he said, looking forward again.  “Laurens, I meant to ask, did you know that Ben Walker’s dating the coach?”

The car jerked abruptly as Laurens accidentally shifted them into first instead of third.

“Watch it!”

“Sorry.”  Laurens quickly got them back into the correct gear and back up to speed.  “But _what_?”

“Ben Walker’s dating Coach,” André repeated, wincing and trying to get his seatbelt to unlock from where it was cutting into his chest.  “That’s all.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s all’?  How did you find that out?”

“They’re not exactly subtle,” André said.  “I was with Tench and a couple of the other guys and we saw them together.”

“They could have been together for work.”

“Uh, yeah, you don’t have chemistry like that if you’re not dating.”

“Did you see them kissing or something?”

“No.”

“Well, then you don’t know.”

André glanced at Lafayette.

“John,” Lafayette said, leaning forward on the back of Hamilton’s chair.  “Why does it matter?”

“It’s just weird, okay?  Ben’s only a couple years older than us.  André and I actually played with him!”

“Anyway,” André continued after a beat, “I just wanted to know if you knew.”

“Why would I know?”

“Wow, touchy subject,” André commented to no one in particular.  “Laurens, it’s fine.  These other two don’t know who Ben even is.”

“We met him once,” Lafayette said.  “Right after Laurens hurt his shoulder.”

“Well, okay, but Laurens and I _actually_ know him.”

Laurens didn’t say anything but had Hamilton shift them into fourth.

“So what did the people you were with say?”  Lafayette asked the question Laurens obviously wanted to know the answer to.

“I dunno.  ‘Huh,’ probably.  We were waiting to get von Steuben to sign off on some paperwork for the next away game, that kind of seemed more important.”

“A signature on a slip was more important,” Lafayette repeated.

Laurens’ grip on Hamilton’s hand relaxed a little.

“It was really just because we’d played with Ben Walker before he graduated,” André explained.  “I mean, I think we figured he was still with his girlfriend so seeing him like that with Coach was a little surprising, I guess.”

Laurens nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, hearing that surprised me too.”

“I’ll say,” Lafayette muttered, rubbing his neck.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Lafayette said smoothly.  “Now, about going somewhere other than your bridge museum…”

“Look, there’s not a whole lot to do up here.  Damned if I know why we didn’t just go to Boston or something.”

André was looking out the window at the trees and mountains.  “Why don’t we go hiking?”  He finally suggested, opening one of the maps they had brought from the lobby.  “I bet there’s a trail nearby.  You’re all wearing decent shoes, right?”

“That could be good,” Hamilton agreed.  “Lafayette, you can get some pictures to stick on Instagram later.”

“That’s true, I can.”  Lafayette leaned over to look at the map with André.  “John, I think you want the second right, but slow down at this next one so we can check.”

Laurens glanced at Hamilton.  “You sure?  You were complaining about it being cold.”

“Definitely.  I’ve got like four layers, I’m fine.”

 

Not too much longer after that they were walking on a dirt trail at a steady but easy incline through the woods.  Every so often the trees opened up enough that they could see down the slope towards where the car was parked but for the most part they were still too heavy with leaves to make that possible.

“I hope no one breaks into the car.”

“André, don’t.”  Laurens glanced back down the path, then stopped to wait as Hamilton took Lafayette’s picture in front of a particularly colorful tree.  Laurens was wearing just a long sleeved shirt and he rubbed his arms.

“Too bad you can’t ask for it back.”

“I don’t need it.”

Hamilton checked the phone then shook his head and instructed Lafayette to move further over so he could try again with a better angle.

“Look,” Laurens started.  “I have to ask.  Did Lafayette tell you?”

“About you and Alexander?”

“No, uh, actually, you did.”

“I did?”  Laurens had been watching the other two but he turned in surprise to André.  “When?”

“You know that time you wanted me to meet you at the bar?”

“Yes…”  It dawned on Laurens and he ran a hand over his face.  “Damn.  I’m—”

“No, it’s fine, don’t apologize,” André said quickly.  “You were really drunk, it’s okay.  I get it.  You did a good job, you never even said his name.  You just, uh, you got your pronouns mixed up at one point.”

“That’s what I’m apologizing for.  André, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have tried to trick you.  We’ve been friends since freshman year and I trust you, really, it’s just hard.”

André looked uncomfortable.   “Well, actually, I already knew.”

“What?”

“Yeah, uh, when I ran into you after the double date with Lafayette.  That’s kind of a couples place and I knew Alexander was there, too, I just put two and two together.”

Laurens exhaled slowly.  “Shit.”

“Hey, it’s okay.  To be honest I felt kind of dumb for not getting it sooner.  Once you know it’s—”  André could tell he was making Laurens intensely awkward so he switched gears a little.  “—I’m just saying, I showed up at your room at eight in the morning to drop off your stuff after the game and Alexander was already there without his shirt on.”

Laurens laughed, very uncomfortably.  “Yeah, okay.  Fair enough.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” André said, putting his hand on his shoulder.  “And I don’t think it matters to pretty much anyone on the team, at least not any of our friends.”

Laurens cringed, embarrassed for a couple different reasons that André had needed to say that at all.  

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah.”

“Are we okay?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens lightly punched him on the arm.  “We’re okay.”

“Everything back to normal with the bromance?”  Hamilton gave Lafayette his phone back as they caught up to them.

“It’s not a bromance.”

“Aw.”

“That’s okay.”  Lafayette reassured André.  “We still have our farm.” 

“I gotta ask,” Hamilton said to André, falling into step alongside Laurens.  “So do you guys all know about von Steuben or nah?  Because from my end, at the office, looking at all the memos and overhearing the occasional phone call about his vacations, it’s pretty obvious.”

Laurens glanced down, surprised.  “You didn’t say anything about that.”

“I told you about his funding proposals.  The rest is office gossip, John, I’m above that,” Hamilton said loftily.

“Uh, I guess, pretty much,” André said.  “I mean, it’s like I said, it’s not like he’s subtle.”

Laurens looked surprised.  “I didn’t know.”

“…Really?”

“Why should I have known?”

André shrugged.  “I guess there’s no reason.  He just has a vibe.”

“An ‘if you don’t get your ass on the field right now I’m going to make you wish you’d never fucking been born’ vibe, sure.”

“That does sound like him,” André agreed.  “You’re playing again next week, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton glanced up.  He hadn’t meant to, but he couldn’t help himself at how happy Laurens had sounded with just the one word.

“Finally,” he said, unaware of how Hamilton was mesmerized by his smile.  “It’s been too long.  I’ve been going crazy.”

“Yeah,” André nodded sympathetically.  “I bet.”

“This last week especially has been better.  I feel like I finally have full ownership of my body again.  I hated just sitting out and watching you all, or only being able to participate in some things.”

“You’re the only person who would say that,” André joked.

“No, it would drive you up the wall, too.  You feel so—useless.  Like,” Laurens put his hand on his shoulder, rolling it.  “It was worse last year, when I wasn’t even injured.  At least this time I knew there was a reason and I knew I had to let my body heal.  I didn’t want to, but if I wasn’t careful I’d be even more of a dead weight.  Last year was just a fucking fiasco.  I can’t do that again.  I’m not throwing away my shot.”

 

Hamilton was still thinking about that edge to Laurens’ voice, how easily it had jumped from excited to serious, as he got back into the car.  The walk had been sheltered from any wind and just steep enough that he had taken off Laurens’ jacket, if not his own or his scarf, and was holding it in his lap as he stared out the window.

André and Lafayette were joking in the back, having convinced Laurens that they needed to visit somewhere that would let them tap their own maple syrup, so they would have something to fall back on if their crop of choice failed them.

Laurens got in last, buckled up, and looked at Hamilton.  “Well?”

Hamilton wondered why just the word and his dark eyes made the blood creep into his face and he hoped it just looked like he was still cold.

“Well what?”

“Your hand.”

Hamilton, distracted and confused, offered him his right hand as if to shake.  Laurens laughed and took his left one instead.  “Well, yeah, if you were actually driving.  That’ll be awkward from your side, though.”  He put it back on the gearshift and Hamilton tried to cover his embarrassment with a roll of his eyes.  

“Be clearer next time, John.  I’m not a friggin’ mindreader.”

“Reverse,” Laurens said, his hand over Hamilton’s and guiding it to the right and down.  He backed the car out of its spot and turned it.  “Right.  Now what?”

“First.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s first.”

“Because it’s bad for the clutch if you slip the gears.”

“What did I say?”

Laurens laughed again, clearly enjoying himself.  “I’m going to compress the clutch on the count of three, all right?  Put it in first.”

“Wait, what—”

“One, two—”

“What the Christ, John—”  

“Three.”

Hamilton put the car into first and Laurens smoothly applied the clutch and then the gas, his hand still over his but more as a reassuring weight than anything else.

“There.  See?  Now second so we can go faster than—”

The car jerked abruptly and they lurched forward.

“Alex!”  Lafayette complained from the back.

“He said second!”

The car had stalled out and Laurens guided Hamilton’s hand back to neutral then quickly turned the key in the ignition, starting the engine again.

“I thought you said you knew how to drive a manual,” Lafayette complained.

“Shut up, I can’t see what he’s doing with his feet.  If you think this is so easy—”

“Hey.”

Laurens’ voice was stern and Hamilton winced, assuming that he was going to rightfully tell him off for bitching instead of just sucking it up and admitting he was trying to figure it out still.

“Leave him alone, Lafayette, I didn’t see you offering to drive us.”

Hamilton blinked, surprised.  Well, that was nice.

“First,” Laurens said again, and let Hamilton move them into gear.  “Great.  Great job.  Second.”  He squeezed his hand to let him know when to move it.  The car accelerated.  They pulled out of the lot and back onto the main road.  “You guys have the map?”  He glanced in the rearview mirror.

André opened up the map again.  “Yeah, got it.  I’ll guide you.”

“Thanks.”

Hamilton tried to think about… something, anything, anything other than Laurens’ hand on his own.  Laurens moved his hand to third, then fourth as they got up to speed and with each shift of the gears he felt the car gain in power under him.

He heard Lafayette and André talking and he was pretty sure that he would want to join in their conversation—that he _should_ join in their conversation—but he couldn’t hear them over his own thoughts.  Laurens’ hand, and his voice—that way it dipped in tone so smoothly, like bourbon, he thought, feeling drunk off of it.  Heady and rich and sinking into his skin—

“Alexander.”

He heard Lafayette say his name and suspected he had already been trying to get his attention.

“What?”  That was an appropriate response, wasn’t it?  He couldn’t remember.

Lafayette sighed and repeated himself.  “Pastoralism.”

“Lafayette.”  Hamilton was only half aware of what he was saying and knew he wouldn’t properly come back to himself until the car had stopped and Laurens had taken his hand off him and he could step out into the cold air.  “I’m watching the leaves.”

Lafayette paused, waiting for more of an answer, then sat back, resigning himself to just handing over his wallet to André at the end of the weekend.


	70. Lucky Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Than God?; Theme Wedding; Luck Is Contagious; Lottery

“At least she didn’t dump me on Friday the thirteenth.  Of October, even,” André sighed as they switched rooms that evening.

“Just Wednesday the eleventh.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Laurens muttered, trading keys with Lafayette.  “There, now you two get the room with the magical bathroom and I don’t wake up with you in my bed.”

“He pulled my hair,” Lafayette told André.

“Rude.”

“Lafayette, stop, I didn’t.”

Lafayette made a sort of neither-here-nor-there gesture but didn't repeat the accusation.

“I knew the thirteenth couldn’t be that unlucky,” André continued.  “At least it wasn’t the fourth.”

“What’s wrong with the fourth?”  Hamilton, still feeling a little out of touch with everything but making an effort to remain grounded, started to ask but was cut off by a concerned yelp from Lafayette, standing in the bathroom and holding his phone in the one window of service.  “Lafayette?”

“‘We need to talk.’”

“Okay?”

“No,” Lafayette turned to Hamilton with wide eyes.  “Adrienne says, ‘We need to talk.’”

André shook his head sadly.  “I knew it.  Friday the thirteenth, man.”

“You jinxed me!”  Lafayette came back out into the main room, motioning at André with his phone.  “Traitor!”

“Calm down, Lafayette.  He had nothing to do with it.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” Lafayette moaned, sinking down onto the floor and cradling his head in his arms, his knees drawn up.  “If I was back in the city at least I would have been able to talk her down.”

Laurens sighed and knelt on the floor next to him.  “Look, go out with—”

“I will go out with dignity,” Lafayette announced, standing up abruptly and almost knocking Laurens over.  “Please, I would like a little privacy.”  He went back into the bathroom and closed the door loudly.  It locked.

 

Inside the bathroom Lafayette sat on the closed toilet and took a deep breath.  He dialed Adrienne.

The phone rang for a minute and then Adrienne picked up the videochat, sounding a little distracted.

“Hello?  Gil?”

“Adrienne.”  His jaw was set.  He looked as dignified as he could given the circumstances.  “Please.  Just get it over with.  This waiting is worse than anything you could say to me.  I will take it with dignity,”  he said firmly, repeating what he had told Laurens.  “I don’t need your pity and I don’t want you to do something you will regret.  Please, I’m ready.  Tell me you are releasing me from your service.”

Adrienne looked stunned and then tucked her hair back behind her ears, revealing the earrings he had sent her.

The screen froze.

“What…?  What, no!”  Lafayette jumped to his feet and waved his phone around frantically.  “Come back, you Goddamn piece of shit—”

“Gil?”

He yelped once more as the line cut back at an inopportune moment and fumbled the phone, managing to catch it before it fell to the floor.

“My life!”

The picture was grainy and there was a definite lag but it looked like Adrienne was crying.

“Gilbert?  Are you breaking up with me?”

“No, no, I’m only giving you the opening so that you can dump me!”

“What did I do wrong?  You wouldn’t be saying this if you still wanted to be with me.”

“Adrienne, no, that’s not it at all!”

“But—”

“Adrienne, Adrienne, I love you.”

“Then don’t abandon me again!”

Lafayette was silent.

The only sound was Adrienne crying.

“My life,” Lafayette began tentatively.  “I’m sorry.”

“I know.  And God forgives you, so I—”

“That’s not the point,” Lafayette said, exasperated and upset.  “I want you to _actually_ forgive me, not just say that you have because you feel like you should.”

Adrienne didn’t say anything.

“So…  Do you forgive me?”

“For running off to America without telling anyone or for telling me you don't want to be with me anymore?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lafayette protested.  “I said the exact opposite of that!”

“You would never have thought that I wanted to break up with you if you weren’t thinking of ending it yourself.  I never thought you wanted to end things, even when you left.  I believed you when you said that you loved me…”  Adrienne wiped at her face.  “It’s so hard, Gil.  People said such things.  They said that I was such a fool for trusting you and for continuing to trust you.  They told me that you were going to forget about me and take up with other girls—”

Lafayette felt a sharp pang of guilt.

“—and that I should just cut my losses and move on.  I can’t move on,” she continued, more emphatic than he had ever heard her.  “I can’t.  I love you.  I have always loved you.  I don’t care if you’re on the other side of the world, I always felt like you were still here beside me and that if I just waited patiently enough and worked hard enough we would be together again in reality—”

She was crying again and Lafayette was at a loss for words.

“My life…”

Adrienne shook her head.

“I’m so sorry, my dearheart.  I’m a fool.  I get so anxious when I’m away from you.  You can ask any of my friends, they’ll tell you.”

She gave a little broken laugh and he continued, encouraged.  

“It’s true!  I’m such a pain.  They all hate it, they complain about me.”

“No one could hate you.”

“I said they hate _it_ , not _me_.”

“You shouldn’t swear.”

“Pardon?”

“When you dropped the phone.”

“Oh.  I’m sorry.  I’ll watch my language.”

“And you shouldn't make trouble for your friends.”

“I know.  They’re too good to me.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I will be mailing your costumes.  I wanted to know what I should include for John’s birthday.”

“Oh…”  Lafayette felt a fresh wave of guilt.  “You don’t have to do that.”

“I like John.  He keeps you out of trouble and he was very kind to me.”

“I like John, too.”

“I know you do.”

“He spooned me this morning.”

Adrienne laughed again, a little stronger.  “What?”

“I fell asleep in their bed because their bathroom is the only place I can get connection,” Lafayette explained, sitting back down.  “We switched rooms now, so that won’t happen again.  But I fell asleep in their bed and John spooned me.”  He paused, thinking about it.  “Alexander was right, he’s quite nice to sleep with.”

“Gilbert.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Lafayette said.  “You’ve done nothing wrong.  I was an idiot, both when I left and then again today.  And all the times besides that.  Adrienne,” he continued a little stronger, “it’s just bad luck.  It’s Friday the thirteenth, after all, that’s bad luck in America.”  He paused again and then asked, needy.  “Do you still love me?”

“Gilbert,” Adrienne began, but he cut her off before she could say anything more.

“I know I’m being pathetic but I need to know.  I need to hear you tell me, repeatedly, because I can’t convince myself of its truth.  How could you love me?”

“I already told you,” she tried again.

“How could you love me when we both know that I don’t even know how badly I hurt you?  How could you love me when your parents almost—”

“That was years ago, they both adore you now.”

“But they didn’t then, did they ever really change their minds?  Your mother, Adrienne—”

“My mother loves you, Gilbert.”

“But do you?”

A long moment passed before she spoke.  “Of course I love you.”

“Do you love me the most?”

She laughed, a little overwhelmed by how desperate he sounded.  

“The most?”

“Yes, my dearheart,” she said.

“More than God?”

“Gilbert,” she warned.  He quieted, looking guilty and defiant.  Adrienne sighed, but she didn’t sound upset any longer.  “I love you.”

“In spite of everything?”

“There is nothing you could do that would change it.”

 

“He bet on his own relationship ending?”

The other three were waiting in Hamilton and Laurens’ new room and André’s old one.  André, sitting in the chair facing the others on the bed, nodded.

“Yeah.  We made up a whole list.”  He glanced, a little nervously, between Laurens and Hamilton and didn’t offer to show it.  “But, uh, one of the things is that if he gets dumped I owe him fifty bucks.”

“That’s stupid,” Laurens said.  “It sounds like he’s actually looking for it.”

“He is a little.  I mean, he’s pretty convinced it’s just around the corner.”

Laurens rolled his eyes.  “If he’s that worried he should just talk to her about it.  I told him that she’d be in the right to do it but I don’t think she actually will.”

“You probably freaked him out even more,” Hamilton pointed out, sitting just close enough that their legs were touching.

They heard the door to the other room slam and Lafayette running down the hall.

“Here it comes.”  Laurens stood apprehensively.

Lafayette was pounding rapidly on the door.  Laurens opened it and was knocked—Laurens, on the football team, used to pushing around guys two or three times as large as Lafayette on a regular basis—several feet backwards.

“She forgave me!”  Lafayette dramatically announced with his arms around Laurens’ neck.

“What?”  Hamilton stood.

“ _What?_ ”  André jumped to his feet as well.

“ _She loves me more than God_ ,” Lafayette said, clinging to Laurens as if he was afraid he’d be swept away.

“Serious—Lafayette, you’re choking me—”  Lafayette loosened his grip only very slightly.  “She said that?”

“I thought you were breaking up!”

Lafayette turned to look not at but in the general direction of Hamilton, unable to really focus on his face.  “All right, I put those words in her mouth, but the point is that she cried and I asked her if she forgave me and if she still loved me and she does and she doesn’t want to leave me and she said there is nothing I could do to change that,” he said all in one breath, almost too fast to be understood.

"You made her cry?”

“I cried too,” Lafayette reassured Laurens, patting the side of his face and then stepping back, taking his shoulders, and kissing him on both cheeks.  “It was a very emotional conversation.  She was wearing the earrings I bought her,” Lafayette continued, his mood not damped in the slightest.  “They are lovely on her, but then she makes everything beautiful.”  He kissed André as well and let him go.  “She said I could tell my family that we are on solid ground.”

“It’s a little late to call anyone else in France.”

“No, no,” Lafayette explained, draping his arm across Hamilton’s shoulders and pulling him in tight.  “My American family.  She said I could tell you.”

Hamilton paused.  “Oh.”

“Good job,” Laurens said, giving Hamilton a moment to process that.  “We’re all very happy for you.  When we get back to the city we’ll take you out.”

“I need to get to work,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.  “There is so much to do.”

André and Hamilton glanced at one another.

“There is so much to do?”  Hamilton asked.

“ _Cur non?_ ”  Lafayette grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil from the nightstand.  “First things first—a date.”  He dropped down onto the bed.

“Lafayette,” Laurens said, “Are you planning a wedding?  You’re getting a little ahead of yourself.”

“June is traditional,” Lafayette said happily, ignoring him entirely.  “But so hot.  But then again, it is during the summer, so everyone will be free.”

Hamilton glanced at the other two, then shrugged and sat next to him.  “Early June might be cooler.”

“Early June,” Lafayette agreed energetically.  “And in the city, of course.”

“Of—You don't want to have it in France?”

“I love America,” Lafayette declared, obviously still floating on cloud nine, “I got engaged in America.”

“You’re not engaged.  And if you were, you would have gotten engaged in a bathroom.”  André sounded a little less than thrilled about all of this.

“He’s got a point,” Laurens agreed.  “You’re not having your wedding in there.”

Lafayette had written “NEW YORK CITY” and underlined it several times. 

“Colors,” Hamilton said.  “Isn’t that a thing people talk about?  I think I remember seeing something about that the time you got that _Cosmo_.”

“Blue and red,” Lafayette said immediately, making a note of it.

“…Red, white, and blue?”  Laurens asked.  

“With Adrienne’s dress, I suppose so.”

Hamilton looked up at him and motioned for him to sit next to him.  “It’s French and American.  They did that on purpose.”

“Of course they did, my great great—”

“Outdoors or inside?”  André pulled the chair over, resigning himself to participation.

“Outdoors, but under cover to protect the wedding party from any rogue elements.”

“I suppose budget isn't a problem,” Hamilton commented as Lafayette made a sketch of a gazebo.  Laurens sat on the bed next to Hamilton and he put his hand back on his thigh.

“I just want it to be perfect,” Lafayette said, greatly enjoying his new game, “she deserves that much.  Perfection, that is, it’s almost as good as her.”

“Are you listening to yourself?”

“Not at all,” Lafayette said happily.

 

Late—very late—that night, Lafayette and André went back to their room, Lafayette with his arm over André’s shoulder and still drunk on love, writing long detailed messages in pencil to tell Adrienne now that it was morning in France again.

“I miss her,” he said happily, “she is my light.”

André tried to remind himself that it was better to not say anything if he had nothing nice to say.

“I love you too,” Lafayette said as he got the door.  “You’re invited too, of course.”

“Yay,” André said, less than enthusiastically.  “Is it okay if I check my messages first?  Then you can have it all to yourself when I go to bed.”

“Of course,” Lafayette said graciously.  “But don’t be too long.  I’m going to go mad if I can’t speak with my Adrienne again soon.”

André refrained from saying anything to that either.

Lafayette whistled to himself as he changed for bed.  “What do you think about a theme wedding?”  He asked.  “I cannot believe I didn’t think of that earlier.  Even if we do need to have it in France perhaps we could have an Americana reception—”

“Lafayette,” André said excitedly, stepping out of the bathroom.  “Peggy wants to get back together!”

“Does she?”

“Yes, she texted me while we were out earlier, I just responded.  I’m going to go over Monday night and we’ll work everything out.”

Lafayette pulled his shirt—old, faded, “we are young but it’s real,” purchased because he had felt defiant and now just a declaration of the truth—down over his head and frowned as best as he could while still delirious with his own good news.  “Do you want to get back together with her?”

“Of course I do.  This was all just a stupid mistake, it has to have been.”

“All right,” Lafayette conceded, too happy to bother pulling at that thread and questioning André about their relationship.  “Then I am happy for you.  She can be your plus one,” he informed him cheerily as he stepped past him, already dialing Adrienne’s number as he closed the door to the bathroom.

 

“Third.”

Hamilton felt his heart skip a beat and he slid down a little in his seat as he moved them into the proper gear, Laurens’ hand guiding without moving him as forcefully as before.

“Laurens,” André said, leaning forward and putting his hands on the back of Laurens’ seat.  “Did I tell you I’m getting back together with Peggy?”

“Seriously?”  He asked André.  “You’re back together?  I thought you'd finally gotten free,” he added, just under his breath.

“The thirteenth is just our lucky number,” André said, sitting back, as Lafayette nodded enthusiastically.  “If you see a place to buy lotto tickets, stop because I want to put my winnings so far on it.”

“ _No_ ,” Laurens repeated for what felt like the millionth time.

“The lottery’s a friggin’ waste of money,” Hamilton said, talking in an effort to remain in the present.  “You ever check the statistics for those things?  I know, I know, everyone’s heard ‘more likely to get struck by lightning than to win,’ but that hardly sums it up, imho.  You can _raise_ your odds of actually getting electrocuted way higher than you can of winning.  Blow your savings on tickets, sure, but if I was gonna bet I’d put my money on the guy golfing in a thunderstorm in Florida.  Sunshine State my ass,” he continued, relieved at how focusing on the words was effectively keeping him from drifting off like the previous day.  “It’s the one-two of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic.  I’m talking contiguous forty-eight, of course,” he went on, “but what the hell, I’ll make it states or territories with any form of legalized gambling so switch in Alaska for Utah and Hawaii’s already out anyway.”

In the backseat, André nudged Lafayette and took out his phone to check the time.  Hamilton was still talking, oblivious to how closely they were listening, concentrating on arguing with no one instead of on how Laurens’ hand was warm over his own or how he moved it—just then—and pressed his thumb against him.  “—So, uh—”  He fumbled, losing his train of thought. 

“Fourth.”

Hamilton fell silent and put the car into gear.

André stopped the timer.  “Two minutes.  Beat that,” he said.

“My personal best was seventeen,” Lafayette said.  

“Impressive.”

Laurens rolled his eyes.


	71. Apples Are the Fruit of Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gift Shop; Unsympathetic; Catching on; Ben & Jerry's; Orchard

“Do you think I should get this?”  André was sorting through a rack of stuffed animals in the gift shop.

“For yourself?”  Lafayette, taking advantage of the wireless connection, was paying less than half attention.  “Sure.”

“For my girlfriend,” André clarified.  

“Oh.  Sure.  Get her the cat.”

“You think so?”  He picked it up and inspected it.  “Laurens bought his ticket, by the way.  Add it to your bill.”

“Damn.”  Lafayette took his notebook out.  What haven’t you won yet?”

André leaned over Lafayette’s shoulder to read the list.  “Hand holding,” he started, going down it and commenting on the ones he had not yet collected on.  “Public kiss.  Saying something actually cute.  Introducing themselves as a couple.  And no sex, but we can’t call that one way or the other until Monday.”

“Right, right.”  Lafayette made a note of André’s current winnings and put the notebook away, snapping Adrienne pictures of the merchandise on the shelves.

“Don’t you think it would be better to surprise her?”

“I want her to be able to pick for herself.  She’ll say she doesn’t need anything and then we will talk about which she liked and I’ll know what to send her.”

“I don’t need to ask Peggy about her tastes.  I know them by heart.”

“Mm.”  Lafayette politely refrained from getting into a relationship pissing contest.  “I missed being able to show her things.  It’s so nice to have her here again.  Although,” he added, “she never truly left.  I know that now.”  His restraint having apparently lasted all of two sentences, he continued.  “We’re just so good together.  Did you know that we have a psychic bond?”

“…Really?” 

“We do.  She always knows when I do anything stupid.”

Hamilton, tugging Laurens by the sleeve as he walked by, laughed.  “Everyone knows when you do something stupid, Lafayette.  You tell the whole world about it.”

“Hey,” André nudged Lafayette.

Lafayette shook his head.  “Hand, not sleeve.”

Laurens meanwhile had been freed and was flipping through a stack of postcards.  “What do you think?”  He asked Hamilton.  “Leaves or mountains?  Or the map?”

“Did we even go anywhere on the map?”

“No, but Jemmy likes maps.”

Hamilton shrugged and picked up the ones he had set aside, rifling through them.  “The map’s nice, I guess.  Are you going to write to the rest of them?”

“Nah, he’s the only one who’ll really care.”

Laurens, having decided, put the rest of the postcards back.  “Lafayette, can I borrow a pen?”

Lafayette handed it over and then picked out a postcard for himself.

Hamilton leaned on the counter next to Laurens while he made it out.

“‘Dear Jemmy,’” he read as Laurens wrote, “‘Right now I’m on mid-semester break.  We drove up to Vermont to see the leaves!  My friend Alexander is from the Caribbean and he’d never seen them change colors, can you imagine?  Give my love to everyone, Jack.’  That’s a little misleading,” Hamilton said.  “This is my third year in the city.”

“I put it in the past tense.”

“Not explicitly.  I’m gonna show up in November and he’ll think I’m fresh off the boat.”

Laurens grinned, not thinking at all as he brushed Hamilton’s hair out of his face and tugged his ponytail out from under the scarf he still had on even though they were inside.  “Fine.  I’ll change it,” he said, leaning down and kissing him.

It was very light, chaste, unassuming, and Laurens realized what he was doing about three seconds too late and quickly straightened up, clearing his throat and handing his entire wallet by mistake to the woman behind the counter as he tried to pay for the postcard and a stamp.

Hamilton was staring without really seeing anything, dimly glad he had already been supporting his weight on the counter and not entirely sure what had just happened.

“John,” he tried to say, but his voice was lost.

“Are we all done here?”  Laurens asked, a little louder than necessary, taking his wallet back from the cashier and grabbing Hamilton’s hand to pull him out of the store.

“John?”  Hamilton managed once the cold October air hit his face.  “What was…?”

“I forgot.”  Laurens was slowly turning red now that they were outside.  He had his fist to his mouth.  “I forgot.  I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”  Hamilton hated how high his voice was getting.  “What—?”

“I’m not sure,” Laurens admitted.  “I’m just…”  He ran his hand back through his hair.  “It’s hard to think,” he finally said.

Hamilton stared incredulously then put the base of his hand to his mouth, feeling hysterical and shaking from silent laughter.  “It’s all right,” he finally got out, the words tripping over themselves.  “ _Fuck_.  It’s fine.”

Lafayette and André exited the store.

“C’mon,” Hamilton said, still fighting off hysterics.  “There’s a mailbox by the main entrance for you two.  _Shit_ ,” he added with even greater than usual emphasis, taking Laurens’ hand and intertwining their fingers, lifting it up and kissing it.  “You’re a fucking moron sometimes, J.”

Laurens shook his head slowly, laughing at himself now.  “Shut up, Alexander.”

They dropped off the postcards then made their way across the lot to the car in the darkening light.  Hamilton automatically put his hand on the stick shift once he was sitting and for a moment was afraid that Laurens wasn’t going to continue his game.  He had both hands on the steering wheel instead, but then he turned to look at him—Hamilton remembered the first time he had blindfolded him and the sudden, overwhelmed expression he had seen in his eyes, and wished he could see it again—, smiled, and put his right hand on his.

They pulled out of the lot and Hamilton felt the adrenaline still in his body, _coursing_ through his veins.  It sounded crazy even to him but he was convinced he could feel every muscle in Laurens’ arm manipulating his hand into first, second, third, fourth gear just through his palm and fingers and the pulse of the engine vibrated through him.  He had still been so worn out the last couple nights that it had been easy enough to keep his word and not try anything beyond kissing, but now he thought of Laurens’ weight against his and he felt himself stir.

Laurens took his hand away briefly to adjust the heat and Hamilton clenched and unclenched his grip against the leather head of the stick.  God damn.  They had driven about half an hour to get here.  It was going to be a long thirty minutes back.

 

> A. Schuyler: How’s the trip?

> A. Hamilton: jesus kill me now

> A. Hamilton: so i told ou about the magic bathroom and how thats the fuckin lifeline to the outside world

> A. Schuyler: Of course.

> A. Hamilton: well we had to switch rooms because ofc w did who the fuck could i want to talk to when theres FRANCE and its SO MUCH HARDER t contact them

> A. Hamilton: anyway its a pain in th ass typing in here ll give you the DL tuesdya 

> A. Hamilton: shityou get a medal if you decode all of thsi

> A. Hamilton: but more importantly before they kick me out of here and i have to go back to my own room, ask me again how the trip is

> A. Hamilton: Please.

> A. Schuyler: How’s the trip?

> A. Hamilton: the trip is a fucking fiasco angelica

> A. Hamilton: you know john?

> A. Schuyler: I’ve seen John, I wouldn’t say that  I know him.

> A. Hamilton: i’ll introduce you, you’d like him

> A. Hamilton: But he’s got this stuipd rule about how now that he's back on the field no nothing 

> A. Hamilton: NOTHING

> A. Hamilton: hs so fucking hot angelica i just want him to put out

> A. Hamilton: why wont he put out

> A. Hamilton: I mean sure we’re still sucking face like theres no tomorrow and damn shit got nasty wed. Night before we drove up 

> A. Hamilton: also he kissed me in the middle of the fcking gift store which like can you blame the guy? I’m hot

> A. Hamilton: So it’s not like i joined a monastery or anything

> A. Hamilton: but come on

> A. Schuyler: Hold on a moment

> A. Hamilton: np

> A. Schuyler: I need to find where I put that tiniest violin.

> A. Hamilton: so i hear your sister is the nice one, huh?

 

“Can you tap oak?”  Lafayette asked, leaning up between the two front seats, sunglasses on to shield his eyes from the early morning rays.  “Because last night André and I realized that if our maple tree venture fails we should have a novel angle to break onto the market.”

“Are you still on about that?”  Laurens glanced at him in the rearview mirror.  “I thought now that you were both in relationships again you don’t need your basil farm, or whatever it was.”

“Maple has a higher production value,” Lafayette asserted, then looked at Hamilton to see if he would contest that.

Hamilton was looking away, drumming the fingers of his right hand on his leg.

“Oak is poisonous,” Laurens said.  “So, no, you can’t tap it unless you’re thinking of using that for something other than food.”

“Does maple syrup really count as a food?”  André asked.  “I figured it was more in the condiment category.”

“You eat it,” Laurens said.  “That’s the point.”

“Hm…”  Lafayette didn’t move back.  “I wonder if there is some other use for it.  Perhaps it is medicinal?”

“Ask at the orchard,” Laurens said.  “I have no idea.”

“Alexander?”  Lafayette tried to prompt.

“‘M not a botanist.”

Lafayette sighed and leaned back.

“Alexander,” Laurens said as they approached a stop.  He squeezed his hand to indicate that he needed to change gears and thought he heard just the slightest noise from Hamilton.  Startled, he looked over and caught a glimpse of Hamilton’s eyes fluttering closed, his lips slightly parted.  It just lasted a moment, then he had his mouth set in a firm line and he was back to staring at the trees passing by.  Laurens, distracted, was a little off with his timing on the clutch and the car made a shaky transition into third.

“Sorry about that.”

He gripped Hamilton’s hand more firmly and guided it himself to second and then first, rolling them to a smooth halt at the sign.  Watching out of the corner of his eye he noticed how how almost imperceptibly flustered Hamilton was getting every time he moved his hand.  When he took them down to second, Hamilton had sucked in a short breath.  When he brought them to first, Hamilton had bitten his lower lip.  Laurens put a little more weight on his hand than he had been before as he _pulled_ them out of first and Hamilton sunk down just a centimeter in his seat.

“Alex—” Laurens intentionally paused before finishing, “—ander.”

Hamilton’s hand and arm twitched.  He shot a glance up at Laurens, but his expression was unreadable and he almost thought he had imagined it, that his mind was playing tricks on him after such a slow burn of a weekend.  “Yeah?”

“Get my phone.”

“Get your phone?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens shifted forward a little.  “Back pocket.  I want to charge it.”

Hamilton stared at him.  He _had_ to be doing this on purpose.

“Seriously?”  He complained, slipping his hand into his pocket as Laurens lifted an inch or two off the seat.  It was basically impossible _not_ to cop a feel as he took his phone out.

“Thanks.”

“Not welcome.”  Hamilton plugged it in and Laurens took hold of his hand, putting it back on the stick before bringing them back up to speed.

“Hm,” Lafayette commented to André.  “That’s interesting.”  He took out his notebook.  “I think I will be getting at least _one_ victory over you this weekend.”

 

“You’re going home with Laurens over Thanksgiving, right?”  André and Lafayette, having walked through the orchard, gotten bored of the orchard, and decided that agriculture was not in fact for them, were eating ice cream in the cafe.  “Did he tell you about his family?”

Lafayette stole a bite of André’s Cherry Garcia.  “Oh, that’s good.  Not much.  I know that he’s the oldest and that it’s just his father now.”

“Yeah.”  André paused, tapping his spoon on the side of the bowl as he thought.  “You might want to get some more out of him before you show up.  It’s nothing real serious, but, I don’t know, I think he’d probably want to explain some things before you guys stay over.”

“He’s not very good about that,” Lafayette sighed.  “At least I just forget to tell people things, I’m not embarrassed to share them.”  He took a bite of his own ice cream and considered what he had just said.  “Well.  For the most part,” he qualified.  “Try the Cinnamon Buns,” he added, pushing his own bowl towards André.

André took a spoonful.  “This is much better than wandering around outside.  We’re clearly the smarter pair in the group.”

“I agree.  We still get the view of the trees, but we also have steady internet access and and central heating.”  Lafayette’s phone lit up at that and he picked it up, writing a reply to Adrienne.  “Have you heard anything else from Peggy?”

“No.  That’s like her, though.  She’s probably busy.”

“It is break,” Lafayette agreed.  “I’m sure she has many plans.”

André checked his own phone again just to be sure.  No new messages.  “Has anyone contacted you?”  He asked.  “Besides Adrienne.  Maybe the connection here is weird.”

Lafayette flashed his inbox at André.  “A couple of people from my yoga class, but only briefly.  I forgot to say that I wouldn’t be in and they asked about me.”

“That’s really nice of them,” André said.  “They must care about you.”

Lafayette considered this.  It was more likely that Aglae had missed having someone to talk to after class and Adelaide had actually contacted him to ask if some items left in the room were his.

“Yes,” he said with a smile and a cheerful answer that was true enough.  “We’re friends.”

“That’s cool that you made friends outside of class,” André said.  “You’re really outgoing.”

“I like people,” Lafayette explained and stole another bite of André’s ice cream.  “That reminds me, let me insta these before they get too melted.  I was too busy talking to Adrienne at the hotel to upload anything but this can jump to the head of the queue.”

 

Hamilton had requisitioned Laurens’ jacket again for the walk around the property.  It was cold and there was a slight breeze that made it colder and he had both of them closed all the way up, his scarf on, and his hands shoved deep into his pockets.  Laurens was being a good sport in just a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, trying to ignore the cold and act as though it didn’t bother him at all.  To that end he was walking with his arms tightly crossed across his chest and when he spoke his words were a little tight and clipped.

“It’s really nice out here,” Laurens said, “away from the city, that is.  Nothing wrong with it, not really, but sometimes it’s nice to get away.”

Hamilton glanced at him, not sure if he should point out the irony of saying that when he was clearly holding his jaw tight to keep his teeth from chattering.

“You sure you don’t want your jacket back, J.?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.”  Hamilton loosened his scarf and took off Laurens’ jacket anyway.  “Two layers of leather, I feel like I’m gonna roast.  I’m just going to carry it otherwise, you might as well take it.”

Laurens waved it off and Hamilton, aware of how this game was going to work, shrugged and slung it over his arm.

Laurens glanced down at it, walked a few more yards with him, then took it without a word when another gust of wind kicked up.  Hamilton waited as he put it on.  The jacket was already warm and Laurens smiled as he fastened it and then took Hamilton’s hand.

“Are you going to be very busy this week?”  Laurens asked as they set off again.  “I know you weren’t able to get any work done.”

Hamilton half-shrugged, not looking at him.  “I’ll manage.”  The real answer was that yes, he was about to get his ass kicked into the ground with his own self-imposed early deadlines and he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.  But when Laurens said it like that it sounded like he wanted to spend time with him and he didn’t know how he could turn that down.  “Hey.”  He glanced up then quickly away, feeling like an idiot for 1) thinking that he could make eye contact when Laurens had just taken his hand, and 2) _not being able to make eye contact when Laurens had just taken his hand_.  “You want to do something for your birthday?  I’ll take you out.”

“I didn’t have anything in mind, but I could be convinced.”

“Cool.”  Cool?  Did people still say “cool”?  Hamilton cringed at himself inwardly.  “I mean, yeah, let me know.  I’m talking garbage,” he added to himself under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You know,” Laurens said after a minute, “you’re not a bad driver.  I bet you’d pick it up real fast.”

“I said I know how to drive, John.”

“I could teach you if you wanted.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes dramatically at how Laurens was ignoring his protests but didn’t say anything.

“We could probably borrow André’s car,” Laurens continued, “or even one of the other guys’.  Take it across the bridge to Brooklyn, find some back streets.”  He grinned at Hamilton.  “You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

Hamilton hit him.  “You ass!  I _knew_ you were doing that on purpose!”

Laurens laughed hard, not letting go of his hand.

“Damnit, J., I thought I was going crazy!”

“I thought you said you knew I was doing it on purpose,” Laurens teased.

“Fuck off, you made that whole deal about ‘oh, we can’t fool around on vacation’ and then you just turned right around and _teased_ me every single time you got behind the Goddamn steering wheel!”

“I wasn’t doing it intentionally at first,” Laurens said, still laughing.  “I didn’t realize you were such a car guy.”

“You’re an ass,” Hamilton repeated.  “I should tell Lafayette he can sit up front instead.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed, “but are you going to?”

“Of course not, we both know I don’t have that kind of will power.”  

“It turns out that I don’t either.”  

Laurens leaned down and kissed him and Hamilton, instead of waiting for him to move away this time, grabbed the front of his jacket and backed him up against an apple tree, practically shoving him into it.

Laurens hadn’t been expecting quite that enthusiastic of a reaction and he made a muffled surprised noise into the kiss, then pulled Hamilton closer to him.  Hamilton slipped one hand into the back pocket of his jeans, cupping his ass and grinding his hips against his, eager to finally act out some of his pent up energy.

Laurens bit Hamilton’s lip, eliciting a low moan, and put his hand on his shoulder, letting him rub up against him and tighten his other hand on the front of his jacket.

“We should find the others,”  Laurens said, then slid his tongue back into his mouth.  Hamilton made a frustrated noise at how obviously he was being teased.  Laurens kept kissing him in spite of his own statement, moving his hand back into his hair, firmly preventing him from pulling away, and making it so that Hamilton almost felt like he was the one being pinned up against the tree instead of Laurens.  He felt himself getting hard behind his jeans, properly hard for the first time all break, and he pressed himself against him, hoping to show Laurens how much he wanted it and thereby convince him that he wanted it too.

Laurens noticed—how could he not—but ignored it, still kissing Hamilton, running his tongue over his bottom lip before pushing it back into his mouth.  He felt Hamilton tug on his jacket again, insistently, and he put his hand on his lower back, pressing his hips more firmly against him.

Hamilton moaned softly, heart racing.  “John…”

Laurens kissed him one last time, then tipped his face back.  “We really do need to find the other two.”

“John,” Hamilton repeated.  “Come on.”

Laurens took his hand off of Hamilton’s back and tried to nudge him away.

“J.,” Hamilton tried again, not moving.  “Please.”

“Alexander.”  Laurens stepped to the side but Hamilton followed him, one hand still on his lapel.

“We don’t have to take long.  No one’s around.  Please.”

Laurens detached his hand carefully and took it instead, starting to head back towards the buildings.  “We’re not fooling around in an apple orchard.  It’s too cold, for one.”

Hamilton made a little incoherent noise.  “What the fuck were we just doing, then?”  Laurens just kept walking, pulling Hamilton along behind him.  “ _John!_ ”  Hamilton stumbled over a dip in the path.  “Fuck’s sake John, I’m so—”  He cut himself off with a frustrated sound.  

“Later,” Laurens said.

“Fuck later,” Hamilton complained, hating how desperate he felt.  “Apples are the fruit of sin, John, let’s do it in the orchard.”

Lauren stopped abruptly and Hamilton ran into him.

“Apples are…”  Laurens looked down at him and laughed.  “You really aren’t thinking about what you’re saying, are you?”

Hamilton wanted to say something about how, no shit, he was having a hard enough time with the words even _before_ Laurens had put his tongue in his mouth, but he couldn’t (proving the point) think of a witty way to put it.

“Let go of me,” he muttered instead, pulling his hand away and somewhat contradictorily shoving it into the pocket of Laurens’ jacket.  Laurens draped his arm over his shoulders and Hamilton took his hand again with his other one.  “Goddamn, John,” he continued, still sounding irritated, “but you have good arms.  It’s a good thing you put your jacket back on because that shirt looked just about painted on.  I swear I could see your veins through it.”

Laurens kissed his temple.

“You better have meant it about ‘later.’”

“Later,” Laurens promised.


	72. Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Hotel Sex

Later meant that night and Hamilton found himself in bed with one hand up in Laurens’ hair, slowly kissing him.  He was lying on top of his chest, both of them shirtless, Laurens’ hands on his back and ass.  Hamilton pushed his tongue against Laurens’ as he felt him get hard against his thigh.  He grinned into the kiss and put his other hand lightly against Laurens’ neck, feeling for his pulse.  He wasn't disappointed.  It was racing. He felt his own skip a beat and quicken and he tightened his grip for a moment in Laurens’ hair.  He was still wearing pants—it had been too cold to strip all the way so quickly—but Laurens was just in a pair of boxer briefs and Hamilton wished for a moment that they were in a different position so he could tease him through them.

Laurens was trying to talk, only managing to get words out here and there in between Hamilton’s mouth on his, a process he wasn’t making easier for himself by how he kept pulling him back down every time he seemed about to move away.

“This doesn’t really—count.”  Laurens squeezed Hamilton’s ass, then moved his hand down a little more between his legs.  “Because—we’re still on—break, anyway.”  He made a low hungry noise as Hamilton continued to massage his scalp.  “And—it’s almost an—almost a—week—away.”

“John,” Hamilton said against his mouth with just the faintest tinge of annoyance.  “Don’t ruin it.”

“Sorry.”

Hamilton kept kissing him, unable to stop, until finally Laurens said—“Alexander.”

The word sent a shiver through him and he had to stop and compose himself before he answered.

“Yes?”

Laurens gently rolled him off, kissing him once more before getting up.  “Strip.  Did you still pack things?”

“Of course.”  Hamilton shimmied out of the rest of his clothes and kicked them to the floor, shivering again, this time from the relative cold now that he was naked and without Laurens’ body heat.  “Come back.”

“Hold on.”  Laurens was looking through his bag.  “Get under the covers.”

Hamilton did so, waiting as Laurens finally found a condom and the lube and then cut the lights.  He started to roll over to face him but stopped at Laurens’ hand on his shoulder.

“Stay there.”

Laurens put his arm over his shoulders, spooning him and lightly kissing the back of his head.  Hamilton made a little anticipatory noise as he felt his cockhead brush against him.

“Shh.”  Laurens took a deep breath, his face in Hamilton’s hair.  “I don’t want anyone to hear.”

“J.,” Hamilton’s voice was a hoarse whisper.  “Please.”

Laurens kissed him again, almost nuzzling him, and reached down, pressing two slick fingers against him.  Hamilton bit his lip to keep from crying out as they pushed slowly into him.

Laurens tightened his grip around Hamilton’s shoulders, just slightly, just flexing his arm and keeping him close, feeling possessive and wanting to keep Hamilton to himself for just a little longer.  It had been so nice to have him relaxed enough to actually be sweet for once, instead of just sexual.  It had been almost too easy to forget that they weren’t in the same place and that he had to be careful to keep up a relatively casual façade or risk that deer-in-the-headlights panic he had accidentally triggered before.  That would all change after they drove back to campus in the morning.

Hamilton tugged lightly on Laurens’ arm and whispered, “Hey.”

Laurens jerked back to reality and playfully nipped his ear, pushing his fingers a little further in.  Hamilton exhaled hard, hips twitching, as Laurens worked his hand back and forth, slowly stretching him.

Laurens moved his arm down from Hamilton’s shoulders, putting his hand on his cock.  Hamilton _jerked_ his hips into it with more desperation than he had wanted to show and gasped.

“Quiet,” Laurens whispered in his ear.  “Or do I have to gag you?”

Hamilton pressed the base of his hand to his mouth, eyes shut.

“You liked being in the car with me, didn’t you?” 

Laurens was stroking him at the same pace as his other hand, moving down to his base at the same time he pressed his fingers up against him, and Hamilton was leaving teeth marks on his inner wrist.

“With your hand on the stick—feeling the engine under you—”

Hamilton’s hips were shaking, he could tell he was going to lose the battle at keeping silent soon and he didn't try to respond, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to control the volume.

“Did it remind you of this?”  Laurens squeezed his head lightly.  “Of me touching you like this?”

A broken whimper escaped Hamilton.

“Shh,” Laurens chided him.  “These walls aren’t as thick as I’d like.”

“J.—”  His voice was only barely quiet enough. 

“Did it remind you of this?”  Laurens asked again.

“Yes—”

Laurens added a third finger and Hamilton clamped his own hand over his mouth to stifle his moan.

“Should I make you touch yourself?”  Laurens took his hand off of Hamilton’s shaft to grab his wrist and force it down.  Hamilton made a startled noise that quickly became needy as Laurens put his hand over his own, forcing him to move it over his cock.

“You have to stay quiet, Alexander,” Laurens warned.  “I believe in you.”

Hamilton wanted to groan, to complain, to make any kind of noise to give voice to the competing desires he felt.  On the one hand, bullshit, there was no way to stay quiet when Laurens had his fingers inside him and was basically forcing him to rub one out.  His arm over him and his hard body behind him…  But he wanted so desperately to obey, to prove that he could do what was asked of him, and that wish contradictorily made him want to make a sound of protest as well.

Laurens, meanwhile, kept talking, his voice just above a whisper.

“Today in the cold, in the trees—I could feel how hard you were, how much you wanted it, wanted me to just push you down, fuck you right there—”

Hamilton now had his other hand pressed so tightly over his mouth that he forgot to breathe.  

“—You were practically begging me, Alexander,” Laurens said drawing his name out.

Hamilton inhaled sharply, just starting to get lightheaded.

“It hasn’t been that long since we did anything.  Only a few days.  Are you that addicted to it?”

Laurens was teasing him, Hamilton could hear it very clearly in his low voice, and it took everything he had not to take the bait.

“You make me worry that withholding for the rest of the season will be bad for your health.”

There it was.  Hamilton pulled his hand down just far enough to speak, his voice strained.  “Ha.  Yeah.  Probably.  You’ll—make me—”

“I’ll make you?”  Laurens bent his fingers against him once more then took his hand away.  The head of his cock pushed against him without entering.

“—Make me—”

“Yes?”

“Crazy…”  Hamilton couldn't find the word he was looking for, so he just grabbed the next best one he could think of.

Laurens slowly pressed into him and Hamilton moaned behind his hand, unable to hold it in any longer.

Laurens gently moved Hamilton’s hand off of his cock, holding it as he wrapped his arm across his shoulders and chest again, cradling him to him.  With the angle he could only thrust shallowly into him and Hamilton ducked his head down so his parted lips were brushing against Laurens’ arm.  The position was strangely intimate and Hamilton made little quiet pleading noises at the end of each breath.  He felt exposed like this, bared, and somehow would have felt safer if Laurens would have just pushed him flat on his stomach and dominated him.

“I want to make you talk,” Laurens breathed in his ear, “but I don’t think you’d be able to keep quiet enough.”

Hamilton was digging his nails into Laurens’ arm.

“I think it’s hard enough for you now, without having to—”  Laurens’ breath caught, “—strike that balance.”

Hamilton swallowed hard, unable to think beyond the feeling of Laurens’ cock pushing inside him and his voice low against his skin.  He meant to exhale but it turned into a short whimper and Laurens put his hand—gently but firmly—over his mouth.  Hamilton felt a rush of blood to his face and cock.

“Do you like it when I do this to you?”  Laurens could actually feel Hamilton’s face heating up and the question was half-teasing half-genuine.  Hamilton gave a short nod and Laurens, reassured, continued, thrusting only once ever few seconds.  “When I have to go so slowly so you won’t make a sound?”

Hamilton grabbed his arm but pulled it tighter rather than off and moaned behind Laurens’ hand as he gave just the breath of a laugh in his ear.

“I think you like it.  I think you like knowing that you could be so easily overheard, like you could be discovered.”

Hamilton was breathing faster, his cock aching for contact, and he tried to rock his hips forward but there was nothing to rub himself against and he made a soft pleading noise.  Laurens ran his tongue along the rim of his ear and Hamilton tipped his head back against him.

“You told me once that you wanted to suck me off in public.”  Laurens shook his head just slightly.  “You’re all talk about some things, Alexander, but I bet you would—actually do that if given the opportunity.  Let me hold your head down and pull your—hair.”  He was struggling a little to keep his own voice even.  “Fuck your mouth.”

Hamilton groaned and Laurens pushed his hand down a little harder, biting his ear.

“What did I tell you to do?”  He took his hand away, indicating that he wanted an answer.

It took Hamilton several seconds before he could trust himself to speak.  “Stay—”  He was breathing rapidly.  “Please, J., touch me—”

“Alexander.”

Hamilton whined softly.  “Stay quiet.”

“I can’t touch you if you need my hand to silence you.”

“Please,” Hamilton gasped.  “I—I can—”  He made a frustrated noise.  “Shit, J., just give me a pillow.”

Laurens paused and laughed.  Hamilton’s face burned.  Laurens, not pulling out, reached over him and handed him one of the pillows on the bed.  Hamilton pulled it to his face.

“Don’t suffocate yourself.”  Laurens kissed his temple and Hamilton felt like he might die of embarrassment.

Laurens moved his hand down but to just toy with his cockhead, lightly running his fingers across it.  Hamilton made a sharp noise into the pillow.  That wasn’t what he had been asking for.

“Is this not right?”  Laurens knew it wasn’t and he felt Hamilton’s cock twitch against his hand.  “I’m touching you, Alexander.  Should I fuck you harder instead?”

Hamilton couldn’t help but think of Laurens’ cock, hard and thick and really pushing into him deeply, making his legs weak so that even afterwards walking required effort.  He was begging him, pleading, not that Laurens could make it out, desperately asking him to push him down and fuck him harder, screw everyone else knowing, he didn’t care.

Laurens put his hand on Hamilton’s shaft, moving it a little faster and matching the speed with his hips.  Hamilton was moaning, the sound almost entirely muffled, and moving into Laurens’ hand as he stroked him.

“You’re going to make a mess of the sheets,” Laurens said.

Hamilton wondered why that sent heat suddenly coiling in his groin, building, eager for release.

“Even if the other two don’t hear us, people are going to know.  They’ll—know you were too eager to stop and get a towel, or—to finish in the bathroom.”  Laurens was taunting him a little and Hamilton _liked_ it.  He was sure his body was giving it away because Laurens seemed encouraged.  “You’re always so—impatient, Alexander.  Even now, you couldn’t—wait for me to get you off just by fucking you.  You—insisted—that you needed more.  Even if you—keep quiet enough, you’d still give it away if you had—had to interact with anyone.”  He paused to catch his breath.  “Your face is so hot, Alexander.  It feels like—you’re running a fever.”

Hamilton pressed the pillow harder to his face.

“I—”  Laurens caught himself before he said something he didn’t actually want to let slip and physically turned his head away, burying his face in Hamilton’s hair instead.  Clearly he couldn’t be trusted.

Hamilton wondered what he had been about to say but wasn’t able to hold on to that thought for more than a second because Laurens’ hand was still on him and he was steadily coming to orgasm.  He pulled the pillow away a little so Laurens could hear him say his name.

“John—!”

Laurens, for all that he had been talking about Hamilton being the one who needed to keep quiet, groaned loudly and the sound tipped Hamilton over the edge.  He quickly buried his face again as he came, stifling himself and clinging to the pillow as if it were a lifeline.  He kept his face in it as Laurens sped up a little, taking his hand after he was satisfied that Hamilton was finished off of his shaft and grabbing his shoulder, holding him again tight against his chest.  Laurens tried not to but couldn’t help thinking about what he had almost said.  Hamilton, his body against his, hot and tight and so—

Laurens held his shoulder hard as he came, then didn’t let him go, breathing heavily and wishing he hadn’t waited until their last night away to do anything.


	73. In Loco Parentis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Overload; Cleaning up; Help

“You’ve got a hickey on your leg,” Hamilton said, holding Laurens’ hand and trailing around the room after him as he gathered his things in the morning.  “I thought you should know.  Before you change in the locker room.”  He had been talking non-stop for over an hour now, unable to shut up and feeling slightly manic.  He had woken up repeatedly during the night and slept shallowly when he had managed to at all and he felt like the blood had never really left his face.  “Sorry.”

Laurens glanced down, but he was already dressed and couldn’t tell one way or the other.  “Really, Alexander?”

Hamilton reddened further at his name.

“It’s fine,” Laurens said, but looked at him closely.  Hamilton turned his head away.  “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”  Probably.

Laurens stepped closer and tried to turn his face up but Hamilton jerked away.  Laurens didn’t push it.  “I think I got everything.  Are you packed?”

“Yes.”

Laurens gave him a skeptical look, handing him his jacket from the back of the chair.  “Right.”

“…I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” Hamilton finally offered.  “Kept waking up.  I don’t know why.”  He knew why and it had to do with how he couldn’t get Laurens out of his head.  He had spent the night uncomfortably aware of how close he was, everywhere they were touching feeling like it was set on fire, and filled with so much energy that he couldn’t get up and burn off because doing so would have disturbed him.  “I’ll take something.  Pass out in the car.  Sleep it off,” he added, more for his own benefit than Laurens’.

“All right.”  Laurens took his hand away to put on his jacket and pick up his bag.

Hamilton opened a bottle of generic antihistamines and without missing a beat took twice the suggested amount.  It wouldn’t hurt him but it would with any luck knock him out for the entire ride down.  He stood back up and Laurens put his arms tight around him, his face in his hair.

“J…?”

Laurens took a long breath and Hamilton felt just a little sliver of the excess energy coursing through him ease off. 

“C’mon.”  Hamilton tapped Laurens’ arm after a minute.  “We’re gonna be late for checkout, John.”

“Do you want to sleep in the back?” Laurens asked stepping away and then waiting for Hamilton in the hall. 

Hamilton felt a sudden burst of anxiety and guilt as he grabbed his bag and followed him out.  That wasn’t what he had wanted, but…  “Yeah, sure, that sounds good.  More comfortable, right?  Besides, then André or Lafayette can finally get the good seat.”  He was rambling again.

“André,” Laurens said as they headed to meet the other two in the lobby and then get the car.  “He’s better with a map and if I have to sit next to Lafayette right now I’ll probably punch him before we get out of the state.”

Hamilton laughed, desperate to get into the car and pass out, even more desperate to get back to the city and his own apartment.  

He got into the backseat next to Lafayette, who eyed him curiously.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Lafayette repeated back to him.  “Alex—”

“Couldn’t sleep, insomnia’s a bitch.  Gonna crash on the ride back instead.”  He closed his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and hoping that if he pretended to be asleep he’d be unconscious as soon as they hit the open road.

“We’re going to pass a couple scenic points on the way,” Laurens said as he got into the car.  “Lafayette, are you listening to me?  I’m saying this for your benefit.  I’m going to stop at them so you can take pictures for Adrienne.”

Lafayette turned away from Hamilton.  “Thank you, that’s very considerate.”

“No problem.  Alex, if you’re asleep do you want me to wake you up?”

Hamilton shrugged, not opening his eyes.

Lafayette nudged him.  “Do you want him to—”

“It’s fine, Lafayette.”  Laurens turned the car on.  “He’s tired, let him sleep.”

André twisted back in his seat.  “That’s another point for me.”

“Would you guys stop that?”  Laurens sounded annoyed.  “Seriously.”

“It’s harmless,” Lafayette said, a little guiltily.

“It’s harmless,” Hamilton repeated.  Laurens glanced at him in the mirror in surprise.  “I’m not an idiot, John,” Hamilton continued, eyes still closed, knowing Laurens was looking at him.  “I know what they’re doing.”

“You do?”  André asked.

“Course I do.  You’re not subtle about the money changing hands.  You even talked about it in front of me, whatever, I don’t care,” he said again, a little more forcefully than he needed to.  “If I’m going to make an ass out of myself then someone might as well get something out of it.”

“We don’t think that,” Lafayette said, feeling even guiltier now and therefore sounding more earnest.  “Do we, André?”

“Whatever,” Hamilton said, leaning his head against the window.  “I’m going to sleep.” 

 

“So did you get any this weekend?”

Laurens glanced over at André.  “Seriously?”

“Come on, it’s not a locker room but they’re both asleep anyway.  Lafayette was on the phone with France all night.”

“You’ve got money riding on this, don’t you?”

“A hundred dollars.”

Laurens glanced in the rearview mirror.  Lafayette was sound asleep, his head resting on the window.

“What answer do I have to give for you to win?”

“He was betting that you’d do it at least once.”

“In which case I didn’t,” Laurens said, raising his fist for André to bump.

“Excellent.”

“You’re welcome.”  Laurens paused.  “You bet against me?  I don’t know if I’m offended or not.”

“Nah, he picked the terms.  It was a set deal.  He got all of column A, I got all of B.”  André paused, then continued.  “But, you know, in a hypothetical world.  In a hypothetical world…”

“Hypothetically,” Laurens started carefully, looking straight ahead at the road, “yeah, we had sex.”

“Hypothetical five!”

Laurens laughed and slapped his hand without looking away.  It was… different to be able to actually talk about it with a slightly wider circle.  For the first time he could envision himself joining in with his other friends when they bantered during practice or meals.  The idea of opening up about his personal life was exciting rather than terrifying, even if he still felt a familiar anxious pull.

“That wasn’t the first time, right?  You weren’t super clear before.”

“No, we’ve, uh, we’ve done stuff.”

“Okay, good.”  André looked a little awkward after saying that.  “I mean, good for you.  He seems like a nice guy.  You were right,” he added, “he’s really smart.”

“Ha.  Yeah.”  Laurens smiled ahead at the road.  “Yeah, he’s brilliant.  A total idiot sometimes, but brilliant.”

“He’s pretty, too,” André added.  “Not my type,” he clarified, “but he’s cute.”

Laurens wasn’t really sure what to do with that, so he took it as a joke and laughed.

André paused, then laughed as well, looking back down at the map.

 

“You sure you want to get dropped off?”

“I’ve got work to do.”  Hamilton was awake, or awake enough, and getting out of the car.  “I’ll call you later.”

“Hey.”  Laurens had the window down and he leaned out of it.  “C’mere a second.”  He put one hand on Hamilton’s arm and pulled him down, kissing him quickly, even in public, even in front of the other two.  

Hamilton took a step back, still not thinking clearly and now even more dazed.

“I’m texting you if you don’t contact me tonight.”

“Right.”

“Don’t stay up too late.”

“I won’t.”

The car pulled away and Hamilton turned to the front door of his building, automatically patting his pockets for the keys so he could get in.  Nothing.  He put his bag on the ground and dug through it, listening for the familiar metal jingle.  Wrong pocket.  He checked the smaller side pocket, where he occasionally stuck them.  Still nothing.  Feeling a note of panic now he rummaged more frantically through his bag, finally taking out half of its contents until he could see the bottom.

No keys.  Hamilton sat back heavily on his heels.  He pressed the base of his hands to his eyes, dry and uncomfortable from sleeping with contacts in for the entire ride back, and swore loudly for several minutes.

Finally, defeated, he unlocked his phone and started to type.

 

> A. Hamilton: help

 

Barely ten seconds had passed before his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Whose face am I smashing in?”  It was Mulligan.

“I just got back and I lost my keys out of state and I can’t get into my apartment and I can’t remember the number for the locksmith and I’m gonna fuckin’ pass out on the street.”

There was a brief pause while Mulligan decoded the rapid jumble of words.

“Don’t go anywhere, I’m gonna come get your ass.”

“‘Kay.”

The line cut.

 

Mulligan showed up in a cab after what felt like hours but was actually less than thirty minutes.  Hamilton had managed to pack his bag again and got wordlessly into the car.

“You lost your keys?”  Mulligan began to interrogate him in the back.

“Yeah.”  Hamilton rubbed at his eyes.

“They’re not in your bag?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Mulligan swore.  “I got a guy, it’s fine.  We’ll get you a new one made.”

“I’ve got a bunch on that ring.  Office key.  Box key.”

Mulligan swore again.  “Shit, kid.  Your friends don’t have them?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You ask?”

“No.”

“Call ‘em.  You okay?  You drunk?”

“Couldn’t sleep.  Should be better by now.  I can’t call like this.  I’ll text.”

“Give me that.”  Mulligan took the phone.  “I should text John Laurens, right?  He’s the one who rented the car.  Get him to check it.”

“Okay.”

Mulligan was silent while he composed a message neutral enough to sound like it could have come from anyone and sent it.  He pocketed Hamilton’s phone and let him sit quietly for the rest of the ride.  He paid the driver, led the way into his building, and let them into the apartment.  It sounded like one of his flatmates was in his room but otherwise they were alone.  Hamilton dropped his bag on the floor and collapsed face-down on the sofa.

“I hate this,” he moaned.

“We’ll sort it out.  Take off that jacket, the sleeves are too long for you.  I’m gonna hem ‘em while we wait to hear back from ‘im.”

Hamilton dropped the jacket on the ground without getting up.  Mulligan sighed and picked it up, taking it over to the sewing machine on the table.

“Like raising a friggin’ five year old…”

“Fuck off.”

“You gonna throw a tantrum?”

Hamilton raised one hand to flip him off.

“I can’t _think_ , Mulligan,” Hamilton complained as the machine whirred.  “ _Me_.”

“Thanks for implyin’ the rest of us are a buncha idiots,” Mulligan said, his back to him as he worked.

“You know what I mean.”

“So you forgot your keys, big deal.  Said you were sleep deprived anyway.  Too much fuckin’ on vacation?”

“Just once.  Wasn’t that.  That didn’t help.”

Mulligan didn’t say anything, waiting patiently for Hamilton to start up again.

“Maybe I am sick,” he finally said, turning his head to the back of the couch and touching his face.  “He said I felt hot.  I get sick every winter anyway, fuck winter.”  He struggled to take out his dry contacts.  “That must be it.”

“Lovesick, maybe.”  The machine stopped and Mulligan inspected his work, looking over just in time to see Hamilton reach over the armrest and drop the contacts to the carpet.  “Oh, come on, I don’t spit on your floor.”

Hamilton left his arm hanging and Mulligan dropped the jacket on top of him.

“Try that when you’re done whining and tell me how it is.”

“‘Kay.”

“You done whining?”

“No.”

“I’m getting a beer.  I’d offer you one, but it’s illegal to give alcohol to children.”

“You’re a jackass.”

Mulligan came back into the room, popping the tab on a can of beer.  “You’re being a baby.”

“I fucking lost my work keys and I can’t get into my apartment!”

“That’s not what you’re really complaining about, Hamilton.  I might not be a hotshot genius like you, but I’m not a moron.  Move your legs over.”  Mulligan sat heavily on the couch next to him.  “You like the guy?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton’s voice was heavily muffled by the couch cushions.

“You like him a lot?”

“Yeah.”

“Things get a little too real spending that much time with him?”

Hamilton paused.  “Yeah.”

Mulligan patted his leg.  “Suck it up,” he said sympathetically. 

“You’re so fuckin’ helpful, Dr. Jung.  Same time next week?”

“If I’m your friggin’ psychiatrist now then I’m gonna start charging you a hundred an hour.”

Hamilton lapsed into sullen silence.

“You gotta just embrace it,” Mulligan advised him.  “Like my girl—”

“The fuck when do you have a girlfriend?”

“I told you when I dropped your clothes off, I was meeting up with her.  We hit it off.”

“Mazel tov.”

“The point is, Hamilton, you gotta go with it.  He seems like a real friggin’ boy scout and if he’s not,” Mulligan continued, “I’ll go mama bear on his ass and make him regret ever touching a hair on your pretty little head.”

“Shut up,” Hamilton muttered. 

“I gotta admit, it’s strangely satisfying to see you like this.  I bet you’re all over him like a couple a’ kids in high school.  You act like such a damn tom cat, but it looks like you just got declawed.”

“That’s inhumane.”

“It’s a metaphor, smartass.”  Mulligan took a long drink of his beer.  “You wanna tell me about ‘im?  Get it outta your system.  Like drawin’ the poison out.” 

Hamilton didn’t say anything, so Mulligan prompted further.

“He gonna play again this weekend?”

“Yeah.  I’ll go down and watch, I’d say I’d make sure he doesn’t get the shit kicked out of him again but who am I kidding, he’s reckless as fuck.  Smart, though,” Hamilton continued as Mulligan took another drink.  “Smarter than you’d think, smarter than I realized at first even after I knew he wasn’t braindead.  He’s got a head on his shoulders, Mulligan, and he’s not showy about it like I am.”

“No one is showy like you.”

“Ha.  Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that.  He’s an artist, too, did I tell you that?  I woke up—”  Hamilton rolled onto his side.  “—the other night, the night before we left, and he was actually just sitting there drawing me.  It was the sort of thing that would have been creepy if it hadn’t’ve been him.”

Mulligan gave a low whistle.  “A romantic.  Boy’s got game.”

“Yeah.  Mulligan.”  Hamilton paused.  “I can’t stop thinking about him.  That’s why I couldn’t sleep last night.  I can’t stop…  Not even sexually, I mean, just—him.”

Mulligan patted his leg again, then Hamilton quickly sat up, accidentally kneeing Mulligan in the back as his phone vibrated.  “Is that him?  Did he get them?”

“Calm your tits.”  Mulligan took the phone out.  

 

> A. Hamilton: I think I left my keys in the car.  Can you check?  I’m with Hercules Mulligan.

> J. Laurens: Got them.

 

“Yes!”  Hamilton stood up and grabbed the phone, quickly texting him back.  “You’re amazing, J.!”

Mulligan smiled, drinking.  “Young love.”

 

Laurens met Hamilton back at his complex.  He was already loitering by the front door when Hamilton showed up and he smiled and raised his hand in greeting, tossing over the keys.  “They were under the seat.  The front desk had them for me.”

Hamilton fumbled and dropped them, taking advantage of bending down to pick them up to not make eye contact even as he mentally kicked himself for missing the easy catch.  Stupid myopia.

“Great.  Thanks, John.  I’m just glad I didn’t leave these up in Vermont.”

“That would have sucked,” Laurens agreed.  He didn’t excuse himself to leave.

“Well.”  Hamilton stood, hesitating awkwardly by the door.  “I’m gonna go.  I’ll see you later.”

Laurens was mildly surprised he wasn't being invited up, but he nodded.  “Yeah, I’ve got work to catch up on, too.  That’s the worst part about vacations, having to come back to reality.”

“I know, right?”  Hamilton agreed, completely lying.  He couldn’t wait to get back to normalcy.  “Hey, thanks again for finding them for me.”

Laurens smiled.  “Not at all.”


	74. Girls' Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wedding Plans; Bringing in Reinforcements; Theory; Adopted

“Please tell me you’re not getting married before she’s out of high school,” Laurens said after he came back to his room to Lafayette standing at his desk and setting up a Pinterest account.

“Of course not.  We don’t want it to be rushed.  And her parents veto’d me years ago when I suggested folding it into her graduation party.”

“Ah.”  Laurens started dismantling the stack of books Lafayette had arranged on his desk.

“It’s better to stand.”

“I’m at the gym for at least an hour a day.  I’m going to sit on my own time, thank you.”

“I tried to say hello to you last week.  You should really keep your music lower.”

“You were at the gym?”

“Of course I was at the gym, I’m in fencing club.”

“Okay.”  Laurens turned around.  “I _know_ you never mentioned that before.  You don’t get to sound affronted when this is the first time I’m hearing anything about it.”

“It’s a lot of fun,” Lafayette continued.  “You should join.”

“Like I told you about yoga, no thank you.  I’ve got a full enough schedule as is.  Are you still taking that?”

“Yoga?  Of course.”

“Are you taking anything else?”

“You should really consider signing up,” Lafayette said.  Laurens wasn’t sure if he was deliberately evading the question or if he just wasn’t paying attention.  “There aren’t many of us so it’s very casual.  You’d get to duel.”

“That would be a more tempting offer if I didn’t already get to beat the shit out of guys on the field.  Try Alexander.”

“I bet he’d sign up if I got Aaron Burr on board.”

“Probably,” Laurens agreed, “but then you might see actual blood spilled.”

“Perhaps if I got them to sign a waiver…”  Lafayette saved a picture of a string of lights in a mason jar to his board.  “John, you planned a wedding, right?”

“No.”  Laurens put the last book away a little harder than he needed to.  “We’re not talking about that.  Try again.”

“What about your sister?  I just want someone to run things past.”

“Martha?  Or Mary Eleanor?”  Laurens laughed.  “You’d have better luck with the seven year old.  Besides, her tastes are probably more in line with yours.”

“Is that so?  What’s her number?”

“Mary doesn’t have a phone, Lafayette.”

“That’s too bad.  It sounded like she might have actually been willing to help.”

Laurens sat at his desk.  “Is that shade?”

“Perhaps.”

“Look, you’re not actually engaged.  Besides this isn’t really something I’m good at.  It’s a little… feminine.”

“Sexist,” Lafayette commented, scrolling through pictures of garters.  “You’re an artist, John, you have a good eye for things.  Nothing is set in stone right now, I’m just trying to collect ideas.  We probably will not have the wedding until after I graduate.  And it will be after a long engagement.  But isn’t it fun to look ahead?  I can’t help being excited.  It’s a shame you didn't bring Alexander back with you,” he continued with a sigh, “he would be much more helpful.”

“He said he was busy.  I’m sure he has a lot of work to do.”

Lafayette frowned and glanced at his phone.  His understanding had been that Hamilton had taken care of everything in advance, anticipating that he wouldn’t get around to doing it over break.  “Yes.  I’m sure.”

“Forget Alexander,” Laurens said.  “Why aren't you at least talking to Adrienne about this instead of me?  Save this crap for your girlfriend.”

Lafayette looked surprised.  “I am.”  He pointed to the phone.  “She’s on speaker.”

Laurens’ eyes widened in surprise and embarrassment.

“ _Bonjour_ , John.”

“Hello, Adrienne.”

 

Monday, 10 PM

> J. Laurens: How’s the work coming?

 

Tuesday, 6 AM

> J. Laurens: Good morning

> J. Laurens: I’m pretty sure André owes you a drink.  Did you hear how much he won?

 

Tuesday, 8 AM

> H. Mulligan: YO I’M ASSUMING YOU MET UP WITH YOUR BEAU

> H. Mulligan: looked you both up on faeebook for the girlfriend, she says you make a cute couple 

> H. Mulligan: her name is elizabeth sanders by the way thanks for asking earlielr

> H. Mulligan: I told her your a full head shorter than him and she wants to know if he’s a giant or if you’re just pocket sized

 

Tuesday, 11 AM

> G. Lafayette: Are you joining us for lunch?

 

Tuesday, 2 PM

> D. Humphreys: Hey, this is David Humphreys.  John Laurens gave me your number and said I should ask if you could look over a paper for me.  I can pay you for your time.

 

Tuesday, 4 PM

> J. Laurens: You okay?

 

Tuesday, 4:05 PM

> A. Hamilton: Are you free?  I owe you coffee.

> A. Schuyler: I’m with my sister.

> A. Hamilton: Bring her

 

 Hamilton let Angelica and Eliza into his apartment and handed them both a mug of black coffee.

“Sorry, I realized after the fact that I don’t have enough chairs.  You can sit on the futon if you want,” he said, motioning towards the folded up mattress.  “Or on the table, wherever.  Hey,” he finally said, putting his hand out.  “I’m Alexander.  We met before.  I think.  Briefly.  Probably?  I saw you at a party once.”

Eliza smiled graciously and shook his hand.  “I’ve seen you around, too.”

“So what’s the big emergency, Alexander?”  Angelica asked, sitting on the mattress.  “And I thought that you meant that we would go out to get coffee.”

“What, home brew isn't good enough?  It’s fair-trade and shit.”

“Alexander.”

Hamilton’s computer notified him of a new email and he bent over it as Eliza took a seat next to her sister.  “Hold on.  Guy just sent me his paper, I told him I’d look it over.  This shit really takes me back.”

“You’re getting distracted.  Did you really ask us over just so we could watch you edit someone’s work?”

“I’m just telling him I got it.”  Hamilton was typing.  “There.”

“He’s not always this bad,” Angelica informed Eliza.  “How much coffee did you have before inviting us over?”  She asked him.

“Not important.  What is important,” Hamilton continued, not taking a seat, “is this.  So I get in.  Lose my keys, find my keys, go to bed.  Get up, go to class, go to work, _assiduously_ avoid my phone.  Don’t talk to anyone.  Read, file, read, scream internally because it doesn’t _matter_ , Angelica, I can’t calm down.”

Angelica and Eliza glanced at one another.

“Does this have anything to do with your mess of a text conversation from vacation?”

“Of course it does.  I—”  Hamilton stopped himself, looking uncomfortably over at Eliza.  “Look, I swear I’m not usually this much of a hot frickin’ mess.  This is a really awkward first proper meeting.”

“It’s fine,” Eliza assured him.  “I think it’s endearing.”

“Goddamn, you really are the nice sister.”

Eliza smiled, a little shyly, a little flattered, and took a drink.  “Please continue.”

“Right.”  Hamilton leaned back against his desk.  “So John—Angelica told you about John, didn’t she?  Normally it’s great.  We get together, we talk, we laugh, I say something stupid and he calls me out on it, we fuck.  And  you know what the best part of that is?  It finally clears my head.  Sex doesn’t knock me out, it quiets everything.  I can finally _relax_.  Guess what, that stopped working.  I’ve been on edge for days and it just keeps building.  Thought I was gonna snap at Washington this afternoon when he  asked me to make some asinine non-business call for him.”  Hamilton was drumming his fingers on the desk.  “I can’t—calm down.  I can’t think.  I can’t _breathe_.  It’s driving me up the wall.  I’m avoiding talking to him because I know being near him just makes it worse but now I can’t stop thinking about how I’m dodging him and that’s just as bad.”

“Alexander,” Angelica said, shaking her head.  “First of all, stop being an idiot and call your damn boyfriend.  It’s very rude to blow people off.”

“Right.”

“ _Secondly_ ,” Angelica said, verbally cutting him off as he picked up his phone.  “Don’t _actually_ call him until we go over what you’re going to say because neither of us trust you to not make an ass of yourself.  By ‘neither of us,’” she clarified, motioning between herself and Eliza, “I mean my sister and I.”  

Eliza nodded.

Hamilton put his phone down.

“Give me your phone.  Show me what he’s said to you.”  Angelica had her hand out.  Hamilton passed her the phone, standing in front of them.

“Sit,” Eliza half-suggested, half-commanded, scooting over on the futon so he could fit between them.

Hamilton sat.

“This isn’t too bad,” Angelica said, looking at the four missed messages.  “What do you think, Eliza?”  She backed out to look at his inbox and tapped the conversation with Humphreys.  “He can’t tell him his phone died because he responded to that message from John’s friend.  If you weren’t all over campus today I’d suggest claiming a headache.”

“I don’t think he needs to give an excuse,” Eliza said.  “It’s been less than twenty-four hours for most of this and John doesn’t sound clingy.  Just apologize and ask him how his day has been.”

“That’s a good idea.”  Angelica started typing.  “It’s hard to make this sound like you, Alexander,” she complained, “I’m not used to actually trying to misspell words.  Don’t you have autocorrect?”

“I turned it off and _hey_ , what are you doing?”

“Shh,” Angelica patted him on the arm without looking up.

“We’re helping you,” Eliza agreed, leaning over his shoulder to see what her sister was writing.  “Don’t worry, we won’t send anything without your approval.  Sometimes it’s better to do these kinds of things with a friend.”

“What ‘kinds of things’?”

“We’re fixing your relationship,” Angelica told him.  “Okay, read that and approve it for me.  He can probably see that I’ve been typing and we don’t want to leave him hanging.”

“‘Sorry about not getting back to you.  I’m fine.  What’s up?’  Yeah, sure, I guess?”

“Send it,” Eliza said.  Angelica did so.

The screen almost immediately showed that Laurens was typing a response.

“Oh, wow, eager,” Eliza commented.  “We’ll have to get down to business.  Alex, so what’s really the problem here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Obviously you’re anxious because of your relationship,” Angelica said as patiently as possible.  “We need a little more than that to go on.”

“Oh my God, I shouldn’t have texted you, this is worse than Mulligan.  Do you have to be such a girl about this?  I don’t want to be in some chick flick, I just want to bitch at someone until things make sense again.”

“That's half of what we're here for,” Angelica said, “but just for that, Alexander, hand me my purse.”

“What?”  He did so. She hit him with it and he jumped and barely managed to avoid spilling his coffee. "Ow, hey!"

“Eliza, since our dear friend Hamilton interrupted our sisterly bonding time, I propose that he get the full experience.”  Angelica was typing a response back to Laurens, her bag in her lap, and she handed the phone over to Hamilton for him to read and send the message.  “Alexander, give me your hand.”  She took a bottle of base coat out of her bag.  “You told me to let you know when you were erring towards male chauvinist pig,” she reminded him.  “Don’t worry, this will dry matte.”

“Don’t give me a French manicure.”

“You’d be able to work it.”

“You know,” Hamilton complained, “I take it all back.  Everything about missing girls.  An entire alternative universe is flashing before my eyes,” he said, turning to Eliza as she put her phone away.  “You’re my girlfriend and it’s you and me and your damn sister all the time and the both of you are just walking all over me with your good looks and your charms.”

“We’re smarter than you, too,” Angelica reminded him as she admired her handiwork.  “But that’s true in all possible worlds.”

“Very funny.”

“Do you know what I think?”  Angelica asked.  “Eliza, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think our dear Alexander is finally starting to feel things and it’s frightening him.”

“Hey, stop that, don’t do that thing where you talk to each other over me. You’re both shorter than me, thank _God_ , you don’t get to do that. Besides, I’ve always said that I like John.  John’s hot.”

“That’s not what she meant,” Eliza said.  “ _Feel_ things.  It’s all right, we won’t judge you.”

“We’ll only judge you for this ridiculous front you’re putting up,” Angelica added.  “‘Fess up, because I’ve got a pair of tweezers in my bag as well and you’ve got one hair coming in below the arch of your brow that’s driving me crazy.”

“Go nuts, does it look like this is natural?  I know how to groom myself.”

Eliza took Angelica’s purse and started sorting through it.   “Alex,” she said, “this is a safe space and I ordered dessert.  What was so strange about your trip?”

Hamilton hesitated.  This was already so awkward and uncomfortable that maybe he had just maxed out because he admitted, “It actually felt like we were a couple.  Not just that—I don’t know, I was calling him my boyfriend as opposed to just some guy I was banging, but like something serious.  You know, we only had sex once?  In a hotel, for chrissake.  Normally I’d be trying to wreck that place, but it was actually kind of nice.”  He closed his eyes as Eliza leaned over him with the tweezers.  “And the sex—”  She plucked the offending hair.  “It was, I mean, damn, he’s good.  But it was like I just got stuck in the afterglow and I still never really came down,” he confessed.  “I don’t usually even get much of one.  Like I said, it just clears my head.  John passes out,” he added, smiling fondly in spite of himself.  “It’s kind of funny.  Either he’s unconscious or he’s all over me.”

“I think he’s cute,” Angelica told her sister, ruffling Hamilton’s hair.  “Shall we keep him?”

“You know Peggy will complain when we bring home a stray.”

Hamilton opened his eyes.  “Peggy Shippen?”

“Schuyler,” Angelica said.  “Our younger sister.  Honestly, Alexander, keep up.”  She moved on to painting his other hand as Eliza leaned on his shoulder.  “I say Peggy can deal with it.  She’s still a teenager, she doesn’t get a say.”

“That’s not very nice,” Eliza said, “but then again, I agree.  Alex, I’m going to do your other brow.  Keep talking.”

“You know, this is not how I saw my Tuesday going.”

“Then you shouldn’t have invited two girls over in the middle of the afternoon,” Angelica scolded.  “I don’t know what you expected.”

Hamilton closed his eyes.  “ _Ménage à trois._ Ow!”

“Sorry,” Eliza said, not sorry at all.

 

“I’m glad he finally responded.”

“Yeah.” Laurens checked his phone again, then put it back down on the desk.  “I was starting to get worried.”  He had his sketchbook open and was finishing up his drawing of Lafayette, not really requiring him to keep sitting for him but just wanting him in the general vicinity so that he could check details as needed.  “Friday’s the deadline on the prospectus for the poli-sci major,” he added.  “I’m almost positive Alex remembers but could you tell him again the next time you see him anyway?  Just to be sure.”

“He turned his in before break.”

“Oh.  I thought that must’ve been what he’s busy with.”

“How is yours?”  Lafayette asked to change the topic slightly.  “It’s basically the same from last year, isn't it?”

“Alexander beefed it up a little, but, yeah, it is.  I told you about it, didn't I?  I guess Alexander was right, the line between 'legitimate' indignation over abuse of power and sounding like a pissed off kid is a thin one.  I don't think any of his suggestions even toned that down, though.  Seemed to me like he just made it sharper.”

“You’re very noble.”

Laurens drew a line, frowned, erased it.  “Thanks?  I don’t think I’d say that, though.”

“No?”

“I’m not…  I don’t think you can call it nobility, except for in the worst sense of the word.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’d be different if you said something, and not just because you’re actually French instead of American."  He put the pencil down.  "But it's this weird, I don't know, _gray_ area.  I'm from here and I don't get stopped on the street and even if I did run into trouble, I’ve literally got a get out of jail free card.  Not that I would ever throw my father’s name around like that,” Laurens added, a little quicker than he needed to, “but it would come up and you bet the system would be only too willing to hand me over to him.  He’d pull me out of there too,” he continued, “no matter what I had done. It wouldn’t matter how hard I held onto the bars, and even that’s a kind of spoiled privilege, isn’t it?  Fighting to be seen as dirt, like some spoiled teenager.  You said the same thing,” Laurens said after a brief silence.  “When Alexander’s friend was here.  About _noblesse oblige_ and how you felt guilty about being born into that position.  I mean, I don’t know about whatever deal _you_ had to agree to, but I didn’t need to get a two-person single room.  This is my fifth year here, I’ve got first pick.  Even though my father wanted me on campus, I could have gotten a suite, or at least a single.  I don’t know if I’m here more because I felt guilty about having an option or because I was pissed at him.  But then,” Laurens continued, tapping the eraser of his pencil on the paper, “that’s just as bad, isn't it?  He’s still paying for it.  I never offered to do that.  My splitting a double isn’t helping anyone afford housing—if anything it’s making it worse since I’m taking up space that someone else might have more easily been able to pay for.  I don’t know,” he finished, bitter.  “I can’t wait to get out of this stupid school and into the real world.  I feel like I’m suffocating sometimes.  It's all just words and theory.  It doesn’t matter what answer I choose, I’m always bound to my father.”

Lafayette hadn’t said anything for all of that and he finally spoke up.  “Will graduating actually solve anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“It will give you a degree and will help you get either more training or a job.  But it won’t change who your father is or your relationship with him.”

“He won’t be able to control me in the same way.”

Lafayette looked skeptical.

“You don’t have a father,” Laurens said, rather unfairly.  “You don’t understand.  It’s different.  None of your relatives expect you to grow up into their own mirror image.  My father thinks I’m the exact same as him, and if I ever deviate from what _he_ would have done it’s because I’m being intentionally difficult.  He doesn’t get how different we are.”

“Your father doesn't think you’re the same,” Lafayette said, a little surprised, remembering how quickly Henry Laurens had stepped in and cut off Adams at the dinner.

“You don’t know him, Lafayette.”

Lafayette made a vaguely agreeing noise and left it there.

 

“Yeah, okay.”  Hamilton tapped the eco-friendly spoon against the equally biodegradable container the small-batch hand-crafted ice cream Eliza had ordered had come in.  “I’ll see him tomorrow.  You’re really on the varsity soccer team?”

“Why would she lie about that?”  Angelica asked.  “Of course she’s on the team.  It’s not her fault that women’s sports doesn’t receive the same kind of attention.”

“That’s not what I meant, I don’t follow any of it.  What position do you play?”

“I’m the sweeper.  The last line of defense before the goalie.”

“Cool.”

“You should come to games with me,” Angelica said.  “And then throw your weight around to get them more than a footnote’s worth of press and funding.”

“Flattered as I am that you think I actually control the school’s finances, the student council has no say in that sort of thing.”

“I mean in your actual job,” Angelia corrected him.  “At the old boy’s club, not the young one.”

“You need to talk to Lafayette, he’s the one who Washington really likes.  I’m just the office bitch.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Eliza said.

“Stop fishing for compliments,” Angelica said.  “And come to games with me.  It’ll be fun.  Girls in shorts, running around the field.”

“So when’s the next one?”

“This weekend.  Don’t worry, it won’t overlap with football.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hamilton promised.

Eliza took the container of ice cream.  “We could go to your game with you, too.  That seems like a fair trade.  Besides, Lafayette will be there with you, won't he?  You said we should speak with him.”

“Yeah, knock yourself out.  He’ll be excited to tell someone else about his girlfriend,” he added.  “Did I mention her?  I might have forgotten to mention that.”

“You did,” Angelica said, “because you were too distracted with your boyfriend.  Speaking of whom, tell me again what we decided.  I want to make sure that you were paying attention.”

“I’m going to keep texting him tonight.”  Hamilton showed Angelica his phone as a new message came in and she drafted a response for him.  “If I think I’m going to or did say something stupid after you leave I’m going to ask him to hold on for a minute and get one of you to start checking things again.”

“Good.  Keep going.”

“And then from tomorrow on I’m going to pretend that I didn’t blow him off today like a loser and spend time with him like I was before.”

“And you’ll keep us informed in case you need help pretending to be normal.”

“I feel like I should be offended, but thanks,” Hamilton said genuinely.  “I appreciate it.”

Angelica nodded at Eliza over Hamilton.  “We’re definitely keeping him.  I’m putting my foot down.”


	75. Fake It 'Til You Make It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Golden Fleece and Blue Coats; Texting

“I’m just saying, when he said, ‘can you look over this paper,’ I figured it would be on, I don’t know, Shakespeare, the Spanish-American War, _something_ besides sheep.”

Hamilton was walking next to Laurens back towards the dorms.  He hadn’t expected him to meet him outside his class and he wished he had done a better job at hiding his surprise, especially since it just prompted Laurens to point out that it wasn’t the first time he’d done that which—yes, that was true, but why was he saying that out loud and why did that make him feel like so much more of an idiot?

“Merino sheep,” Hamilton clarified, talking, unable to stop talking.  “Actually, once I accepted the topic it was kind of interesting.  I never thought much about sheep in general before, didn’t even really realize that they’ve got different breeds in different countries.  Which is stupid, because of course they do, but the point is that merino sheep are from Spain and that actually makes sense when you remember the medieval and early modern Spanish wool industry.  I told him to expand on that some, I think he can slip in a nod without really straying too far from his point, but then again I’m a fan of excessive exposition.”

“I know,” Laurens said, looking at him in amusement as Hamilton more than proved his point.

“…They called them golden fleece, did you know that?”  Hamilton continued quickly, trying to keep control.  “Golden fleece.  Like Jason and the Argonauts, obviously, obvious reference there.  More interesting than sheep, though, if you ask me, is the debate over what the fleece in the story actually represents.  You got everything from animal husbandry to an actual golden icon to a trade route.  That’s the real interesting part,” Hamilton said, repeating himself.  “It’s this iconic story and we can’t even agree on what it’s telling us.”

“What do you think it’s about?”

Hamilton shrugged, focusing more on looking straight ahead than on really formulating a theory.  “I dunno.  I like Option C, but of course I would.  I’m all about those economic networks.  Wool for gold, maybe it’s a little too obvious, maybe not.  Maybe it’s just elegant enough, it certainly kept working that way even later, even after slave labor for silver for Iberian trade.  Merino wool in the Americas, John, that’s where the money’s at.  According to your teammate, at least.  Remind me again why he contacted me?”

“He wanted someone to read it over for him and you’re a good writer.  He did offer to pay you, didn’t he?”

“I got twenty bucks in my Paypal already.”

“Good.”

“If I don’t get into law school I can become a copy editor of weird animal husbandry papers, I’ve got that on my resume now, so thanks, J.—John,” Hamilton corrected himself.  “Thanks.”

Laurens got the door for him as they reached the dormitory.  “Not at all.”

“ _Un moment, s’il vous plaît!_ ”

Laurens looked back as Lafayette quickly caught up to them and stepped inside the building as well, a large box in his arms.

“Look at what finally arrived for me!  For us,” he corrected himself.  “It’s from Adrienne,” he added unnecessarily. 

“Are the costumes in there?”  Laurens asked, following the other two upstairs.

“Yes,” Lafayette said happily.  “Do you remember when I thought she was going to break up with me?  In reality she had wanted to tell me that she had mailed them out.  I cannot wait to open this and see it all for myself.”  Lafayette put the box down in the middle of the floor of their room and took his key out, using it like a knife to cut the packing tape.  “There should be three jackets and something smaller for André and—ah,” he got the last of the tape and opened the box, excitedly taking out the costumes and handing them to the others.  “Well?  What do you think?”

“I think Adrienne’s a saint for agreeing to do this for you again.”

“Try them on,” Lafayette said, enthusiastically putting his own on and standing to look at himself in the mirror.  “She made some minor adjustments to mine.  It looks even better than it did before.  Let me see the two of you.”  He turned around to look at Laurens and Hamilton.

“I appreciate that you got us military jackets,” Hamilton said, looking carefully at Laurens’ and then down at himself.  “But how come you still get to be a major general and meanwhile we’re aides-de-camp?”

“Why do you know what the uniform for an aide-de-camp looks like?”  Laurens asked.

Hamilton didn’t answer.  “It’s kind of weird, Lafayette.  You’re literally our boss if we’re wearing these.”

“No,” Lafayette protested, “you could be aides to a _different_ major general.  I’d just outrank you!”

“Still weird.  And there aren’t any other major generals around so, yeah, you’re our boss.”

“If you insist,” Lafayette said, turning back to the mirror.

“I didn’t _insist_ ,” Hamilton said.  “You want me to take your picture?”

“Please.”  Lafayette handed over his phone.

“Right.  Look dignified or some shit.”  Hamilton got him into frame.  “You need a selfie stick, Lafayette.  How do you not have one yet?”

“Get him one for Christmas,” Laurens suggested.

“Oh, John.  Speaking of presents,” Lafayette said after Hamilton took the picture and gave him back his phone, “Adrienne sent you something as well, but you aren’t allowed to open it until your birthday.”  He took a small wrapped package out of the box and handed it over.

“She didn’t have to do that.”  Laurens took it.  “But thank you.  I’ll let her know that you delivered it safely.”

“Good.”

“What’s this?”  Hamilton took a pre-bought tricornered hat out of the box.  It was simple, with a blue ribbon tacked on for decoration.  “This isn’t for you as well, is it?”

“Oh!  That’s for André.”  Lafayette took it.  “I told her that he and I work together and that he would be going to the party as well, so she included it for him.”

“Should we get her something?”  Hamilton asked Laurens.  “Like for Christmas?  Are you going back to France for Christmas?”  He asked Lafayette.

“I don’t have tickets yet.”

“You should really go,” Laurens told him, tongue in cheek.  “Get the tickets.  You can’t not-actually-propose and then not see her for a year.”

“You’re right.”  Lafayette nodded, checking his jacket in the mirror again.  “That wouldn’t be in keeping with my rank.”

Laurens gave a short laugh then turned to Hamilton.  “Are you staying over tonight?”

“Uh.”  Hamilton glanced at Lafayette.  Help.  “Am I…?  I didn’t know that was an option.”

Lafayette looked almost as confused, if much less concerned.  “John, I thought that wasn’t allowed.”

“What?  He can stay over, we’re just not having sex.”

Lafayette looked between them again.  “You’re inviting your boyfriend over to cuddle and sleep.  All right,” he shrugged, “I suppose that is normal enough.”

“John,” Hamilton wasn’t sure how the name was coming out and he hoped the tone wasn’t too desperate.  “That seems like a shit idea.  No offense.  Seriously, no offense, please don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Is it really that weird?  I thought we could watch a movie or something.”

“Yeah, do you know what the ‘or something’ usually is?  ‘Chill’ does not literally mean cool down, John.”

“Alex is right,” Lafayette said.  “You’re being a little mean.”

Laurens looked defeated.  “Yeah, okay.  It was fine over break, though.  I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

Hamilton felt his will to say no crumble.  “Well, okay, yeah.  Okay.  You’re right.  I’m being selfish.”

“You don't have to.”

“No, I want to,” Hamilton insisted, not sure who he was trying to convince.  “You got a movie in mind?”

“We can stream something.”  Laurens took off his new jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.  Hamilton followed suit and sat on the bed, mentally preparing himself for another long, sleepless night.  They said to act normal, he reminded himself.  This was normal.  He turned his face to Laurens as he sat next to him and kissed him, and made sure he smiled when Laurens put his arm over his shoulders.

“You’re really not too busy?”

“It’s fine,” Hamilton said, meaning it more this time and putting his hand on his leg.  “Pass me your laptop.”

Laurens put it on the mattress next to him.  “Netflix,” he suggested.  “I've got some stuff in my queue that I wanted to see if you don't have any--”  He took his hand from his thigh.  “Did you get a manicure?”

Hamilton snatched it back.  “Yes.  It's all the rage.”

“For _guys_?”

“No, for apricots.  Of course for guys.”

Laurens gave him a skeptical look.

“I'm sorry,” Hamilton said, finding some safe ground to stand on.  Fake moral indignation felt a lot steadier than whatever it was that he kept threatening to slip back into.  “Are you policing my fashion choices?”

“Heaven forbid,” Lafayette said over the sound of opening the wrapper for a granola bar.  “Alexander, if I take your side may I pick which movie we are watching?”

“Wait,” Laurens started, “Lafayette--”

“Be my guest,” Hamilton told him, trading him the laptop for his snack.  “Revlon, by the way, thank you for noticing.”

“Mm, I hadn't.”  Lafayette was scrolling through the options meanwhile.

“Lafayette,” Laurens tried again.  “I thought you had work to do.”

“But you're having Alexander over.  I won't be able to get anything done anyway.”

“We're just watching a movie, right?”  Hamilton said.  “So what's the big deal?  He'll be in the room anyway.”

“...Fine.”  Laurens relented.  “Pick a movie, Lafayette, but you're sitting on the chair or the floor.”  He lay down on his back, pulling Hamilton with him and apparently not noticing how stiffly he was lying as he put his arm over him.  Lafayette settled down on the floor in front of them, pulling out the chair and putting the laptop on it so they could all watch.

 

> A. Hamilton: so your advice sucks

> A. Schuyler: Alexander, what did you do now?

> A. Hamilton: what do you think I did? i went back to his place and now im trapped here

> A. Schuyler: Eliza says to cry her a river.

> A. Hamilton: she does not

> A. Hamilton: does she?

> A. Hamilton: anywy 

 

> E. Schuyler: I said it nicer than that.

 

> A. Hamilton: HAH i knew it you put words in her mouth

> A. Schuyler: The gist was the same.

> A. Schuyler: Hold on, I’m just going to put us in a group chat.

 

> A. Schuyler: There we go. 

> A. Hamilton: thanks

> A. Hamilton: so like i was saying, your advice sucks

> E. Schuyler: I don’t know, it sounds like it’s working fine to me.  He’s not upset with you, is he?  Wasn’t that the whole point, to not hurt his feelings by playing normal?

> A. Hamilton: yeah ok ecept now im here and its 11 pm and in fucking tired and Ive got work in the mornng

> A. Schuyler: So sleep.

> A. Hamilton: gee what a novel idea thanks angelica

> E. Schuyler: Why are you texting us?  Shouldn’t you be spending time with him?

> A. Schuyler: Get off your phone, Alexander.  It’s very rude.

> A. Hamilton: hes asleep clam down

> A. Schuyler: “Clam”

> A. Schuyler: Right, I’ll head down to the docks for you.  Do you need some lobster as well?

> A. Hamilton: you know what i mean

> A. Schuyler: I mean that you look like an idiot sometimes.  Why did you take off autocorrect again?

> A. Hamilton: pissed me off

> A. Hamilton: kept correcting Cruzan to Crux an.

> A. Hamilton: fucking apple

> E. Schuyler: You can teach it to recognize the word.

> A. Hamilton: but thatsbesides the point.  The point is that now I’m HERE

> A. Schuyler: In bed with a hunk who adores you.  Eliza, Alexander is right, we’re horrible people.  Someone should take away our advice giving card.

> A. Hamilton: hey 

> A. Hamilton: it’s harder than it sounds, he took a shower so he's all shirtless and shit

> A. Schuyler: If you’re going to go for the pity brag, the least you could do is send a picture.

 

Hamilton rolled his eyes and put his phone on the desk.  “Girls,” he muttered, running his finger over the smooth polish on his thumb.  


	76. Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Insomnia; In All Honesty, Hamilton Probably Should Have Talked to Lafayette and Adrienne From the Start; Locker Room Talk

Lafayette was asleep on his side of the room, his alarm set to go off at a very early hour and his lunch for his date with Adrienne already packed.  He had kindly informed the other two that they could stay if they wished, but Laurens was going to go down to the gym a little early and Hamilton didn’t know if he could keep his cool for long enough to sit through the inevitable questioning that would happen when Adrienne and Lafayette teamed up.

Hamilton was still half-sitting up, his phone still lit up on the desk behind him, propped on his elbows and staring into the dark room, feeling like he might as well get up and get some work done—but, then again, he had nothing with him that he actually needed to work on, damn him for getting it taken care of in advance—when Laurens woke.

“You up?”

Hamilton was surprised to hear him speak and started.  “Yeah.  Can’t sleep.”

Laurens put his hand on his shoulder and gently pulled him down, kissing him on the brow as he turned him to him and draped his arm over him.  “You want to read?  You can turn a light on.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton’s heart was racing.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Laurens pulled him a little closer, adjusting so Hamilton’s head was tucked under his own.  Hamilton put one hand on his bare chest.  He could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady.

“It was a nice weekend,” Laurens said, sounding only mostly awake.  “You know,” he continued.  Hamilton tensed, not sure where he was going.  “I have a car back home, too.”

Hamilton couldn’t help but laugh, relaxing.  “Come on.  I thought I was the sex-crazed one.”

“I did too,” Laurens agreed.  “But you make it difficult sometimes.  I like you, Alexander.”

Hamilton smiled and closed his eyes.  “I’m glad,” he said truthfully.

 

Hamilton wasn’t sure how he had managed to not talk himself out of it, but he found himself standing—Lafayette’s desk was still artificially elevated—with a pretzel and talking to France early the next morning.

“It’s just—it’s weird, okay?”  He handed Lafayette the pretzel so he could talk with his hands.  “I think it’s the lack of sex.  I’m all on edge.  I’ve got him on my mind twenty-four-seven because of course I do, you’ve seen him, Adrienne.  He’s like a friggin’ gladiator, he could till a field with fire-breathing oxen, defeat soldiers born from dragon’s teeth.”

Adrienne cocked her head slightly to the side and glanced at Lafayette.  “Jason and the Argonauts?”

“You’re mixing your metaphors,” Lafayette scolded Hamilton, taking a bite of his pretzel.  “Jason wasn’t a gladiator.”

“Whatever.  The point is that it’s not my fault I’m so hard up.  No one could blame me.”

“No one is blaming you,” Lafayette pointed out.  “Although we do think you’re getting worked up over nothing.”

“The fu—No way is this nothing,” Hamilton said, catching himself.  “I can’t sleep, Lafayette, I’m going crazy.  Literally,” he continued, “I feel like I’m going crazy.  Out of control.  I actually thought I was getting sick my first day back, you can ask Mulligan, I ran that one by him.”

“What did he say?”  Adrienne asked.

“He was just being a jerk.”  Hamilton flipped his hand.  “Hot lot of nothing.  He did fix my jacket, though.”

“That was nice of him.” 

“Yeah.  Anyway, then I accidentally got myself double-teamed by the Schuyler sisters and not in any kind of sexy way.  By the way, Lafayette, we’re going to watch women’s soccer this weekend.  If I have to go I’m taking you down with me.”

Lafayette perked up, looking genuinely interested.

“But the point is that it’s not my fault, like I said.  I just have to acknowledge that it’s on him, not me, and that’s why I’m getting so messed up.  I can’t _think_ ,” he said forcefully, counting off on his fingers, “except in this mad burst of distracted energy.  I can’t sleep, I didn’t even notice but I don’t think I’ve had an actual meal since we left.  It sucks!  Maybe things would be different if we were still on vacation, but we’re _back_ now, and I still don’t feel like myself!”

Lafayette and Adrienne looked at one another.

“Is he really…?”  Adrienne asked in French.

“I don’t know,” Lafayette responded.  “He can’t be that stupid.”

“Hey,” Hamilton complained.  “You can’t talk about me like that when I understand the language too.”

“Alex,” Lafayette said, switching back to English, “do you have a crush on John?”

Hamilton looked at him incredulously, ready to protest, then paused.  “You know, that is kind of what everyone keeps saying.”

Lafayette turned back to Adrienne.   “I cannot believe it.  Adrienne, I hooked them up almost a year ago and only _now_ this happens!  Alexander, you are officially the densest person I know.”

“Hey!”

“Be nice to him,” Adrienne chided, “it’s difficult to manage your first crush.”

“You did well,” Lafayette said, smiling at Adrienne.

“Hey, stop that, no sucking digital face.”  Hamilton cut back in before Lafayette and Adrienne could go off too far into their own world.  “I’ve always said that I liked John.”  He said, embarrassed and getting defensive.  “Besides, I’ve liked other people before.  I’ve been with a bunch of girls!”

“That’s not the same,” Lafayette said gently.  “I’m sorry I didn’t realize it earlier.  I would have been nicer to you.”

“Shut up,” Hamilton muttered, drawing his hand over his face.  “And give me back my pretzel.”

“We can make it up to you,” Lafayette reassured him.  “Adrienne, do you have time?  We could go get ice cream.”

“Eliza ordered some yesterday.”  Hamilton hated that he had to admit that.

“That was very nice of her,” Adrienne said.

“Yeah, she’s a peach.  Can we move on?”

“The point is not to worry,” Lafayette said.  “It’s overwhelming, but just try your best to keep your head.  You’ll be fine.  It may help you to know that John went through this with you as well.”

“He did?”  Hamilton wasn’t really sure why he was blushing.

Lafayette nodded enthusiastically.  “Yes.  Adrienne, when was it?”

“You told me when you made pancakes, but I think I noticed something before that.”

“Huh.”

“See?”  Lafayette patted him on the back.  “It’s not just you.  Calm down.  It’s perfectly normal.”

“Yeah, well,” Hamilton handed the pretzel back without taking a bite.  “I still don’t like it.”

 

“God damn,” Humphreys complained, freshly dressed and sitting next to Laurens on the bench between the rows of lockers and working at a knot in his neck.  He tipped his head to the side so that fine braids slid like a curtain over his hand.  “Don’t get me wrong, Laurens, I don’t want to blow my shoulder out, but you don’t even know how much shit I would have gotten into if I had gotten a month and a half off.”

“Dirty shit,” Tench laughed.  “Go back to your farm, find some of those sheep?”

“Shut up,” Humphreys said, laughing as well.  “That was a business plan.”

“Yeah, the oldest business in the world.  Sam, catch.”  Another player walking by caught his wallet without missing a beat.  “I owe you ten.”  The money was taken and the wallet was tossed back.  Tench dropped it in his bag.

“Anyway, like I was saying, it’s not that I envy you, just those extra six weeks.”

“I hear you,” Tallmadge agreed, coming back from the shower in just a towel.  “It’s hard to visit my girlfriend during the week.  It takes so long to drive down, it’s really only possible on the weekend, but then, okay, so we can’t fool around as much as I’d like.  Not that I’m actually ready for the monastery like our boy Laurens,” he teased, shoving Laurens playfully as he opened his locker.  “How’re you holding up?  I’d have assumed you just weren’t interested if I hadn’t had to listen to you for all these years.” 

“Sainthood’s a real lonely road,” Tench added.

“Hey, come on,” Laurens protested, not really thinking about what he was saying, “My boyfriend’s all over me too, I know what it’s like.”

There was actually a moment of stunned silence in the locker room during which time Laurens braced for—

“You aren’t single?  Hey, look, it only took five years!  That means there’s still hope for you yet,” Tallmadge said loudly, slapping a passing first year, the younger of the two Trumbull brothers, hard on the back.  “If you bitch about not getting a date one more time, I’m not stopping your older brother from whaling on you.”

Laurens watched in relieved surprise as various conversations picked back up around him.

“That explains why you haven’t gotten any personal fouls so far this season,” Tench teased him.

“So can we know who it is yet?  Or is it still a secret?”  Tallmadge dropped his towel to change, facing his locker.  “I want to know who tamed the stallion.”

“‘The stallion’?”  Humphreys was packing his bag.  “Oh, come on, and I’m stuck with the sheep?”

“You wrote that paper, you brought this upon yourself,” McHenry said, breaking away from his earlier conversation and pushing up his glasses.  “So who’s the lucky gent?  I’m with Tallmadge, he deserves a Goddamn medal for finally wearing you down.”

“Alex,” Laurens started, caught between embarrassed and incredibly grateful.  “Alexander Hamilton.”

“Hamilton…  The guy with you at the trustee dinner?  Short,” Tench said, gesturing his height.  “Wavy hair?  We went to André’s after.”

“That guy?”  McHenry cut in.  He tugged at the collar to his shirt and glanced down at himself, feeling the tag sticking out in the front.  “Shit.”  His voice was muffled for a second as he pulled it off over his head, flashing well-defined abs and two faint scars curving under his chest, then put it back on.  “He works for the dean, doesn’t he?”

“Secretary to the president,” Laurens said, tentatively bragging a little.

“I thought he was with your roommate?”

“André’s his friend, he said that was just a rumor.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Tench rolled his eyes at Tallmadge.  “Know-it-all.”

“Hey, André,” Humphreys called as André, also in a towel and with his hair wet and down in his eyes, showed up.  “Did you know Laurens’ been holding out on us?”

“Uh.”  André looked quickly at Laurens, who stood up.

“All right, all right, that’s enough.”

“So how is it?”  Tench asked, ignoring Laurens’ protests.  “Does he just want it all the time?”

“What?”

“You said he was all over you,” Tench pushed.  “Did you have to give up your rule?”

Laurens reddened slightly.  “No.”

“What?  So, nothing?  Not at all?”

“All season?”  Tallmadge asked.  “I take it back, _he’s_ the saint, not you.”

“Wait, you _did_ fuck though, didn’t you?  You were together at the dinner, right?”

Laurens, still standing, not sure what was really stopping him from just walking away, felt an excited rush of camaraderie.  “Yeah, we were, and we did.  The night before,” he added before he managed to second guess himself and lose his nerve, “I fucked him so good he _cried_.”

Another shocked silence, then a delighted whoop of laughter.

“That’s our boy!”  Tallmadge pounded Laurens on the back as he grinned, simultaneously self-conscious and proud.

“Damn,” Humphreys shook his head.  “And here I thought we were going to need to give you a talk about the birds and the bees before you graduated and got sent out into the real world.”

“Maybe we still do,” Tench said.  “Laurens, let me make this brief: you’re a moron.”

Laurens frowned, unsure.  “What?”

“You said it yourself, he’s all over you.  Go take advantage of that opportunity, man!  You’ve waited long enough.”

“I had sex in high school,” Laurens protested weakly.

“Yeah, you know, you told some of us that story,” McHenry pointed out, “and while it sounded like a _real_ great time, half a decade has passed in between.”

“He’s pretty cute,” Tallmadge agreed as Laurens stared at him in disbelief.  “Long eyelashes.”

“Since…  Since when do you check out other guys?”

“Relax, please, I sat next to him in lecture once.  I remember because they friggin’ cast shadows on his face.”

“Uh-huh,” Laurens said, not sure at all about what to do with that.

“You do want to sleep with him, don’t you?”  McHenry asked.  “This isn’t another basil farm incident, is it?”

Laurens looked over at André, who studied the ceiling.

“No, uh,” Laurens said eloquently.  “The sex is—it’s good.  I enjoy it.”

“Then go fuck your boyfriend,” Tench told him, a little louder than Laurens would have preferred.  “Seriously, Laurens!  Did you hit your head when you ripped your shoulder out of its socket?  He wants to, you want to, that grand tradition you thought you were holding to is a bunch of bullshit—no one actually does it.  If you’re so concerned about your stamina then don’t sleep with him the night before the game!  _Jesus!_ ”

“His girlfriend’s on study abroad,” André reminded Laurens, nodding his head at Tench.

“Right.”

“Lucky son of a bitch,” Tench muttered, zipping up his bag forcefully and slinging it over his shoulders as he stood.  “Right, I’m starving.  You getting breakfast, Laurens?”

Laurens smiled.  “Sure.  Sounds good.”


	77. Official

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the Same Page; (*)Raincheck

“So I’m reading this thing about the _castas_ system, you know what I mean, colonial Latin America.  _Peninsulares_ , _creoles_ , _mestizos_ , _lobos_ , and so on to the literal nth degree.”  Hamilton tugged his scarf down from his mouth so he could talk better as he walked.  “I mean it’s pretty interesting, the way they thought ethnicity functioned—no, I want to say the kinds of _things_ they thought ethnicity was in the first place.  Inherited traits, obvious systematic racism except you can’t really _call_ it that yet, John, that idea was still in utero but saying ‘in utero’ implies that we know what it’s gonna turn into.  Roll back the clock, step out into 1600’s Peru, it’s a whole ‘nother world and on the one hand it’s still up in the air about what that fetus is gonna mutate into and on the other you can’t use this metaphor at all because it’s too deterministic.  The _castas_ were just _castas_ , in spite of their similarities to what we’re seeing all around us today—you know what I mean, John, are you colored enough?—that’s a rhetorical question, obviously—but my point is—”

“Hey.”

Hamilton tensed.  That wasn’t a response to his rant about nothing.

“Can we talk?  Not now, over lunch maybe?”

They were away from other people for the moment and Laurens sounded serious.

“Yeah.”  Hamilton nodded and wiped one of his suddenly sweaty palms on the side of his pants.  “Sure, no big deal.  Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, don’t worry.  Let’s just get to the cafeteria first.”  Laurens said, although he sounded a little distracted.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.  Keep going.”

Hamilton wasn’t sure where he had been going even while he had been talking.  Jumping back into a non-existent point seemed impossible.

“Lost it.  What’s up?”

“There’s no rush.”

“John.”  Hamilton stopped walking.  “You’re obviously not paying attention and I don’t know what I was saying.  Just tell me.”

“I told my teammates.  That I’m dating you.”

Hamilton had always thought that jaw hitting the floor thing was a stupid turn of phrase but he actually felt his mouth open in surprise.

“You did—”  He was staring at him, then his brain started working again and all the unspoken possibilities hit him.  “Are you okay?”  He took a half step towards him.  “J.?”

Laurens shook his head.  “It’s all right, Alexander.  They didn’t…”  He ran a hand back through his hair.  “It was actually really nice.  They gave me shit, of course, but not about what I was afraid of.  No one cared.”  He still sounded a little incredulous.  “They were happy for me.”

“Oh.”   Hamilton stood still.  “Great.  That’s great, J.”

A smile spread across Laurens’ face.  “Yeah.  I don’t know why I was nervous about telling you that.”

“I don’t know.  It’s practice, I guess.”

“I feel like that’s what break was,” Laurens said.  “Practice for this.” 

Hamilton felt himself blushing.  “You’re…?”

“I’m, well, we’re already dating,” Laurens admitted.  “But I know you’ve been patient, really patient.  Thank you.  Lafayette said—It doesn’t matter.  The point is that I don’t want to hide it anymore.  Actually, I’m not, I just told a whole room full of people.  That doesn’t mean I’m down for _anything_ , but…”

“I’m happy for you.  You deserve people who aren’t total assholes, God knows you spend enough time putting up with me.”

“You’re not that bad.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “You’re biased.  Fortunately.”

Laurens started walking again, keeping very little distance between them.  “Oh, one more thing.  It goes with that first part.”

“Yeah?”

“So I was talking to the guys,” Laurens was looking straight ahead, “and you were right, of course.”

“I was right?”

“No one actually withholds for more than maybe a day.  I was being… a little extreme.”

Hamilton jerked his head up to stare at Laurens, recognizing from how carefully neutral he was holding his expression that he was embarrassed and trying to hide it.

“Does this mean…?”

“Yeah,” Laurens, face still controlled, nodded.  “If you want to, I’m all yours.”

Hamilton knew what the correct answer was (“Fuck lunch, let’s go.”), but he felt nervous instead of excited and Laurens noticed that he was hesitating, or at least wasn’t as loudly enthusiastic as he was normally.

“…What?  What’s the matter?  Should I not have told them?”

“No, that’s not it.  I’m glad for you, really.  It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“You’re really hot,” Hamilton admitted.

Laurens gave him a confused look.  “Thank you?”

“No, that wasn’t what I meant.  I mean,” Hamilton amended very quickly, “yeah, you’re hot, you’re really—shit, this is so stupid.”

“Alexander?”

Hamilton made a frustrated noise and ran his hand over his face and through his hair.  “Okay.  Okay, don’t judge me.  Got it?  I was talking to Lafayette too and—look, like you said, it’s not important.  I don't want to do something stupid but I feel like I’m going to because I just—”

Laurens was watching him, concerned, and that made it harder.

“—I just like you.  A lot.”  Hamilton pulled his scarf further down from his face, suddenly overheating.  “All right?  I’m not apologizing or some shit for it, I just want you to know.  You’re _really_ distracting, J.  So if I do… anything stupid… that’s why.  Just let me know.  I’ll work on it.”

Laurens paused.  “You’re—”

“Don’t you fucking dare call me cute, I swear to God, John.”

“—dating me, you’re allowed to feel that way.”

“‘Allowed’ or not, I’m not a fan.”

“I am,” Laurens said.  “Besides, I don’t feel all that different.  I liked how,” he took a beat to decide on the word he wanted, “expressive you were over break.  Do you think that, maybe, we could do something like that here, too?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton took his hand.  “I think we could, maybe, work something out.”

“So…”

“You’re kind of eager,” Hamilton commented.  “Usually you’re not this pushy during the middle of the day.”

“Sorry.”  Laurens sounded genuinely embarrassed and apologetic.  “It’s just—I actually got to brag for once.  It was nice.”

Hamilton laughed.  “And now you want more material?  I see how it is.”

“Someone actually told me that he thinks you’re _cute_.”

“Really?”  Hamilton perked up.  “Who?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“I bet I can figure it out.”  Hamilton put his hand to his mouth, thinking.  “Shit, there’s a lot of them, though.  You guys aren’t bad looking yourselves, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“You aside.”  Hamilton squeezed his hand.  “Obviously.  No offense and maybe don’t tell them, most of them don’t really do it for me.”

“Then what makes me different?” 

“Mm, another dangerous question.  Maybe you have to ask me that later, really try to draw it out of me.”

Laurens laughed.  “Does that mean you came around?  I don’t have to feel guilty for asking anymore?”

“Never feel guilty for that,” Hamilton said quickly.  “But,” he hesitated, “you know, I have to get something from the office.  Can we swing by there instead?”

Laurens nodded and they changed direction slightly.  “Sure.”

 

It wasn’t long before they reached the building and Hamilton let them into Washington’s office.

“I swear it wasn’t André,” Laurens said as Hamilton swung the door open and put his keys back in his pocket.  “Really.”

“Are you sure?  I’ve seen how he looks at me,” Hamilton said, not really paying attention as he went over to the desk, Laurens following after him. 

“You mean the same way he looks at me or Lafayette?”

Hamilton clicked his tongue.  “He’s cheating on me already, I see how it is.  Thanks for the head’s up, John.”

“You’re welcome.  Did you find it?”

Hamilton held up a bundle of letters.  “This needs to go out before the end of the day.”  He looked up at Laurens, who hadn’t complained at all when he derailed his other plans to run an errand, and he couldn’t help himself but tugged him down a little by his collar and kissed him. 

Laurens’ eyes widened in surprise and he felt his heart suddenly quicken.  He put one hand at Hamilton’s waist and pulled him closer, closing his eyes and pushing his tongue into his mouth.

Hamilton, still holding the mail, put his arm behind his neck, moving his free hand over the side of his face and encouraging him.  He took a step back and then carefully sat on the desk, wrapping one leg around behind Laurens’ and pulling him in.

Laurens moaned low into the kiss and put his hand down but was unable to touch Hamilton over his coat, which reached down to his knees.  He made a little surprised and frustrated noise at being unexpectedly denied and Hamilton tightened his grip on him and slid his hand between his legs.  Laurens bucked his hips into the touch and Hamilton rubbed him, kissing his mouth and jaw.

“Shit,” he breathed, lightly biting his neck.  “You’re really something else, J.”

Laurens was flooded with desire and he felt his breath catch.  Hamilton was cupping him over his pants, pressing just hard enough to make him want more, to wish they had gone back to the dorms instead…  But then he remembered that they had fooled around in the office before with no ill effects and he was getting hard…  

Hamilton kissed him again, hungrily, sucking on his tongue and lower lip, moving his hand in time with how Laurens was rocking his hips and letting him mimic thrusting into it.  “What did you tell them?”  

Laurens didn’t understand at first.  “What?”

“Your friends.”  Hamilton was still kissing him in between talking.  “You said you were bragging.”

Laurens shook his head slightly, putting his hands down on the desk to steady himself as Hamilton touched him.

“Yes,” Hamilton bit his lip, his heart pounding at how close Laurens was and the taste of him in his mouth.  “You said that.”

Laurens was getting heady with how obviously Hamilton wanted him there.  Now that he thought about it, it had been something like a week since he had been on him this aggressively and even this was different somehow.  Even with his hand between his legs, Laurens didn’t get the sense that Hamilton actually wanted to escalate the situation, but more that he desperately wanted him as close as possible and that now that he had started he couldn’t tear himself away.  

“John,” Hamilton prompted, almost urgent, tugging the sleeve of his jacket to get his attention.  “You were bragging.” 

“Ah—”  Laurens had a hard time focusing on that morning in the lockers.  He kept thinking back to the way he had made him feel sitting in class that one day, barely able to read the words on the page in front of him, desperately needing to call him as soon as the bell rang.  Was that what he meant when he said that he was distracting? 

“J.”  Hamilton tried not to sound like he was pleading but he had to know.

“Yeah,” Laurens managed, sucking in a sharp breath as Hamilton turned his attention to his neck.  “Yeah, I—was bragging, a little.”

“What did you say?”

“Told them—”  Laurens wished Hamilton would undo his pants.  “About fucking you, how—good it is.  Alex,” he cut his name short, uncomfortable and impatient.  “Undo my fly.”

Hamilton did so immediately, starting to slide his hand in as Laurens pressed the side of his face to his, moaning low in his ear.

The sound of the outer door opening made Laurens jerk away, quickly zipping himself up and folding his hands in front of himself as Hamilton made a displeased noise and hopped off the desk.

The door to the office itself opened and Washington walked in.  “Alexander?”

Hamilton shoved the mail at Laurens, who held it as a very makeshift shield, and quickly came around the front of the desk, one hand out for Washington’s coat.  “Hello, sir.  I was just about to drop off the mail.”

Washington, distracted, barely glanced at Laurens.  “Good afternoon, John.  Alexander, where are you on John Adam’s budget proposal?”

“Is very not on board an answer?”

Washington looked even less amused.  “I need you to push for opinions other than your own.  We’re meeting again this Friday and last I checked I’m still two reports short.”

“I can write that up for you if you’d like.  I can explain exactly why it’s a bad idea and—”

“Hamilton,” Washington cut him off as Hamilton hung up his coat.  “I need the reports back.”

“I can’t make anyone send anything to you in a timely matter,” Hamilton pointed out, a little frustrated both because this was not the first time he had been put in this corner and because of what he could be doing instead.  “I’m just a student, which, ironically, is also why I'm not allowed to just write the damn—”

“Language,” Washington interrupted sharply.  Hamilton immediately fell into a stony silence.  “Call them.  Please.  Now,” he added as Hamilton opened his mouth to say something to Laurens.  “John, would you mind dropping those off for me?  In any box, I just need them picked up when the mail makes its rounds later.”

Laurens nodded, taking the escape.  “Of course.  Alexander…?”

Hamilton was taking off his own coat and scarf, resigned to staying inside for the foreseeable future.  “I’ll take a raincheck on the lunch, John.  Some other time.”


	78. Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delivery; Tutoie-moi

Hamilton was surprised when Laurens came back half an hour later.  He was sitting at the main desk up front so he could use the landline with the official office number, a trade off for privacy that was made in an attempt to get people to actually pick up when he called, and he was fortunately on hold.

“John?”  He put his hand over the speaker, then hit mute.  “You didn’t have to come back, it’s fine.”

“I brought you lunch.”  He handed over a plastic bag.  “Spaghetti.  I figured you probably wanted something with a fork.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton took the container it was in out of the bag.  “Thanks.”

Laurens put his hand in the pocket of his jacket, toying with his keys.  “No problem.  I’ve got some work to do too…”  He trailed off.

Hamilton saw how he was loitering and he motioned to the chairs and low table along the wall.  “Do you want to stay?  I’m not going to be much company, but if you have homework to get done anyway…”

Laurens’ face lit up and Hamilton was grateful the line didn't pick up because he had no idea anymore what he was calling about.

“All right.  I’ll stay.”

 

“Vermont was beautiful,” Lafayette enthused, sitting on his mat after class.  “You should see it someday.  The drive up and down was lovely.”

“I’ve been,” Aglae told him.  “Why were you up there?”

“I went with some friends for the break. It was just something to do.”

“I’m surprised you didn't go back to France,” she teased.

“There wasn’t enough time.  It takes so long to get there—but at least I’m already mostly on CET,” Lafayette added after a moment, like he hadn’t really considered how that would make things easier.

“Are you staying in America for good?”

“I love America,” Lafayette said earnestly, not quite answering the question.  “The people and the food and the huge amount of territory!  It’s like an endless adventure and there is so much of the country I haven’t seen.  I can’t leave until I’ve done a better job of sampling it.  Even just on this coast,” he continued, “I can’t wait to see more of how the land and the culture changes.  Some day I want to be able to say that I have set foot in each of the fifty states.” 

“That’s such a great goal,” Aglae said.  “How many have you managed so far?”

“New York of course,” Lafayette answered, “and Vermont, and on the way back down we stopped briefly in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Does it count if I only had my feet on the ground for a few minutes?”

“Probably,” Aglae said, nodding.  “Why didn’t you stay longer?”

“We didn’t have much time to spare,” Lafayette said, deciding to be tactful and not mention that one of his friends was unconscious, another was anxious to get back to his girlfriend, and the driver only really wanted to stop for gas.  “But I’m going to South Carolina for Thanksgiving,” he added.

“I’m glad you have plans!  If you didn’t, I was going to invite you over for dinner.”

“My roommate is having a couple of us over,” he said.  “I’m hoping I can convince them to take the train with me instead of flying.  It’ll be more fun,” he explained.

“I suppose so,” she agreed.  “I hope you get them on board.  It would be a long trip down otherwise.”

“I’ll have my phone.”

“That’s right, you could always call me.”  She was teasing again and she got to her feet.  “I have to go, but I’ll see you later, Lafayette.”

“‘Lafayette’?”  Adelaide asked as Aglae left the room, speaking French with him as always.  “I thought you said you preferred Gilbert.”

“I don’t like the American pronunciation,” Lafayette said, half as an excuse.  “It’s better the way you say it.”

“I didn’t know there was anything you didn’t like about America.”

“The pronunciation and how far it is from France.”

“Senegal is far, too.  Besides, if it were nearer it wouldn’t be exotic enough for you,” Adelaide countered.  “You’d have to go to some other country to find yourself.”

“I’ve never been to Senegal…”

Adelaide gave him a look.

“I’m joking.  About traveling there like that, I mean, not about never having been.  Not that I would mind going?”  Lafayette was talking himself in circles.  “But not like—”  He stopped, paused, started over.  “I’ve never been to Senegal.”

Adelaide just laughed.  “It’s a long trip from either France or here, but if you ever visit I’d be happy to show you around.”

“Where in the country are you from?”  Lafayette asked as he rolled up his mat.  

“Ndar,” Adelaide said, then clarified, “Saint-Louis.  It’s at the very top of the country, right on the border.”

“I’ll look it up,” Lafayette promised.

“You will not,” Adelaide laughed again.

“I will,” Lafayette insisted.  “I made a standing desk, too.  I keep my word.  By next class I’ll have read up on it and will have questions for you, just you wait.”

Adelaide shook her head, smiling.  “All right, Gilbert.  I look forward to it.”


	79. Let Them Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Up Against the Door

Laurens pressed Hamilton up against the closed door of his dorm room, kissing him hard as he undid his scarf and coat.  Hamilton had his arms around him, one hand moving up into his hair, already completely incapable of remaining quiet and discreet. 

“John,” he gasped loudly, tipping his head back as Laurens tossed the scarf to the floor and bit at his neck.  He groaned, tightening his grip in his hair.

Laurens was still working on the buttons and he swore in frustration, his mouth against Hamilton’s skin.  

Hamilton half-laughed and took Laurens’ hands away, unfastening his coat himself.  “Strip,” he commanded, his heart in his throat.  “You have a deadbolt,” he added, setting it with a slightly shaking hand as Laurens took his jacket and shirt off.  “Why do we never use it?”

“Because we’re idiots.”  Laurens was taking off his pants.  Hamilton watched, forgetting what he was doing as Laurens bent over, the muscles in his back tight, and then stood back up, already visibly aroused under his briefs.  “Alexander?”

Hamilton shook his head but it failed to clear it.  “Mm.  Yeah?”

“You’re staring.”

“I—Yes,” Hamilton admitted.  “Just get back over here, John.”

Laurens stepped back in front of him, putting his hand on the side of his face and kissing him.  Hamilton moaned low into it, feeling heat starting to build already within him.

Laurens bit his ear lightly.  “What do you want, Alexander?”  His name came out like a purr and Hamilton leaned back against the door.  “I want you,” he continued, biting him again.  “I could barely help myself before, so now…”

Hamilton grinned, turning his face back to his and kissing him again lightly.  “Got it.”

Laurens was about to ask what he meant but then Hamilton was dropping to his knees, trailing his tongue down his chest and abs and catching the elastic of his underwear in his teeth, pulling it down.  Laurens exhaled slowly, putting his hand on his shoulder even before he touched him and taking a steadier stance in anticipation.  He stepped out of his briefs.

Hamilton ran his tongue up over his inner thigh, right to where it met his groin, one hand on Laurens’ ass and the other cupping his sac.  

“I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Does this mean I can tell them how hot you are?”

Laurens laughed a little, more pleased than embarrassed.

“I know, I know, you’re not a piece of meat, I should compliment you on your mind.”  Hamilton flicked his tongue over his balls and Laurens gasped.  “But they _know_ that already.  I mean, damn, if _I_ got to see you in the locker room practically every day…  They don’t know what they’re missing out on.”

Laurens grinned.  “I don’t mind hearing it.  Not right now.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton ran his tongue up the underside of Laurens’ shaft and he put his other hand on his shoulders.  “You enjoyed bragging that much?  In my hair,” he added, nudging Lauren’s arm.

Laurens felt his cock twitch at that command and he immediately moved his hand to Hamilton’s head, heart racing in anticipation.

Hamilton ran his tongue around Laurens’ cockhead and as soon as Laurens pushed lightly he moved down, taking as much of him as he could and swallowing against him, causing Laurens to moan loudly and hold his head down.  Hamilton tightened his grip on his ass, steadying himself as he tried to concentrate on the task at hand and not on how what he had said a moment before didn’t really make sense or on how hard his heart was pounding.  He moved a little off, just enough that Laurens tried to tug him back, then down again, pressing his tongue tight against his shaft.  He looked up and felt a thrill as he made eye contact.  Laurens’ dark eyes, watching him take his cock—Hamilton moved so far down he brushed the back of his throat and saw Laurens’ eyes flutter closed.

Laurens still saw Hamilton looking up at him.  The image was burned into his mind and he could tell already that it would be following him around for days.  He took his hand off of his shoulder and pressed it to his mouth, holding back a moan.

“Hey.”

Laurens’ hips jerked as Hamilton pulled off of him and kissed the v of his hip.  “You can say my name, you know.”

Laurens reddened slightly.  Hamilton had still been watching him.

“You can say it,” Hamilton repeated as Laurens took his hand away, putting it back on his shoulder.  “I want you to say it,” he added, a little softer.

“Alexander…”

“Yes,” Hamilton said, almost sounding eager.  He wasn’t commanding him, Laurens realized, but asking.  “You can say it louder.  It doesn’t matter, right, J.?”

“Hah.”  Laurens was out of words, too distracted by the imploring tone in Hamilton’s voice.  He wanted to pull him to his feet, rip off his clothes, fuck him against the door…

“You told people, so they’ll all know anyway.  We might as well make sure they believe it.”

Laurens rolled his head to the side, letting out a frustrated whine.  Yes, saying his name was all well and good, but what he _wanted_ …

Hamilton was still watching and he saw his irritation and it triggered a sudden burst of doubt.  “What is it?”

“I want to touch you,” Laurens said, opening his eyes and looking down at him.

Hamilton felt his gaze like a jolt of electricity through his whole body and he stood as Laurens tugged at his hair.  He opened his mouth to ask what, exactly, Laurens had in mind, and Laurens took that as an invitation to kiss him hard and back him up against the door.  Hamilton let out a startled exclamation and then a moan, wrapping his arms behind his neck and pulling him close, feeling the heat of Laurens’ naked body even through his own clothes.  Laurens yanked his shirt up and his fly down, touching his chest and sliding his pants past his hips so he could touch him roughly over his underwear.

“Pants,” Laurens managed to get out in between sucking and biting at his tongue.  “Off, now.”

Hamilton dropped them to his ankles and Laurens grabbed him, turning him around and almost slamming him up against the door, knowing by now just how much force he needed to use to make Hamilton’s knees weak.

“John—”  

Laurens was leaning against him, holding him in place with one hand and wrapping the other around his shaft, teasing him, drawing out the motions, making his head swim.

Hamilton had his cheek pressed against the cool painted wood of the door and he pressed his hands against it as well for support, gasping as Laurens continued to touch him and bit his neck.

“Should I mark you?”  Laurens asked, only mostly teasing.  “You showed it off last time and I wasn't sure I liked that.  Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“Too cold out,” Hamilton said, his voice shaking.

“Not in the classroom.”  Laurens bit him harder, sucking on his skin.  Hamilton swore, unable to think straight.

“Right?”

“Yeah, I—”  Hamilton cut himself off, his hips jerking, as Laurens teased his head.  “John,” he moaned as Laurens rubbed his cock up against him.  It was hot and hard and he could feel the trail of precum that it left against his skin and his own cock twitched in response as he made one hand into a fist and hit the door with it, frustrated and impatient and feeling unable to express himself.

Laurens gave a startled laugh and lightly kissed the juncture of his jaw and neck, rocking his hips so his cock moved against Hamilton’s ass without entering him.

“John,” Hamilton pleaded.  “Yes—”

Laurens looked back over his shoulder at his desk, all the way across the room.  “I don’t want to leave you,” he said without really thinking about it until he heard Hamilton whine.

Laurens put one hand on Hamilton’s back, keeping him in place, and then took half a step away so he could press his cock between his thighs.  He brought his hands to Hamilton’s legs, pushing them together and breathing out slowly and bracingly as the fit tightened.

“Shit, Alex…”  He put his hand back on Hamilton’s cock, stroking it as he pulled out and then thrust back in, feeling the soft skin of his inner thighs around his shaft. 

“Mn—Intercrural?”  Hamilton bit his lip.  “You—like that, huh?  Not the—first time you—”  Hamilton gasped, losing his train of thought for a moment as Laurens worked his shaft. 

“Not the first time I…?”  Laurens knew what he had been trying to say but he wanted to hear it, his breathing elevating as he fucked his legs.

“Damnit, John, you remember,” Hamilton said, struggling to say anything that made sense.  “In the shower—You—”

“Should I tell them I made you faint?”

Hamilton felt a rush of blood to his face.  “Fuck off.  Don’t you d-dare.”

Laurens slowed his pace down, forced Hamilton to wait for it.  

Hamilton pressed his legs together, trying to encourage Laurens to resume his previous speed, feeling his cock, hard between his thighs.  His skin was getting wet and sticky and he could feel Laurens’ breath hot on the back of his neck.  He balled his hands against the door, resisting the urge to touch himself, letting Laurens coax a moan from him.  “J…”

Laurens kissed his shoulder blades.  “What is it, Alexander?”

Hearing his name made Hamilton feel a little desperate and almost lonely even though Laurens was right there and he pressed his forehead to the door.  “I n-never should have told you I liked—hearing you say it that way.”

“Alexander,” Laurens repeated, louder, his voice low.  There could be no doubt exactly the kind of situation he was saying it in.  You didn’t moan your friend’s name like that.

Hamilton felt his pulse trip over itself.

“John…”

“Louder.”

Hamilton’s breath caught.

“Say my name louder.”  Laurens picked up the pace again, stroking Hamilton’s cock in time to the thrusting of his hips and Hamilton said his name, louder, repeatedly, just a couple inches of cheap wood between the word and anyone walking down the hall.  He was encouraged by how Laurens moaned his name back to him—Alexander, Alex-ander—and by the faint sound of a key in the lock of one of their neighbor’s doors.  Hamilton grinned.  Let them hear and know how much they were enjoying themselves.  Be jealous.

The knowledge that someone could hear them spurred him on until he was not-quite-shouting Laurens’ name and affirmations and felt himself nearing his limit.

“Please, John, please—Hurry up, I want to—feel you before I—”

Laurens made a sharp, distracted noise in agreement, and continued, focusing on _Hamilton_ and his soft skin and firm, lithe body—angular features, that way the edge of his mouth quirked up like he was about to say something that would be just so clever it would win Laurens over even if he wasn’t already—and his eyes, the way he watched him as he sucked on his cock, genuinely relishing the control and pleasure he was giving—

Laurens came, hot and messy between his legs, and finished Hamilton with a few jerking movements, his hand shaking.

“Shit…”  Hamilton was grateful he was bracing himself against the door, and he slowly straightened up as Laurens brushed his hair to the side and kissed the back of his neck.  “John.  J.”  He reached behind him and squeezed his shoulder.  “I need a towel.  Do you have a bottle of water?”

“In my gym bag.”

“Could you bring it?  And the towel.  Please.”

Laurens kissed him again, obviously still reluctant to step away, but then got him both items from his bag.

“Thanks.”  Hamilton awkwardly cleaned himself before turning his attention to the door.  “Lafayette’ll kill me if I let this dry…”

Laurens crouched down next to him.  “Sorry.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton put his hand on his knee, partially to steady himself.  “I enjoyed that.  You know I like people hearing.”

Now that Laurens was out of the moment he was rethinking that part.  “Do you think people could hear?”

“Anyone in the hallway?  Yeah, pretty sure, unless they had their headphones cranked up like you wear them.  Seriously, John, you’ll damage your hearing that way.”  Hamilton had one hand on his arm now, the other on his chest, and he lightly pushed him down onto his back on the floor, lying on top of him.  “You won’t be able to hear me,” he said in just a whisper in his ear.  “What a tragedy that would be.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

Hamilton kissed him.  “You love it.”

“I do,” Laurens said truthfully.


	80. Safe Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soccer; Policing; Schuyler Sister Rescue Squad; Public Sphere; Private Sphere

“Black ponytail.”  Angelica had her arm through Lafayette’s and was pointing at the field.  “Right in front of the goal.  Blue headband.  Do you see her?”

“ _Oui._ That’s your sister?”

“Eliza,” Angelica confirmed, nudging Hamilton.  “Can you even see her over all of that?”

Hamilton—under hat, coat, scarf—rolled his eyes at her.  “Of course I can see her.  I’m not blind.”

“Not with contacts in,” Lafayette whispered loudly to Angelica on her other side.

“Angelica, knock him off his seat for me.”

“Don’t fight,” Angelica scolded them.  “We’ll get kicked out.  Trust me, if you make too much of a scene someone _will_ call for security and they’ll force you to leave.”

“Were you the one who got frogmarched out, or were you the one who called campus police?”

“A lady keeps some secrets,” Angelica demurred, crossing her legs and patting Hamilton on the shoulder.  “Honesty, Alexander, it’s still October.  How do you plan on surviving in December?”

“I’m going to wear John like a sweater.  What do you think, Angelica?  I’ll just put on another layer.  It’s not my fault your homeland is in the frozen north.”

“I’ll get you a pair of those heating gloves for Christmas.  Do you have an electric blanket?”

“Too expensive.  I’ve got a hot water bottle.  My secret plan is to literally just live at the office if it gets too cold.  Lafayette already marked G-Wash’s coat so I guess I need to be hands off of that one, but I can bring in my own blanket and just crank the heat.  That place will be months ahead on paperwork by the time spring rolls around.  We’ll all get our W-2s early, just you wait.”

“That’s right,” Angelica said, turning to Lafayette, “Alexander told me you work as a language tutor for the French department.  _J’aime beaucoup la France_.”

“Why does everyone speak French?”  Hamilton asked.  “Seriously, what’s up with that?  It’s like we’re all Enlightenment upper crust trying to make a point about how cultivated we are.”

“You know it too,” Angelica pointed out.

“I said ‘we.’  That was self-inclusive.”

Angelica ignored him, sitting straight up on the bench as the ball was kicked back towards their end of the field and Eliza took off for it, edging the other team’s forward away from the goal and stealing the ball before it went out.  Angelia stood up, excited, pulling Lafayette with her, as Eliza maneuvered the ball past another forward and kicked it far down the field.

“They have a better record than the football team,” she informed him, holding his arm tightly as the ball was quickly passed between their team’s midfielders and forwards.  “They’re undefeated so far this year.  Not that you—”  She cut herself off as one of the other players tried for the goal, the ball sailing high to the upper right corner but being caught by the goalie.  “—Not that you would know,” she continued, reluctantly sitting back down with him as the ball was sent back across the field.  “What with the lack of attention they get.”

Eliza had the ball again and Angelica didn’t release her grip on Lafayette’s arm until she had passed it back up the field. 

“I don’t know why,” Lafayette said.  “They’re very good.”

“Soccer’s not a big deal in the states,” Hamilton said.  “Much less women’s soccer.”

“What a shame.”

“It is,” Angelica agreed.  “I knew I would like you, Lafayette.”

“He’s French and biased,” Hamilton pointed out.  “But they are good,” he added appreciatively.  “I’m probably biased, too.”

“Because it’s a women’s team and because it’s soccer instead of football?”

“Right.”  Hamilton was watching the field.  “Angelica, why don’t you play?”

“It’s not my thing,” Angelica responded.  “Can you imagine me running around in cleats?”

“And nothing else?”

“You’re not single, Alexander,” she scolded.  “You don’t get to say that.  You don't hear me making that kind of comment about you.”

Hamilton slouched down a little.  “That’s not fair,” he complained.  “Words don’t count.”

“Words are very important,” Lafayette said from Angelica’s other side.

“Hey,” Hamilton leaned forward to talk around her.  “You want to stop with the hypocrisy, Monsieur I’m-so-bored-I have-to-imagine—”

“Shh,” Angelica interrupted him, pushing him back into his seat.  “Have your little fight after the game when I can pay attention properly.”

“It’s not about you,” Hamilton started to explain.

“I never said it was,” Angelica reminded him.  “I just said that I wanted to listen in.”

Lafayette caught Hamilton’s eye and shrugged.  Fair enough.

 

“How’s not being a virgin anymore treating you?”  Tallmadge asked, slapping Laurens on the back as the doors of the subway car closed and Lee took the empty seat on the bench, distracted with his phone.

Laurens looked up, then down the crowded car.  “Your mom didn’t tell you all about it?”

André, standing on his other side, snorted.  

Tallmadge didn’t sound offended.  On the contrary, he laughed and shoved Laurens, timing it just when the train jerked around a turn so that he stumbled and would have lost his balance if he wasn’t holding onto the pole.

“A mom joke, too,” Tallmadge said, taking his cell out of his pocket and checking for signal.  “You’ve changed.  The old John Laurens never made cracks like that.”

Laurens, embarrassed, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and pretended he was just trying to find his center of balance.  “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me.”

“I’m apologizing to your mother.”

Tallmadge cracked up.  “She can’t hear you, Laurens.”

“That’s not the point.”  Laurens looked up at the stops listed over the window.  “Where are we getting off again?”

“Transferring to the seven at Broadway.”

“Right.”

“So,” Tallmadge pushed, “you never answered me.  You seemed pretty set on bragging the other day.”

“Come on,” Laurens started, but never got to finish.

“Would you shut up?”  Lee asked without looking up from the small screen.  

“Hey,” Tallmadge protested.  “Laurens doesn’t mind.  Right, Laurens?”

“We’re on a train,” Lee said.  “Don’t be sick.”

Laurens felt a little uncertain stab, more like a needle than a knife.  “Thanks,” he said.

“Oh, sorry.”  André moved over to give the woman next to him more space.  Lee stood up to offer his seat, putting his phone away.  She thanked him and sat.

“This isn’t a locker room,” Lee told Tallmadge.  “Keep it to yourself.”

Tallmadge begrudgingly changed the topic.  “I need to find someone to buy my old sociology textbooks.  I’ve been holding onto them from freshman year and I don’t want to lug them home after graduation.  Your sister’s not planning to go into sociology, is she?”

“Martha?”  Laurens asked.  “How should I know?”

“Ask her for me,” Tallmadge said.  “She can have them cheap if she wants them, otherwise I’m sticking them on Craigslist.”

“You’ll have to sell them for cheap either way,” André pointed out.  “They’re used and you spilled milk on one of them.”

“Maybe Humphreys will take them off of my hands,” Tallmadge mused.  “I’ll see if I can convince him to get into the used book business.”

Lee laughed.  “Instead of the sheep fucking business?  No way.  He tries to brush that off as a joke but he was serious when he first brought it up.”

“Golden fleece,” Laurens tossed in.

“Exactly,” Lee agreed, and Laurens felt a wash of relief.  “But I’ve got a better nose for business than he does.  Trust me,” he continued, “I’ll make my millions before he does.”

“Yeah, by sitting on your ass,” Tallmadge said.  “Since when does inheriting count as a business?”

“I can’t help who my father is.”

Laurens looked through the crowd, out the window, at the darkness of the tunnel.

“Besides, I meant actual business,” Lee continued.  “What are the rest of you going to do with yourselves?  Social worker and language tutor?  Good luck with that.”

“Sociology degrees are useful for government work,” Tallmadge argued.  “I’m going to apply with the secret service.”

Lee laughed and André, without being able to help himself, cracked a grin.

“I’m serious,” Tallmadge protested.  “It’s one of the majors they’re most interested in!”

“I’m sorry,” Lee said, “I just imagined you as James Bond.”

“My name is Tallmadge, Ben Tallmadge.”  He struck a pose as best he could in the cramped car, then relaxed and returned to his usual stance.  “Not bad.  At least I’ve got the name for the job.”

“It’s got a ring to it,” Lee agreed.  “All right, I take it back.  You can be my guy in the government.”

“Your guy?”

“On the inside,” Lee said.  “You’ll give me insider information.”

“Dirty business, Lee.”

Lee shrugged.  “Are you threatening to snitch on me already?  Calm down, like you even have any secret information I want.”

“And like you even have a business to run, corrupt or not,” Tallmadge laughed.  “I’ll make you an under the table deal the next time we play Monopoly, how’s that?”

“When have I ever played that with you?”

The train slowed and came to a halt with a jerk and they paused their conversation while the recorded announcement rang out about the stop and people pushed on and off the car.  

“All right,” Lee started up again once they were on their way.  “Tallmadge, I’ll grant you that your major isn’t completely useless, at least not as long as you're not delusional about your odds of being hired.  Laurens,” he said, turning to him, “tell your father about Tallmadge’s fantasy.  Maybe he’d be able to pull some strings.”

“My father doesn’t have any say in that.”

Lee waved him off dismissively.  “That’s what you say.  Maybe not officially, Laurens, but he has to know people.  You should help Tallmadge out if this is so important to him.”

Laurens frowned, uncomfortable with the idea but forced to admit the point.  “I don’t think he can help.”

“He’s a congressman for South Carolina,” Lee argued and Laurens wished so many people weren’t around to hear that.  “Everyone knows everyone up on the hill.”

“Do you think he’d have any suggestions?”  Tallmadge asked.  “I don’t expect he can introduce me to anyone, but if he knows how the process works…”

“I’m going home over Thanksgiving,” Laurens finally allowed.  “I’ll ask him in person.”

“Thanks.  Are you planning on doing an internship after graduation?  I bet there’s a lot you could do in the city.”

“Yeah,” Laurens responded.  “I need to look into it more, but my father—”

“I told you he has connections,” Lee jumped back in, triumphant.  “You mentioned last year how he had them all lined up.  Lawyers and politicians all up and down the East Coast.”

“Yeah,” Laurens admitted, then lied, “but I don’t think most of them will take me anymore.”

“Why not?”  Tallmadge was surprised.  “Just because you chose to stay an extra year?”

“Basically.  They expected me this fall,” he said, looking up at the stops again.  “Not next.  It’s a slap in the face.”  He wasn’t sure if the other three glanced at one another questioningly or if it was just coincidence.  “I’m sure I can work something out,” he added, trying to cut off any questions.  “I’ll work on it, it’s just a matter of smoothing things out.”

“Ha,” Tallmadge laughed.  “Since when do you play nice?”

“With Alexander,” André teased, “he’s a real sweetheart.”

“Cut it out,” Laurens said with some actual bite.  “Lee’s right, don’t start with that.”

André’s eyes widened in surprise and he put up one hand.  “Sorry.”

Stony-faced now, Laurens shifted away from the others to stare out the window as if it was showing something more interesting than the rapid passage through the unlit tunnel.

 

“I can’t believe you came,” Eliza enthused, freshly showered and out of uniform although still slightly flushed as they cut across campus.  “Usually it’s just Angelica!”

“You say that like I’m chopped liver,” Angelica teased and linked arms with her.

Eliza laughed.  “No, you’re my biggest fan.”  She kissed her cheek.  “But I’ve never seen you up there with a posse before.  It looked like you guys were having almost as much fun as I was.  I was afraid that you’d all be bored out of your wits.”

“It was an excellent game,” Lafayette told her.  “Besides, I’ve been looking forward to this.  I even dressed to match.”

Eliza shot him a questioning look.  His jacket was zipped up and had remained so the entire game.  “You did?  May I see?”

Lafayette tapped the eagle and flag embroidered over the left breast.  “ _Voila_.”

“Their colors are just navy and white, same as Laurens’,” Hamilton pointed out.  “And their mascot isn’t an eagle.”

“But they’re American,” Lafayette argued.  “I dressed for soccer, not _le_   _football._ ”

“Ah.”

“You two were about to have a fascinating argument,” Angelica reminded Hamilton and Lafayette, gesturing between them, “when I interrupted you.  Please, now that the game is over and successfully won, continue.  We could use a little light entertainment on our walk.”

“An argument?”  Eliza sounded intrigued. 

“It was nothing,” Lafayette began.

“He’s being a hypocrite,” Hamilton started.

“Ooh, this does sound good,” Eliza said.  “Angelica, do you think they’ll keep going long enough to last us through lunch or should I ask them to stop until we get to the cart?”

“It’s a short walk,” Angelica said, “and they’re both big talkers.  I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“I’m not a hypocrite,” Lafayette protested.  “Alexander is taking things out of context.”

“Quite likely,” Angelica agreed, “but let’s hear his argument.  Alexander?”

“All I did was crack one PG-13 joke,” Hamilton said, jumping right into the fray, “non-graphic nudity, that’s all, and he acted like he was so much above me.  It’s just real rich coming from a guy who gets _actually_ graphic in his mental renderings, if you know what I mean.”

“Ew,” Eliza commented, leaving it vague which one of them she was directing that to.

“ _Not_ about his girlfriend,” Hamilton added.  “Which, in my mind, whatever, a fantasy’s a fantasy, no harm and no foul.  But if you’re going to go ahead and do that, one, don’t flip shit for making that choice, and two, don’t then turn around and defenestrate a guy for an innocent comment!”

Lafayette wasn’t listening to him anymore, his eyes lighting up as he realized the opportunity in front of him.  “I’m facing a moral dilemma,” he announced to Eliza and Angelica dramatically.  Hamilton rolled his eyes and folded his arms.  “Our friend Alexander has laid it out, if crudely.  But as women yourselves, perhaps you can be of greater assistance.”

“You’re getting yourself into a tricky area,” Angelica informed him, “but go on.”

“France is very far away,” Lafayette began, “and I am so lonely.  I love Adrienne, of course, but it’s so difficult when she’s across an ocean.  I have, therefore, at times been…  Less devoted than I would like to admit.”

“You _cheated_ on her?”  Eliza interrupted.

“No,” Lafayette said quickly, then adjusted the height of the zipper on his jacket.  “Well, that depends on your definition, I suppose.”

“He cheated with his hand,” Hamilton informed Eliza.  “And what he thinks half of the adult and consenting population of Manhattan looks like with their tops off.”

“That’s not cheating,” Angelica said.  “Thoughts are free and as long as you don’t act on them then it’s fine.”

“It’s not very knightly,” Lafayette said, arguing against himself dejectedly.

“For fuck’s sake, Lafayette, pick a side and stick with it,” Hamilton said in frustration.  “Stop waffling, you’re not this bad with anything else!”

“I keep getting different opinions,” Lafayette protested.  “How can I make up my mind when no one else is in agreement, either.”

“Does she know?”  Eliza asked.

“Adrienne?”

“Yes.  Does she know, and does it bother her?  It doesn’t matter what Alex or my sister and I think,” Eliza continued, “only what Adrienne thinks.”

Lafayette fell silent, considering that.

“Eliza’s right,” Angelica said.  “You’re dating her, not any of us.  It sounds like you already suspect what her answer would be—and that it’s not one that you like.”

“Even if you’re not technically cheating on her, you’re being disrespectful,” Eliza said.  “Talk to her about it, Lafayette.”

“I did,” Lafayette said.  “I told her about it.”

“And?”

“She said it was fine.”

Angelica and Eliza shared a skeptical glance.  “ _Really_ fine, or just fine?”

“Stop confusing him,” Hamilton complained.  “And don’t bitch about how he shouldn’t ask for a feminine viewpoint and then pull this double-meaning shit.”

Angelica put her hand on the side of his face, pushing him away as she talked to Lafayette.  “What my sister and I mean is that it seems like if it were actually all right then you wouldn’t still be so conflicted about it.”

“If you’re not sure it’s always better to err on the side of caution,” Eliza added.  “Would it really be so difficult to just not do it?”

“No,” Lafayette said slowly.  “I suppose not.”  They were coming up on the halal cart and he turned to Hamilton.  “Is this the vendor you know?  What do you recommend?”

Hamilton wasn’t paying attention anymore.  He realized to his great surprise that it had been—three, five?—actually, he wasn’t even sure how many months since he had last thought of anyone other than Laurens.

Lafayette nudged him.  “Alex.”

“Hm?”  Hamilton jerked back to the present, not sure what to do with any of that.  “Oh, yeah.  Get the lamb gyro, tell him I sent you.”  He checked his back pocket for his metro card.  “Listen, I hate to split off, especially right now, trust me, but I just realized I need to go.  I’ll catch up later.”

 

Laurens was sitting at a round table, crowded in not only with Lee, André, and Tallmadge, but joined by Tench and Humphreys as well.  The television on the wall was loudly covering a football game and the narrow restaurant floor hosted a couple other parties, all of whom were talking to one another.  If his phone hadn’t been set to vibrate he wouldn’t have noticed when it rang and he picked up without paying attention to the caller ID, still in the middle of talking across the table.

“—maybe if they actually went through with the trade.  Hello?”

“John?”

Laurens started, eyes widening in surprise at hearing Hamilton’s voice.  “Al—”  He pushed his chair back, loudly scraping it on the floor, and turned to the side, speaking a little behind André’s back.  “Alexander?  What’s up?”

“The game’s over,” Hamilton said on the other end.  “Are you free?”

“I’m getting lunch with the guys.”

“Is that Alexander?”  Tench asked, reaching for another slice of pizza from the middle of the table and folding it as he picked it up.  “Tell him to join us.”

Laurens motioned at him to shut up.  “But you’re done?  Are you still with Lafayette?”

“Nah, left him with the girls.  He’s in good hands.”  Hamilton hesitated.  “I’ve got work I could do.  Call me when you’re back?”

“Invite him to come,” André said as Tench made an affirmative noise through a mouthful of pizza.  “It won’t take him that long to get here from campus and we just got served.  We’ll be here for a while.”

“It’s too crowded.”  Laurens threw down his share of the money for the bill.  “Alexander, I’m headed back now.  Give me a minute and I’ll text you.”

Hamilton could hear what he suspected were protests in the background.  “Really, John, it’s fine.  I’ve got stuff to do.  Meet me after.”

“I’m done now,” Laurens repeated.  “Hold on.”  He hung up and stood, taking his jacket off the back of the chair.  “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Come on,” Humphreys complained, “tell him to come over.  We’ll steal another chair, it’ll be fine.”

“Actually,” Tench laughed, kicking his feet up onto Laurens’ abandoned chair, “never mind, let him go.  Don’t have too much fun,” he teased.  “We still need you on the field bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Humphreys snorted into his drink and Laurens turned red as he zipped his jacket closed.

“Later,” Laurens repeated, not replying directly to that, looking down at his phone and typing as he left the restaurant.

 

Laurens had met Hamilton at his apartment and had been surprised when he wasn’t greeted at the door by Hamilton’s mouth on his own.  Instead Hamilton had politely let him in, hesitated awkwardly, and offered him a drink.  Laurens declined.  The place was a mess like usual and Hamilton looked around.

“I need another chair.”

“What?”

“I need another chair,” Hamilton repeated.  “I never thought about it, never really had formal company over.  But you’re here all the time and I really noticed when Angelica and Eliza showed up the other day—I’ve got enough mugs to make do, but nowhere for people to sit.”

“Are you nesting?”  Laurens teased, taking off his jacket. 

“Ha.  Hardly.  I’ve gotta get out of this place ASAP.  Think I can get my lease extended just ’til June but if they try to lock me in for a year I’m out.  Can I bribe you with beer and pizza to help me move if that happens?  Or something else?”

“Do you need a place to stay?”  Laurens asked, concerned.

“Not a big deal.  Apartment hunting’s a bitch, but I’ve lived in all kinds of crapholes.  Tell you about it sometime.  Besides, Mulligan found me this one, friend of his was moving out and he got me in.  He’ll help me again if it comes to that.”

Laurens nodded.  “You can always stay with us if you need to.”

“Mm, yeah, thanks but that’s like my plan ‘d,’ right after crashing at Mulligan’s since he’s gone for work half the time anyway, living at the office, and just sleeping in the library until I get my shit together.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have staying at Washington’s again on that list.”

Hamilton made a face.  “I love the guy but twenty hours on paper is more than enough per week.  I’m not Lafayette.  He drives me crazy sometimes.”

“I can’t really see it,” Laurens admitted.

“He’s just so stubborn,” Hamilton said, pausing between each word.  “And I just wish that he’d let me…”  Hamilton stopped, taking his hair out and tying it up again.  “Yeah, this isn’t why I asked to see you.  Can we put a pin in this too?  I’ll make a note of it next to the apartment thing.”

“Sure.  So,” Laurens asked, “why did you want to see me?”

“I just wanted to.  I’m allowed to do that now, right?  Call you when you’re with other people.”  Hamilton leaned up and kissed him slowly, trying hard to keep the gesture controlled.  Laurens felt a little rush of heat to his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling.  “Definitely.”

“I know you’re playing tomorrow…”  Hamilton trailed off. 

Laurens kissed him again, too happy not to.  “We can compromise.”

“They didn’t mind, right?”  Hamilton asked, one hand on his chest.  “I meant it, John, you could have stayed longer.”

“It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.  They wanted you to join us.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton looked surprised.  “I could have done that.”

Laurens quickly realized the mistake he was almost making and he deflected.  “I know.  But I wanted to see you.  In private.”

Hamilton was about to laugh but then Laurens was kissing him harder, his tongue in his mouth, and Hamilton was lost in it.  Laurens sat in the chair, pulling Hamilton down into his lap without breaking the kiss and Hamilton clenched the hand he already had on his chest in his shirt.  He groaned softly against his mouth when Laurens moved his hand over his back and then again under his shirt.  His hand was cool from the walk over, but might as well have been made of fire.  Hamilton could feel himself threatening to fall back over the brink of madness after having only just pulled himself up to sit on the ledge, and with a reckless burst of enthusiasm he hurled himself off of it.  He wrapped his other arm around Laurens’ shoulders and relished the feeling of drowning in the premature afterglow.  This time, he thought to himself, he would see how long he could stay under.

“I can’t…”  Laurens started.  Hamilton stopped him, moving his hand up into his hair.  

“I know.  That’s fine.  I understand.”  He said all three sentences one after the other, broken up by his mouth on Laurens’  “Just don’t go anywhere.  It’ll be like when we were on vacation.  I don’t mind holding off just a little longer.”

“Really?”  Laurens had to ask, leaning back a little to talk to Hamilton properly.  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak with such patience.”

Hamilton shifted, straddling him with one foot on the floor and the other on the rung of the chair.  His hand was still in his shirt and his other was continuing to toy with his hair as he spoke.

“I’m proud of you, John.  I know it’s been hard for you to sit back and wait but you’ve been very, well, mature about it.”  His eyes were serious.  “I don’t want to ruin your glorious return,” he said, joking in language if not content. 

“Alex…”

“Your friends invited me to join you,” he insisted.  “That means something.  I like that they’ve got your back, I can respect that.  I want them to respect me, too.”

Laurens didn’t say anything to that, feeling guilty again over how he had ducked out.  “Next time,” he promised.  “I’ll bring you along.”

“When I’ve got a moment to spare,” Hamilton said.  “That might not end up being until spring semester.”

“You’re free now.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton slid his other hand up into his hair as well.  “I’m booked solid for the rest of the day.  Night, too,” he added.  “I’m completely tied up.”

Laurens raised his brows at him and Hamilton laughed. 

“Pretty sure that would go against that rule of yours, big time.”

“I don’t know about that,” Laurens said, kissing him again and then moving down his neck.  “It’s my turn to do the tying, after all.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton couldn’t resist making one request.  “Take your shirt off.”

“You too.”

“Fair enough,” Hamilton said, sitting back and yanking it off over his head as Laurens undid his own and dropped it to the floor.  Laurens watched, caught off guard by the fluid arch and reach as Hamilton pulled the fabric up over his head, stretching his lean torso like a cat.  His ponytail got caught in the collar of the shirt and fell over his shoulder, the dark hair curling up to touch the dip below his neck and then down over his chest.  

“…John?”  Hamilton leaned in after a few seconds had passed and Laurens still hadn’t looked away, putting one hand under his chin and tipping his face up.  Laurens was visibly distracted, even when he was forced to meet his gaze, his lips slightly parted.

Hamilton paused, surprised, then pulled him in more and kissed him, sliding forward to straddle him directly over his crotch and pressing his tongue into his mouth.

Laurens moaned, tipping his hips forward and against him and putting one hand low on his back to hold him down encouragingly.

Hamilton moved against him, his hands lightly on his shoulders.  

Screw the game, Laurens thought, feeling himself quickly harden and unable to distract himself from images of Hamilton undoing his pants or just reaching down over them and—

“Mm,” Hamilton sounded a little regretful, but not as much as Laurens felt as he raised himself off of him.  “I shouldn’t.  Sorry.”

“Alexander…”  Laurens could hear the complaining tone in his own voice.

“John, come on.”  Hamilton kissed him.  At least he was still doing that much.  “You’ll regret it.”

Laurens could still feel the heat from Hamilton’s body against his chest and lap and he set his jaw, willing himself to meet the standard Hamilton had raised for him.  He had said he was proud, that he had come off as mature, implied that the others respected him…  Hamilton was still kissing him, even with his lips in a thin line, standing on one foot with his other knee up on the edge of the chair and one hand stroking his face.

“It’s fine,” Laurens said, arguing against both Hamilton and himself.  He still had his hand on Hamilton’s back and he tried to push him down again to straddle and rub up against him.

Hamilton raised an eyebrow but his disapproving expression was thinly masking the desire he felt to comply and give Laurens exactly what both of them wanted.  He forced himself to resist, focusing instead with a self-satisfied note on how Laurens exhaled shortly in frustration when he didn’t get the reaction he had been going for.  Laurens had thought that Hamilton would cave as soon as he asked for it and when instead he lifted himself a little further away from him, he found himself even more distracted by what they _could_ be doing.  They could be naked right now, Hamilton could be on top of him, _riding_ him…  Instead he tipped his chin up, just a little, a shiver running down his spine, as Hamilton delicately traced a finger down his jaw and neck.

“No.”  Hamilton let that one finger become two, then his entire hand, caressing his chest.  “You know I’m right, John.”

Laurens turned his head away.  Hamilton lowered himself just for a moment to brush against him.  Laurens’ hips twitched.

“J.”

“Fine,” Laurens muttered.

Hamilton put his hand on the side of his face and gently but insistently moved it back.  He kissed him, long and slow, drawing it out.

“Let’s just do this, John.”

“Mm…”  Laurens was distracted again, and he put his hand in his back pocket.  “Do what?”

“This.”  Hamilton slid his tongue into his mouth, trying not to let on how distracting the hard muscle of Laurens’ arms and thighs were where he was brushing up against them.  Laurens moaned softly into the kiss and it trailed off into a pleading whine and it took great effort for Hamilton to not give in right then.  He focused instead on how every moment he denied Laurens got him more frustrated and needy and how he could feel his quickening pulse when he put his hand on the side of his neck.  Laurens was hard, Hamilton could feel it when he leaned a little more down to kiss just under his ear.   He heard his breath catch as he brushed against him and he smiled against the skin, enjoying how much he wanted it.

“Is this how it usually is for you?”

“What?”  Laurens was distracted.

“I’m usually the desperate one.”

“Alex,” Laurens complained.

Hamilton nipped at the lobe of his ear and he made a frustrated noise.

“It’s true,” Hamilton continued.  “You drive me crazy without even trying, J.”

“Alex,” Laurens said again.  “What are you—”  He breathed out hard.  “Trying to do to me?”

Hamilton paused, not sure if he was hurt or not.  “I want you to know how I feel,” he admitted.  He sat back.  

“I know,” Laurens said, and then when Hamilton looked like he was going to argue he cut him off.  “I mean it, Alexander.  I _know_.”  Hamilton still looked skeptical and he sighed and continued.  “I…  think about it.  A lot.  I told you, Alex, after I accidentally told my friends.  I’m all yours.  Whatever you want to do.”

“Mm,” Hamilton agreed, kissing the side of his mouth.  “Yeah, that’s true.”

“So…?”

Hamilton laughed.  “I want you to play well tomorrow, John.  It was pretty hot to see you on the field the other time, bonerkill of you getting maimed aside.  Do a good job tomorrow,” he added in a low purr, running one hand up into his hair, “and I’ll be all yours, too.”

Laurens felt his breath catch.  “Yeah?”

Hamilton kissed him, his hand on the side of his face.  “Keep it together on the field, John, and you won’t be able to keep me off of you.”


	81. Runner's High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nerves; Personal Information and a Show; Splitting up

Laurens was standing off to the side at the edge of the tunnel, looking out into the bright sunlight and the filling stands, feeling a sense of excitement and apprehension almost as if it was his first college game again.

A couple of his teammates passed him, talking to one another and laughing, and then he heard heavy footsteps slow and stop just behind him.

“Are you looking forward to being back?”

“Yes, sir.”  Laurens looked over his shoulder at von Steuben, the glare making strong lines on the older man’s face.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve got the upper hand,” von Steuben continued, folding his arms and passing his clipboard to Ben Walker as he passed, motioning him to go out onto the field without him.  “It won’t be an easy game, but I expect that with you back we will make a good showing.”

Laurens, grateful for the vote of confidence, nodded.  “Thank you.”

“You’re not nervous, are you?  You’ve been forced to sit out before.”

“No, well,” Laurens admitted in embarrassment, “not really.  I don’t know.  It’s just been a while and I don’t want to mess up.  I know we need this win,” he added.  “We lose, we’re out of the running.  We win…”

“Avoid personal fouls this season,” von Steuben said, half a suggestion and half a command.  “Will your friends be here?”

“My roommate,” Laurens said, “and Alexander.  My family will be watching, too.”

Von Steuben clapped him on the shoulder.  “We win and keep our nose to the line and they will see you play in the championships.  Give them a good game.”

Laurens nodded and put his helmet on.  “I will, sir.”

 

“He’s beautiful.”

“You’re mooning over him.”

“You should see him with his shirt off,” Hamilton responded, leaning on the armrest between his and Angelica’s seats in the stadium.  “I don’t mind if you sneak a peek.”

Angelica looked like she was considering it and Eliza, on her other side, leaned forward to get his attention.  

“Alex,” she said, “Lafayette is joining us, isn’t he?”

“Mm, yeah,” Hamilton hit the seat holding his bag next to him.  “Saved him a spot.  I’m surprised he’s late.  I bet he got distracted talking to his girlfriend.  Well, ‘talking’ is a strong word.  Bet he got distracted doing other stuff more like it.”

“She should visit New York,” Angelica said.  “Maybe having her around in person would make things clearer for him.”

“Where would she stay?”  Hamilton asked.  “Their room is crowded enough as it is.”

“She could stay with him and John could stay with you,” Eliza said.  

“Hah, yeah, and then I’ll get approximately zero work done because I’ll be too busy fucking all day,” Hamilton said.  “Not a bad idea, actually, thanks, just someone get everyone else on board with that and I’ll make him a key.”

“Jealous,” Angelica sighed, half-serious.

“Come on,” Hamilton said, then stopped short for a moment while André threw the ball and someone besides Laurens caught it and was knocked to the ground.  “You’ve got a boyfriend, don’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Angelica said.

Hamilton normally would have questioned her—how do you answer so unenthusiastically to that?—but the line of scrimmage was reforming and he was distracted.

“Who else is on the team?”  Eliza asked, taking Angelica’s hand as she leaned forward again so Hamilton could hear her.  “Do you know any of the others?”

“Not well.  Nineteen, the quarterback, is John André, he works with Lafayette at the language center.”  Hamilton shifted a little further forward to point at the field, even though he was already almost on the edge of his seat.  “The guy next to John, on his right, that’s Ben Tallmadge.  You know one of them said I was hot?  John won’t tell me which one.”

Angelica laughed.  “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Hamilton complained.  “I don’t think he’s upset about it, I think he’s just messing with me.”

“Well, to be fair, that is a lot of fun.”

“You’re mean too,” Hamilton said.  “If you figure out which one it is and let me know I’ll buy you dinner.”

“I think we can manage that.  Tell us who the others are and a little about them.”

“Right.”  Hamilton scanned the field.  “David Humphreys is out there somewhere, he’s number nine or ten or something like that.  I’ll point him out later.  He’s the one who sent me the paper about importing livestock to go over.  Paid me upfront, I appreciated that.  James McHenry, he’s on the side in that group, it’s hard to pick him out, wait for him to come on to kick the ball.  He and Will Grayson were at the trustees dinner, but I didn’t speak to them and John’s never said much about them.  They’re rich, I guess, they’ve probably got some kind of connection to the school or something if they were included on the invite list.  André aside, the two guys I think John spends the most time with are Ben Tallmadge and Tench Tilghman.  I know I could hear one of them in the background when I called him the other day and I’ve seen them talking to each other.”

“Tench Tilghman,” Angelica mused, “what a name.  It sounds like something you’d give to your bulldog.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “I guess.  The only other one I know more than literally nothing about is Charles Lee, but I doubt he’s our culprit.”

“Oh?”  Eliza asked, sitting up straighter and waving her hand in the air as Lafayette walked down the stairs, looking for them.  “Why is that?”

“Because John thinks he’s a huge dick,” Hamilton said, moving his bag as Lafayette joined them.  “What took you so long?”

“I got held up.  My apologies.  How has John been?”  Lafayette offered Hamilton from his bucket of popcorn.

Hamilton took a handful and then passed it down the row.  “He’s still got all his limbs intact, so that’s better than the last game we saw him in.”

“Congratulations,” Lafayette said, a little distracted as he typed on his phone.  “And we are winning, _non_?”

“Did you talk to Adrienne?”  Eliza asked.

“Of course.”

“About what we told you to?”

“No.”

Hamilton motioned for them to be quiet as André caught the ball, backed up several feet, then threw it long as Laurens broke away from his defender and raced down the side of the field.  The crowd increased in volume in excitement, then disappointment as he was unable to catch it before it went out.

“Damn.  Next time,” Hamilton sighed, taking the popcorn as it was passed back and handing it over to Lafayette.  “McHenry’s gonna punt it,” he said to Eliza and Angelica as the player in question jogged in off the sidelines.  “There, that one’s him.  Lafayette,” he turned to him, “do you know anything about John’s teammates?  I’m out.”

“James McHenry is going to apply to medical school.  He’s already taken a course over the summer,” Lafayette said immediately.  When the others looked at him in surprise he added, “I eat lunch with them sometimes.”

“Of course you do.”  Hamilton shook his head.  

“I’m popular,” Lafayette informed the others cheerfully.

Angelica leaned forward, forcing Hamilton to sit straight up in his chair to let her by, and patted his arm.  “Good for you.”  The unspoken “honey” was clearly audible.  Eliza laughed and quickly hid it by taking a drink of water.

“What else would you like to know?”  Lafayette asked, apparently not offended.

“Which of John’s teammates is the most likely to find our Alexander attractive?”  Angelica asked as the ball was kicked down the field. 

Lafayette frowned, his brows knitting together.  “I don’t think any of them would.”

“Ouch.”

Angelica patted him on the shoulder.  “Maybe he was just pulling your leg.”

“No way,” Hamilton argued, “he was retelling me a conversation, it wasn’t something he’d make up.  All right, so I don’t think whoever said it was really serious about it, but I’m still curious, bite me.”

“If you insist—”

Eliza gently pulled her sister more towards her.  “Alex, have you ever met any of them before?”

“Uh…”  Hamilton had to think back.  “I was in a lecture with Ben Tallmadge once, but it was one of those hundred-person auditorium deals.  I can’t think of anything else.  It’s not exactly the kind of circle I run in.”

“Well, that’s probably who it was,” Angelica said.  “Did you even ask if it was him?”  Hamilton shook his head and she sighed.  “It’s the obvious answer, Alexander.  If it was him, you owe both me _and_ Eliza a meal for not putting it together on your own.”

“Yeah, sure,” Hamilton said, not really paying attention as he watched Laurens—identifiable only by his height and the number on the back of his uniform—talk to one of his teammates on the sidelines.  “How long do you think I have to wait around for them to get done after the game is over?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette.  “It usually takes him a while to get back, right?”

Lafayette looked up from his phone and nodded.  “ _Oui_.  Are you going to stay here?”

“That’s what I just said.”  Hamilton leaned forward again, his arms on his knees.  “He’s beautiful,” he repeated with a little grin, now that Lafayette was around to agree.  “I told him to watch it this time, do you think it stuck?  I don’t really want to hoof it to the hospital again.”

“Mm.”

Hamilton glanced over.  “You’re not paying any attention, are you?  Whatever, tell Adrienne I said hello.”

“All right,” Lafayette agreed, not stopping in his typing.

 

> A. Simiane: Last summer, for instance, I went home for a few months, in order to see my family and friends.  I love New York, of course, but it could never hold a candle to Ndar.  It’s engrained in me, so no matter where I go, I always see it reflected.  I’m sure you understand what I mean.  I miss the tastes and the sounds and even the /air./

> G. Lafayette: To tell you the truth, I’m a little jealous.

> A. Simiane: How so?

> G. Lafayette: I love Paris of course but jnsp

> G. Lafayette: It doesn’t have a pull on me in the same way—I spent my childhood in the south and only lived in the north for a couple of years before I came to America.

> A. Simiane: The south, then.  

> A. Simiane: Your hometown.

> G. Lafayette: I don’t know

> G. Lafayette: I miss my family, but Chavaniac is bittersweet for me.  My mother left me there with relatives after my father died and even though I don’t have any memory of that event or the time before it, it’s a shadow that haunts it.  I had a very fortunate childhood regardless, so it’s nothing to feel pity towards me for, and I was very loved.  But maybe the place itself doesn’t inspire devotion in me.

> A. Simiane: I’m sorry

> G. Lafayette: It’s fine, really.

> A. Simiane: Not really

> G. Lafayette: 

 

Lafayette uncharacteristically didn’t know how to respond.  Usually he was adept at figuring out an appropriate answer and even if it wasn’t necessarily the most truthful it tended to be close enough that he could pretend and hopefully convince both himself and the person he was speaking with.  Especially in a conversation with someone he didn’t know particularly well—he had half-lied to Laurens and Hamilton dozens of times while still getting to know them, avoiding mentioning his rank or skipping light-heartedly over serious matters.  He held the phone in his lap in both his hands and looked at the field without seeing it.  

 

> G. Lafayette:

 

He hadn’t needed to say any of that.  Why had he gone there?  Awfully dark for a conversation in the middle of the day, he scolded himself.  He hadn’t even been this explicit when it was a dark and stormy night.  Perhaps he should apologize?  But then, on the other hand, he hadn’t said anything wrong and he didn’t think he had upset her.  

 

> G. Lafayette: 

 

The cursor was still blinking in the window and his friends were still oblivious.  It was a good thing that the ball had been intercepted and run back up the field and that the players had switched out and that André had handed the ball off to Laurens.  If they had been less distracted by Laurens’ sudden, stunning break through a wall of defenders and race for the touchdown they might have noticed that he was thrown off guard by a conversation with Adelaide, not Adrienne.

Lafayette stood to scream and cheer with the rest of the crowd, letting its energy bring him back to his senses like a splash of cold water in his face and when he sat down, his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders, he finally checked his phone again and slipped back into the comfortably appropriate response.

 

> A. Simiane: Gilbert?

> G. Lafayette: dsl dsl 

> G. Lafayette: I got to the stadium just in time to see my friend score a touchdown!! I’ll text you after the game

 

“Alex,” Lafayette said, holding his phone out at arm’s length, “look this way.”

Hamilton did, still grinning, and Lafayette snapped a picture of the two of them, their faces pressed together.  He sent it in two messages, one to Adelaide and one to Adrienne.

“Let me see,” Hamilton said, and then, once Lafayette showed it to him, “you should put that one online.  Hashtag no filter, hashtag sportsball.  Too bad you didn’t get it earlier, I bet people would really—Oh, shit,” he laughed suddenly, “I completely forgot.  I never friggin’ cleared things up on my end.  I don’t know who Burr et all think I’m fucking.”  He laughed harder, a little giddy, and Lafayette felt himself smile automatically in response to his good mood.  “You know what, Lafayette?  I don’t even fucking care.”

 

Laurens was still on a high from the win, endorphins elevated and grin permanently in place, and it took great effort to actually force himself to get changed and cleaned up instead of just rushing out.  He dressed, fixed his hair, put on cologne, was congratulated again for the catch and the run and the victory.  Checked his phone—one message from Lafayette, letting him know he was waiting with Hamilton outside, one message from his father congratulating him on the win.  He replied to both of them cursorily, his mood not damped in the slightest, and shrugged on his jacket, adjusting the cuffs and examining his reflection in the mirror.  Humphreys slapped him on the back and shoved him a little out of the way so he could check and fix his hair, thin black braids running down past his broad shoulders.  

Laurens ran a hand over the sides of his own hair, feeling the sharp fade, and then over the top of his head.  His hair was threatening to curl where it was longer and especially after showering it was a little waved.  Laurens paused, frowning at it, then shrugged.  Nothing for it.  He checked the time again on his phone and then grabbed his bag.

Outside Lafayette and Hamilton were standing, facing away from the door and talking to one another.  Hamilton was laughing, arms crossed over his coat, moving with a little too much nervous energy to truly be at ease.

Laurens waited until he was right up next to them.  “Hey.”

Hamilton turned, grinned, grabbed Laurens by the arm and kissed him in plain view.

“Mmph—”  Laurens couldn’t say anything until he’d been released and then his heart was caught in his throat and he had to clear it, aware of the blood rushing to his cheeks.  “Nice to see you, too.”

Tallmadge, walking past, whistled.

Laurens looked over automatically and quickly glanced away when he saw Tallmadge grin and Tench, behind him, make finger guns.

Hamilton saw as well and took Laurens’ collar in his hands, looking cockily back at the other two, and then raised up on his toes a little to kiss Laurens again, lightly on the mouth, before he could move away.

Laurens blushed harder as the other two laughed after a startled silence.

“Ben Tallmadge,” Hamilton said to Laurens as his teammates left.  “That’s my guess.  Well, that’s Angelica’s guess.  He’s the one who said I’m hot, isn’t he?”

“What, I’m not good enough for you?”  Laurens teased.  

“Mm, I never said that,” Hamilton said, his voice sliding easily into a purr.

“All right,” Lafayette said, grabbing the back of Hamilton’s coat and pulling him off.  “John, we’re getting dinner, aren’t we?”  It was quickly getting dark out and Lafayette led Hamilton a step away, hungry and eager to head out before it got any later.

“I’m not hungry,” Hamilton said, breaking away from Lafayette and stepping back to Laurens.  His eyes hadn’t moved off of his face and seemed to deny what he had said.  They were, in fact, hungry, and Laurens looked away only with great effort.

“Me neither,” Laurens told Lafayette.  “Let’s just go back.”

“To my apartment,” Hamilton clarified without looking away.  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lafayette.”

“Hey,” Lafayette protested.  “I waited here with you!”

Laurens very briefly considered taking Lafayette’s side and agreeing that it wasn’t fair, but Hamilton kissed him again and this time only one of his hands stayed on his collar.

“Alexander!”  Lafayette yanked him off again, harder this time, and watched in shock as Laurens, rather than protesting his excessive affection instead barely managed to keep himself from pulling him back.

“I’ll pass on dinner.”  Laurens wasn’t even looking at Lafayette.  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, echoing Hamilton.

Lafayette looked from one to the other then let go of Hamilton’s coat and threw his hands up in the air.  “ _Je n’en reviens pas._ Will you at least walk with me back towards the dorm?”  He asked.

“Mm.”  Hamilton was somehow managing to head down the sidewalk while facing backwards and getting into a low-key argument with Laurens over whether or not he was allowed to undo the fastenings of his jacket.

“Until we need to split off,” Laurens agreed, catching Hamilton’s hand again and pulling it back a little.

Lafayette was surprised that he didn’t kiss it, but perhaps that was only because voices warned them that more people were still leaving the building after them.

Laurens glanced over his shoulder at them—Lafayette’s hunch was correct—and put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder, pushing him away in a suitable compromise as a group of his teammates caught up to them.

“Hey, Laurens, we’re getting drinks.  Do you guys want to join us?” 

Laurens stopped walking, letting them pass.  “Another time.”

“Seriously?  You’re the man of the hour!”

Humphreys elbowed Grayson.  “Let him be, I’d have better things to do if I got us back in the running for championships, too.”

Laurens laughed.

“Give us a full report,” Humphreys teased, “I’d like to listen to a play-by-play from someone other than Coach.”

“I bet Ben Walker could provide that if you asked,” Greyson quipped back.

“Fucker.”  Humphreys laughed and shoved him.  “You know what I meant and that wasn’t it.”

“You wanna call _me_ that?  You got our boy Laurens right here, I think your aim’s a little off from that last hit.”

Laurens quickly glanced at Hamilton but he seemed impatient rather than offended, looking like he was only just managing to keep up a polite façade while waiting for the moment the conversation would end and they could go to his apartment.

“You’re not heading back with them.”  It was a new voice.  “Do you want to come with us to the bar?”

Lafayette looked in surprise at Charles Lee, one of the only members of the group that he had not previously interacted with.  “Sure,” he said, flattered.  “Do you mind?”

“Of course not.”  Humphreys answered.  “Tench and Tallmadge should have gotten us a table by now.  You’ll just take Laurens’ place.”

Lafayette, smiling, stepped away from Hamilton and Laurens to join the others.  “All right, then.  As you two said, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t drink too much,” Laurens warned.  “I’m not going to be there to carry you back to our place.”

Lafayette blew him a kiss and headed off, old friends temporarily and easily exchanged for new ones.


	82. All Over You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *NSFW

Hamilton had been barely able to keep himself off of Laurens for the entire walk back to his apartment and when they stopped outside of the door he had to take his hand off of his jacket to get his keys out and let them in.  

“Come on,” he said, half coaxing and half eager, standing on the step in the doorway and tugging on Laurens’ collar to draw him close into a kiss that he broke off deliberately just as Laurens opened his mouth to deepen it.  “Upstairs.”  He stepped away, backing into the short foyer and up onto the narrow stairs.  One, two—he stopped with his back foot on the third, looking at Laurens who was still standing in the door as he undid his jacket.  “Let’s go, J.”

Laurens shrugged his jacket off and draped it over his arm.  Hamilton was standing in front of him and as he watched he impatiently put his hand out.  Laurens grinned and took it.  Hamilton’s eyes lit up and he turned around, pulling him with him up the two flights of stairs and then across to his door.  He twisted them around and pushed Laurens up against it, still in the hallway.

“Whoa.”  Laurens laughed, surprised, his back flush to the door as Hamilton leaned against him, one arm resting cockily on his shoulder and his other hand stroking the side of his face as he looked him over as if surveying his property.  Pride might have made him push against that; insecurity might have made him resent it.  

“I can’t believe you’re my boyfriend,” Hamilton said, his voice low, and any objections Laurens might have had melted away.  “How the hell did that happen?”

“Lafayette wanted to win a bet,” Laurens joked.

“Mm.”  Hamilton kissed him slowly, biting his lower lip and sucking on it, and sliding both his hands up into his hair. 

Laurens’ heart skipped a beat.  This was bold, even after they had been less than subtle on the walk back, and he wondered if Hamilton was going to get the door or if he’d suck him off right there in the hall.

Hamilton let one hand trail down his body as he slid his tongue into his mouth.  He cupped him firmly and then rubbed him as he continued to kiss him.  He pulled his tongue out with a light flick over his lips, and put his other hand behind his neck to direct his gaze down.  Laurens looked into dark, piercing eyes.  He really did have long lashes, he thought, distracted for a moment by what Tallmadge had said, and they masked fine lines that betrayed long nights with no sleep.  The little imperfection made his face more beautiful and between that and his hand between his legs Laurens couldn't trust himself to speak.

Fortunately he didn’t have to.

Hamilton dropped to his knees and Laurens let out an involuntary moan.

He ran his hands up Laurens’ legs and Laurens tipped his head back against the door, almost cracking it against the wood.  He leaned his weight on the door, letting his knees bend a little as Hamilton’s hands reached his hips and his mouth pressed hot over the quickly hardening bulge in his pants.  Two layers of fabric—that was all that kept this from being completely obscene.  Laurens put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.

Hamilton must have taken it as a sign of encouragement because he ran his tongue slowly over him.

That hadn’t been quite how Laurens had meant it (actually, it was close to being the exact opposite), but he forgot what he had intended once he felt the pressure and heat, blunted though they were through his clothes.

“Alexander,” he said, low and thick with desire.  “God, Alexander…”

Hamilton repeated the motion, pressing his tongue harder against him.  He moved one of his hands up the outside of his thigh again, feeling the hard muscle, and then back to cup his ass.

The hall was deserted.  There was the faint sound of a television set running behind one of the doors, but it was too muffled to make out any words.  No one was watching and as long as they drew no attention no one would know.

Hamilton continued to go through the motions of sucking him off over his pants and Laurens pressed his fist to his mouth, more for the physical reminder to stay quiet than because he needed a gag.  Hamilton moved his hand a little further over and Laurens automatically spread his legs slightly, making space for Hamilton to lightly press his fingers against the space between them, hinting at what he might be doing if they were inside and undressed.  Laurens felt himself harden further until he was starting to press uncomfortably against the front of his pants.  Hamilton made an appreciative noise, the sound vibrating against Laurens’ cock, and teased him with his hand, alternatively pressing with that same light suggestion and sliding away.

Hamilton leaned up a little higher, tugging at the top of Laurens’ pants with his teeth, and then undid the button and zipper with his free hand, moving his mouth back down over his fly and pressing against Laurens’ cockhead.  Laurens felt a rush of adrenaline and tipped his hips towards him, breathing: “Yes.”

Downstairs the front door opened and someone stepped inside.  Keys jangled and then there were quick footsteps on the stairs.

Laurens’ eyes opened wide and he froze.

Hamilton stood up, opened the door, and practically shoved him inside.

How long was he going to have let that go on?  Laurens couldn’t help but wonder as he heard the other person continue up the stairs to the floor above them.  Would he have really let Hamilton suck him off him right there, in public?  _Yeah_ , a voice in the back of his mind answered, _yeah, you would have._

“Take off your shirt.”  Hamilton sounded breathless and he hadn’t bothered to turn on the light.  Laurens heard the door lock and then the latch set.  “Please.”

Laurens undid it as Hamilton turned on a small lamp at the side of the mattress.  He glanced at it.

“Is that new?”

“Yeah, got tired of reading by the light of my phone or laptop.  LED, not good for your eyes, makes it harder to sleep.”

Laurens glanced at Hamilton, surprised that he cared enough about either of those to even mention them, even if it had been in a rather dismissive tone.

“Your pants,” Hamilton said, a clear pleading note in his voice.  He was kneeling just behind the light, still fully clothed.

“What about you?”

Hamilton shook his head.  “Later.  J.,” he used his nickname for additional emphasis, “please.”

Laurens finished unbuttoning his shirt and put it to the side.  He could practically feel Hamilton’s gaze as it lingered over his chest.  He slid his pants and underwear down and discarded them.  He wasn’t properly hard yet, but it was enough to make it clear that he had enjoyed what Hamilton had been doing outside. 

“What—”  Laurens never managed to finish that question.  Hamilton was on him, his mouth pressed to his, one hand tightly gripping his previously injured shoulder.  He was straddling him, hips kept far enough away that he could reach down between their bodies to touch him eagerly.

Laurens moaned.

“Turn over,” Hamilton instructed, his voice almost vibrating.

“Alexander?”

“Turn over,” he repeated, getting off of him.  “Lie on your front.”

Laurens, confused, did so, and then closed his eyes, breathing out in pleasure as Hamilton knelt over him and gripped his shoulders, applying pressure deep into the muscle.

“Mm, Alex, you don’t have to…”

“I want to touch you, J.  All of your body.”  His hands stayed at his shoulders a few moments longer, then slowly began to work their way south, moving their way down the hard and rounded muscles of his back as they did.

Laurens stopped resisting.  He let Hamilton slide down his body, making small noises of pleasure as first his hands and then his lips pressed against his skin.  It felt very luxurious to be lying there with his eyes closed and his head tipped to the side and resting in his folded arms.  The setting didn’t matter—the thin mattress on the floor, the cramped studio apartment—he had proven his worth and physical prowess and was being well-rewarded for it by the hottest—

Hamilton’s tongue flicked hot over the dip in Laurens’ lower back and his train of thought shattered.

“God, John,” Hamilton murmured against his skin, one hand on the back of his thigh, his fingers digging into the muscle just hard enough to make him want to spread his legs.  “Can you just stay here?  Forever?  Fuck school, fuck work,” he continued, kissing the spot.  “What good is ambition if I’ve already got what I want right in front of me?”

He was teasing a little, but not completely.  He slid a little further down.  Laurens felt the denim of his jeans against his bare legs as he moved and then his warm breath on him right before he slid his tongue slowly over the curve of his ass. 

Laurens tipped his hips back and towards him and Hamilton bit him lightly, playfully.

“Spread your legs for me, John,” Hamilton said, easing them apart and moving to kneel between them.  He nudged him, encouraging him to his knees, and wrapped one arm around his thigh, holding him in place and running his hand appreciatively over the thick muscle.

“Mn…”  Laurens rocked his hips forward a little, anticipating Hamilton’s hand on his cock, then gasped in surprise when he felt the tip of his tongue against him.

Hamilton tightened his hold on his leg, steadying himself as he tried to mimic what Laurens had done, briefly, to him, and to surpass it.  A little competitive spark flickered to life within him.  He couldn’t let him win.

Laurens was bracing himself on the futon, and it wasn't that he was _not_ enjoying it, just that the position was awkward and the act was a little embarrassing and while he had been the one who had initially put it on the table it was one thing to have it come up as part of more general foreplay and another to realize that Hamilton intended to make it a main event…

Most importantly, it was still Hamilton and still his mouth and it just served to make him wish that his attention was being directed to his cock instead.

“Alexander,” he said, his voice shaking a little.  “Please.”

Hamilton ran the flat of his tongue over him, curling the tip up into a firm point.  

“Please,” Laurens repeated, his voice a little more urgent.  “Alexander, please.”

Hamilton moved back a little but Laurens could still feel his breath on him when he talked.  “What do you want, J.?”  Then his tongue again, just for a moment, sending a fresh burst of heat through him.  “I’ll do anything, just ask.”

“I—I want—”  He rocked his hips forward.  A short, unbidden whine.  “Alex—” his voice caught, “—ander.”

Hamilton breathed out long and slow, his chest suddenly tight.

“Shit,” he muttered, sitting back and undoing the first fastened button on his shirt as if even with the two above it open the collar was too tight and keeping him from getting enough air.  “Sure.  Anything, J.”  It took another second for him to get some semblance of cool control to his voice, the seductive edge momentarily subsumed by an eagerness to please.

Laurens turned over, sitting down, and Hamilton was immediately on his cock, taking his shaft deep into his mouth until his head pressed against the back of his throat.  Laurens leaned back heavily on his arms and made eye contact with Hamilton as he slowly pulled off of him, his tongue pressed to the underside of his shaft.

From his angle and with the only light being cast from the small reading lamp next to the futon, Hamilton was almost forced to admire the sharp cut of Laurens’ abs and the tight line of muscle down the middle of his torso.  Not that it was an unpleasant view.  He moved one hand up the side of Laurens’ body as far as he could comfortably reach, then back down over his abs, feeling the taut muscles underneath.

He took him again, humming a low note of pleasure against his shaft, and watched as Laurens’ lips parted slightly, feeling his hips twitch.

Hamilton set a rhythmic pace, slow and drawn out but with enough pressure to keep Laurens from asking for more.  He held it until he tasted a hint of salt in his mouth, then swallowed against him as he pulled off to tease just his tip, keeping his lips over it and running his tongue around it.  That got a reaction.

“Hey.”  Laurens sat up a little straighter.  “Alex.”

Hamilton lifted his mouth just off of him.  “No.”

After how acquiescent Hamilton had been, Laurens hadn’t expected that response.  “What?”

“No.”  The corner of Hamilton’s mouth threatened to quirk up.

“Alexander.”

“No.”  The word was whispered.

Laurens’ hips quivered.  “Alexander,” he started, but the rest of his sentence ended in a groan as Hamilton teased just the slit of his cockhead with his tongue.  “You said,” he finally managed.

“You wanted me to suck you off,” Hamilton said bluntly.  Laurens felt a rush at the coarseness of his language.  “I’m doing that, J.”

“Ha.”  Laurens gave the ghost of a smile in spite of himself.  “Yeah.  True.”

“Let me do this.  I’m _good_ at this,” Hamilton said, a little insistent.  “I want to give you what you want—I told you that I’d reward you.”

“Yeah.”  

Hamilton’s mouth was on him again and Laurens moaned as he pulled back off. 

“‘Yeah,’ I’m good, or ‘yeah,’ I said I’d give you a reward?”

“You said you’d—be all over me.”

“Mm,” Hamilton agreed.  Laurens rocked his hips forward and swore under his breath as he pressed his tongue against his slit again.  He put his hand on his shoulder to pull him down, but Hamilton shrugged it off and sat back.

“Stop that.”

“What—?”  Laurens was surprised and a little disoriented.  Usually that got a positive response, but Hamilton’s voice was serious.  First “no” and now this?  “Alex?”

Hamilton took his time responding, first running his tongue over and then around his cockhead.  

“I’m going to do this for you.  And you’re going to sit back and enjoy it.  I like it when you push me around a little,”  Hamilton explained after sucking slowly on his head again.  “Grab my hair.  Force my head down.”

Laurens felt his pulse quicken in further anticipation and arousal.

“Maybe even pin me to the mattress,” Hamilton continued.  Laurens could hear him grinning, imagining it.  “But right now I want you to just sit there and _take_ it,” he explained, his hands on his inner thighs.  “I want to drive you crazy, like how you make me wild.  I know, I know,” he quickly added as Laurens started to protest.  “It’s not just me, you know how I feel, I got it.  But, J.,” Hamilton leaned down and licked the juncture of his hip and leg.  “Let me.  Please.”

Laurens managed to get the words out, slurred and with difficulty.  “Whatever you want, Alexander.  I’m all yours.”

“Mm.  You said that before.”

Laurens felt Hamilton’s mouth curve up into that wry smile, and then he gasped sharply in surprise when he bit the skin lightly.

“H-hey—”

“Too hard?  You take a beating on the field, John,” Hamilton teased.  Laurens started to blush but any further embarrassment was cut short by the distraction of Hamilton’s tongue moving up the underside of his shaft.  Hamilton traced it along the light impression of one of his veins, following it blindly up to his tip.  He cupped his balls in one of his hands, lifting them away from his body as he sucked on Laurens’ cockhead—light at first, then harder.

Laurens laughed breathlessly.  “Yeah.  You just—surprised me.”

“Is that all…?”  Hamilton was talking in between teasing Lauren’s head.  “I’m almost disappointed.”

“Hey…”

“Yeah,” Hamilton’s voice was soft when he finally took his mouth off of him again.  “Complain a little, John.  Am I being too mean to you?”

Laurens really did blush this time.  “Alexander…”

“Mm?”  His mouth was back on him.

“I thought—you wanted to—”  Laurens had to wait for a couple of seconds to collect himself.  “I thought you wanted to give me a reward,” he finally managed, keeping his voice mostly steady.

Hamilton didn’t bother answering, instead focusing his attention on the task at hand until Laurens was moaning, one of his hands tightly gripping the edge of the mattress and the other the sheet.  Laurens let go of the futon, putting his hand on Hamilton’s head and pushing—

Hamilton immediately jerked back.  “Stop that.”  It was a command.

Laurens felt his voice catch in his throat and when he tried to protest it was just a faint whine.

Hamilton took his hand, held it, ran his tongue up between his fingers, kissed them, put it down gently.  Laurens started to sit up but Hamilton put his hand on him, indicating that he should stay down.  Hamilton, instead, stood, and stripped, discarding his clothes carelessly to the floor.  He knelt back down, straddling Laurens’ legs, and Laurens watched as he took himself in hand.  Was he seriously going to…?

Hamilton began to masturbate, long strokes, his hand moving all the way up and down his shaft.  Laurens felt a jolt.  He wasn’t sure if he was put off by how brazen Hamilton was being or not, but he obediently lay there, very aware that he _could_ get up, that Hamilton wasn’t holding him down, that they both knew that the probably wouldn’t be able to anyway.  He was willingly submitting and he wondered, distracted, why doing so gave him such a rush.  As it was, he couldn’t help but imagine Hamilton’s hand on his own cock, doing the same, and it took effort to continue to deny himself gratification.  His hands weren’t bound, Hamilton wouldn’t be able to stop him if he touched himself or, even better, if he pushed Hamilton to the mattress and fucked him…

Hamilton’s eyes flickered shut for a moment and his lips parted, but every time Laurens looked at his face he was holding his gaze.  He was watching him, watching his expression, and moving his hand quicker in response to it.  When Laurens half-laughed soundlessly, Hamilton grinned.  Laurens wasn’t sure if that made the act more obscene or more intimate.

Either way, it wasn’t too long before Hamilton’s breathing was audible and he was stringing together curses.

“Ah, shit—”  His hand moved faster.  “John—”

“J.”  Laurens didn’t say anything more, unable to look away.

“J.,”  Hamilton repeated.  “J.—”  He bit his lip, eyes tightly shut, and a moment later spilled onto Laurens’ torso, the warm sticky liquid splashing up over his taut abs.

Hamilton leaned down, putting his hands on either side of Laurens, breathing hard.

“Fuck me,” he said, his voice breathy and a little distracted still.

“All right.”

Hamilton looked up, about to laugh, but it died in his throat when he saw how seriously Laurens had meant it.  

Laurens was still lying back but his whole bearing was tense as if he was just barely managing to keep himself in check.  Hamilton paused, then climbed off of him, lying down next to him on the mattress on his back and stretching out, one arm over his head.

“C’mere.”

As soon as permission was given, Laurens rolled over and on top of him, biting his neck and shoulder, one hand under his jaw and tipping his head up.

Hamilton ran a hand over his front, feeling himself on him, and used it as lubricant when he teased his nipple between his fingers.  Laurens growled against his skin, his cock pressing hard to his leg, and Hamilton squeezed his arm lightly to get his attention.

“Bathroom, J.  One of us is gonna have to get up.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Laurens said with a little more force than he meant to as he was stopped short yet again.  Hamilton really did laugh this time.

“Seriously, Alex,” Laurens complained, frustrated.  “Why wouldn’t you just keep that by the bed?  You _knew_ what we were going to be doing tonight!”

“Come off it,” Hamilton said, pushing him away so he could slip out from underneath him.  “Stay there.  I’ll grab it.”  He vanished into the bathroom.  “I’ll make it up to you,” he called over the sound of a drawer opening and closing.

Laurens rolled onto his back and grabbed the pillow he had left at the apartment.  He pressed it to his face, making a long annoyed noise into it.  He pulled it away when Hamilton was climbing back on top of him, tearing open the small foil packet and tossing the wrapper to the side.

“Hey.”  Hamilton leaned forward and ran a hand roughly through his hair.  “Calm down.  I know I was being mean, but I’m about to get _real_ nice.”  He rolled the condom onto Laurens’ shaft with his other hand.

“Yeah?  You promise this time?”  Laurens picked the bottle of lube off the mattress and opened it, pouring a generous amount into his hand and coating his fingers with it. 

“Yeah—”  Hamilton’s voice caught as Laurens pressed his fingers against him.  He spread his legs for him and then closed his eyes as he felt one finger enter him.  “Just like that.  I’m gonna—I remember how much you liked this.”

Laurens was confused for a moment, then he realized what they were in position to do, him on his back and Hamilton kneeling over him.  “You really are being nice,” he said, sliding his hand down and then back up.  “Finally.”

“Hey, I was good to you in the—hall.  Not my fault we got interrupted.”

“You’ve been wanting to do that, haven’t you?”

“Hell yeah.”

“You’re a terror.”

“You liked it,” Hamilton said lightly, knowing he was right.  “Jerking off to—sorry, on—you was good too.  I’ll have to remember to do that again.  Get your face next time,” he added, intentionally provocative.

Laurens inserted a second finger to shut him up.

It worked. Hamilton gave a short gasp and fell silent. Laurens spread them slowly before adding a third, and Hamilton gave another instruction. "Mm. Don't forget about—yourself, J.”

Laurens had to take his hand away to maneuver the bottle. Hamilton made a short noise when he pulled out but waited patiently while Laurens rubbed lubricant over his cock.  Laurens was for a second tempted to just finish himself like that. 

"Hey."  Hamilton said it quietly and Laurens dropped his hand. Hamilton slowly lowered himself onto him, bracing himself with one hand on Laurens' torso.

Laurens put his hands, like the previous time they had done this, on his thighs, although Hamilton didn’t need the help.  He took him, inch by inch, easing him in, and Laurens groaned.  He had lost all sense of time.  How long had they been at this?  From when Hamilton pressed him up against the door in the hallway…

Hamilton was moving over him and he stopped caring about that question.

He lifted back up and then very, very slowly pressed down again, not taking him all the way this time, but working over him in increments.  One-fifth, one-fourth, one-third…

Laurens pressed a little on his thighs, encouraging him to move down more, and realized with annoyance that out of all the positions they could have gone with, of _course_ Hamilton had picked one that had him still in control.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton didn’t bother to answer the complaint.  He slid off of him again, then back down, and Laurens’ hips raised up off of the mattress, as if he could get him to go faster that way.  Hamilton worked him slowly, relishing it, and Laurens watched as he got hard again.  He saw his cock stiffen and raise.  Just before he was fully erect Hamilton moved down again, still teasing, and Laurens—watching his face now, watching the blood rush to his cheeks—saw the flicker of surprise and then felt his hand curl against his stomach as he accidentally pressed himself to him.

“Ah—”

Laurens fought to control his grin.  Hamilton had done that to himself and he was now completely hard, the slight pink to his face now a bolder red.  Seizing the moment, he encouraged him back down again, coaxing him with his hands.  Hamilton didn’t resist this time.

Laurens moaned, the sound rising in volume as Hamilton moved over him more eagerly.  He was intentionally angling this time and his breath caught when he pushed fully down.

The show alone would have been enough to make Laurens very uncomfortable, but with the contact he had been trying to get since they got back to the apartment it wasn’t long until he felt his orgasm coiling and he tightened his grip on Hamilton’s legs, using a little of his actual strength to pull him down and make it clear that he wanted him to stay there.

Hamilton resisted and started to move back up.

“Please,” Laurens said quickly.  “Alexander, please—”

Hamilton quickly pressed back down, taking him fully and slowly pulling off only to repeat the motion as Laurens ran his hands up over whatever he could touch—legs, ass, small of the back—and tipped his head back, letting the rush of pleasure overtake him.

When he opened his eyes Hamilton was still on top of him, watching, hard.

He startled to get off of him but stopped in slight surprise when Laurens sat up a little and wrapped his hand around him.

“J.?”

“This is what you said you wanted, isn’t it?”  Laurens was only half-teasing him, running his hand quickly over his shaft.

“Uh,” Hamilton fumbled for a moment with the answer.  “Yes.  Yeah.”

“You’re a real bitch sometimes, you know that?”

Hamilton wasn’t sure how to respond to that, confusion and offense sparking in his eyes.

“You said you wanted to do something nice for me, Alexander,” Laurens continued before he could get too upset, his voice calm.  “But it seems to me that you’ve just been taking advantage all night.  Ambushing me in the hallway—”

Hamilton laughed a little at that, any irritation gone.  “You liked that, don’t lie.”

“—not letting me set any of the terms, not letting me touch you, finishing yourself…”

“Mm,” Hamilton tipped his head back, moving to show off his body and neck because he couldn’t look him in the eye.  “You gonna do something about it?”

“I already am,” Laurens pointed out, teasing his slit with his thumb.

“Pretty good punishment,” Hamilton said, his hips jerking a little.  “I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Does that mean I should stop?”  Laurens took his hand away.

“—Hey!”

“Get up.”

Hamilton did.  Laurens got to his knees and pulled Hamilton into his lap, facing away from him and resting between his legs, kissing his ear and the side of his face as he put his hand back on his cock.

Hamilton moaned softly and pressed the side of his face to Laurens’ as Laurens stroked him.  He grabbed his arm tightly, unable to restrain himself.

“Come on,” Laurens said quietly, just above a whisper.  “You wouldn’t let me do anything like that.”  He wasn’t teasing him at least, just moving his hand over this shaft, and Hamilton loosened his grip, keeping his hand just lightly on his arm.

“Shit,” Hamilton swore as Laurens continued, and he made his hand into a fist in order to keep from grabbing his arm again.

“Alexander,” Laurens said, soft and drawn out.  Hamilton turned his head away slightly, embarrassed.  Laurens grinned, but it was tempered.  He kissed him again, unable to reach his face, just pressing his lips against his dark hair.  The strands catching the light were glowing red.  “Alexander…”  His arm was across his chest, holding him firmly in place, his hand on his shoulder.  Laurens’ other hand was wrapped around his cock, pumping it rhythmically and drawing the orgasm out of him, until Hamilton couldn’t control himself anymore and was holding tightly to his arm again, head ducked down, face flushed and hair falling into his closed eyes, his breathing a series of short desperate gasps.  He spilled onto his own leg and the sheet.

Laurens turned Hamilton, kissed him slowly, and got up, grabbing the lube.  “Do you want this back in the bathroom?”

Hamilton followed him after a moment.  “Yeah.”

“Why?”  Laurens tossed the used condom in the trash.

“I was using it in there,” Hamilton said shamelessly.  “I don’t got a shared dorm bathroom, J., you forget.”

Laurens glanced at him in surprise, then made a sight face.  “Alex.”

“What?  Drawer.”  Hamilton opened it for him.  It was full to the brim of condoms.

Laurens looked at him, confused.  “I thought you said…?”

“Yeah, I did, then I felt bad, okay?”  Hamilton ran the sink.  “So I stocked up.  Besides,” he said, turning off the water.  “I got sick of doing laundry all the time.  You ever want to go without, go right ahead.  _No me importa._ ”

Laurens shook his head slowly. "I can't believe you sometimes."

"Is that so?"  Hamilton came up behind him as he used the sink, sliding his arms loosely around his waist.  He kissed his back. 

Laurens stepped away, waiting until Hamilton was out of the bathroom to turn off the light.  "Are you busy tomorrow?"

"No more than normal. You had something in mind?”

"Not much."  Laurens fixed the sheets on the futon and then Hamilton sat on it.  "I've got some work to do. I thought maybe we could do it together."

"Sure," Hamilton agreed, reaching over and turning off the light.  "Why not?" 


	83. Started Saying This to Anybody Who Would Listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette's Still Too Young to Drink

Meanwhile, Lafayette was enjoying himself but not at all in the same way.  There had been a table reserved at the bar, a long wooden one with two benches, one on either side, far enough away from the televisions by the front that they weren't drowned out by the sports coverage. Lafayette had been stopped at the door by a man who obviously recognized the rest of them, asked to produce identification, and then had his hand stamped in blue ink. 

“How old are you?”  Grayson asked as Lafayette followed them to the table.  “I forgot you’d be too young to drink.”

“Mm, yes.”  Lafayette looked at his hand in mild annoyance.  “As did I.”  He sat towards the end of one of the benches, between Grayson and Lee and across from Tench, Tallmadge, and Humphreys.  André pulled up a chair and sat at the head of the table.  “I’m twenty,” he said, in answer to the question.  “I just made it in September.”

“What a baby,” Humphreys teased, raising his hand for the server.  “Evening.  A round for everyone,” he said, holding up the card advertising the house beer on tap, “and a Shirley Temple for Junior.”  He pointed the card at Lafayette.

“A Shirley Temple?”

“If you don’t like it we’ll get you a Roy Rodgers,” Tench said.  “Where’s Laurens?”

“Busy,” Grayson said with a wink. 

“Obviously.”  Tallmadge nudged Tench.  “You saw them outside the lockers.  I’m not convinced they ever made it back to wherever they were going.”

“You need a place to stay tonight?”  Tench asked Lafayette.  “I bet Laurens’ got a lot of catching up to do, they’ll probably be busy all until dawn.”

“Until noon.”  Humphreys helped the waiter pass the beers down.  “All weekend.  Good for him,” he added as an afterthought.

Lafayette was given a bright red drink in a tall tumbler, a maraschino cherry and a straw bobbing on top.  “They were going back to Alexander’s place,” he said, then took a tentative sip.  “Oh, this is good.”

“What have they gotten up to?”  

“John—ah, Laurens—and Alexander?”  Lafayette looked up, surprised.

“He’s real taciturn,” Tallmadge explained.  “He actually bragged after it slipped out.”  He took a drink.  “I was more shocked by that than the rest of it.”

“Right?”  Tench laughed.  “André, you already knew.  Had he said anything like that to you before?”

“Do we really have to talk about this?”  Lee asked, interrupting in clear annoyance.  “I’m sick of hearing about it.  Why drag his roommate into it,” he continued when Tallmadge looked like he was going to challenge him, “he’s not involved, give it a rest.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette said automatically, in all honesty still a little irritated over having being ditched earlier that night.

“No one needs to hear about that crap,” Lee continued, to a generalized rustle of disagreement but no clear dissent.  Lafayette glanced around the table, unsure of how to read the tone.  It would be easier if it was in his native language.  

“How’s Adrienne?”  André asked him, leaning almost past Lee to make himself comfortably heard.

Lafayette made a mental note to come back to Laurens later, maybe after the others had more to drink, and answered cheerily.  “She’s wonderful, as always.  Here,” he took out his phone and passed it around the table without any reservation.  The background of the lock screen was a picture of her sitting in front of her house in a short sundress, her bare legs crossed.

“She’s cute,” Tench said as he passed the phone down.  “Is she in France?”

“Yes,”  Lafayette waited for the phone to reach him again.  “I miss her,” he added, a little unnecessarily.

“I feel you. My girlfriend’s doing a study abroad in Delhi—”

Humphreys shoved Tench almost off the bench without breaking the rhythm of lifting his glass to his mouth.  Clearly everyone had heard this complaint before.

“She’s very pretty,” Lee said, handing Lafayette back his phone.  “Adrienne, you said?”

“Yes.  We’ve been dating since we were in high school.”

“Damn.”  Tallmadge shook his head.  “How’d you manage that?”

“Her parents are very understanding.  They even let me stay with them when I was studying in Paris.”

Lee laughed.  “‘Understanding’ isn’t putting it strongly enough.  I can’t believe they let you get away with that.  Is that normal in France?”

“I worked hard to win them over,” Lafayette bragged, unlocking his phone to show him other pictures of the two of them.  “They treat me like I’m already their son-in-law.”

“Good for you.”  Lee took a drink.  Tench leaned forward on the table to see the pictures as well.  “Is that her room?”  Adrienne was asleep in her bed.  Lafayette had set a soft light filter over the photo, making her look more delicate and emphasizing her dark hair on the white pillow.  The sheet covered most of her body but her shoulder was visible and bare.

“I bet you had a good time visiting her over summer,” Tench said.  “How do you say it,” he mimicked a girl’s voice and a bad French accent, “‘Voulays vouz couchay avec moi?’”

André laughed before Lafayette could even properly translate it back in his head, cracking up before he finished mangling the phrase.  “What the hell was that supposed to be?”

“Come on, you know what I mean!”

“I mean it’s a good thing your girlfriend isn’t studying in France.”

“Maybe that’s a Quebec accent.  Don’t be racist.”

“Quebeçois sounds nothing like that.”

Tench groaned.  “Of _course_ you know what it’s supposed to sound like.  Senegalese, then,” he said, naming the first francophone country he thought of.  “What are their accents like?”

“More…”  André wasn’t able to put it into words off the cuff and made a motion with his hand like shallow waves.

“It’s more rolling,” Lafayette said.  The other two looked at him in surprise.  “I know a girl from there,” he explained. 

“Can you really hear the difference?”

Lafayette nodded.  “ _Bien sûr_.  Here, excuse me…”  He took his phone back from Lee.  “I’ll call her.”

“Speaking of girlfriends, are you still with Peggy?”  Tallmadge asked André while Lafayette dialed.  “How long has it been this time?”

“Oh, we didn’t break up,” André said.  “I just misunderstood her, that’s why it took her so long to get in touch with me.”

“Uh-huh.”  Tallmadge turned to Lafayette.  “So is this Senegalese friend of yours single and looking?  André’s got nice hair and he’s a bona fide genius as long as you don’t distract him with someone equally pretty.”

“She’s prettier than André,” Lafayette said without thinking about it, drawing a round of laughter from the table and a half-serious protest from André.

“That won’t work, then,” Tallmadge said.  “Does she have an unattractive sister?”

“Come on,” André said.  “That’s rude.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry,” Lafayette repeated, shouldering some of the blame even though he didn’t really need to.  “Ah, _Salut, Adelaide?_ ”  He leaned away from the table to explain the situation to her.

“Did you see that guy they kept throwing me up against?”  Humphreys asked the group at large, resting his thick arms on the tabletop.  “That was the biggest tackle I’ve been paired against this season.  Waste of talent if you ask me, they should have brought him back to defense.”

“Ah, excuse me,” Lafayette said, turning his phone around, Adelaide now on vidchat over her computer.  He reached out and tapped Tench politely on the arm.  

“Who am I talking to?”  Adelaide asked in French.  Lafayette turned the volume up so they could hear her better and Tench, Tallmadge, and André leaned in.  “Hello.  Lafayette said you were having an argument over accents?”

“It wasn’t an argument,” André answered her, then repeated himself in English for the benefit of the others.  “Tench, can you hear her?  That’s not what you sounded like.”

“I never said I actually—”  Tench glanced back at the screen, a little embarrassed, then laughed.  “Fine, you win, but I bet you’ve got piss poor Hindi.”

“Fair enough,” André agreed.

“I couldn’t hear,” Tallmadge complained.  “Excuse me, could you say a little more?  It’s very noisy in here.”

“All right,” Adelaide said in English then switched back to French, directing her comments to André for the sake of having a conversation.  “Lafayette said he was out with John Laurens’ friends.  Are you all his teammates, then?”

“Yes,” André answered, then took the phone from Lafayette to angle it down the table.  “Some of us decided to get together after the game.  Laurens couldn’t make it,” he explained before she could ask.  “What are you up to?”

“You should come out,” Lafayette said, cutting in and grabbing André’s wrist to point the phone at himself.  “It’s not far from the campus.”

“I’ve got work, maybe another time,” Adelaide said.  “But thank you, Lafayette.”

“Another time,” he repeated, pleased.  “Could you hear?”  He asked Tallmadge, who nodded and leaned back.

“It was nice to meet all of you,” Adelaide said, giving a little wave as André showed her around the table again.  “I’ll see you later, Lafayette.”  The line cut.

“She’s hot too,” Tench said appreciatively as Lafayette pocketed his phone.  “Junior’s got game.”

“How did you meet her?”  Tallmadge asked.  “She said she’d see you later, is she in class with you?”

“Sort of.  I take a class from her.  Yoga,” Lafayette explained.  “Off-campus.”

“Yoga…  Clever…”  Greyson said.  “Are they full?  Can I sign up?”

Lafayette was about to tell him that of course he could, he’d love to have another friend in class, when André answered.

“Don’t be weird about it,” he scolded.  “She’s just teaching a class, she doesn’t need to have guys hitting on her at work.  Lafayette met her through a class at the gym, he didn’t just show up to creep on her.”

“She’s very good.”  Lafayette avoided answering that statement one way or the other, feeling a little guilty and also wanting to keep the tone at the table friendly.  “I’ve learned a lot.”

“It sounds like you learned a lot of English, too,” Lee said.  “I remember Laurens complaining when you first came here that you were struggling with it still.”

“He wasn’t complaining,” André protested.

Lee shrugged and took a drink.  “You know what I mean.”

“Yes,” Lafayette agreed readily and not offended, “my English is much better than it was.”  He took a sip of his own, non-alcoholic beverage through the straw.  “Laurens has been very helpful.”

“Does your girlfriend speak English?”  Tallmadge asked.  “Are you teaching her?”

“Adrienne studied it at school,” Lafayette began.  “She’s very smart.  She improved almost as quickly as I did once I came here.”

“Do you practice it with her?”

“All the time,” Lafayette answered quickly, exaggerating both her skill and the time they spent studying together.  “Not that she needs it.  It’s all to encourage me.  Adrienne is my light.”

A ripple of laughter ran around the table and Grayson snorted into his beer, then slapped Lafayette on the back, leaning over and talking to Lee.  “What a good kid!  Can we keep him?  He followed us all the way to the bar.”

“Shit, Junior,” Humphreys laughed.  “Good for you, that’s precious.”

Lafayette was confused.  It was noisy and everyone was talking very quickly and he couldn’t pick out right away how much of a joke they were making at his expense.

“You’re a good kid,” Tallmadge managed to get out with a straight face.  “Come on,” he said to the others, “knock it off, he’s being serious.  It’s sweet.”

Lafayette looked to André for help, and he put his hand on Tallmadge’s shoulder, speaking to the table at large.  “You’re not giving him enough credit,” he began, but that just set everyone off again.

“Of course you think so,” Humphreys said.  “It’s no surprise you’ve got his back, André, but the word of another blind romantic doesn’t mean a whole lot in this situation.”

Lafayette got a glint in his eye, catching up with the conversation, but he kept his tone light and innocent.  “I think Adrienne and I have done a lot,” he said, setting the trap.

“Yeah?”  Tench walked into it.  “Tell us about it, stud.”

Lafayette decided against springing it immediately.  “We kiss,” he said, throwing out more bait.

“They kiss,” Tallmadge said, shaking André’s hand off.  “French kiss?”

“They’re French,” Tench pointed out.  “That’s just plain kissing.”

“Cheek to cheek?”   Lee asked, amused.

“Tongue to lips.”  Lafayette held up two fingers and made a very obscene gesture with a devious grin.  The table fell silent then roared with laugher, delighted at having been caught.

Grayson hit him on the back again, this time more cordially.  “Fuck,” he laughed.

“Plenty,” Lafayette agreed cheerfully.  The table laughed again.

Lee took a long drink.  “You must miss her.”

Lafayette was reminded of a similar conversation he had with Hamilton right when they were first getting to know one another.  “I do,” he agreed.  “ _Comme baiser._ ”

“The sex,” Tallmadge clarified for Tench.  

“I told you that you were underestimating him,” André said.

“So what do you get up to in France?”  Lee asked, taking another drink and motioning the server back over.  “Excuse me.  Can we get two baskets of chili cheese fries and a plate of garlic shrimp?”

“Fried pickles,” Humphreys added in.  “There’s seven of us.”

“Oh, all kinds of things,” Lafayette said, watching Lee.  “We fooled around in a bathroom at a restaurant before.”

Grayson laughed.  “You and me both.”

“That’s a strange club.”

“You ever do it on a plane?”

Lafayette blanched very slightly and hid it behind a sip of his drink.  “I’ve never been on a plane with Adrienne.”

“You did not have sex on a plane,” Tallmadge scolded Grayson.  “Stop bragging about things you never did.”

“I had sex on a barge once.”

“That’s not the same as a plane.”

Grayson shrugged.

“But you did get to visit her over break,”  Lee said.  “It’s a long trip back to France.”

Lafayette nodded.  “It is.  Laurens and Alexander came with me,” he added.

“I went up to St. Regis,” Lee said.  Lafayette wasn’t sure if he was changing the topic or not.  “My girlfriend’s family is there.  I usually spend the summer with her.”

“Ah, you stay with them too?”  Lafayette was excited in spite of himself about finding someone else with a similar arrangement.

“They have a timeshare at the hotel.  We usually stay there.  It’s very nice, very luxurious.  Have you ever been upstate?  You should visit.”

“He went up to Vermont with me,” André jumped in.  “Just the other weekend.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to travel more,” Lafayette said.  “I want to see as much of the country as possible.”

“You’re going with Laurens to South Carolina, aren’t you?”  Humphreys asked.  “Come to Connecticut sometime.  You can stay with me in Derby, ‘Connecticut’s Smallest City’.”

Lafayette glanced at André, not sure if he was serious.  “ _Vraiment?_ ”

“He means it,” André clarified.

Humphreys took a drink.  “Why not?”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “That’s my line!”

“Bring your girlfriend,” Humphreys said with a grin.  “You’ll need something to do in Derby.”

Lee and Tench simultaneously snorted into their drinks. 

Lafayette laughed easily.  “Are you admitting to getting bored there?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Humphreys said, helping the waiter settle the plates down on the table.  “Have you ever tried these?”  He pushed the pickles towards Lafayette, who took a slice curiously.

“I have not.  But I like trying new things.”

“Is that why you came to America?”  Grayson asked, the implication clear in his tone.  “To try new things?”

“Ah, some things don't need experimenting with,” Lafayette said.  “These are good too,” he added, taking another pickle.  

Tallmadge offered him the fries.

“Does Adrienne have any cute friends?”  Grayson asked.  “I’ve never slept with a French girl.”

“Adrienne not having cute friends isn’t what’s going to stop you there,” Tallmadge laughed.  “Your accent’s as bad as Tench’s.”

“Oh, come on!  I’d be the sexy foreigner.  I bet I could work it.”  He rolled his shoulders back, putting his hands to his collar and popping it.

“You look more like a used car salesman than a double-oh-seven,” Tallmadge informed him.  “Fix your shirt, dumbass.”

“Whatever.”  Grayson took a long drink and finished his beer, putting the stein back on the table with a clatter.  “Finish up so I can order us another round.”

There was a momentary silence while they drank.  Lafayette, not wanting to be left out, hurriedly finished his Shirley Temple, drinking until it was mostly ice.

“Do I eat the cherry?”  He asked André.

“If you want.  You don’t have to.”

Lafayette popped it in his mouth experimentally.

“Another round,” Grayson informed the server as he brought another table their check.

“May I have a Rob Rodgers?”

“Roy Rodgers,” André said, correcting him and clarifying for the server. 

“Roy Rodgers,” Lafayette repeated.  “What’s in that one?”

“It’s the same as what you just had, but with cola instead of Sprite,” Lee said.  “It must be annoying to not be able to drink here.”

“It’s just very strange.  I completely forgot about it.”

“He’s not much of a drinker,” André teased.  “Lee, you remember, Laurens was saying someone would have to carry him back.”

“I forgot that Laurens didn’t realize he wouldn’t be drinking, too.  That jerk just shoved him off on us and went off to get laid!”  Grayson pulled the fries back towards his end of the table.  

“I’d prioritize fucking too, if I were him,” Tench said.  “Shit, if my girl were here and she’d seen me on fire like he was, you better believe I wouldn’t be sitting here with you right now.”

“If your girl was here at _all_ —”

“The point is, I can hardly blame the guy for not coming out.  Good on him for not being a complete no-show.”

“He’s almost there,” Humphreys said.  “I was starting to get worried.  I’m glad he explained it’s just that he’s _finally_ getting laid—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lee interrupted.  “We get it, Laurens found a dick to suck.”

“Don’t be an ass.”  Tallmadge cut in, clearly defensive.  He wasn’t raising his voice but somehow that made him sound more threatening.  “He’s our friend and teammate.  We’re all happy for him, aren’t we?”

“It doesn’t mean we need to go over the details,” Lee said calmly, taking a drink.  “But, yes, I’m happy.  I intend to lead us to championships and if dominating another man off the field makes Laurens less of a loose cannon on it, then by all means, let him enjoy himself.  I’m not stopping him.  What he does in his bed is his own business but he should keep it there.  Laurens can take it up the ass however much he wants,” Lee continued, “if getting fucked is what it takes to keep him in line then send out a letter of congratulations.  I didn’t see anyone else getting a parade just for hooking up.  Why should he be getting special treatment?”

Tallmadge didn’t say anything and sat back, the air between them tense.

Lafayette watched the exchange with great interest, then stole a glance at André, sitting between them and uncomfortable although doing a good job of hiding it behind a neutral façade.

“It’s just been a long time coming,” André said, a little reassuringly, to Lee.  “Besides, Lafayette is here and he doesn’t know anyone else really.”

“That’s right, he’s here.”  Lee said, a little pointedly.  The argument abruptly ended before it could reach a real boiling point as the waiter brought their beer and Lafayette’s Roy Rodgers.  Tench took a long drink and nudged Tallmadge, asking for him to pass down the shrimp.

Lafayette fell into conversation with Humphreys about the different states he might pass through on his way to South Carolina and decided to put a pin in what had just happened to discuss it with Adrienne later.


	84. Important Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Future Plans; French Family Drama

Laurens was lying on his back, naked except for the blankets, one hand holding a book up over his head and the other intwined in Hamilton’s hair.  He frowned a little as he turned the page with difficulty.  Fortunately it was a small paperback with a loose spine.

“How long has it been?”  Hamilton asked.  He was resting his head on Laurens’ chest, one arm under him and their legs tangled.  “I’m hungry.”

“I can’t see a clock.  Probably about half an hour.”

Hamilton looked up from his textbook, propped up on the ground just at arm’s reach so he could comfortably keep it in place.  His glasses slid a millimeter down his nose and he made a face, trying to push them back up.  “Any time now, then.  I told you we wouldn’t have to get dressed.”

“You’ll need to buzz them into the apartment,” Laurens pointed out.

“Yeah, and then they’re leaving the food at the door, so we just wait for them to leave and grab it.  I’m a genius,” Hamilton said decidedly, leaning against him again.

Laurens gave a short laugh at that, making the effort to stifle it since Hamilton was using him as a body pillow. 

"It's nicer this way, isn't it?"  Hamilton asked. "Speak of the devil."  The buzzer sounded and he rolled off of Laurens to unlock the outside door.  "Just leave it in the hall," he reminded the delivery person. "9B.  Thanks.”

“They’re going to know.”

“Probably.  Not like they’ll care, though.  This place does online deliveries until two in the morning, John, trust me, they’ve seen worse.”

“I suppose you’re not actually answering the door naked.”

“I’d put pants on,” Hamilton said.  “Remember?”

Laurens had a sudden strong mental image of Hamilton opening the door for him, his hair still wet and dripping.  “Yeah,” he said, successfully feigning a casual tone, “I remember.”

There was the sound of a package being put down outside the door and Hamilton leaned against it, waiting for the footsteps to head back down the stairs.  “Shit like this is why you move to New York City, John.  Food at your door, tip paid in advance, no questions asked, no additional delivery fee.  How lucky we are to be alive right now.”  Hamilton stepped to the side and opened the door, crouching out of view and grabbing the two plastic bags left outside.  “Perfect, they got the horchata in here, too.  I was afraid they’d forget it again.  Shuco?”  He brought the bags over to the bed.

“Please.”  Laurens sat up, pulling the blankets around his waist.  

Hamilton offered him one, already drinking, and sat back down.  “Come on.”  He slapped him lightly, and tugged the blankets down on the side.  “You’re cheating.”

“It’s not a game or a contest, Alexander.”

“But you agreed!  Come on, J., you’re playing again.  Man of the hour!  Let me see that Captain America tight toned ass.”

“I’m sitting,” Laurens protested.  “At least wait until I stand up.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton was distracted by the food.  “Shit, this is good.  I need to remember to start ordering from here again.”  He leaned against him, slipping his arm though one of Laurens’.  “Hey.”

Laurens swore under his breath, some of the guacamole falling onto the sheet.  “Sorry.”  He grabbed a napkin to clean it up with.  “Yeah?”

“Nothing.  I just like you.”  Hamilton had his hand high on his arm and squeezed it lightly.  Laurens couldn’t help but smile and Hamilton kept talking in between eating.  “So I’m trying to make plans for next year.  Are you gonna stay in the city?  I’m going to angle for schools here, like I said, I like New York and also moving’s a bitch.  Besides, I think I can put my connections to work,” Hamilton added with obvious pride at finally—finally—being able to say something like that.  “I’d rather just go straight, but a year off wouldn’t be bad provided I can get a good internship or something.  I’m gonna ask Washington about it, see if he has any suggestions.  He was dropping hints that if I needed a summer job after graduation I’d still have a place on his payroll, so that’s good.  Gives me a little more flexibility.”

“I might do something for my father,” Laurens said, cleaning up the guacamole and then crumpling up the napkin.  “For the summer.  I don’t think I could stand to work with him for a full year.”

“DC or Columbia?”

“It depends,” Laurens said.  “Probably mostly Columbia.”

“That makes sense, the capital, closer to home and everything.”

“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” Laurens pointed out.  “We both have to graduate first.”

“Ha, yeah, walk that gauntlet, jump through those flaming hoops.  You speak to Jefferson since getting back?”

“Only once,” Laurens said.  “I ran into him briefly.”

“Hm.”  Hamilton considered this.  “You submitted your proposal, right?  I sent mine in after making the changes you suggested.”  He leaned his weight against him a little more for a second.  “Thanks again.”

Laurens smiled and turned, kissing him lightly on the top of the head.

“Anyway,” Hamilton continued.  “I’m waiting to hear back.  I’m sick and tired of waiting to hear back, J., from everyone.  Work, too, it sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“…Whatever.  I’m not talking about those assholes right now.  It’s too nice a day for that, I’m not gonna let them ruin it.”

“How would you know?”  Laurens teased.  “Your window’s about two feet square and you wouldn’t let us go outside to grab lunch.”

“The weather isn’t the only qualifier, J.  I’ve got a good view right where I’m sitting.”  Hamilton straightened up and turned his attention more fully back to his food.  “So next year,” he continued through a mouthful.  “Sorry.”  He swallowed.  “Next year, post-politics.  Back to NYC?  Plenty of internships, good schools.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “I like it here.  I’m not planning on leaving anytime soon.”

“Good, good.”  Hamilton dug around in the bag, taking out a smaller paper bag of chicharrones.  “You want me to let you know which places I’m looking at once I’ve got it more narrowed down?  I can help you find an apartment too, and by that I mean I can tell Mulligan when you’re in the market.”

“Sure,” Laurens agreed.  “But why does he know listings?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Got a guy.  He knows people, that’s all.  Rents his place out to interesting people, keeps tabs on them, gets favors.  Right now it’s him and his younger brother and the brother’s friend—they’ve both been there for ages, were there back when I first moved here—and then a new guy, Arnold something.  Something Arnold?  Anyway.”  Hamilton paused to take a handful of pork rinds and offered them to Laurens, who declined.  “I never met him yet.  I think he was there when I stopped by the other week but he was in his room.  Mulligan’s got a knack for picking up useful people, though, and I’m sure he’ll be around on Halloween.”

“Useful people, huh?” 

“Yeah.  Why?”

“He picked you out, too,” Laurens reminded him.  “I was surprised he just brought you home like that.”

“Hah, you’re right.  I never thought of it that way.”  Hamilton put the bag down, looking pleasantly surprised and flattered.  “I should thank him for the vote of confidence.”

“I wonder what favor he’s planning to call in from you.  It seems to me like he’s the one really pulling his weight.”

“Racking up credit,” Hamilton said.  “If we want to be cynical about it.  Doesn’t matter, I’ll be his law guy.  You can be, too,” he added.  “He likes you.  And it’s always good to have a backup.  You know, just in case I’m arrested alongside him.”

Laurens laughed and Hamilton took a drink, then amended.  “Actually, he should find a third one.  If _we’re_ both in the slammer my bet’s that you’re just a cell over.”

“Maybe Lafayette will go into law.”

“Nah, he’s smart, but I don’t think he has the head for it.  I think he’ll end up doing something more humanities.  You live with him, you’ve heard him wax poetic.”

“Évariste de Parny,” Laurens said, remembering the name suddenly.  

“Hm?”  It took Hamilton a moment.  “Oh, yeah.  The poet.  I told Lafayette I’d read him.  I should probably get around to that sometime.”

“I read a little for class,” Laurens said.  “He’s good, but I’m not a real poetry person.”

“Not like me,” Hamilton teased, slipping his hand down and grabbing Laurens’ ass.  

Laurens started, then laughed.  “Artful and well-shaped?”

“I’ll say.”

“Hey, come on.”  Laurens took hold of his arm and pulled it away as Hamilton started to move his hand lower.  “I’m eating.”

Hamilton moved his remaining food to the side and picked up his book, lying down and draping his arm over Laurens’ leg to use as a pillow.  “Later?”

“After I finish the reading.”

“Learn to skim, John,” Hamilton said.  “It’s a useful skill.  Read the intro and conclusion first.  First and last paragraph of each chapter.  First and last sentence of each paragraph in each chapter, if you’ve got the time.”

“Is that your secret?  Is that how you manage to stay ahead in all your classes?”

“Oh, no, I read everything.”  Hamilton turned the page.  “You’re playing next weekend, right?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens considered what he was going to say before saying it.  “You should come out with us after the game this time.  We usually go get drinks.  We don’t have to stay out all night, but we said we were going to act more…”

Hamilton lowered his book and looked up at him.  “Sure.  Sounds fun.  But I think we did a pretty good job last night.”

“You mean—”

“Making out a little in front of the locker rooms.  Very obvious.”  Hamilton raised his book again.  “Thanks, by the way.”

“Thanks?”

“For not being weird about that.  I appreciated it.”

Hamilton’s phone went off and Laurens reached out to pick it up.  “It’s Lafayette,” he informed him.  “He wants to know if I’m coming back today.”

“You’ve still got a pair of clothes here,” Hamilton said.  “Tell him to enjoy having the room to himself.”

 

Lafayette was only too glad to hear that.  He wasn’t even up to anything _inappropriate_ , but was rather deep in conversation with Adrienne and hadn’t fancied the idea of finding somewhere else to continue it before Laurens got back.  

“I could have gone to someone’s room,” he explained to her, “but then they would be there too, and it’s a delicate subject.”

“I wish I could have been there,” Adrienne said, frowning a little.  “I feel like I would be more help to you if I had seen it all myself.”

“I don’t think you would have liked it,” Lafayette said, a little carefully, thinking back on his own behavior.  “It’s a rough crowd.”  

“It’s hard when it’s in a foreign language,” Adrienne said with a sigh.  “Joking especially doesn't always carry over.”

“Yes, and they're very aggressive with one another, even when they are obviously playing.  Play-fighting,” Lafayette commented, finding the word appropriate.  “Like animals.”

“I think you should trust your own instincts.  If it seemed to you like there was more of a bite there and then if that other boy sounded actually upset…”

“Ben Tallmadge,” Lafayette said.  “Yes, I wasn’t sure if I was misreading the situation, but he definitely took offense.”

“Of course, it may have been over something else.  A longer-standing argument.  Or perhaps the two of them just don’t see eye to eye.”

“That’s the problem,” Lafayette sighed.  “Adrienne, I had this feeling…  Lee and I got along well.  I would have liked to talk to him more about his vacation and the places he has been to.  It sounded like we would have had a nice conversation if I had met him on his own and not knowing he knew John.  If nothing of substance had come up, we could have been friends.  It wasn’t like with Burr.”  Lafayette stepped away from his desk, taking a bottle of water out of his bag and unscrewing the top.  “I don’t care for him but I only dislike him on principle because of Alexander.  I would be fine having no opinion on him at all.  But with Lee it is almost the opposite.  When I talk with him I want to like him.  It’s very unsettling.  I don’t know if I am overreacting now or if my judgement in the past has just been too lax.  What do you think, Adrienne?”  He didn’t wait for her to respond.  “The more I turn it over in my mind, the more I feel like my gut reaction must have been correct.  There’s something about him that unsettles me and that makes me think it was more than just an argument between teammates that I walked in on.  He was all too willing to discuss other relationships and I think John’s other teammates knew it.  John mentioned not getting along with him before, but that could have just been a clash of personalities.  Actually,” he continued, slower, “the first time I had lunch with any of them, I heard that Lee was being too harsh with André over the loss of the match.  Do you remember, my love?  I didn’t like that, but André seemed to think he was in his right and I didn’t want to get involved in what seemed like a sort of family quarrel.” 

“You should trust yourself,” Adrienne said again.  “If it seemed wrong…”

Lafayette put first the water bottle and then his hands down on the desk, in the margin of space before the stacked books under his laptop.  He stood like that for a long moment, looking down.

“Gilbert.”

“It’s a shame,” Lafayette finally said.  “I’d like it if we could all get along.  And John…  He’ll catch on, if he doesn’t already know.”

“Maybe you should tell him.”

“Mm.”  Lafayette looked up, chewing on his lip.  “Do you think I should?  I don’t know if he would like to hear that we were discussing him at all.  You know how private he can be.”

“I think you should tell him,” Adrienne said, a little firmer.  “It’s not nice to have people talk about you behind your back.  He deserves to know when it crossed the line from harmless to something more.”

“You’re right,” Lafayette said after another long pause.  “Help me word the text message.”

“Gil.”

“Fine,” he sighed.  “I’ll tell him when I see him.  Or do you think I should call him?”

“Don’t ruin his Sunday.”

“Of course.”  Lafayette glanced up at the ceiling.  “How was your day?”  He braced himself for a conversation about mass.

“It was fine…  Gil,” Adrienne said, and something in her tone caught Lafayette’s attention.  “I don’t want to gossip,” she continued hesitantly, “but you know both of them and it’s not just idle chatter, I thought it might be at first, but they both were at an event with me yesterday, and I saw them…”

Lafayette’s curiosity was piqued.  “Who?”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Adrienne implored him.  “I think it’s still supposed to be a secret.”

“What is?”  Lafayette had to know.

“De Ségur…”

“My friend?  What did he do?”

Adrienne seemed uncomfortable with that choice of words.  “I went outside for a little fresh air and I saw him with,” Adrienne hesitated again.  “Elizabeth.”

Lafayette paused.  “Elizabeth.”  He picked up the bottle of water.  “Elizabeth.  Your aunt?”

Adrienne folded her arms, rubbing at one of her shoulders.  “Yes.  She’s only three years older than me.  It’s not that strange.”

Lafayette heard the pleading note to her voice and he automatically leaned closer to the screen.  “What is it?”

“I think she’s right to keep it a secret.  I’m afraid of what people will say to them.”

Lafayette narrowed his eyes slightly.  “Your mother?”

“They’re sisters,” Adrienne said, obviously having to maneuver a tricky position.  “She loves her.  You know that.”

“What’s wrong with my friend?”

“Gilbert,” Adrienne pleaded.

Lafayette pushed away the defiant note in his voice.  “They didn’t mind when your sister started dating Louis, even though he’s her cousin, however distantly, on _both_ sides of the family.”  A sullen tone slipped back in towards the end of his sentence in spite of himself.

“I know,” Adrienne said, looking away uncomfortably.  “It’s…  He’s different from them.”  She was choosing her words with utmost care.  “They might need a little time to get used to the idea.”

“I know de Ségur,” Lafayette said.  “Your parents know him, too.  He’s just as French as they are.  More so,” he added, “because he’s much more agnostic, that’s very French.”

Adrienne sighed.  She seemed to shrink down into herself.  “I know it’s silly,” she said quietly.  “And I’m glad that she’s happy with him.”

Lafayette didn’t say anything.

“I’m just worried about how other people are going to react.  I don't want them to say anything thoughtless to them and I know that if they’re… caught off guard…”

Lafayette leaned back with a tired noise.  “Your mother did not like me at first, either.”

“She liked you,” Adrienne protested as Lafayette moved them to his bed, putting the laptop down in front of him and reclining away from it.

“She did not like my dating you.”

“I was too young—”

Lafayette was propping himself up on his arms but he raised both his hands, palms forward, and Adrienne cut herself short.

“It will be all right,” Lafayette said.  “She is your mother’s youngest sister, not her youngest daughter.  I don’t know if she will care as much and she eventually came around on me.”

They both knew he was intentionally choosing to skip over the time in between, but Adrienne nodded.

“She did.”

“De Ségur is smarter than I am,” Lafayette said lightly.  “He’s much more grounded.  And they’re both adults.  That will make it easier.”

“I hope you’re right.  Gil, don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Who would I tell?  No one knows either of them.”

“You could tell Louis.”

Lafayette perked up.  “Does he know?”

“Please don’t,” Adrienne said, more warning than pleading.

Lafayette sighed.  “I won’t spread it around.  I promise.”

Adrienne relaxed.  “Thank you.”  She leaned back a little in her chair.  “I have to go.  I love you, my Lancelot.”

“I love you too, my dearheart.”

Adrienne smiled, blew him a kiss, and signed off.

Lafayette immediately dialed another number.

“Hello?  Lafayette?”  It was a voice call only, but the person on the other end answered in French.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re dating my future in-law?”

There was a silence on the other end for a few seconds.

“Did Adrienne tell you?”

“You’re not very good at keeping secrets.”

De Ségur scoffed.  “Don’t forget, I kept yours.”

“She’s worried about how her family is going to react.”

“Yeah,” de Ségur said, “so are we.  Why do you think we haven’t said anything to them?  _My_ family knows.”

Lafayette stood, parting the curtains to the room’s window and looking outside.  “And?”

“And they’re fine with it, of course.  They had her over during Eid.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  Lafayette asked.  “We grew up together.”

“It’s nothing personal, okay?  If you were still in Paris…”

Lafayette stood still, hurt, staring out the window at the people walking past below.

“I’m sorry,” de Ségur said.  “You’re right.  I should have told you.  But since you know now,” he went on, “can I ask you how you think her family will take it?”

“If they’re anything at all like her sister,” Lafayette said, letting the curtain fall and turning back to face the room, “which they are, they will throw a complete bitch-fit.”

De Ségeur sighed.  “Great.”

“But they will eventually realize they have crawled up their own asses and then they will pretend that nothing is wrong and that they were never anything less than fully supportive and welcoming.  It’s a little infuriating,”  he added.  His only reply for a minute was brooding silence.

“Great,” de Ségur finally muttered, repeating himself.  “Fucking fantastic.”

“Don’t let them find out through the grapevine,” Lafayette suggested.  “It’ll go over smoother if they find out from one of the two of you.”

“I know.”  De Ségur sighed.  “Hey.  Look, I have to go, but we should catch up sometime.  I’d like to talk more.  I’m seeing this new girl and I should tell you all about her,” he joked.  “I think you’d like her niece.”

Lafayette rewarded him with a laugh.  “Ah, if you insist.  I’d love to hear it.”

“Cool.  I’ll call you at least to let you know how things shake down, if not before.  Talk to you later, Lafayette.”

The line cut.

Lafayette took a step forward, putting his phone down and checking his laptop.  Adrienne wasn’t back yet.

“It’s only been a minute,” Lafayette mumbled, scolding himself.  He began to type anyway.

 

> G. Lafayette: tmm

 

He waited for a reply, just standing there in front of the computer until one appeared.

 

> A. de Noailles: tmm aussi

> G. Lafayette:  What are you doing?  When will you get back?

> G. Lafayette: I’m going to be here all day

> G. Lafayette: Are you getting food?  Send me pictures! <3

> A. de Noailles: I’m with my friends.  Send me something for when I get back <3

 

Lafayette paused.  He read that message over again.  Did she really mean to be asking for…?  

He decided to answer his own question with “yes” before she could clarify otherwise.  France was so far away and so forgetful.

 

> G. Lafayette: alright have a good time with your friends see you later 

 

Lafayette opened up the video recording feature of his laptop, then backed up with the ease of someone who knew exactly what angle was the most flattering and how to get it with the current set up.  His chat popped up again and he clicked on it.  Adrienne had sent him a picture of a box of biscuits.  He frowned and muted it. 

Lafayette set the program to record, then backed up and leaned in, blowing a practiced kiss to the camera.  He reached down and in one smooth motion pulled his shirt up over his head and discarded it to the floor.


	85. Just No

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Moist; *Tricked

“Shit,” Hamilton swore, breathing heavy, lying on his back, legs bent.  “ _Shit_ ,” he repeated as his phone rang again.  He shoved at the side of Laurens’ head, pushing it and him away.  Laurens bit his inner thigh and Hamilton made an exasperated noise, picking up his cell from the floor.  The screen read: Dr. George Washington.

“H—”  Hamilton stiffened as Laurens put his mouth somewhere else.  “Hello?”  His voice was a little high.  He hoped it wasn’t obvious and he yanked Laurens’ head away again, sitting up.  “Yes.”  Hamilton cleared his throat.  “No, I’m fine.  Yes, wait—”  It sounded like he was slowly getting angry as opposed to just annoyed.  “It’s Sunday—!”  He was cut off and put his hand on Laurens’ shoulder.  

Laurens stopped this time, sensing the change in his tone.  He sat back and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.  Hamilton still had his hand on his shoulder and was looking away, jaw set.

“No, screw that,” Hamilton was saying.  “I—”  

Laurens could hear the person on the other end’s talking more more sharply now.  He had assumed it was Lafayette but this voice sounded older and much more offended than Lafayette would have been.  Hamilton, for his part, was being more deferential, and he actually apologized for his language.

“Sorry, sir.  I can’t make it today.”

Laurens’ eyes widened.  “Washington?”  He mouthed.  

Hamilton nodded and put his hand over the speaker, whispering, “I’m not going in on a fucking Sunday.”

Laurens leaned away, watching as Hamilton argued his point. 

"No one is going to want to be disturbed on a Sunday, sir.  I don't go to church and even I don't want to be disturbed on a Sunday.  I’m just saying that I think Adams will be even more annoyed with—”  Laurens had the feeling Hamilton was going to say “me”—“it than he already is.”

Laurens could hear Washington on the phone, although it was too faint for him to make out his words.

“All right,” Hamilton finally said, taking (with great effort, Laurens saw it in the way he rocked his head to the side, cracking it) a more conciliatory tone.  “I’ll call him, sir, you’re right, but if you want me to make sure I catch him I should use a different line.  Don't you agree?  I think he sees the number and avoids me.”  He nodded and put his hand out, motioning silently for Laurens to come back.  Laurens moved closer and Hamilton caught his arm and tugged him down against his chest.  “Right.  All right, I’ll let you know.”

He hung up.

“I’m sorry,” Laurens said immediately.  “I didn’t realize that was a work call.”

“It’s fine.  Different ringtone,” Hamilton explained.  “Tells it apart.  Whatever, I just need to place a call later.  You should suck me off during that one, too,” he added, “might make it more enjoyable.”

“I’m surprised you want to wait that long.”

Hamilton had been about to put the phone off to the side but he stopped and looked back at Laurens, surprised.  Laurens was grinning, just a little, apparently no longer embarrassed about misunderstanding earlier.

“Yeah?”  Hamilton asked.  “You serious?”

“Of course I am,” Laurens said, nudging one of Hamilton’s legs to the side again and kissing just off of his base.  Hamilton automatically put his hand on his shoulder.

“Shit, J., you’re gonna get me fired.  I thought you were supposed to be the good influence.”

“It’s not fair,” Laurens said, direct instead of just playing around.  “He has no right to make you work on a Sunday.  Were you even going to get paid for this?”

“I might get a—mn—a note towards a bonus, or—”

“He’s taking advantage of you,” Laurens said after he finished moving his tongue up alongside Hamilton’s shaft.  “He knows better than to do that.  You didn’t have to agree at all.”

“I want the job, J.,” Hamilton said, then grinned after a moment of confusion when Laurens laughed at the pun.  “Jerk.  You know what I meant.”

“Do your work,” Laurens said, running his tongue in a circle around the head of Hamilton’s cock.

Hamilton gave just the breath of a laugh.  “If I can’t keep it up when I hear John Adams’ voice, don’t take it personally.”

“I promise.”

Hamilton dialed—he obviously had the number memorized—, then leaned back, letting Laurens go down on him again.  “I’m not gonna talk to you, John, if I need you to get off of—Good afternoon, Dr. Adams!”  He switched abruptly into an almost overly polite and upbeat tone, perfectly pitched customer service.  “I’m calling on behalf of the Dr. Washington’s office, is your husband available?  I apologize for the inconvenience of calling you on the weekend, ma’am.  This will only take a minute and then I’ll be on my way.”

Hamilton tipped his face away from the phone, breaking character and grinning as Laurens pressed his tongue against the underside of his shaft.

“Yes,” Hamilton said after a slight pause in which presumably Adams was talking.  “Yes, I know it’s Sunday.  If you’ll just pass me on to your husband, I’ll only need to speak to him very briefly.”  Hamilton ran his hand lightly over the back of Laurens' neck, not holding him in place or forcing him down, just indicating his approval.  "Good afternoon, Dr. Adams," he said after a brief silence, now speaking to the other Adams. "This is Alexander Hamilton again, calling on behalf of Dr. Washington again." 

Laurens noted in amusement that he had repeated himself, accidentally using the same word twice in one sentence.  Or maybe he had done it on purpose, annoyed about having to call.

"I wanted to give you a friendly reminder that we have, in fact, gotten feedback from the other members of the board on your—” his voice wavered only very slightly as Laurens sucked on his head, “—budget proposal.  I know you've seen it, I've received your time stamp.  What we need now is your written response to the suggestions made in the minutes from last week.  I believe—” Hamilton stopped talking again, this time because he was cut off.  He curled his fingers against the back of Laurens' neck and rolled his eyes dramatically at the ceiling. Laurens hummed a generalized agreement against his shaft and Hamilton bit his lip. 

"Yes."  Hamilton was responding to Adams but also to the way Laurens was taking more of him into his mouth, his hand cupping his balls. "Yes," he repeated, "I understand perfectly.  Unfortunately, we do need your response and we need it in an official format for, ah, so that I can print it and send it out before next Thursday."  He was trying not to sound distracted now.  "Yes, I apologized to your wife for calling after hours as well.  Very inappropriate," he grinned, stroking the back of Laurens' neck again.  "I know.”

Adams was talking again and Hamilton tipped the phone away from his mouth, whispering quietly to Laurens once he was sure he could not be heard but pretending he was still talking on the line.

“You’re an asshole.  My boyfriend’s sucking my dick, that’s how much I care about this conversation.”

Laurens had to fight back a laugh, concentrating instead on the task at hand.

“Go get fucked, you fat fuck,” Hamilton continued, “and stop wasting your breath bitching me out for doing my job.  If you had done yours I wouldn’t be ruining both our days off.”

Laurens sucked against him and Hamilton tipped his head back a little, moving his hand to the side of Laurens’ face and toying with his earlobe.

“Mm, I’ll pass that message along,” Hamilton said, louder, into the phone, not quite in as polished a tone as he had started.  “Thank you, sir,” he emphasized the title just slightly, rolling his eyes again at Laurens.  “Yes, I will let him know.  All right.  Thank you and I sincerely hope you and your wife have a _lovely_ weekend.”  He hung up and put his phone to the side.  “Thank God that’s over with.  If I had to listen to his voice any longer I would have gone flaccid in your mouth.  No offense meant, of course,” Hamilton added, putting both his hands on Laurens’ shoulders now and running them up over his neck and into his hair.  

“That’s not a sexy word.”  Laurens had pulled back and was making a face at Hamilton.

“It wasn’t a sexy conversation.”

“‘Flaccid’?”

Hamilton, not particularly hard anymore, especially not now that Laurens had stopped, snickered.  “‘Moist’.”

Laurens shoved his leg.  “Are you trying to turn me off?”

“It’s a lost cause.  I need a minute to get the sound of his sermonizing out of my head.”  Hamilton sat up, kicking his leg over Laurens’ head—he ducked to fit under the arc—and then crossing them.  “Pass me the leftovers.  And thank you for indulging me, I hate that guy.  Biggest pain in my ass this side of Jefferson.  Feels good to get one over on him.”

“It’s probably for the best you didn't enjoy that more.  If you’d been obvious about it you probably would have gotten fired.”

“Probably.”  Hamilton sounded cheerful regardless.  “And think of what that would have said about my tastes.  Nothing good, J., that’s what.”

“I would have been a little concerned.”

“As would I.”  Hamilton took the bag from him.  “Thanks, J.  You’re the best.”

 

> A. de Noailles: Please don’t send me things like that without explanation.

 

Lafayette took his laptop over to his bed and lay down with it, typing.

 

> G. Lafayette: What’s wrong?  I thought you wanted me to send you something.

> A. de Noailles: Gilbert, I love you and you knew that wasn’t what I meant.

> G. Lafayette: I love you too, my dearheart <3

 

Lafayette picked up the incoming video call.  Adrienne was sitting on her own bed, sweater still on from her trip out.  She looked mildly annoyed, her lips pursed, but Lafayette grinned, seeing that she was holding her mouth firmly in order to keep from laughing.

“Are you really offended?  I started off slow.”

“My friends saw,” Adrienne protested.  “They wanted to watch!”

Lafayette laughed.  “Ah, were they jealous of you?  It’s a good thing you prevented them, I’m for your eyes only.”

“They saw it.  I didn’t stop them.”

Lafayette blushed, embarrassed in spite of his showboating.  “Really?”

Adrienne held his gaze for a long second, then couldn’t hold back her laugher anymore, quickly explaining and sounding a little guilty.  “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t joke.  I was just trying to get you back for sending me that without any warning.  They really did want to watch and when I said no they told me I should try to trick you instead.  I’m sorry, Lancelot.”

“Adrienne!”  Lafayette exclaimed, shocked.  She was still laughing and he had to raise his voice a little to make sure she could hear him.  “You lied to me!”

“Just a little,” she protested.  “And I confessed.”

“It’s a Sunday,” he said, still in disbelief. 

“You sent me a video of yourself,” she pointed out.

He considered this.  “True.  Did you watch it?”

“No, only the first few seconds.  I stopped when you took your shirt off.”

Lafayette put the laptop next to him and rolled over onto his side.  “Do you want to watch it now?”

“With you?”

“Of course.  I haven’t seen it yet, either.”

“But you produced it,” Adrienne said.  “It’s a little egotistical to watch yourself, Gil.”

“I’m not going to watch myself,” Lafayette said.  “I’m going to watch you.”

“Mm?”  Adrienne slid down a little on her bed, getting comfortable.  “I’m going to play it.”

“Please.”

Lafayette heard the video start up from where she had paused it.  He wasn’t talking and there was no real background noise, but he knew he had taken off his pants when he saw her eyes widen slightly.

“Tell me, Adrienne,” he said after a minute of watching her.  She had her hand to her mouth and was staring intently at the screen.  “What’s happening?”

She glanced over at his window.  “You’re naked,” she said simply.

“And?”

“You remember what you were doing.”

“That’s not the point.”

She took her hand away, her lips curled into the barest smile.  “You’re touching yourself.”

“How?”

“Gil.”

“How?”  He insisted.

“Are you going to get off to my talking about you?”

“Perhaps.”  He undid his pants.

She smiled a little more.  “You’re not doing very much yet.  I assume you do more later.  You’re not hard yet, so you really are just touching yourself.  You’re only using one hand—I think you don’t know what to do with the other.  You had it behind your head at first, then on your lower back.  Now you’re touching your collar and chest…”

Lafayette gave a little embarrassed laugh at her very familiar description of him.  “All right…”

She made a pleased noise and he perked up.

“And now?”

“And now you have yourself in your hand,” Adrienne said, watching the video again instead of the chat.  She paused.  “You’re very attractive.”

“Thank you?”

“Oh,” she said, blushing a little.  “But you are.  I can tell that you’ve been working out, Gilbert.  You look so much more…  You look older,” she said finally.  “More like a man.”

Lafayette felt the heat rising to his cheeks. 

“Not that you were not already attractive,” Adrienne said quickly.  “It’s just that I can tell how much work you must be putting in, and your shoulders are looking broader and your muscles are more…”

“I love you,” Lafayette said seriously.  “Hearing you say things like that means so much to me, my dearheart.”

“You’re so beautiful,” she said quietly.  “And now your hand is moving faster.”

Lafayette heard the little catch in her voice.  “Oh?”

“Mm.  You’re moving your hand…”  She was a little too embarrassed to say it explicitly.  “Do you really stay standing the whole time, Gil?”

“I lean against the desk.”

“John’s desk?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“I didn't want to reposition the angle,” Lafayette explained.  “It would have taken too long.  What’s happening now?”

“Your eyes are closed,” Adrienne said, “and your hand is moving faster.”

“No,” Lafayette said, “I meant to ask what are you doing?”

Adrienne blushed.  “Gil.”

“I can’t see.”

She lifted her head up a little, making a noise of consent.  “I pulled up my skirt.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.  And I’m touching myself, just lightly.”

“Over or…?”

“Yes, over.”

“Will you tell me when you switch?”

Adrienne smiled to herself.  “No.  You tell me when it happens.”

Lafayette felt a shiver run through his body.  “All right.” 

The slight tinge of pink was staying in her cheeks and Lafayette wished the connection was just a little better so he could hear her breathing in more detail.  He could see from the way her lips were parted and the way she was moving slightly that each breath must be coming fast and he was sure that if he were there in person he would be able to hear them like little hungry gasps.

“Adrienne…”

“Mm, Gil.”  Adrienne was watching the screen again.  “Oh, there.”

“There?”

“You’re leaning on the desk.”

“What else am I doing?”

“You’re not being very creative, Gil,” she teased.  “You don’t need to keep asking me, you’re really only doing one thing.”

“Is that not a passing grade?  Should I try again?  Submit another one in an attempt to get full colors?”

Adrienne said, distracted, “Perhaps.”

“Now,” Lafayette said.  “You’re touching yourself under the fabric now.”

Adrienne shook her head a little.  “Not yet.”

Lafayette sighed, a little disappointed.  “I like the way you feel.  I like the smell and taste of you.”

“You’re not here,” Adrienne pointed out.  “Don’t sound so sad about guessing wrong, what would you do if you had gotten it right?”

“Celebrated,” Lafayette said.

“Celebrated?”  Her voice caught a little in the middle of the word.

“There!  Now?”

“No.”

Lafayette lay a little further down, discouraged. 

“Shh,” Adrienne said.  “You’re saying something and I want to hear.”  She listened to the video, then glanced back at him.  “That was dirty, Gil.”

“What?”

“You know what.”

“I forgot.”

“You told me you wanted to have sex with me on John’s desk.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said.  “I honestly did forget about that.”

Adrienne laughed.  It faded out into a little moan.  “Oh, Gil…”

Lafayette slipped his hand into his own pants, stroking himself over his underwear as he got hard again.

“Not yet,” Adrienne said, anticipating as Lafayette opened his mouth to ask.  He was silent.  “You’re, mm, you’re leaning against it a little harder.  You’re going to finish soon, I think.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re using it for support and you haven’t slowed down.  And because there’re only a few minutes left in the video.”

“That’s cheating,” Lafayette protested.  “You shouldn’t look ahead.”

“I couldn’t help myself.”  Adrienne ran her tongue very lightly over her bottom lip, wetting it.  “You have your eyes closed.”

Lafayette had them open now.  He was watching her closely.  He could see by the slight movement of her shoulder what she was doing with her hand.  She must still be toying with herself, he thought.  It didn’t look like she was fingering herself yet.  He held off on asking again.

“I can see that you’re breathing harder,” Adrienne said.  “I can watch your chest rise and—and fall.”

“I wish I was there with you,” Lafayette said.  “I wish I was lying over you right now, Adrienne, kissing you and pressing you against the mattress.”

She let her eyes close for a moment, imagining that. “Yes…”

“Your hands on my chest and back…”

Adrienne let out a little moan, shifting further down.

“Gil,” she murmured, and then gasped, and then closed her eyes tightly.  “Gil,” she said again after a moment, her voice higher and more breathless this time.

Lafayette sat up and moved the laptop with him.  “You never did it!  You told me to say when you were touching yourself directly, but you never did!”

“Mm…”  She laughed lightly, out of breath.  “I don’t have to, you forget that.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You can’t always win, my dearheart.”

“You tricked me twice,” Lafayette said, in mild disbelief.  “You’ve changed, Adrienne.  Not in a bad way,” he added quickly as a frightened look passed over her face.  “I’m teasing you,” he continued.  “You know I like to tease people.  I’m just put out that we played two games and you beat me so soundly in both of them.”

She smiled tentatively.  “You really do look more mature, Gilbert.  I can’t wait to see you in person.”  She reached out, closing the video program.

“Then visit,” Lafayette said, ignoring his body and taking a more serious tone.  “You’re on break.  You can fly over, I’ll have someone pick you up at the airport…”

“Gil…”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, pleading.  “You can stay with me.  I’ll kick John out, he won’t mind at all, believe me.”

“My vacation is half over.”

“Not quite,” Lafayette said.  “The second half hasn't started—”

“Gil.”

“—It’s only a few hours by plane.  I’m right on the east coast of the United States, you won’t even need to switch airplanes…”

“I’d need my parents’ permission.  I don’t think they would like it.”

“Can you ask them?

Adrienne sighed.  

“Please?”  Lafayette clasped his hands together in a gesture of supplication, being a little overly dramatic to get his point across.  “Please ask them, Adrienne.  I can’t leave New York right now, and my break was so short.  You could visit and meet all my new friends.  They all want to see you.”

“You’re flattering me,” Adrienne said.  “You’re always such a flatterer.”

“I am, but it’s true,” Lafayette protested.  “Please.  My life.”

Adrienne sighed again.  “It’s late.”

“Not that late.  It’s several hours before midnight…”

Adrienne ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it down.  “I’ll talk to them about visiting in the morning.”

“You will ask them about flying in tomorrow?”

“About visiting in general.”

Lafayette slouched a little, recognizing that this was the closest thing to a win he was going to get.  “All right.  Good.  Thank you.”


	86. Sticks and Stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We Need to Talk; Confrontation; Call Me Back; Missed Message and Misinformed; Nobody Needs to Know

Laurens was surprised to find Lafayette waiting for him when he came back to the dorm room early the next morning.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Lafayette was still in his sleep clothes, not needing to be anywhere for several hours, and standing awkwardly by his desk.  “I need to talk to you.”

“I have to get to the gym.  I’m just here to change.  Can it wait?”

Lafayette shook his head.  “No.”

“Can we talk while I get ready?”

Lafayette nodded and Laurens crouched down by his drawers, getting out his clothes.  “Is this about you and Adrienne?”

“No,” Lafayette began, “although she is well and sends her regards.”

Laurens stood to change and Lafayette politely turned away, facing the drawn curtains to their window.

“I went out to the bar with some of your teammates the other day.”

“Yeah?  That’s right.  How was it?  They give you a hard time?”

“It was fine.  Mostly.  That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”  Lafayette paused for just a moment but continued quickly before Laurens could ask any more questions.  He hated being the bearer of bad news and generally tried to avoid it.  He was tempted—very, very tempted—to not say anything at all and he tried to focus his attention on Adrienne encouraging him to speak with Laurens about it.  “They were talking about you.  They’re very happy for you.”

Laurens gave a little embarrassed laugh.  “Yeah?  Thanks, I guess.”

“They’re all very happy for you,” Lafayette repeated, “except for Charles Lee.”

Even without looking over his shoulder he could feel the tone in the air change.  Laurens didn't say anything right away.  Lafayette could hear him finishing dressing and then packing his bag.

“John?”

“Yeah, Lee’s an ass,” Laurens said, controlled and cool.  “No idea how he got to be captain.  He was better before, I guess.”

“You know about it?”

“He’s not subtle.”  Laurens zipped up his bag aggressively.  “Not on the field, not off.”

“Are you all right?”  Lafayette turned around.  

“What did he say?”

“He said he didn't want to hear them talk about it.  I thought at first it was a generalized comment but then…  It became clear that he meant it about you in particular.”

Laurens was staring down at the gym bag on his bed, his face stony. 

“John,” Lafayette said, remembering something else.  “Tallmadge got into an argument with him.  They only stopped because I was there.  Even before, no one else agreed, they just didn’t want to challenge him directly.”

“Team captain.  He can make things difficult for people.”

Lafayette nodded.  “But Tallmadge—”

“Ben Tallmadge can be reckless.”

“He likes you.  They like you,” Lafayette amended.  “More than they like their captain.”

“You barely know them, Lafayette.”

“I know people,” Lafayette argued.  “I understand people.  I make mistakes and I don’t always think my own actions through, and sometimes I overthink things trying to get to the answer I want, but I know people.  I wouldn’t tell you they liked you more than Lee if it wasn’t true.  When push comes to shove they will back you over him, all of them…”  Lafayette paused, wondering just how far the desire for reconciliation might interfere.  If he hadn’t been eager to say anything to Laurens, over a day later and in private, how might people react in the heat of the moment?

“Tallmadge spoke up,” Lafayette said again.  “Ask him about it.”

“I’m not asking him.”  Laurens pulled his bag onto his shoulder, double-checking that his keys were in his pocket.  “Anything else?  I need to go.”

Lafayette looked at him for a moment, head cocked slightly to the side.  “That’s all,” he said.  “Are you upset that I told you?”

“No.”  Laurens was standing in the doorway.  “I appreciate it.”  It didn’t really sound like he did.  “Thank you.”

 

Laurens made it about an hour before saying anything stupid.

“We missed you the other day,” Tallmadge said, the two of them alone in the hall just outside the weight room.  Tallmadge had just straightened up from the water fountain and taken a step to the side, giving Laurens space to get a drink.  From the flash of surprise in his face—uncharacteristic, he usually managed to play his hand coolly, and Laurens, with some retrospect, would remember that startled expression keenly—Tallmadge hadn’t expected anything more than a brief acknowledgement.

“Probably a good thing I didn’t come.  Gave you all more time to talk about my fucking.”

The hall, as mentioned, was empty, and his words hung in the air, echoing between the painted cinderblocks that made up the walls and the plain cement floor.

“Excuse me?”  Tallmadge narrowed his eyes.

“You heard me.”  Laurens wasn’t talking loudly but he was defiant, aggressive, drenched in sweat from a workout that had done little if anything to take the edge off of his mood.

“Look,” Tallmadge began, “I don’t know what Lafayette told you—”

“He told me you were all ready to talk about me as soon as my back was turned.  I don’t know about some of the others but I always thought _you_ were above that.”

“What the fuck’s your problem?”  Tallmadge asked angrily.  “We were just talking, no one said anything you yourself haven’t thrown around about any of the rest of us.”

Laurens didn’t move, but he looked away, turning his face to the wall.

“Lafayette told you about Lee, didn’t he?  For fuck’s sake, Laurens, I’m not him!  If you want to bite someone’s head off, maybe don’t go after the guy who had your back!”

Tallmadge glanced back towards the weight room.  The radio was on and drowning out most, if not all, of their argument, but it wouldn’t be long before someone else came out into the hall.

“Come on.”  He grabbed Laurens’ arm—Laurens pulled sharply away—and motioned for him to follow him into the restroom.  Laurens did, letting the door swing shut heavily behind him, and leaned hard on the counter in front of the mirror.  “Look,” Tallmadge began, “no one wants to rock the boat too much.  We’re already solidly into the season, we’re doing well, and especially now that you’re back we’ve got a good chance.  A bunch of us are graduating this year, this is our last shot at championships.”

Tallmadge tried again for physical contact, this time putting his hand on Laurens’ back.  Laurens shrugged him off roughly.

“That’s why no one wants to call him out on his shit.  But he's getting under everyone’s skin, trust me.  Tench was bitching just last night about what a pain he is.  He’s been like that for a while now, Laurens, it’s not just about you.  He’d find something to rag on—”

“It is about me.”  Laurens was looking down at the faucet of the sink.  “Don’t act like you think otherwise.  He’s not bothered by anyone else.”

“And he ripped André a new one when he thought he was at fault for losing the game.  And he gave Tench shit when he found out about the greencard.  Lee’s an asshole and I think he’s on wafer-thin ice with Coach.  You know he came this close to being probated last season?”

Laurens looked up.  “Where did you hear that?”

“I was waiting at the office and heard von Steuben and Ben Walker discussing it.  I’m pretty sure that if you’d still been eligible you’d be the team captain now, not him.”

Laurens felt his insides clench, working themselves into a knot.  Captain?  The nearness of the possibility hurt almost as much as what Lafayette had told him.

“Hey.”  Tallmadge leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest.  “Are you okay or do you want to curse me out some more?”

“Sorry,” Laurens muttered, turning the sink on and splashing water on his face.  “I know…  Lafayette told me.  Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Tallmadge said.  “I should have said something sooner.”

Laurens didn’t reply to that.

“Look, if you want to tell Coach or someone else in admin, I’ll come down with you…”

“It’s fine,” Laurens said.  He turned off the water and wiped it from his face with his hand, looking at himself in the mirror.  Neither of them said anything for a minute.

“You need to get your hair cut again.  The fade’s growing out.”

“I should buy clippers.”  Laurens touched the hair on the side of his head.  “It’ll be easier to maintain that way.”

“Your boyfriend likes it?”

Laurens glanced at Tallmadge in the mirror.  “Yeah.  Something else to thank Lafayette for, I guess.”

“He’s a good guy.  Tell him he’s welcome to hang with us whenever he wants.”

“Lafayette?”

“Yeah.”  Tallmadge handed Laurens a paper towel.  “I like him.  Alexander’s welcome, too.  I’d like to get to know him better.”

Laurens dried off his face.  “You might regret saying that.  He never shuts up.”

Tallmadge shrugged.  “You’ve got good taste.  I took my parents to that Caribbean place you told me about over break.”

“Alexander showed me that one.”

“Really?  Is he from there?”

“Yeah…”  Laurens realized he had somehow been talked down from blind anger and was now smiling a little.

“You must really like him,” Tallmadge teased gently.  “I thought you were going to put my head through the mirror when we first came in here.”

Laurens tossed the paper towel into the trash.  “A lot,” he said.  “But I’m just telling you that in apology for losing my shit at you.  Don’t go spreading that around.”

“Cross my heart.”  They headed out of the bathroom.  “So no one else knows, huh?  Not even André?  I feel special.”

“I told André.”

“Oh, come on, Laurens!  Lie to me a little.”

“I was drunk.  It’s not the same thing.”

Tallmadge frowned and looked up at the ceiling, weighing this.  “I suppose not.  I’ll take it.”

“Good.”  Laurens stepped after him into the weight room and didn’t see André quietly leave the restroom behind them.  “Because that’s as much as you’re going to get.”

 

Lafayette kept checking his phone in class, keeping it in the pocket of his jacket so he could sneak a look at the screen behind the small desk every few minutes.  A message from de Ségur arrived while he was sitting there, but nothing from Adrienne.  He was growing increasingly impatient and unable to sit still.  He tapped his foot on the floor, reminding himself of Hamilton.  He made the effort to stop fidgeting for a few minutes.

Nothing from Adrienne.  Was she not coming?  Or had she just not gotten around to speaking with her parents yet?  It was probably the latter, she would likely let him know as soon as she had an answer.

Unable to wait any longer, Lafayette slipped out of the room.

He dialed as soon as he was a few feet from the door, standing out in the hall.  The phone rang once and then went to her answering machine.

“ _Merde_.”

“Language, Lafayette.”

Lafayette looked up in guilty surprise, then relaxed when he saw that it was just Jefferson, standing in front of him with a manilla folder and an air of intentionally displayed casualness.  Jefferson grinned, amused at having tricked him.

“Good afternoon,” Lafayette said cheerfully.  “Do you have class soon?”

“Later.  Actually,” Jefferson’s voice was, as always, a practiced drawl, “I was just thinking of you.  Would you mind doing a favor for me?”

“Of course.  What is it?”

“Tell your friend that I need to speak with him about his proposed senior project.  There are a few things I’d like to _discuss_ with him about it.  I emailed him several times but I’ve yet to get an answer back.  Would you pass the message along?  I’d rather not have to interrupt him at the office.”

“You need to speak with Alexander?”  Lafayette was surprised.  “I’m sure he just missed your mail.  I’ll let him know.”

“Thank you.  What are you up to?”

Lafayette glanced down at his phone, still in his hand.  “I’m waiting for a call from Adrienne,” he admitted.  “I’m actually supposed to be in class but I thought I’d see if I could get in contact with her…”  He trailed off, expecting a reprimand.

“I can understand that,” Jefferson said sympathetically and much to Lafayette’s surprise.

“You can?”

“My wife’s down in Virginia,” he said.  “I hate having to struggle to get in contact with her.  I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you, with the time difference and all.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, remembering now overhearing bits of Jefferson’s private life, overwhelmed by more lengthy and enthusiastic conversations on politics and work between him and Washington.  “…Martha?”

“Yes, you remembered.  That’s thoughtful of you.”

“You remembered Adrienne,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, pleased at having gotten the name right.  “I talked about her so much and you were always so polite about it.  I should have let you get a word in edgeways.”

Jefferson brushed off that self-deprecating statement.  “Don’t think anything of it.  I enjoyed hearing about your girlfriend.  Young love is a beautiful thing.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened slightly.  Screw Hamilton and Laurens and their grudge against this man, the one they were doing a very poor job of concealing and which had been making him second-guess his first impression of him ever since they met up with him in France.  Jefferson _understood_ , he couldn’t be all bad.

“I wanted her to visit me over her break,” Lafayette confessed.  “She said that she would speak with her parents about it and get back to me, so I couldn’t wait any longer…”

“It’s just after dinner,” Jefferson said, already knowing the time in France and when it was customary to eat.  “Maybe she’s talking with them right now.”

“I hope so.”  Lafayette looked down at his phone again.  “Thank you,” he added.  “I should get back to class.” He put his phone back in his pocket.  “I’ll talk to Alexander,” Lafayette promised.  “I’m sure it was an honest mistake.”

“I’m sure,” Jefferson said, without any real ill-will that Lafayette could detect.  “I hope your call goes well.”

 

Hamilton looked up from the computer at the front desk, still typing as he watched Lafayette step into the room.

“Are you here for me or Washington?”

“Both.”

“Right.  He’s on a conference call right now, but I’ll let him know that you’re here.”

“Thank you.”  Lafayette dropped his bag on a chair and came to stand in front of the desk.  “What are you typing?  Classwork?”

“I wish.  Drafting a thank you note.  This desk chair’s more comfortable than the one downstairs but I feel just as braindead half the time.  What’s up?”

“I have a message for you.”

“John?  I texted him earlier and didn’t hear back.  Something happen to his phone?”

“No.  It’s from Professor Jefferson.”

“Jefferson?”  Hamilton refrained from making a face or saying anything else.  “What did he want?”

“He says he emailed you about your proposal and you haven’t gotten back to him yet.”

“He never emailed me.”

“He said he did.  I ran into him outside of class.”

“He never emailed me,” Hamilton repeated, opening up a new tab and pulling up his inbox.  “Look,” he did a search on the name.  “Zilch.”

Lafayette leaned over the desk as Hamilton turned the computer screen towards him.

“Did you delete it by mistake?”

“More likely it went to junk,” Hamilton complained.  “I don’t just delete shit without reading it, Lafayette—”  He opened the trash folder and ran a search again to make a point, then stopped abruptly when it pulled up three emails from Jefferson, all recent and all clearly about his senior project proposal.  “…Fuck.”

Lafayette looked at him but kept quiet.

“That’s not—Look, they must have gotten strung together in a chain.  He kept sending it attached to the first message, so I missed them and then accidentally deleted one and the whole thing got trashed!  Shit,” Hamilton swore, opening and reading them.  “These aren’t _that_ old,” he continued, “did he really have to send you after me?  He could have sent a new message, one that wouldn’t get tanked with the rest of them.”

“Will you get back to him now?”

“Of course I’m getting back to him.”  Hamilton was already typing.  “I gotta set up a time to talk to him, I bet that’s going to be a fun chat.”

Lafayette nodded.  “How long is Washington’s call going to be?”

“Damned if I know.  Should be any time now.”

“All right.”  Lafayette moved on to the other thing Hamilton had mentioned.  “You didn’t hear back from John?”

“Huh?  Yeah.”  Hamilton was very distracted.  “Shoot, I need a—What’s his schedule again?  I need to look up his office hours.” 

“Were you expecting to hear from him?”

“I guess?  It wasn't important, Lafayette, he’s not pissed at me or anything.  I just expected him to meet me outside of—Look, it’s not a big deal, I was just dropping him a line.”

“When did you text him?”

“A few hours ago, I don’t know.  Message him yourself if you’re so concerned.”

Lafayette was, but he decided against saying that.  “I invited Adrienne to visit,” he said instead.

“Good for you.”  Hamilton sent the message.  “Sorry, what was that?  You invited her?”

“To visit,” Lafayette clarified.  “They just started break and I wanted her to come see me.  Would it be all right if John stayed with you while she does so?”

“So you can put her up in the dorms?  Hell yeah, I’m not complaining.  That sounds like a win-win to me.”  Hamilton high-fived him.

The doors behind him opened and Washington stepped out.

“Ah, Lafayette.  Alexander said you were here to see me?”

“Yes.”  Lafayette stood up straight.  “Good afternoon!  How was your call?”

“Fine, fine.  Would you like to come in?  We can close the door so we don’t disturb Alexander.”

Hamilton flicked his eyes towards the ceiling.

“All right,” Lafayette agreed, following Washington into his office and closing the door behind him.

Lafayette took his normal seat in front of the desk and folded his hands in his lap.  “I asked Adrienne to visit,” he announced.  “I’m going to have her stay in the dorms with me.”

Washington had been picking something up from his desk, still standing, and he stopped at that, looking at Lafayette.  “You can’t do that.”

Lafayette’s smile faltered.  “…What?”

“You can’t have a guest stay with you in the dorms,” Washington said.  “That’s against school policy.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette’s shoulders sagged a little.  “But…”

“I can’t allow you to do that,” Washington continued.  “It’s a safety issue, Lafayette.  We can’t make exceptions just because I know the two of you.”

Lafayette caught himself before he said his Plan B, staying with Adrienne at Hamilton’s apartment while Hamilton stayed at the dorms, and was silent.

“That said, there’s no rule against my having a guest over on my private property for a few days.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened.

“I have several guest rooms, as you know.”

Lafayette leaned forward excitedly.  “Would you really do that?  Thank you so much!  She’ll be so glad to hear it!”

Washington smiled fondly.  “Of course.  I’ll let her parents know that if they ever decide to send her to New York she would be welcome to stay with me.  They might feel more secure knowing that she has a place to come home to.”

Lafayette nodded eagerly.  “I’m sure of it.  I’ll tell them—Oh.”  He looked around, realizing belatedly that he had left his bag in the outer room.  “I’ll tell them later.  

 

> J. Laurens: Are you still at the office?

> A. Hamilton: yeah

> J. Laurens: Can I come by?

> A. Hamilton: knock yourself out.  I’m just shredding

> A. Hamilton:  I’d complain about him not getting some lowly student worker to do it instead except i realize that that’s me and also you actuallydo need to pass a security clearance to see some of this stuff

> A. Hamilton: just let yourslef in, I’m keeping everything unlocked for you.

 

Hamilton was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a half dozen stacks of papers, an industrial-strength shredder running loudly, when Laurens showed up.

“Do you need help?”  Laurens took his bag and coat off.

“I told you, you need to get cleared.”  Hamilton passed Laurens a pile of documents anyway as he sat down.  “Just pretend not to read anything.  It’s a lot less destroying incriminating secrets and a lot more vintage tax information.”  He tapped a thin stack of papers against the floor, getting them lined up, and then sent it through the machine, talking loudly to be heard over it.  “So why’d you come by?”

“Can I stay at your place tonight?”  Laurens handed him the next set of papers.

Hamilton glanced at him.  “Sure.”

Laurens paged out the next batch and held it out, waiting.  The shredder stopped and Hamilton didn’t feed it again.

“What’s wrong, J.?”

For a moment Laurens considered saying that nothing was wrong, that Hamilton was mistaken, that he had just gotten his work done or that he didn’t feel like hanging out while Lafayette called France or that he wanted to fool around.  Instead he said, “Lee’s an asshole and I could have been team captain if I hadn’t fucked up last year.”

Hamilton’s eyes widened slightly.  “Your coach told you that?”

“Tallmadge.”  Laurens offered the papers to Hamilton again and he took them this time, getting back to work.  “But he’s reliable with this kind of thing.  He hears stuff.”

“Useful guy to have around.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to ask, by the way.  You can stay over whenever you want, J.”

“Thanks.”

“So you wanna go out to get something or order in?”

“Order.”

“Right.”  Hamilton put his hand out for another set of papers.  “So you could’ve been captain, huh?  It’s probably for the best, I’d be so busy banging you that I’d drop the ball on even more projects.”

Laurens didn’t laugh and Hamilton, looking the other way, winced.  

“That wasn't funny.  Sorry.”

Laurens looked at the wall.  An old framed map of the campus hung in a gilded frame.  “It would have been perfect, Alex.  I can't believe it.  It didn't matter so much when I didn't think it was an option but knowing how close I came…”

“How would you have gotten it?”

“Tallmadge said Lee almost got the position taken away from him.  They must have reconsidered after they had to bench me.”

“They should have stripped him of it anyway.  Given it to André or something.  Lee sounds like a tool, why reward that kind of behavior?”

“I don't know,” Laurens said bitterly.  “I'm surprised he's managed to hold on to it, considering von Steuben’s—”

“Von Steuben is what?”

“Here.”  Laurens gave him another set of papers. Hamilton dutifully shredded them as he waited for Laurens to speak.  “Gay,” Laurens finally said.  “Lafayette said—I noticed it too, but I was fooling myself into thinking I misunderstood—”  He wasn't able to finish the sentence.  “Lee's an ass,” he said instead. 

Hamilton was silent. 

Laurens spoke after a couple more batches of papers had been reduced to scrap.  “I yelled at Tallmadge.  Lost my temper.”

“Why?”  Hamilton asked, angry and barely holding it in check.  “He call you—did he say something, too?”

“Lafayette said he called Lee out.  It wasn't fair of me.”

“None of this is fair, it's not fucking _fair_ ,” Hamilton said, his voice rising over the sound of the shredder and staying elevated even after it had stopped.  “It's not fair that some jackass thinks he has the ability to put you in a box just because he knows one thing.  It's not _fair_ that he's rewarded for the system's lethargy and reluctance to roll itself onto its bloated and turgid back.”  Hamilton jammed too many pages into the shredder and they got stuck.  He swore as he turned it off and worked them out.  “And you know what, John?  It's not fair that you're going to tell me I can't fuck him up for you.”

Hamilton yanked out most of the paper.  A few scraps remained.  He picked at one, gave up, hit the side of the machine with his open palm.  

Hamilton cursed at the machine again as he put it into reverse and then ran it normally, slowly working out the paper.  He finally looked at Laurens over his shoulder. 

Hamilton had expected to see Laurens sitting in silent anger, at the situation or even at him for crossing a line.  Instead he was leaning back on one hand and staring up at the ceiling, face—very carefully, Hamilton thought—blank. 

“J.?”

“My father's going to kill me.”

“About the captain thing?”  Hamilton had to ask.  “Don't tell him, are you a moron?  Hey.”  He moved over, sitting right next to him and putting his hand on his knee.  “John.  It sucks but you'll be okay.”

Laurens sighed, just a long slow exhale, still looking up.  Hamilton kissed his neck, touching his lips to his skin and leaving them there for a couple seconds.  He wasn't a moron, either.  He was going to ruin Lee, he decided, and he wasn't going to breathe a word of it.


	87. Interlude: Ballot Distribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November, one year prior.

“I was gonna do a mail-in ballot since, you know, it’s not like my mind was gonna change.”

Burr looked over at Hamilton with a half-smile, watching as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his arms folded tightly across his chest and his words a little tight from the cold.

“But I figured I should go through the whole shebang of doing it on the day of, you know?  Get my ass down to the polling place, stand in line, bitch about the wait.  Real American experience.”  Hamilton shivered and looked up at the dark sky.  The building behind them was well-lit and already crowded, people streaming past them in both directions and loading boxes into cabs.  “Speaking about the wait, didn’t she say they’re just coming around the corner for us?  Hold your number up,” he instructed Burr, fiddling with the large plastic name tag pinned to his own collar.  “Maybe they missed us.  You think I got time to run in for another cup of coffee?  No,” he corrected himself, “I shouldn’t, I don’t want to make them wait.”

“Go if you want,” Burr said.  “Even if the taxi gets here right now it will take a few minutes to load and double check everything.”

“No,” Hamilton insisted.  “I don’t want to miss it.”

Burr shook his head, still smiling  “You’re eager.”

“Yeah, well.”  Hamilton was grinning.

“You sounded so bitter about the whole election season, I’m surprised that you’re this enthusiastic.”

“Of course I’m enthusiastic!  I’ve never gotten to do this before.  I changed my residency just for this.  I might not be able to run for president but at least I can vote for one and that’s important.  Look,” he said, rocking back on his heels, “yeah, okay, ideally I’d like to see campaigns a little more issues-based and with a little less mudslinging.  But if we’re talking about a perfect world I’d also like a million bucks and to find a restaurant that makes a decent oxtail.  You gotta get enough fat in there,” he explained, veering off on a tangent and gesturing the bowl in front of him.  “I’ve tried like three places and they’re all just oil and grist.”  He paused.  “Is that the word I’m looking for?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Whatever.  They’re not good, that’s the point.”

“Is it?”  Burr laughed.  “It seems to me that you lost your point.”

“Right.  Anyway, I’m not wearing rose colored glasses, Aaron.  I’m a pragmatist, you know that.  And frankly regardless of the choices at this state of the game, a vote in the direction of what I want would be better than a meaningless protest.  Why sit something this important out?”  He asked.  “I’m not saying that everyone needs to get up at four to go help run their local polling place although _massive_ kudos to us for crawling out of bed before the sun did.  I’m all for a little temporary inconvenience if it means participating in something greater than myself.  And, like I said,” he went on, “I’m not talking rose colored glasses.  Sure, the system’s fucked, corruption’s rampant in politics, I understand the urge to just burn the whole thing down.  Throw a rock through the window of the establishment.  But, you know what?  That’s now how this fucking works.  In the real world your actions have consequences and if you don’t see them, then maybe that’s because they’re affecting someone you haven’t stopped to think about.  There are people playing dice with actual lives here.  You’ve heard my opinion on this, I haven’t exactly been quiet.”

“‘Exactly’?”

“Hah.  Yeah, but when even someone as notoriously neutral as _you_ made up their mind ages ago, you know it’s an obvious choice.  It’s funny how fast this thing went from business as usual to a sideshow to the threatened meltdown of politics and common decency as we know it.  Well, it would be funny if it wasn’t so fuckin’ terrifying.”

Hamilton stepped forward as a car pulled up, but the number on the dashboard didn’t match the one Burr was holding and he made a disappointed noise and moved back again.

“I went my whole life not having a real voice.”  He started talking again.  “And, fortunately, for most of that I wouldn’t’ve had much of one anyway, just because of my age.  That’s frustrating, sure, but now that I’ve got the opportunity how could I just throw that away?  That’s a slap in the face to everyone who’s worked to make even this imperfect system possible.  And it _is_ imperfect,” he said, “I’m not denying that.  It’s a manmade structure, it’s got errors and it’s prone to human weakness and fallibility.  But it’s what we’ve got and it’s something to be proud of.”

“Something to improve,” Burr said.

“Right,” Hamilton agreed readily.  “Something to improve.”

“I’m not used to hearing you sound so realpolitik,” Burr commented, raising his hand as their cab came into sight.  “It’s a good look on you.”

“Mixing your metaphors, audial and visual.”  Hamilton picked up one of the sealed boxes and waited impatiently for the car to reach them.  “I don’t think I’m being cynical.  I’m espousing a certain belief in the fundamental goodness of humanity, that however flawed we are we can come together in shared traditions in order to better them and their outcomes.  Think of people outside of ourselves and our immediate circles.  Get up and dust ourselves off and offer someone else a hand.  I agreed it was something to improve, didn’t I?  You can’t make revisions if you just trash what you’ve got written.  I said I disagreed with burning this place to the ground.  I mean, think about it.”

The car stopped in front of them and the driver popped the trunk.  Hamilton followed Burr around to the back to load it.

“We’ve got this one country and I don’t buy into that ethnocentric, ‘greatest nation in the world,’ bull.  We’re built on colonization, genocide, the literal purchase of living human beings.  Any half-decent history book can tell you that.  Way _more_ shit that I could go into but that I’m thinking about saving for the ride to the polling station, shit that maybe is more historically resonant on this day in particular than it was four or eight years ago.  And that’s overlooking centuries of smaller slights, mistakes, misguided attempts to do the greater good, or just plain laziness and greed.”

They went back for the next set of boxes.

“But we’re more than our flaws.  You and me and this whole Goddamned country.  The whole world, really, I just said I don’t buy into that American exceptionalism shit.  That’s what politicians say when they’re trying to sell you something.  You got the flashlight?”  Hamilton felt his pockets automatically and looked around.  “Right.”  He crossed back over and picked their small packets of supplies off the ground while Burr finished putting the bulky items in the trunk, moving things around to fit.  “What I do buy, though, is that we as a species are capable of empathizing with people we don’t know.  That’s the whole idea of a nation.  Imagining yourself to be connected to—in our case—millions of people that you’ll never meet.  You’ll never even cross paths with them.  But we can imagine ourselves to have some kind of shared responsibility to one another.”  He turned the flashlight on, testing it, then back off.  “People can be motivated by ignorance and hate, and we can get mired in it for I don’t even know how long.  The temptation will always be there, how’s that for rose colored glasses?  But regardless of how this goes down, and I know we’ve talked statistics already, I believe in the ability of human decency to overcome.  Maybe not tonight, maybe not in four years.  Definitely not without a lot of work and pain and, frankly, you getting frickin’ fed up with me yelling about how deeply people can just _suck_.  But we’re living in a country that simultaneously declared a profound truth about human equality and turned its back on, well, almost everyone.  And it kept doing so.  And ordinary people keep fighting to open that door a little more.  We’re not exceptional, Aaron, we’re still just trying to build a more perfect union.”

Burr slammed the trunk shut.  He looked back at the sidewalk.  Hamilton was standing there and watching his face closely like he wanted his approval, like for once he couldn’t entirely believe what he was saying without someone to agree with him.  Burr nodded and saw tension that he didn’t think Hamilton realized he was carrying leave his shoulders.

Hamilton smiled at the acknowledgement, relief flooding his face.  “The present perfect progressive.  And that’s kind of the beauty of it, you know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the sort of bonus material on I usually stick on Tumblr, but I saw no real reason not to just give it its own space here.


	88. À la Américaine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrienne

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, relieved, when she finally called.  “How are you?  Did you talk to your parents?  What did they say?”

“I’m fine, thank you.  And you?”

“Fine, fine.”  Lafayette was walking across campus and he dug out a pair of earbuds to use with his phone so he could put it and his hands comfortably back in the pockets of his jacket.  “Did you talk to them?”

“I did.  They’re planning to go back to Sicily this winter, just the two of them.  I’m really happy for them.  I remember when they refused to even talk to one another, much less spend time together willingly.  It feels so normal.  Isn’t it nice?  I’m glad they’ve worked things out.”

“As am I,” Lafayette said, trying not to sound too impatient.  “Adrienne, my love, did you talk to your parents about anything else?”

“I showed them the shoes I bought when I went out with my friends,” Adrienne went on.  “I think I’ll wear them out to dinner tonight.  I know I don’t need them and they’re a little fancy for everyday wear, but the heels are only a couple of centimeters high and they’re this nice blue silk…”

Lafayette had to struggle to pay attention.  He passed another student walking at a more moderate pace.  “Adrienne,” he tried again.  “Did you ask your parents about visiting me?”

She paused.  “Yes.”

“And…?”

She paused again.  “They said I could come!”

Lafayette broke out into a broad grin.  “Wonderful!  That’s amazing, Adrienne!”  He smiled brightly at another student as they crossed paths and waved without knowing who they were.  “Do you have your tickets already?  We can make travel plans as soon as I get back to the dorm.  I’m so excited, my dearheart,” he enthused.  “This will be so perfect.  The two of us will stay in my room at Washington’s house and you’ll be able to come to the party with me!”

“Wonderful,” Adrienne said.  “I’m looking forward to seeing your friends again.”

“I made a new one,” Lafayette said.

Adrienne sounded very faintly concerned when she replied.  “Did you?”

“Well, not entirely.  You remember Dr. Jefferson, don’t you?”

“Of course.”  That lunch had been memorable.

“I spoke with him briefly and I want so badly to talk to him more.  We have more in common than I realized!”

“Do you really?”

“Yes.  I feel like we have a deep connection.  You’ll see what I mean.”

“You do look alike,” Adrienne mused.  “You have similar features.”

“Really?”  Lafayette considered this.  “I wonder if he is French as well.”

“Jefferson doesn’t sound French.”

“It could be on his mother’s side.  I want to joke about how it’s no wonder we get along,” Lafayette continued, “but the truth is, Adrienne, that blood has nothing to do with it.  I’m not American by descent but I feel a strong connection to this country.  You’ll see what I mean.  You can’t step foot into this city without being overwhelmed by it.  It’s such a fascinating place, my dearheart,” Lafayette said, walking past a bench and sending a couple of well-fed pigeons flying away with indignant complaints.  “It’s very much like Paris in some ways.  There’s a certain stereotype of the city and they both fit that image.  But it’s so _new_.  As if it just sprung up from the ground one day, without these centuries upon centuries of people.  It’s so energetic.  It feels young, even when it shows evidence of its age.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Adrienne said.  “Since you are there and you’re so taken with it.”

“Don’t love it just for my sake.  Love it in spite of the fact that it stole me away from you.”

Lafayette couldn’t see all the way back to Paris but he could picture perfectly the way she cradled the phone gently against her shoulder and gave a soft, fond smile as she made a promise just to please him. 

“All right, my Lancelot.  I will.”

 

“Adrienne’s visiting.”

Hamilton was sitting on his futon, laptop open in front of him, Laurens sitting facing the opposite way behind him.  He leaned back against him.

“I guess they're staying with Washington?”  He laughed.  “That’ll be fun.”

“Washington?”  Laurens was still reading from his textbook and didn’t bother looking up to answer.

“Yeah.  Lafayette says he talked to him about it more and get this, he’s going to give them a curfew.  Two meals a day with the family.  No drinking, of course, no sleeping in the same room together.” He laughed again.

“That’s rough.”

“Bed by ten, up by six, breakfast at seven, school by eight.”  Hamilton summed up the series of complaining text messages from Lafayette.

“How are they supposed to do Halloween?”  Laurens asked.

“I dunno.  He can have a guest stay over at the dorm a few nights, I guess he’ll make Tuesday one of them.”

Laurens nodded, then realized that Hamilton couldn’t see him.  “I see.”

“Hey.”  Hamilton turned his head, leaning it back against his shoulder.  “You’re okay, right?”

“Alex.”

“Right.  You’re okay.”

“You’re very…”  Laurens paused.

“I like you.”  Hamilton reached up, patting the back of Laurens’ head.  “That means I’m up in your business all the time.”

Laurens put his hand over Hamilton’s briefly.

“I fucked up, too,” Hamilton said.  “I missed a couple emails from Jefferson.  He’s kind of pissed.  Wants to talk to me about my proposal.”

Laurens frowned.  “He never contacted me.  Why you?”

“Check your trash,” Hamilton advised.  “But then you probably get less spam on a daily basis than I do.”

Laurens picked up his phone, silent while he double checked.  “No, nothing.”

“Weird.  Whatever.  Maybe he hasn’t gotten to it yet.  Doing it alphabetically.  Look again in a month.”

“I’m surprised you missed it.”

“Me too.”  Hamilton was texting Lafayette again.  “I’ve been distracted lately, I told you that.  I’m usually more on it than— _Shit!_ ”  Hamilton got up quickly.  Laurens leaned backwards and put his hand down to keep his balance.  “Fuck!”  He looked at the door, then at the dark sky outside the window, then reluctantly sat back down, laptop to the side and phone out.

“What’s wrong?”  Laurens turned to face him.

“I was supposed to be at a meeting today.  Student council.  Shit, it was _hours_ ago, I completely forgot!”  Hamilton was calling someone.  “Hold on, J.  Hello?  Gouvs, I got held up at work, just got done,” he said, stretching the truth.  “How did—”

Hamilton got up again, unable to stay sitting as Gouverneur talked.  Laurens watched as he paced the room.  He saw Hamilton swear under his breath, then run his hand back through his hair.

“Yeah, okay, so I’ll pick it up from you.  Thanks, Gouverneur.”

Hamilton hung up and mimed throwing his phone at the door before dropping it gently onto the mattress.  “I couldn’t do that,” he admitted.

“Is it bad that you missed it?”

“It’s fine,” Hamilton said, more like he was trying to convince himself than Laurens.  “I can get the minutes from him and he said he’d text me a copy of next week’s agenda.  I didn’t get to vote,” he said, obviously put out.  “That’s my favorite part.”

“I thought talking would be your favorite.”

“It goes with it.”  Hamilton sat down.  “Sorry.  Like I said, distracted.  Let’s not talk about it, it’s a little embarrassing.  So Lancelot’s going to have to be on his most courtly behavior around his lady fair, huh?”  

“Is Washington the king or the dragon?”  Laurens teased, nudging him.

“The king,” Hamilton said immediately.  “Jefferson’s the dragon.”

“What does that make you?”

“Lafayette’s the golden boy, we’re just other knights at the table.”

“I just want to point out,” Laurens began, “that Adrienne is Guinevere and Lafayette is about to betray whoever is Arthur in this metaphor.”

Hamilton paused.  Washington?  “Gross.”

 

“You’re lucky,” André told Lafayette, speaking in French, as he walked with him from the language center to the lot where he had left his car.  “I can’t believe she was able to come to visit on such short notice.”

“I know,” Lafayette said happily, sorting through the plastic bag from the drugstore he had popped into earlier that day.  Condoms, a travel sewing kit, candied ginger.

“That’s an odd welcoming present,” André said, glancing down into the bag.  “Well, two-thirds of it is.  I get the condoms, but why did you pick up the rest of that?”

“Adrienne asked me to buy the sewing kit,” Lafayette explained cheerfully.  “She said she forgot something, so I’m helping.”

“And the candy?”

“Ah,” Lafayette looked embarrassed.  “It was an automatic purchase.  Because,” he said, taking on an authoritative air, “ginger’s for—”

“Imma stop you right there,” André said.  “Ginger’s for if you’re actually _getting on_ the flight, Lafayette, not if you’re waiting at baggage claim.”

“I don’t like planes,” Lafayette muttered, a little apologetic.

André patted him on the back.  “That’s fine.  But don’t psych yourself out, we’re not even going past security.”

“I know, I know.”

“Good call with the condoms, though,” André said, clicking his keys as they hit the start the of the lot.  “Are you going to rent a hotel?”

Lafayette stopped walking abruptly.  “Oh.  That would have been a smarter idea.  No, we’re staying with a friend of the family.”

“Really?  Who?”

“Dr. Washington.”

“That’s right, I forgot you know him.”  André let Lafayette into the front passenger seat.  “How did you two meet, again?”

“I took classes with a couple of professors from this school back in Paris,” Lafayette explained.  “They were visiting for just the year.  Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin.”

André looked over at Lafayette, startled, as he pulled the car out of the parking spot.  It jerked and he apologized.  “Sorry.  Dr. Franklin?  I’m taking a class with him now.  Laurens is in it, too.”

“Yes, he said that.  I don’t think I ever told him that I know him…”  Lafayette frowned, trying to remember.  “Ah, well.  I never spoke much with Dr. Jefferson in France, but Dr. Franklin was very helpful.  In fact, he was the one who inspired me to come to America.  Well, him and George Washington.  He put us in contact with one another,” Lafayette said as they left the lot.  “I couldn’t help myself.  I just had to come study here and meet him in person once more.”

André glanced at him.  “So you did know him from before.”

“Only just.”  He didn’t elaborate until André had them on the main road, starting to head towards the airport.  “I met him when I was a child.  In fact, I don’t know if I truly remember it or if it’s a memory I’ve constructed from what my grandmother told me about it.”  He kept talking as he looked out the window.  “Like I said, I was very young.  I think it must have been summer—in my mind it is summer, at least.  At the time there was a rumor that a wild animal had gotten loose.  An exotic pet.  I don’t know the details and I tried to look it up once but couldn’t find anything online, but in my recollection it was a hyena.”

“That’s a strange pet.”

“I know,” Lafayette agreed.  “Chances are equally likely that I had heard a story about a lost dog.  Either way, I spent that summer going out every day onto the fields behind our property and looking for it.  I wanted to capture it and restore safety to the town.”  He laughed.  “I had this, ah, how do you say, I had a wooden sword.”  He gestured, imitating unsheathing it.  “One day I was supposed to meet this important grown up, a man my parents had known years ago.  I didn’t want to meet him, of course, I wanted to be dismissed so I could go on my hunt.  I refused to come into the front room to meet him unless I could bring my weapon and my aunts and grandmother were very irritated with me.  But when I was presented to him, he told me that I was very brave and very kind to be so preoccupied with protecting others.”

Lafayette smiled.

“He said I looked just like my father.”

 

They parked and had only been waiting at the baggage claim for a few minutes when Lafayette suddenly grabbed André’s arm.  He had caught sight of the flash of a skirt, light blue and white stripes.

“It’s—”

Its wearer came into view as the crowds parted.  She was too short, too old, her hair wispy and blonde.

Lafayette released his hold on André.  He kept his hand on his arm anyway, then after a moment he gripped the light material of the long sleeved shirt he had open over the rest of his outfit.  He tugged it.

“André.”

“It’s all right.”

“A dress like that woman’s,” Lafayette said, indicating her.  “But her hair is dark like mine and—”

“Her plane landed, she must be here somewhere.  Here.”  André took one of the candies out of his bag and offered it to him.

Lafayette popped it in his mouth and then let go of André as a couple stepped to the side, revealing Adrienne taking her suitcase off the conveyer belt.

André took the plastic bag from Lafayette as he shoved it blindly at him.

Lafayette came quietly up behind Adrienne and helped her put the suitcase on the ground.  She looked down at his hand first.  He felt a shiver run down his back as she slowly raised her head.

“ _Salut_.”

Her face lit up and she grabbed his hand tightly, talking quickly in French and almost vibrating with excitement as she tried to contain herself.  “Gilbert!  You’re here already!  I thought I would have to call you properly and I was just thinking that I’d get my things and then find a place to buy a coffee while I wait and I wasn’t sure where you’d be able to pick me up at but you’re here already!  Is your friend here with you?”  She looked around quickly, not registering André in the crowd, and then threw her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.

“Excuse me,” André said, stepping up to them and taking her suitcase.  “The car’s in the parking garage just outside the terminal.  It’s nice to finally meet you in person, Adrienne.”

Adrienne let go of Lafayette and took his hand instead, smiling shyly at André as she looked up at him.  “Oh, it’s nice to meet you too.  Thank you so much for driving.”

“It’s not a problem.”  

“You’re taller than I thought you would be,” she said, making small-talk as they left baggage claim.  “Lafayette, you didn’t tell me the two of you were the same height.”

André and Lafayette looked at each other over Adrienne’s head.

“Oh, I suppose we are,” André said.  “I forgot.”

“How could you forget?”

André shrugged.  “I’m used to being the tallest.  When I was in high school I used to get asked if I was related to that Chinese basketball player—Look, it’s not important,” he said, cutting himself off.  “Adrienne, did you have a good flight?”

“I’m sorry it’s so long,” Lafayette said.  “It’s much longer than any other ones you’ve taken just around Europe.  I meant to give you some suggestions for how to make it more comfortable but then you were already getting on board…  Would you like a ginger candy?”  He was still sucking on his own.  “Basil,” Lafayette commented to André.  “Does basil have any properties?  I bet we could combine the two.”

“All right.”  Adrienne seemed confused by the way the conversation was bouncing around.  She put out her free hand and André gave her a candy.  “The flight was very nice, thank you.  I mostly slept.”

Lafayette looked at her in mild disbelief.

“Don’t mind him,” André said as they passed through the revolving doors to the outside.  “He did remember to get you the sewing kit.”

“Did you take something?”  Lafayette asked.

Adrienne shook her head.  “No.  We hit a little turbulence about an hour before landing, but otherwise it was very smooth, Gil.”

Lafayette shook his head.  Magical.


	89. Virginians

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions; Virginia Is for Assholes; Stealing a Minute; IT; Compromise

André dropped Lafayette and Adrienne off at the Washingtons’ and Lafayette happily escorted her around the building he had already shown her multiple times over vidchat.

“This is where you will be staying,” he announced, opening the door to one of the bedrooms.  “Alex and John slept in here during the hurricane—I made sure to ask that they wash the sheets,” Lafayette added in a whisper.

“And your room?”

Lafayette set her suitcase down just inside the door and pointed across the hall to another door.  “There.  I’ll be just across the way.”

“Good.”  She paused.  “It’s a shame we can’t stay in the same room.”

“Mm.  I know.”  Lafayette had mentioned as much to Washington and been told (with a curtness that caught him off guard) that it would be inappropriate.  Lafayette had tried to protest but stopped short at the unamused look Washington had given him.  He had not seemed willing to listen to protests and Lafayette hadn’t quite been willing to push his luck.  He silently apologized to Adrienne and then again to himself for the hundredth time.

Adrienne must have picked up on the tone because she squeezed his hand.  “It’s fine.  It’ll be fun, like a school trip.”

“I _hated_ school trips,” Lafayette protested.  “The chaperones were always too short with us and I fell in the Seine!”

“Oh, poor Gil,” Adrienne began, but Lafayette was already talking, emphasizing a little over-dramatically. 

“We were waiting around after lunch and it was so _boring_ , Adrienne.  No one was ready to go even though we were all done and my friends told me they’d take my picture if I just backed up, so I did, and they told me to back up further, and I stepped right off the edge and fell into the water and hurt my ankle!”

Adrienne had heard this story many times before.  It was to her great credit that she just gave him a sympathetic shake of the head and took his hand.

Lafayette sat down heavily to really drive the point home, putting her hand against his face and closing his eyes.  “It’s just not fair—”

“Lafayette?”

Lafayette jumped back up to his feet, blushing hotly.  Washington had gotten home unnoticed while they were setting up and had just come to the top of the stairs.

“Sir!”  Lafayette pushed Adrienne forward a step, more clumsily than he meant to in his embarrassment.  “Please meet Adrienne!”

Washington smiled warmly and inclined his head slightly.  “Miss Adrienne.  It is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Adrienne imitated the gesture and responded in nervous English.  “Thank you very much for letting me stay at your house.  Gilbert tells me a lot about you.”

Lafayette, having mostly recovered himself, continued in better English than what he had started in.  “I was just showing Adrienne the guest room you said she would be staying in.”  He didn’t realize how passive aggressive the words came out until Washington paused just a moment before responding.

“I hope it is all to your liking, Adrienne.”

“Oh,” Adrienne glanced between the two of them, caught off guard by the ashamed way Lafayette glanced off to the side.  “Yes, thank you, it’s beautiful.  You’re very kind.”

Washington smiled at her.  “Lafayette speaks very highly of you.  If you need anything during your stay here, please do not hesitate to ask.  Now,” he said, something in the cordial tone bringing Lafayette back into the conversation and his good graces.  “Are you tired?  If you are interested, perhaps I could give you a tour of the property before we eat.”

Adrienne nodded automatically and Lafayette resigned himself to listening to Washington discuss all of the plants in his collection in detail rather than fooling around.  It wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ to hear about _ficus carica_ , just that he had hoped to at least get to second base before dinner.

 

Hamilton took a long moment to himself outside the door to Jefferson’s office.  Jefferson’s name was on the door, just above a schedule for his class and office hours and a “Virginia is for lovers” bumper sticker. 

“Seriously?”  Hamilton muttered, briefly contemplating just not knocking on the door at all.  He could drop out of school, join the coast guard, _something_.  Instead he sighed and knocked.

“Come in,” Jefferson’s voice drawled from the other side of the door.

Hamilton, with great resignation, did so.

“Alexander Hamilton,” Jefferson said, swiveling in his office chair to face him.  He motioned at a smaller desk chair—non-swiveling, clearly inferior to the one Jefferson was sitting in, placed to stand in sharp and hierarchical contrast—near the door.  “Have a seat.”

Hamilton sat.  The chair didn’t even have armrests and he put his hands on the sides of the seat, curling his fingers under and feeling the thin fabric backing underneath lifting up.  _Thanks, asshole_ , Hamilton thought.  _I appreciate it._ He glanced around the room, looking for something to throw in his face later, even if just in his imagination.  The office was a very organized mess, nothing out of place but filled with eclectic items.  A framed picture of Jefferson and a woman, presumably his wife, was in a prominent place on the desk.  A Galileo thermometer sat next to it, alongside various Native American trinkets—East Coast, Hamilton recognized, but didn’t look at them long enough to break it down beyond there.  Books filled the shelves along the walls on a wide range of subjects, not all of them, Hamilton noticed with surprise, on politics.  There was a small rotating bookstand on the corner of his desk, holding four more open. 

“There’s a tusk above the door as well,” Jefferson said in obvious amusement, watching Hamilton try to be inconspicuous with his staring.  Hamilton refrained from turning to look.

“Now,” Jefferson said, “are you done looking around?  Can we get to work?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton didn’t bother shifting his tone or language like he did around other figures of authority.  “What’s up?”

If Jefferson was bothered by the display of disrespect he didn’t show it.  Instead he handed over a heavily marked up copy of Hamilton’s proposal.  “I wanted to talk to you about your senior project.  There’s quite a lot of work to be done, which is why I thought I should get back to you ASAP,” Jefferson drew out the acronym.  “You’ll have to hustle some to get it turned in again and not fall too far behind but I’m sure you’ll find the time to do that.”

Hamilton, incredulous, took the paper.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had a piece of written work shredded so thoroughly and, as he flipped through and read the comments, over actual structural changes and not just inconsequential nonsense.

“What is this?”  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“This is my feedback on your proposal,” Jefferson said calmly. 

“Okay,” Hamilton said, “you’re not my advisor.  Do I get to see what everyone else on the committee wrote?  Are those back yet?”

“Last page, Hamilton.”

Hamilton flipped to the back.  There were notes written in different pens and hands.  Apparently Jefferson had gotten to the document first and then passed it around, but everyone else had signed off on it.

“I thought I was supposed to get individual feedback,” Hamilton began.

“We discussed it and decided that—due to the _magnitude_ of the revisions—it would be less confusing if we kept all of our notes to a single document.”

Hamilton chewed on the inside of his lip.  Keep it together, don’t say anything _stupid_.  He’s allowed to give feedback and suggest changes, if he’s not the lone voice _you’re_ not going to enjoy challenging him on it.

“It was fine the first time,” Hamilton said.  No, stupid.

Jefferson raised an eyebrow and folded his hands on his desk, leaning forward.  “Hamilton, part of the academic process is learning how to deal with criticism.”  Great, now he was condescending to him, this is why you learn to keep your friggin’ mouth shut.  “No one enjoys it, but understand that nothing you write will be perfect on the first try.”  Was that an intentional dig?  Was the second person really necessary there?  “Revise, Hamilton.  You’ve been cut too much slack in the past if this is your reaction.  And Hamilton,” Jefferson added as Hamilton forced himself to remain silent.  “You’re too wordy.  Cut this down to half the length.  Your trick with the margins is cute, but you’re over the limit.  It’s not fair to give you extra space to explain yourself.”

“Fine,” Hamilton made himself say.  “Thank you.  Sir.”  Hamilton stood.  “Was there anything else?”

“That’s all.”  Jefferson leaned back.  “I look forward to reading the second draft.”

 

“It’s not fair,” Lafayette complained, still wearing his clothes from earlier that day.  He was sitting on the foot of Adrienne’s bed, legs folded.  His shoes were kicked off and lying on the floor—Adrienne was lying on her side under the covers.

“I want to spend time with you.  You came all this way, I want to make the most of it.” 

“I know,” Adrienne said.  She had one arm tucked under the pillow.  “But it’s his house.”

“He let Alexander and John share a room,” Lafayette muttered.

“Gilbert.”

Lafayette sighed.  “It’s true.”

“Don’t sound ungrateful.”

“I just miss you,” Lafayette said as Adrienne stifled a yawn behind her hand.  “I want to spend every moment of the day with you, not every moment between six in the morning and ten at night!”

“Mm…”  Adrienne put out her hand.  “I know.  It’s after ten, Gil.”

Lafayette scooted closer and took it.  “I couldn’t help it.  I had to sneak out.”

“And all the way across the hall,” Adrienne said, smiling with her eyes closed.

“They sleep just a room over, it was a very dangerous mission.  I had to sneak behind enemy lines!”

“Stay a few more minutes,” Adrienne said.  “Before you make the long and arduous journey back.”

Lafayette curled up on top of the covers, cradling her hand.  “If you insist.”

 

> A. Hamilton: what’s the difference between IDE and SATA

> J. Laurens: Uh, I have no idea.  Why?

> A. Hamilton: jfc I hate this

> A. Hamilton: i just want to go back to my own goddamn apartment and sleep john

> A. Hamilton: i hate this fucking job and I hate my boss and i hate congress

> A. Hamilton that last one is unrelated bt seriously i hate those guys too, I was clicking through news articles while  I tried to unfry my brainand what the fuck is wrong with everyone the wrold i s fuckde up.

> J. Laurens: Wait, are you still at the office?

> A. Hamilton: oui oui mon ami

> J. Laurens: It’s midnight!

> A. Hamilton: yeah good thing hes got a coffee machien in here

> A. Hamilton: stick me iwth an impossible project, JOKES ON YOU IM DRINKING ALL YOUR KEURIG

> J. Laurens: Alex, go home.  It’s too late to be working.

> A. Hamilton: im breaking all the labor laws already j

> A. Hamilton: i might as well break the housing codes too

 

Laurens was already lying in bed, typing on his phone as it was charging.  He frowned and hesitated before responding.

 

> J. Laurens: Do you want me to come down and see if I can help you?

> A. Hamilton: god no, and i mean that in the best way possible

> A. Hamilton: Aren't you supposed to be asleep by now anyway?

> J. Laurens: Aren’t you supposed to not be working still?

> A. Hamilton: point for John Laurens but I’m trying to figure some computer shit out and need to get it done

> J. Laurens: Drop it off at IT.

> A. Hamilton: It’s supposed to be so easy! all i need to do is transfer some files from one machine to the other and it should have taken approximatly five minutes except the program is beingA LITTLE BITCH

> J. Laurens: Drop it off at IT.

> A. Hamilton: i tld him i could do it, j

 

Laurens checked the time on his phone.  Hamilton was right, he had meant to be asleep by now.  He typed back anyway.

 

> J. Laurens: Are you seriously sticking with this just to prove a point?  It’ll be so much faster to just hand it off to someone else and then you can get back to your own work.

> A. Hamilton: whats VM?

 

Laurens sighed and opened up a browser window to search.

 

> J. Laurens: “Virtual machine”

> A. Hamilton: oh

> A. Hamilton: tjat makes sense, thanks bae

> J. Laurens: Bae?

 

Laurens was smiling a little in spite of himself and he rolled over onto his side, unplugging his phone so he could type easier.

 

> A. Hamilton: yeah i think thats what the kids are calling it these days

> A. Hamilton: honestly lafaeytte is going to end up better able to parle avec les jeunes than i am, he’s got a good dictionary going for himself.

> J. Laurens: What are you trying to do, anyway?

> A. Hamilton: there’s some ancient crap on this ancient laptop that Washington wants on his office desktop, but none of it speaks to each other.  I got the documents in plain text but thers a program he wants too and ofco the desktops an apple and wont read it/  so long story short, spent $40 on a ukranian email code, got a free VM download, everythigs finally hooked up snd should be fine according to the pdf instructions that i can oly mostly read aND THE DAMN THING WONT READ THE DISC DRIVE

 

It had taken an uncharacteristically long time for Hamilton to text him back.  Apparently he wasn’t quite clear enough on what he was doing to be able to sum it up quickly.  Laurens was just falling asleep when his phone alerted him to the text.  He skimmed it.

 

> J. Laurens: that sucks

> A. Hamilton: yeah

> A. Hamilton: no shit

> A. Hamilton: I always thought of myself as pretty technologically savvy but turns out all i really want is to be rich enough to pay someone else to deal with shit like this for me while i play around with the pretty customer friendly interface

> J. Laurens: like your boss?

> A. Hamilton: yeha like washington, exactly.

> A. Hamilton: maybe i should take a class on this shit

> A. Hamilton: I bet i could still find one to sit in on even if i dont get credit.

 

Hamilton waited for a couple of minutes, watching the screen where it indicated that Laurens was typing.  He expected some kind of response about how he was already doing too much and when it didn’t come he rubbed at his dry eyes and sent another text.

 

> A. Hamilton: gnight, j.  Text me when you get up and if Im still on campus ill meet you

 

Lafayette woke the next morning with a start to find himself still lying on Adrienne’s bed, Washington standing over him with his arms folded.

“S-sir!”  Lafayette tumbled off the mattress onto the floor then stood up hastily.  “I—”

Washington’s face was unreadable and Lafayette quickly followed him out of the room.  “I’m sorry, sir, I know you said to be in my room by ten—” he chased him down the stairs, “—and I was, but I wanted to speak with her, and then I just fell asleep—It’s not Adrienne’s fault, she didn’t ask me—Oh, but I didn’t invite myself without her permission, either—” he was practically tugging at the sleeve of his shirt as he crowded alongside him through the doorway into the smaller of the two dining rooms, “—I had to be with her, it wasn’t right to be away from her for any longer.  I love her,” Lafayette declared, standing on one side of the table as Washington crossed to the other and picked up a plate off a serving cart.  “I love her, sir.  And, and I hope that you can appreciate that.”

“Here.”

Lafayette forced himself not to wince away, expecting a cold look and cutting remark, but Washington just handed him the plate.

“Be careful, it’s still hot.”  His voice was calm.

Lafayette looked down at the plate in confusion.  Waffles?

“What would you like to drink?”

Lafayette looked back up at Washington.  He was half-smiling fondly at him.

“…Milk?”

Washington poured him a glass and set it at the table.  “Have a seat, Lafayette.  It’s not good to stand while you eat.”

Lafayette sat obediently.

“Washington, sir?”

“Yes, Lafayette?”

“Am I in trouble?”

Washington took his own plate and sat across from him.  “Go ahead and start eating, Lafayette.  There’s no need to stand on protocol.  Adrienne will join us when she’s ready.  Syrup?”

Lafayette obediently poured some, cut a bite, ate it, then put the fork down.

“Thank you.  This is very good.”

“Good.  I’m glad you like it.”

“Did you make it yourself?”  Lafayette asked, sitting politely and waiting for Washington at least to serve himself before eating any more.

“No, no, the staff did.”

“Oh.”

“You understand that I am not comfortable letting the two of you sleep in the same room unsupervised,” Washington began, pouring himself a cup of coffee and sitting across from Lafayette.

“Yes,” Lafayette said, “but—”

Washington raised his hand and Lafayette fell quiet.

“But,” Washington picked up where Lafayette had left off.  “I think perhaps it is too much to ask for you two to be separated when you are used to spending the night together.  I may have a solution.”

Lafayette sat up straighter.  “You are going to let us stay together anyway?”

“Yes,” Washington said.  “But,” he added when Lafayette pushed his chair back quickly from the table and was about to stand up to thank him, “with supervision, as I said.  I will ask Alexander if he wouldn’t mind acting as your chaperone.”

“Our…  chaperone?”  Lafayette asked, a little dismayed.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for someone of my age to sit up in your room.  And I think the cot would agree more with him than with myself.”

Lafayette didn’t have an answer to that and at that moment Adrienne, dressed for the day, came into the dining room.

“Adrienne,” Washington said, “how do you feel about having Alexander Hamilton act as your chaperone?  He’s a responsible boy and then the two of you could have some more privacy.”

“That sounds nice, thank you,” Adrienne said automatically, not entirely understanding all of the words in that proposal.

“Then it’s settled,” Washington said, getting up again and serving himself and Adrienne.  “I’ll let him know I’d like to hire him for a few nights.”

“I—”  Lafayette looked between Washington and Adrienne.  How was he supposed to argue his point while maintaining a polite conversational balance between the two of them?  Besides, he realized after a moment’s thought, Hamilton would likely be the laxest chaperone this side of Paris.  “All right,” Lafayette agreed, handing Adrienne the bottle of syrup.  “Thank you, sir.”


	90. Overeager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caffeine Rush; *Try and a Miss; And Peggy!; *Take Two

Hamilton met Laurens outside the dorm.

“Good morning,” he said, talking quickly as he walked with him towards the gym.  “Sleep well?  Sorry if I kept you up for a while last night, didn’t mean to.  Did you—of course you got my last message, you texted me back this morning, thanks, J.”

Laurens looked down at him.  Hamilton’s hair was just starting to come out of its ponytail and he was gesturing a little more erratically than usual as he talked.

“So I’m pretty sure the problem is on the emulator—I mean the, uh, the download, the thing that reads Windows.  At first I thought the operating system itself was screwy—like I said,” Hamilton jerked to the side and out of the way of another student, knocking into Laurens.  “Sorry about that.”  He put his hand on Laurens’ side, half to steady himself and half in a gesture of apology.  “Where was I?  Oh, so at first I thought it was the OS because I wasn’t kidding about buying it from the Ukraine.  Lovely country, good food, not the best reputation for this sort of thing and I can’t read the fine print on anything I signed off on since, guess what, it’s in Cyrillic.  If it had been in Roman lettering then I might have given it a fair shake but let’s be real I don’t know anything beyond a handful of food words from the menu at that place Lafayette took me to that one time.  Google translate,” he continued, well into his tangent.  “Hell of a thing, John.  Grammar sucks and I wouldn’t trust it with anything important but what an amazing synthesizer of dictionaries.  Just think about it—a few decades ago we’d be stuck fumbling our way through a stack of language to language dictionaries as tall as the friggin’ building and now it’s just copy paste a few words into a text box and _bam_.”  He finally took his hand off of him and clapped them together.  “Friggin’ miracle of something if you ask me.”

“So did you get whatever it was set up?”

“Hm?”  Hamilton looked up at him, then shook his head.  “No, not yet.  Laptop keeps overheating, need to keep it plugged in or it dies instantly.  That’s not actually the problem, I’m basically all on the desktop at this point.  I just can’t get the disc drive to read.”

Laurens frowned.  “Wasn’t that what you were saying last night?”

“Yup.”

“You’re still stuck at the same place?  Alex, take the damn problem to IT already.  That’s their job.”

“I had like four cups of coffee, John.”

“Go to sleep.”

“I told you that bit about the coffee so you wouldn’t say that.”

“You’re going to have a heart attack.”

“Nah.  It’s a nice day out,” Hamilton said, changing the topic abruptly.  “Not as cold as it could be.  I forgot my scarf and gloves at the office and I’m pretty okay with that.”

“Alexander,” Laurens started.

“I know, I know.  I’m done working on it for now.  I need a few minutes to get some other stuff taken care of.”

“You need to sleep,” Laurens said.  “Here.”  He dug his keys out of his pocket.  “Lafayette’s not here, go crash at our place until your class.”

Hamilton took the keys and looked down at them, not entirely registering what Laurens was saying.  “Your keys?”

Laurens stopped outside of the gym and glanced down the sidewalk.  It was still very early in the morning, not light yet, and no one else was around.  He put his hand on Hamilton’s waist and when Hamilton looked up, kissed him.

“Go sleep.”

 

Lafayette was practically giddy as he let Adrienne into his dorm room that day.

“Voilà,” he announced, swinging open the door.  “Look at that!  An empty room!  Two empty beds,” he continued, pretending as though he were giving her a tour.  “And that is my desk and John’s desk and my chair and his chair and there we are, back at my bed,” he concluded.  He pushed her down onto it and quickly followed after.

Adrienne let out a little delighted yelp and pulled him close to her, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him.

Lafayette wrapped his arms around her, then slid one hand back and up her shirt, feeling her breast over the lace cup of her bra.

“Gil,” she began.

“I have supplies here,” he said.  “It’s all in my desk.  I prepared—I was very excited to hear that you would come…”

“I’ll get it,” Adrienne said, slipping out of his grasp and getting up.  He started to protest but stopped when she pulled her bra out one sleeve of her shirt.  His girlfriend really was magical.

“It’s in the bottom drawer,” Lafayette said.  “Right on top.”

Adrienne shimmied out of her pants and crouched on the floor, pulling the drawer open.

“Oh,” she said in mild surprise.  “These are…”

“Oh,” Lafayette repeated, sitting up on the bed.  “Yes, that’s where I keep the other things as well.”

Adrienne looked into the drawer for a long moment, then took out the lube and a condom.  “Can we use one later?”  

Lafayette was a little startled by that but he nodded.  “Of course.”

“Maybe next time,” Adrienne said, sitting on the side of the bed and offering him the items.  “I want…”  She hesitated a moment, then continued as Lafayette took his shirt off.  “I want you to remember using them with me.” 

“We can definitely use them later,” Lafayette agreed, very readily.  He leaned forward and kissed her lightly.  She surprised him by pushing her tongue into his mouth.  Lafayette put his hands back under her shirt and moaned into the kiss.  It had been too long.  He bit at the material of her shirt, trying to undo the buttons with his teeth, and she kissed the top of his head and nudged it away, deftly unfastening them.

“Thank you,” he breathed.

She ran a hand up over his torso.  “I was right,” she said softly.  “It’s only been a couple of months, Gil, but your body is different.”  She moved it back down over his chest and abs, tracing the muscles carefully.  “I still recognize it as yours, but—”  She touched her forehead to the side of his face.  “You do look older, Gil.”

He nudged her face up and kissed her again.  “Please,” he said, very straightforward.  “I miss you and I want to see—to feel—you while it’s still daylight.”

“I do too,” Adrienne said, then returned the kiss.  She lay down on her back, dropping her underwear to the floor.

Lafayette quickly got up, striping down the rest of the way and put the condom on his erect cock, lying back down on top of her and pressing one slick finger against her clit, rubbing her until she arched off the mattress into him and put one arm across his shoulders to pull him tightly against her.

“My love,” she said, breathy.  He shivered.  Hearing her voice over the phone or his computer speakers was nothing like having her whisper in his ear.  “Gilbert…”

“Adrienne,” he responded, moving his hand faster.  “Let’s stay here all day.  Let’s not leave this room.”

She laughed a little.  “What about your—”

“Classes?  I can miss a few without consequences.  Nothing important is happening today, nothing more important than reminding myself of every inch of your body.”  He moved his hand down an inch and she moaned softly.

“Gil…”

“I love you,” he said, stroking her opening as he teased her clit with his thumb.  “I can’t believe you are here, it’s like a dream and I want to take advantage of every moment of it before I wake up.”  He felt her get wet and his breath caught audibly.  “Adrienne,” he said, his voice soft and shaking at the start of her name.  “My Adrienne.”

“My Gil,” she said, taking a hold of his wrist and encouraging him to move one finger into her.

He did so, very eager but forcing himself to move slowly and smoothly.  He  curled it against her—warm and soft—and he felt his cock twitch in anticipation.  She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes.  Lafayette pushed gently away from her, propping himself up on one elbow so he could freely move his other hand while trying to memorize her face and body.

“Gil,” Adrienne said, putting her hand on his arm.  “Another one.”

Lafayette obliged, shutting his eyes for a moment against how badly he wanted it.  His cock was _hard_ and he couldn’t help but imagine how good she would feel, how good it would feel to push into her, finally get that familiar tight hold around his shaft…

Lafayette moved his hand back and forth, adding a third finger before she asked for one but when he could feel that she was no longer too tight for it.  She gripped his arm tighter, her nails biting in a little, and gasped in pleasure.  

Lafayette felt desire building within him and he curled his fingers against her, hearing her moan his name.

“Gilbert,” Adrienne said, “please, I want you.”

He took his hand away and put it on her other side, lying on top of her again and kissed her, long and hungry.  She left one hand on his arm and put the other on his shaft to guide him in, but her touch on him filled him with an overly-excited rush of warm and he—without realizing what was about to happen until it was too late and he was no longer able to even try to control it—came, in the condom, just outside of her.

“Oh!”  Adrienne exclaimed without meaning to, and her hand automatically jerked away.

Lafayette’s eyes opened wide and he lay just above her, breathing heavily and for a moment too much in shock to even feel properly embarrassed.

“I-I’m sorry!”  He managed after a second, quickly sitting up and covering himself with his shirt.  “That’s never—I’m sorry, Adrienne!”

“It’s all right,” she said hastily, sitting up and reaching out to touch his face.  “It’s been a while.”

“Not that long,” Lafayette said, his face burning and not sure why he was arguing against her right now.  She was giving him an excuse and he was too panicked and embarrassed to accept it.  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.  “I can—I can finish still, I can do something else!  Or even that,” he continued, “just give me a minute!”

“My love.”  Adrienne still had her hand on the side of his face and she drew it towards her, kissing it.

“I can’t believe it,” Lafayette said to himself, sounding a little shellshocked.  “Betrayed!”  He stared down at his lap.

“Gil,” Adrienne said again, a little firmer.  “It’s fine.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

Adrienne sighed.  “Maybe we should just try again later.  You really shouldn’t miss class anyway.  Come back in an hour and we can pretend as though none of this happened.”

Lafayette buried his face in his hands.  “I can’t believe it,” he said again, muffled.  “What’s wrong with me?”  He asked.  “Even when we were younger, I never lost control like that.  That shouldn’t have happened.”

Adrienne got up and offered him his clothes.  He dressed.

“My dearheart,” Adrienne said a minute later, both of them clothed and sitting on the edge of the mattress.  “It’s fine.”

He sent a dark look to the trashcan by his desk.

“Go to class,” she continued, putting her hand lightly on his chest and kissing him on the cheek.  “I’ll wait for you here.  I’m looking forward to seeing you afterwards.”

 

Lafayette got to his class—Pop Psychology—late, and his normal seat was already taken.  He slipped as unobtrusively as possible into a chair at the back of the room near the door and when the professor told them to work in pairs, he introduced himself to the girl next to him.

“I’m Lafayette.”

“Peggy,” she said in response.  Lafayette frowned.  She was short, still with baby-fat in her cheeks, and with dark wavy hair.  This wasn’t—  “Schuyler,” Peggy finished.  “What’s the matter?”

“Ah, I just realized that I know another Peggy.  I know multiple Marthas, as well,” Lafayette mused to himself, “and Johns.  Americans are not very creative with their names.”

Peggy just gave him an unamused look.

“Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette,” Lafayette explained.  “That’s much more different.  Although part of that is taken from my father, Michel Louis Christophe Roch Gilbert Paulette du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.  La Fayette,” Lafayette corrected himself, putting the space between the words.

“Do you really introduce yourself with your title like that every time?”  Peggy asked.  She took on an air learned from her older sister.  “That’s so pretentious.”

“I cannot help it if that’s my name,” Lafayette protested.

“I’m just Peggy,” Peggy said decisively.

“I am just Lafayette.”

“That’s your title again,” Peggy pointed out.  Lafayette squirmed.

“Yes, well, that may be so…”

“Why do you go by that part of it?”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “Ah, have you heard of the actual Marquis de Lafayette?  He was a hero of the American Revolution.”

“No.  Are you related to him?”

Lafayette nodded.  “ _Oui_ , he is—”  He changed topics abruptly as the professor walked by.  “For the third problem, _oui_ , I thought it was difficult to follow what the man in the example was saying.  That is something that I think it is important to focus on when we talk about his situation.”

Peggy looked up, anxious, then stifled a laugh behind her fist.

Lafayette looked up from his open textbook once the coast was clear.  “I know it is just a title,” he said, “but I respect the weight that it carries very much.  Names are very important things, don’t you think?  They’re a declaration,” Lafayette went on.  “They tell the world who you are.”

Peggy considered this with a shrug and tucked her hair behind her ear again.  “All right, so ‘Lafayette’ has a grand legacy.”

“I like ‘Peggy,’” Lafayette said.  “But I don’t know the story behind it.”

“There isn’t one,” Peggy said, a little bluntly, and then repeated, “I’m just Peggy.”

“But your parents gave it to you,” Lafayette insisted.

“It’s a nickname.  My full name is too _much_.  It would suit my sisters better.”

“Is it as much as Marie-Joseph—”

Peggy cut him off as he started to tease her.  “Okay, okay, I get it, you don’t need to do the whole thing again, jeez.”  She cracked a little smile.  “Do you _really_ make everyone call you by the title part, though?  Like, even your family?”

“Some people call me Gilbert,” Lafayette said.  “That’s the part of my given name that I go by.”

“Mm…”  Peggy considered this.  “It doesn’t really suit you in English.  I’ll stick with Lafayette.”

“Aha, I knew it.”  Lafayette crossed his legs at the ankle, taking on a pleased air and relaxing into the conversation.  “You do like it.”

“Your reasoning isn’t bad.  For the name thing, I mean.”  She turned his textbook towards her and frowned at the answer he had written in the blank space on the page.  “Is that really what you got?  Did you not read the chapter at all?”

“It was a trick question,” Lafayette protested, planting both his feet on the floor and pulling the book back as Peggy crossed her arms and gave him her best skeptical expression.  “ _Alors_ , let me show you…”

 

“I got one of the questions wrong on my homework,” Lafayette complained as soon as Adrienne opened the door to his room.  He was still standing out in the hall and he took his bag off then dropped it to the floor just inside, letting her close and lock the door behind him.  “It was poorly worded,” he went on, “it wasn’t my fault.  I still hold that I was technically correct, or at least not as incorrect as I could have been.”

“I believe you,” Adrienne said, taking his hand.  “I missed you.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I missed you, too.”

He was feeling much better after the hard reset of getting out of the building and going to class, but, still, the moment wasn’t there.  He squeezed her hand awkwardly, not sure what else to do.

“Sit down,” Adrienne said, encouraging him onto the bed.  He did and she sat sideways in his lap, her arms around his neck.   Lafayette wondered if she was trying to power through as well, or if it was just him.

“Mm…”  Lafayette kissed her and felt her relax into it.

She leaned back a little as he started to undo her shirt.

Lafayette kissed her again, then slid her shirt off of her shoulders, cupping her breasts over her bra and then nudging her to straddle him instead.  She pressed against him and he closed his eyes, feeling her soft skin under the lace of the cups.

“Gil,” she murmured.  He took in a slow breath at the name.  “Your clothes.”

“Right.”

He let her get up and quickly stripped, turning back to face the bed to see her lying on it in only her bra and underwear, stretching a little against the sheets, one arm up over her head.  He felt himself start to get aroused and he lay over her, kissing her mouth and neck, one hand on her breasts and the other reaching down to touch her over the thin cotton.  It was only a few seconds before he felt the fabric dampen and he moaned low against her skin.

Her breath caught in her throat.  “Oh…”

“God, I missed you.”

Lafayette could tell she was about to tease him for that so he quickly tugged the fabric to the side and pushed his fingers against her, making her gasp.

“Gil—”

“Adrienne,” he said, touching his fingers to one another.  They slid against each other.  He was getting hard.

“Gil,” she repeated, then directed his attention to the bottle and small foil square she had already put on the bed.

He made a little displeased noise.  Opening them would mean taking his hand away.

“Later,” he said, slowly pushing two fingers into her.  “In a minute.”

Adrienne gasped, then grabbed his wrist and moved his hand deeper.

Lafayette groaned, then kissed her neck and shoulder, concentrating on setting a steady rhythm and pressing against her, making her voice catch and her hips tip towards him.

“Gil,” Adrienne repeated, “Oh—”

Lafayette pressed a little more insistently, moving away a little so that he would not touch himself to her.

“Now?”  Adrienne asked.  “ _Please_ —”

She was begging him and he felt his heart turn over.  “Right…”  He sat up and grabbed the items, quickly getting ready while she finished undressing.

Lafayette felt her hand on his wrist again and she pulled him down on top of her, kissing him, putting her hand behind his neck, and he eased into her, breaking the kiss and moaning loudly.

“Shit,” he swore without thinking about it.  She laughed, just a little.  He pushed further in and she wrapped one of her legs around his, pulling him flush against her.

“Adrienne,” Lafayette moaned.  He moved his hips back and then forwards and closed his eyes, oblivious to everything other than the feeling of being in her and the sound of her quickened breathing.

She tightened her hold on his leg, grabbing his arm firmly as well and clinging to it, her breaths coming with little pleading sounds.

Lafayette couldn’t help but remember other times they had been together, back in Paris at her house—even more recently, over the phone or his laptop, all the times he had woken up in the middle of the night from a dream about her…  He had been so jealous of Hamilton and Laurens on occasion and he had tried to keep it to himself and now none of that mattered because she was here with him.  _Here_ , and underneath him and her body was warm against his and her lips were parted and he was inside her and—

Lafayette felt his orgasm building and he kissed her again, intending to just get her attention so he could tell her he was going to slow down, but she clenched against him and he moaned, unable to help himself.  

“Yes,” Adrienne said, her voice a little high.  “Yes, Gil, my Gil, please—”

She was still tight around his cock and he struggled to remain where he was and not slide any closer to the edge.

“Please,” Adrienne repeated.  “More…”

Lafayette steeled himself and moved a little faster, her voice ringing in his ears.

“Yes,” Adrienne gasped, her nails suddenly biting hard into his arm and she leaned up, pressing her forehead against his collar.

Lafayette felt his own orgasm tear through him, spinning the world around him for a second, and then he pulled out and collapsed on his back next to her, pulling her to him.  Her hair was sticking wet to her brow and she was breathing heavily.  His own chest was rising and falling rapidly and he kissed her briefly, shakily.

“I love you,” he said. 

She took his hand and intertwined their fingers, pulling it up to her mouth and kissing it.  “I love you,” she said after him.


	91. Surprise Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uninvited; *Invincible

Hamilton opened the dorm room with Laurens’ key and to a startled yelp from Adrienne.  She was wearing Lafayette’s shirt and she crossed her arms over her chest as Hamilton stopped for a moment in the doorway.

“Oh, hey.  Sorry.”

Hamilton tossed a book onto Laurens’ bed.  “I was just returning that.  By the way, Lafayette,” he said, turning to Lafayette who was sitting on his own bed, completely naked except for the sheet he had hastily pulled over himself.  “I thought you said you were aces at not getting inappropriately walked in on?”

“John’s in class!”  Lafayette protested, indignant.  “How was I supposed to know you would break in?”

“I didn’t break in,” Hamilton said, sitting at Laurens’ desk and not giving Lafayette the opportunity to get into a less compromising position.  “But, hey, I’m your chaperone now, so I guess you just gotta deal with me hanging out all the time.  If I’m going to earn that twenty bucks a night I might as well work for it.”

“I will give you an extra ten if you leave now and don’t come back until we have to head back to the house.”

“Tempting.”  Hamilton carefully did not look at Adrienne as she put a jacket on over the shirt and tugged it down, making sure it covered to her mid-thighs.  “Actually, I should clarify, I’m not sure if I’m on the clock or not for nights you’re not spending with the president.”

“Call him,” Lafayette said.  “Or, even better, go ask him in person.  _Va te faire foutre._ ”

“Gil!”  Adrienne said.

“He’s—!”  Lafayette bit his tongue.  “He’s just trying to be a pain, Adrienne,” Lafayette protested.

“I would _never_ ,” Hamilton said, almost successfully hiding a grin.  “Adrienne, tell your boyfriend I’m not that much of a jerk, I’m just following orders.”

“He is,” Adrienne said, sitting in the other chair.

“He is not,” Lafayette argued.  “He’s being a douchebag!”  He intentionally picked a term that Adrienne would not immediately recognize as being as crass as it was.

Adrienne frowned a little.  The tone of what he had said didn’t match up with what it seemed like it meant.

“Nice,” Hamilton said appreciatively.  “Non-sexy double entendre.”

“Will you please leave?”  Lafayette asked in a tone of forced politeness.  “Please.  _Please_.”

“You are so pushy.  Fine, but seriously, it’s kind of bullshit that I’m supposed to be supervising you.  I wanted to work something out with you in advance re: the sex.”

Lafayette adjusted his sheet.  “I’m listening.”

“So I think it’s stupid that you’re not allowed to spend time together.  I assume you figured I’d be on your side with this?  Anyway, I’m all down for coming up with some code word or signal when you need a little _alone time_ and I need to distract the boss.  How do you want to do it?  Drop Rochambeau into the conversation and I get G-Wash started on a rant about different kinds of organic fertilizer?”

“A code word would be good,” Lafayette agreed, “but do you know what would be better?”

“What?”

“A series of words.  So you know how much time to give us.”

“Yeah, I like that, except I can’t promise you unlimited time at any point in the day or night.  Some hours will be easier for me to swing than others.”  Hamilton shifted to the side and took his phone out of his pocket.  “Let’s make a schedule.”

“A schedule?”

“ _Oui_ ,” Hamilton said.  “It’ll make my life easier, which’ll make your lives easier as well.”  He clicked around, opening up his calendar.  “Right.  Lafayette, I assume you want to have a solid fifteen minutes at least as an option every night?”

Lafayette glanced at Adrienne.  “Of course.”  She looked a little confused so he nodded reassuringly at her.

“Right, I’ll come up with a list of excuses that’ll give you as much time as possible.  Feel free to do whatever you want while I’m in the shower,” he went on, “I’ll knock before I come back out of the bathroom.”

“And during the day?”  

“Wake before curfew and I’ll turn a blind eye and deaf ear to whatever you kids want to get up to.  Seriously,” Hamilton added.  “I’ll sleep in John’s headphones, music on.  You got a sleep mask?  Just don’t make it audible from the hallway and you’re set.”

“This is all very nice of you,” Lafayette said.  “But it’s all what we could do if we were sneaking around without your help.”

“You’re right.  So back to scheduling.”  Hamilton paused.  “Shit, I actually wish I was wearing glasses right now.  I could push them up for dramatic effect.  If this was an ink and paper planner, I’d lick the tip of my finger to turn the page with a flourish.”

“Alexander.”

“Right, sorry, distracted.  So scheduling.  Let’s see, Thursday, I can get you at least half an hour if not a solid forty-five in the evening.  After dinner would probably be better.  I’ve got some legitimate work questions for him and it’ll take a little while to go through all of it.  Let’s say I text you the emoji of that girl making an x with her arms when it looks like he’s starting to wrap things up?  I can grab you a few extra minutes before breakfast, too.  It’s my first night on the job so I’ll ambush him in the hall with some important w-2 questions.  How am I supposed to file for this, anyway?  Like is it under miscellaneous work or is it part of my regular job?  It’s a mystery, I’ll let you know what he answers.”

“You’re being very helpful,” Lafayette had to admit.  “Thank you, Alexander.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Hey, no problem.  You’ve both been very…  It’s not a problem, Lafayette.  I like you guys and I’m glad to help.”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side, waiting for a more thorough answer.

Even though Hamilton was the only one fully dressed he felt embarrassed to have the other two looking at him suddenly.

“You’ve both been very helpful to me and John,” he said.  “Like the other day, when I was freaking out at you over nothing and you told me it was—you said to just go with it.  It was helpful.  So thanks.  What I’m saying, I guess, is that I feel like I owe you and if you want, I’ll help you sneak around under your fake dad’s nose.  Besides,” he added, “I kind of like pulling one over on him.”

“Pass me my clothes,” Lafayette said, motioning to the pile on the floor.

Hamilton got up and handed them to him.  “PJs or regular clothes?”

“Regular, of course.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Thought maybe you were staying in the rest of the night.”

Lafayette paused and looked over at Adrienne.  “ _Veux-tu sortir?_ ”

She made a non-committal gesture.

“Unless the two of you want to go to a restaurant it’s probably getting late for you to head out and do any sight-seeing.”  Hamilton tossed him his sleep clothes and sat back down in the chair.  “What’s on your bucket list for the city, anyway?”

“I want to take Adrienne to see the statues of my ancestor,” Lafayette said happily, pulling his sleep shirt on over his head.  The sheer material didn’t do much to give him his modesty back.

“Your ancestor?”

“Yes!”  Lafayette got up to pull a pair of yoga pants on.  Adrienne looked away politely.  “My, how do you say, seven-times great grandfather was the Marquis de Lafayette!”

“Of course he was,” Hamilton said.  “That title’s hereditary.” 

“No, no.”  Lafayette sat back down.  “I mean he was _the_ Marquis de Lafayette.  The famous one.  The one that saved America.”

“Never heard of him.”

“What?”  Lafayette looked genuinely offended.  “He’s an American hero!  Without his financial aid and military genius America would never have been born!”

“You don’t know that,” Hamilton said.  “That’s like that stupid question about would you go back in time and drown baby Hitler.  There’re a lot of variables at play and it’s over-simplistic to attribute historical events or developments to a single—”

“Yes, yes, I get it, you are a structuralist.  Now please shut up and let me enlighten you.”

Hamilton crossed his arms, but listened.

“The Marquis de Lafayette was a great war hero.  He was so young when he first came to America but he managed to be made major general under General Christopher Jackson anyway.  The two remained good friends even after Jackson became the first president of the United States, an event that would not have come to pass without French aid—”  Hamilton, willing to concede that point, nodded.  “—And _that_ would not have been as easy without the Marquis’ connections to the royal court and willingness to work without pay.  Besides which,” Lafayette continued, “he was a great military tactician.  He outmaneuvered the British several times on the battlefield, turning around defeats and tricking them into attacking themselves.   Even those who doubted him at first had to admit that he had an uncanny talent for it.”

“Hold up.  Is this why you insist on getting that red sash with your uniform?”

“He wants to be a major general like him,” Adrienne explained, nodding.  “He is his hero.”

“Adrienne!”  Lafayette squeaked, losing the tone of his dramatic monologue.

“He is, though,” Adrienne insisted.  “It’s cute.”

“It is cute,” Hamilton agreed.  “I like your shirt, by the way.”

Lafayette glanced down.  “We are young, but it’s real,” he read off of it.  “I know.  I relate to it very much.”

“Good for you,” Hamilton said in the verbal equivalent of a head-pat. 

“No one takes me seriously,” Lafayette complained to Hamilton.  “And that’s why I bought this shirt,” he added to himself.

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  “Right.  Sorry.  So, your bucket list?”

“I want to show Adrienne all the statues,” Lafayette said, picking back up where he left off.  “So we have to go to Prospect Park, Morningside Park, and Union Square.  Oh,” Lafayette said, “and Adrienne wanted to go to the Met anyway, so I want to show her another statue just across from it in Central Park.”

“Another Marquis?”

“No,” Lafayette said.  “But it’s funny.  He looks a lot like you.  I’m not sure what it is,” he said to Adrienne.  “It might be the smile.  I think it’s the smile.  You’ll see what I mean,” he reassured her.

“Anything else?”  Hamilton asked.  “Federal Reserve?  Financial district?  Wall Street?”

“I want to see the Statue of Liberty,” Lafayette said.  “I’ve never been.”

“You know you have to catch a ferry to get there, right?”

Lafayette’s eyes widened.  “What?  Really?”

“Yeah, it’s on an island.”

“Isn’t there a bridge?”

“Uh, it’s a pretty small island.  I went,” Hamilton explained to Adrienne.  “I wanted to go to Ellis Island anyway and it’s right there.  You guys can go to Liberty State Park, although that’s also across the Hudson so maybe not.  Battery Park?  I guess you can see it from there.”

“We can do that,” Adrienne said, looking at Lafayette encouragingly.  “That’s not too far from Broadway and Times Square.”

“Ugh, Times Square.”  Hamilton kicked his legs out and crossed them at the ankle.  “That place sucks.”

Lafayette glared at him.  Hamilton remembered who he was talking in front of and shut up.

“Is it really that bad?”  Adrienne asked.  “I wanted to see a show with Gil.”

“The shows are probably great,” Hamilton said, backtracking.  “It’s just really crowded.  You know, it’s a New Yorker thing to hate on Times Square.  You got places like that in Paris too, right?  Eiffel Tower?”

Adrienne gave a little shake of her head.  “Well, yes, but it’s so romantic at night.”

“Right, I forgot, you’re the people with the annual pass to Disney Paris.  Scratch that, I’m sure you’ll love Times Square.  What show are you going to see?  Did you get tickets already?”

“ _Cinderella_ ,” Lafayette said, cheerful once again.  “I wanted to get us tickets to _Miranda_ but it’s impossible.  That’s the one about the guy who looks like you,” he added.

“Miranda?  The guy on the ten?”  Hamilton shrugged.  “Explain it to me some other time when I’m not coming down off a caffeine high.  All-nighter with way too much coffee.  I’m not sure if food’ll help or if it’ll just make me sick.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, turning to her.  “That’s right, we should order something for dinner if we’re staying in.  What would you like?”

“Get her pizza or bagels,” Hamilton said.  “Since the theme you’re going for sounds like its super tacky tourist vacation.”

“Pizza sounds good,” Adrienne said.

“Order me a slice too,” Hamilton said.  “I’ll pay you back.”

Lafayette glanced at him.  “Are you joining us?”  He looked at Adrienne.  Was Hamilton joining them?  Wasn’t this supposed to be a date?

“I don’t have to,” Hamilton started, sounding a little reluctant.

“You should,” Adrienne said, talking before Lafayette could.  “You can help us think more about what to see.”

There was something Lafayette very much wanted to see and that he would not be able to until after Hamilton left, but he opened his laptop and set about looking for a place that ran delivery.

“Great,” Hamilton said, getting off of the chair and lying down on his back on Laurens’ bed, holding his phone up in the air above him.  “So Battery Park for the statue, image search says you can get a good view from there.  I never go,” he went on.  “It was neat up close but it takes a while to get down there.  Are you doing this all tomorrow?  You’re gonna miss a bunch of class.”

“We’ll work around it,” Lafayette promised.

“Good, because I might end up having to report back to Washington about that, too.”

“Please don’t get me in trouble.”

“Don’t tell me anything incriminating,” Hamilton suggested.  “I’ll probably end up contractually bound to disclose anything like that but what I don’t know can’t hurt you.”

“And yet you are willing to lie to get him out of our way.”

“Not lie,” Hamilton said, “all I’m really doing is planning on when to talk to him.  Can you get me a supreme or something?  Thanks.”  He closed his eyes.

Lafayette sighed and added it to their order.  “You have a very strange sense of morality.”

“Don’t push your luck.  I’m kind of pissed about the extra work and besides, like I said, I like the two of you.  I got action in France, you should get some in this brave new world.”

“He talks very quickly,” Adrienne said quietly in French to Lafayette after a few moments of silence.  “I don’t know how you can follow him.”

“It’s just practice.  But he is going faster than normal.”

“I know.  I’ve heard him before.”  Adrienne got up and finished dressing.  “His French is more of a normal pace,” she said.  “He doesn’t sound like he’s trying to sell you something.”

“He would make an excellent auctioneer,” Lafayette agreed. 

“So would you.”  Adrienne slipped her shoes back on. 

“Not like Alexander,” Lafayette protested.

“No, you’re faster than him.  Just not all of the time.”

Lafayette didn’t say anything, wondering whether Hamilton had ended up sending that video of him to Adrienne or not.  He decided against asking her, just in case.

“The food should be here in about half an hour,” Lafayette said instead.

“Good,” Hamilton muttered.  The other two both looked at him in surprise.

“I thought he was asleep?”  Adrienne mouthed at Lafayette.  

Lafayette shrugged.  “Soon,” he mouthed back.  He held a finger up to his mouth.  If they just waited in silence a little longer they’d have the second best thing to actual privacy.

 

“Thanks—”

“Shh,” Lafayette said, cutting off Laurens but beckoning him into the room.  “Alex is asleep.”

Laurens walked in, taking his bag off and then, after seeing Hamilton (still on his bed, facing the wall now, one arm under the pillow), put it quietly on the floor next to his desk.  He lifted one hand in greeting to Adrienne, curled up on the floor with a slice of pizza.  “Nice to see you again,” he said, just above a whisper.  “How are you?”

She smiled and nodded and Lafayette cut in.

“John, do us a favor and take him back with you.  Here.”  He handed him a  thin paper bag.  “This is his slice of pizza.  If he doesn’t wake up I’m sure you can eat it.”

“I had dinner with my friends,” Laurens said, opening the bag anyway and taking a look.  “How long has he been out?”

Lafayette and Adrienne looked at one another.

“About an hour?  Maybe a little more than that,” Lafayette said.  Adrienne nodded.

“Was he here earlier?”

Adrienne shook her head this time.  “No.”

“Damnit, Alex.”  Laurens sighed and got up.  “Yeah, we’ll get out of your hair.”

“Good, it’ll be enough to have him around tomorrow night.”

Laurens looked back at Lafayette, puzzled.  “Tomorrow night?”

“Did he not tell you?  He agreed to chaperone us at Washington’s every other night.”

Laurens paused, disappointment clearly visible on his face for just a second before he pushed it away.  “Right.  I got it.”  He crossed to the bed and put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder.  “Alexander, get up.  We’re going back to your place.”

Hamilton made a short protesting noise, but rolled over onto his back and sat up, blinking hard against the light.  “…Shit.  Was I asleep?  How long was I asleep?”  He rubbed his eyes with the base of his hand.

“They said about an hour.  Come on.”  Laurens offered him a hand up.  Hamilton took it, still rubbing at his face after he stood.  “You got everything, J.?  I just need…  My bag’s not here.  I left it at the office.  We gotta stop by there first.”

“You can pick it up in the morning.  Borrow my laptop if you really need one.”

“I’m fuckin’ sick of computers, J.”

“Do you not want me to bring it?”

“God, no.”

Lafayette made a shooing gesture.

Laurens saw and picked up his backpack, nudging Hamilton towards the door.  “Are your keys on you?”

“Yeah.”  He patted his pocket.

“Then we’re going there straight.”  Laurens waved goodbye to the others and ushered Hamilton out the door.  “I’ll go with you to pick up your bag in the morning if you want.”

“No need.  I’m just going to be staying there anyway.  Not done yet.”

Laurens refrained from arguing, once again, that Hamilton really should just contact the IT department.  “How much more work do you have to do on it?”  He asked.  “Did you get any closer today?”

Hamilton didn’t answer, looking straight down the hall and blinking again, contacts still in and sticky.

Laurens decided not to push it.  “At least you’re ahead on all your other work.  You’re smart,” he went on, “to do that.  I’d be royally screwed if I had to take a few days off to play tech support.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton’s response was distinctly non-committal.  “Did Lafayette tell you Washington hired me to babysit?  Not all the time, just the nights they’re staying in his guest room.  I guess they’re not supposed to fucking but they’re gonna be fucking.  I’m not gonna try real hard to prevent that, sorry buddy.”

“Do you have to be there on Saturday?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“That’s my birthday, Alex.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton paused a moment as they headed down the stairs, then kept walking.  “Shit, John, I totally forgot.  Not that it’s your birthday, I mean, I lost my planner, keeping tabs on everything in a note on my phone, didn’t put your birthday in the calendar.  I’m sorry.  Yeah, of course, I’ll cancel.  No drama, don’t worry about it.  I’ll cancel.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.  I mean it, don’t worry about it.  He’ll understand.”

Laurens nodded, reassured.  

“Is it cold out?”

“About the same as it was when we met up this morning.”

“Yeah, I was trippin’ this morning.  I thought I was gonna overheat in the office.”

“It’s not bad out.”

“We’ll see.  If it’s too cold I’m going back up and borrowing a sweater, lovebirds be damned.”

Laurens got the door and Hamilton stepped out tentatively into the late October evening.

“You’re right,” he said after a moment.  “This isn’t bad.  That’s New York for you, the weather’s all over the place.  Remember that year when it was in the seventies over Christmas?  I actually felt nostalgic.”

“That was so strange,” Laurens said as they headed in the direction of Hamilton’s building.  “Global warming, I guess.”

“I think ‘climate change’ is the term we’re using now.  Either way.  Hey, what does your dad think about it?  Not officially, I know what his stance is, I’ve checked his voting record.  What does he actually think?  Like behind closed doors?”

“You’ve checked his record?”

“Of course I did, wouldn’t you?”

Laurens wasn’t sure how to answer that, so he didn’t.  He kept walking, realizing after a minute that Hamilton was lagging behind.  He turned back, concerned, just in time to see Hamilton finish taking his contacts out and toss them casually on the sidewalk.

“Alex, what the hell?”  He stopped, staring as Hamilton gave a sigh of relief and then looked at him blankly, eyes not quite focusing on his face.  “Don’t just litter, that’s not cool!”

Hamilton froze.  He hadn’t realized at first he’d been caught and he hadn’t been expecting that reaction.  He hesitated, unable to fully get the tone since he couldn’t really make out Laurens’ features in the reduced lighting and without lenses in.  “…Help me find them,” he said finally and a little meekly.

“No,” Laurens said, “it’s too late.”

"J., I can get them—”

"Alex, the ground is filthy and it's dark already.  It's done.  Come on, let's just get back."  He motioned for Hamilton to follow him and started walking again.  

Hamilton paused a moment longer then quickly caught up to him, slipping his arm through his.  Laurens glanced down at him but Hamilton wasn't looking at him, just staring straight ahead.  They passed a couple of people on the opposite side of the street, complete strangers who weren't sparing them a second glance, and Laurens relaxed a little.  Look at that, he was walking arm and arm with him in public and Hamilton wasn't making a pass at him and he was continuing to not care what people thought.  A round of applause was in order for both of them. 

Feeling pleased and a little cocky, Laurens put his hand in his pocket and pulled Hamilton closer so that he was almost leaning into him as they walked.

“Can I borrow your laptop?”

“I said you could.”

“Thanks, J.”  

Two men were heading towards them on the sidewalk.  They would have to step aside to let them pass.  Laurens watched as the taller one made a somehow arrogant gesture with his hand then ducked his head to talk behind it for a moment.  Whatever he said must have been funny because the other man—much shorter, not even to the first one’s shoulder—laughed, prompting a self-satisfied response.

A car went by, drowning out the conversation as they approached with its loud motor and heavy bass, but Laurens realized with a sudden sick apprehension that he recognized that body language just a moment before Jefferson made eye contact.

Hamilton was still looking forward but didn’t take his arm away so Laurens, in growing anxiety that he tried not to show, forced himself not to shake him off.  

“Hamilton, Laurens,” Jefferson said, as he approached, his dark eyes slowly trailing over the two of them.

To Laurens’ surprise, Hamilton jerked as if he was going to move away but got stuck.

“How’s the paper coming, Hamilton?”

“The paper?”  Laurens couldn’t help but ask.

Hamilton stiffened.  Jefferson didn’t answer, either because he technically couldn’t or because he was waiting for Hamilton to instead.

“The corrections to my proposal,” Hamilton said after a long pause.

“What’s wrong with—”  Laurens cut himself off this time.

“It’s nice to see you boys,” Jefferson said after another beat.  “Let me know if you need anything, Hamilton.  I’m always happy to help.”  His gaze flickered between the two of them again.  

Hamilton tightened his grip and lifted his chin just a fraction of an inch, defiant.  Laurens felt that energy and it encouraged him, reassured him that his initial decision to stand his ground had been the correct one.  He hadn’t been shrinking in on himself before, but now his stance and posture strengthened and he rolled his free shoulder back slightly.  Jefferson might be even taller, but he could easily make himself more imposing.

“Good night,” Jefferson drawled.  The faintest hint of a smirk seemed to indicate that he noticed the posturing on both of their parts and that he found it amusing.  “Madison, we’re going to be late to the gallery opening.”

They left.

"Shit," Hamilton muttered, sounding properly awake now and letting go of Laurens.  "Why didn't you move away?  You should have said something."

They started walking again and Laurens shot him a look.  "They were right in front of—”

"I'm blind, okay, John?  I had no fucking idea that was Jefferson!  Shit," he repeated, embarrassed at the surprised expression on Laurens' face.  "Look, if it was daytime maybe—forget it, it's done.  I guess we’re—John," he went on, a note of panic not at all disguised in his voice, "the other week, I realized something and—” He stopped short, both verbally and physically, standing in front of him and grabbing his sleeve.  "J.  I'm sorry.  I'm so, so sorry.  I shouldn't have missed him, I should have been paying more attention.  I let him get to me, I could have deflected or made an excuse or _lied_ , something, I've done it before, I know how—”

"Alex," Laurens began, bewildered and not following along.  "It's all right.  Jefferson's an asshole and I don't care about him.  Maybe before I would have but I don't care what someone like him thinks.  Seriously.  It's," he paused, giving a little laugh and shake of the head, "God, Alex, it's amazing.  I feel so free."

 _You don't see it_ , Hamilton thought, feeling the knot in his chest drop like a rock into his stomach.  _You don't see it, and I can't tell you and ruin this for you._

"I'm glad," he heard himself say.  It must not have been very convincing because Laurens put his hand reassuringly on his shoulder. 

"I mean it,” Laurens said, then, to prove the point, leaned down and kissed him slowly.  Hamilton didn’t open his mouth. 

"You're not upset about him seeing us together, are you?"  Laurens asked.

"No," Hamilton lied, then added, more genuinely, "I'm happy for you, J.  If you don't give a damn then I'll do whatever it takes to keep it that way."

"Yeah?"  Laurens joked, interpreting it as the proposition Hamilton intended him to.  "I don't know, Alex, you seemed pretty dead on your feet just a minute ago."

"Yeah, running smack into some guy you hate really fixes that.  Who knew?  If it had been Burr I might even be awake enough to promise I won't fall asleep during foreplay."

Laurens laughed and walked forward, Hamilton just brushing against him.

“What an asshole,” Laurens said, more to himself than to Hamilton, grinning at the city and the night.  “I hope this weather holds.  Although you are pretty cute in your scarf,” he teased.  “Maybe I’ll get you a better winter coat for Christmas.”

“That’s supposed to be a jab but I’d take that present gladly.  Down is expensive and I don’t know how to launder it.”

“It’s easier than you’d think.  Do you want one?”

“I’ll ask Mulligan.  He’s been trying to get me into one for years.”  Hamilton looked up at Laurens, frowning a little as he tried to study his face.  He was obviously pleased.  _That’s_ what was really cute, Hamilton thought, shaking his head and feeling the blood start to heat his cheeks.  What a guy.  He let himself walk a little closer, even if he didn’t take his arm again.

“Do you want to come up?”  It was a joke.  Hamilton wasn’t sure at first if it came off but Laurens laughed as he let them in.  Hamilton smiled, just a little, not looking at him, and walked up the stairs.  “Hey.”  He was unlocking his door now, too tired to feel anything more than generalized guilt and anxiety.

“Are you okay?”  Laurens asked as he went in and locked the door for him.

“I’m tired,” Hamilton admitted, going into the bathroom and splashing water on his face from the sink.  “Go ahead and eat that, J.  Or put it in the fridge, whatever.”  His hand hovered above his glasses for a second but he didn’t pick them up.  Hamilton dropped his jacket, then shirt and jeans to the floor in a trail back to his mattress, and he pulled on a pair of sweatpants.  “Goddamn.”  He unfolded the futon and stared at it.  No sheet.  Was it worth putting a sheet on?  

Laurens put the food away and picked a blanket off the ground.  “Go to sleep.”

“Can I tell you something, J.?”  Hamilton was still standing.  “I’ve been trying to remember and I can’t figure out when I last had to redo work like that.  It must’ve happened, I piss enough people off.  Usually it’s something that doesn’t matter and I just ignore it.  He shredded my proposal,” he explained, not looking at him.  “And, I dunno, dealing with that computer shit seemed like a better use of my time than fixing it somehow.  Stubborn, I know.  I need to fix things,” he continued, not only talking about his paper.

Laurens stood behind him, shifting the blanket to one arm and putting his free hand on his waist.  He kissed his cheek.  “You’ll do a good job,” he said reassuringly.  “When do you need to get it done?”

“As soon as possible,” Hamilton said, remembering how Jefferson had put it.  “Sooner,” he amended, remembering how Jefferson had implicitly threatened to speak with Laurens’ father during the summer.

Laurens tossed the blanket on the mattress, then gently nudged Hamilton down onto it.  He kissed him, lying next to him and then rolling on top of him and brushing his hair out of his face.  Hamilton was more receptive this time, letting him slide his tongue into his mouth and putting his hands on his arms.

“Jacket.”

Laurens leaned onto one arm, then the other, taking it off and discarding it.

Hamilton made a low appreciative sound, and put one hand on the back of his neck, pulling him back into the kiss.

“You’re pleased with yourself,” he said after a minute, breaking away and then pressing his lips again, lightly, to Laurens’.

Laurens just gave a short laugh and kissed the corner of his mouth, under his ear, the side of his neck.  He tucked his face into the juncture there, just above his shoulder, and sighed, his chest rising and falling slowly.

Hamilton put one hand into his hair, running his fingers through it.  “I’m glad.  Good for you, J.”

“Mm.”  Laurens nuzzled his neck.  “I…”

Hamilton was staring up at the ceiling, still playing with his hair.

“…Thank you.”

“Pass me my phone.  It was in my pocket.”

“No.”  Laurens kissed his skin.

“J.”

“No,” Laurens repeated the word and the gesture.  “What do you want it for?”

“I need to contact Lafayette.”

“He’s busy.”

Hamilton frowned, unable to argue without giving his hand away.  “He might not be.”  He made the attempt anyway.

“We both know that’s not true.  Call him in the morning.  Let the poor boy have one night without supervision.”

“John,” Hamilton protested.  Laurens kissed him again, properly, deeply, and he closed his eyes, losing the battle and giving a small moan as Laurens pushed his tongue into his mouth.  A paradoxically warm chill ran through him, pooling in both his chest and his groin, and he put his other hand on Laurens’ shoulder, gripping the soft material of his shirt.

“J.,” Hamilton gasped as Laurens briefly pulled away.  “We don’t have to…”

“Do you not want to?”

It was a genuine question and that caught Hamilton off-guard.  He would have expected it to be leading, defensive, imploring, but Laurens had meant it in all honesty.

“Christ,” Hamilton said, suddenly flustered.  “What on earth did I do to end up with you?  No, J., I want to.  We can.  Besides,” he went on, finally getting his footing again and slipping on a confident tone, “I wanna give you a reward.  You’re hot when you’re being a little cocky and defiant, I told you that before.”  He kissed him again, more forcefully.  “I’m down for whatever.”

Laurens put his hand over Hamilton as soon as he had permission, cupping him as he returned the kiss, moving his tongue against his and touching the side of his face.  He ran his thumb over his cheekbones and remembered the first time he had done that, back at the hot and humid tail end of summer.  It had been on the same thin mattress, after the same half-argument over how many hours Hamilton had slept.  They had been naked, lying around after fucking, and the apartment had been hot in the late afternoon sun—to _bake_ you in, Hamilton had said—, no fan yet to keep the air flowing, and Laurens had no idea that only a month later he’d be back in the same place, repeating the same gesture, and wishing so much harder that he could memorize every angle of Hamilton’s body by touch alone.

“Mm…”  Hamilton leaned his hips forward, pressing against Laurens’ hand, not sure if this would put him at ease or make it worse, and started to undo the buttons on Laurens’ shirt.  He slid one hand inside as soon as there was space, stroking his chest over the thin undershirt while his other hand continued downwards.  “I thought you wanted me to sleep?”

“Won’t this help?”

“Knocks you out,” Hamilton agreed.  His heart was racing.  “That’s you, though.  It doesn’t do the same thing to me.”

Laurens laughed.  “That’s not true.”

“It is,” Hamilton insisted.

“I’m here too,” Laurens reminded him.  “Alex, you pass out.  Not every time,” he conceded, “but often.  If we actually have sex…”

Hamilton felt his pulse speed up further.  This wasn’t helping.  “John.”

Laurens moved his hand, back and forth.  Hamilton was getting hard.  “Yes?”

“John,” he said his name again, pleading a little, although he wasn’t sure for what.  There was too much he was thinking about, that was the real problem, not how worn down his body felt.  If this had been before their trip then there would be no problem, he’d tell Laurens to fuck him, let that distract him from everything else…

Laurens slipped his hand into his pants and Hamilton’s hips jerked forward automatically.  Hamilton gasped, grabbing the front of his shirt.

“J.—!”

Laurens was kissing him again, hungry and insistent.  Hamilton’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, his hand still tight on Laurens’ shirt.

“What do you want?”  Laurens asked, managing to get the question out only after a full minute.

“This—Mm,” Hamilton tugged him back in spite of himself when Laurens tried to say something else.  “This,” he said again a little later, Laurens’ hand still on his cock.  Even if it wasn’t clearing his mind any he couldn’t bear to stop.  “Please.  But,” he added in a slight compromise.  “Just… this.  Some other time we can do more.  Unless,” he frowned, his eyes closed, having a hard time sticking to one train of thought for very long.  “You want—I mean, you earned it, I said I’d—Fuck, J…”

Laurens kissed him again, a little slower, and slid his hand into his underwear.  “This is enough,” he said.

Hamilton bit back a whimper.

“I love the way you feel,” Laurens said, running his tongue over Hamilton’s lower lip.  “You’re so—incredibly—”  Laurens leaned his hips forward so Hamilton could feel that he had gotten hard as well meanwhile.  “—Hot.”

Hamilton groaned and tipped his head back.  “Goddamn,” he breathed.  “You know, for—for not doing this before, you’re fucking good at it, J.”

Laurens laughed.  “I’ve done this before, Alex.  Even if we forget that it’s been a while since we started fooling around, I’ve done _this_ for a decade.”

Hamilton grinned faintly, amused at his own oversight and relaxed a little.  “Yeah, yeah, fine.  Thanks for correcting me.  I’ll keep that in mind when I pen your biography.”

Laurens nudged him with the side of his face.  “You would not.”

“Include a note on that?  Or write a book on you?”

“Both.”  Laurens kissed him again.  “You’re the interesting one, Alexander.”

“Best seller, I know.”  Hamilton arched a little more into him.  “But we—ah, John—”  His hips jerked.  “Shit,” he admitted after a pause, his voice shaking a little.  “Lost what I was saying.”

“Something about a book.”  Laurens had his hand wrapped around Hamilton’s shaft and he was moving it quickly.  He pressed himself a little harder against him, partially to tease him and partially because he wanted the contact.

“Yeah…”  Hamilton bit his lip.  He could feel Laurens’ cock high on his leg, reminding him of what they were doing and what they _could_ be doing…  Laurens moved his hand faster and he moaned.  “Yes…”

“Alexander.”  Laurens kissed him again, putting his free hand under his head.  He moved his fingers into his hair, toying with the soft curls.  He could feel how close he was getting—he could tell from the way he was practically whimpering into the kiss and how he had his hand dug in so tightly to his shirt that he almost worried it would stretch the fabric.

Hamilton came with a jerk, tugging Laurens down a little closer, forcing him to kiss him harder.  He lifted off of the mattress for a second and then collapsed back down, breathing heavily.

Laurens kissed him, very lightly, just on the corner of his mouth, then gently pulled his pants and underwear down, tossing them to the side.

"What the fuck did I bother putting that on for?"  Hamilton asked no one in particular as he stared up at the ceiling.  "Laundry day tomorrow, I guess.”

“I’ll take it down with you.”

“You better.”  Hamilton started to yawn, then caught himself and stopped, not sure if he was still trying to prove Laurens wrong or not.

Laurens noticed anyway and tried to pretend that he didn’t.  He lay down on his back next to him and pulled the blanket over them, tangling them in the process.

“You did a pretty shit job of making the bed, J.”

“Hey,” Laurens protested, putting great effort into ignoring how close Hamilton’s leg was to his cock.  “Better than you.  At least I tried, Alex.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton was using Laurens’ chest as a pillow and his eyelids were suddenly heavy.  “What time is it?”

“Almost midnight,” Laurens lied.

Hamilton actually did yawn this time.  “Close enough to respectable.  I hope Lancelot and his lady love are having a good time.  Remind me,” he went on, his words starting to blur together and his sentence structure getting sloppy, “I gotta call tomorrow.  G-Wash.  Let him have the chance to know that it’s your birthday.”

“I’ll remind you,” Laurens promised and put his arm over his shoulders.  “Thanks.”

“Not at all.”  The words were mumbled.  Hamilton was asleep.

Laurens lay there, still fully dressed, one hand toying absentmindedly with Hamilton’s ponytail.  He reached out carefully and turned the small lamp on with his free hand, angling it away from them so it didn’t shine in Hamilton’s face, and wondered if Hamilton had been thinking of him when he bought it.

For this one night, he thought, knowing even in the moment that the pride and confidence were ephemeral, he was _invincible_.


	92. Frenemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hamilton & Burr & de Noailles; Lafayette & Jefferson

“I need a favor.”

Hamilton had met Lafayette outside his first class of the day, tired-looking but not as jittery as before.  In fact, Lafayette noted, he was uncharacteristically still, arms folded across his thin chest.

“What do you need?”  The response was just as serious.

“I want you to make friends with Jefferson, and to do it fast.  He already thinks well of you; it shouldn’t take you long to truly win him over.  I can’t do it—we don’t get along, you know we don’t—and John…”  Hamilton took a breath, waiting for the people nearest to them to disperse and lowering his voice so only Lafayette could hear him.  “Jefferson saw us together last night.  It was stupid, it shouldn’t have happened.  I wouldn’t care,” he went on, “you know I wouldn’t.  Except Jefferson knows John’s father.  I can’t let him tip his hand.  Worse,” Hamilton continued as Lafayette’s eyes widened, “John hasn’t realized it.  He’s so _happy_ , Lafayette.”  A desperate note crept into his voice and Lafayette felt his own chest tighten in sympathy.  “He’s so…  He’s never been proud like that before, I’d put money on it.  I can’t take that away from him.  You have to help me.  Just convince him not to breathe a word.  I’ll pay for whatever you need, wining and dining, fine, whatever, you’ve got a blank check.  Just, please—”

“Alex,” Lafayette said, putting both his hands on Hamilton’s shoulders, “don’t worry.  You don’t need to say anything more.  I will handle everything.”

Hamilton practically crushed Lafayette in a hug.  “Thank you,” he said, his voice muffled and his face buried in his chest.  “I owe you.”

“Not at all,” Lafayette said soothingly and then, when Hamilton still didn’t let him go, “I like to feel useful.  It’s good for my complexion.”

Hamilton laughed shakily, not sure if Lafayette had gotten the word right and without enough energy to ask him to clarify.  “Right.”  He stepped back.

“I’ll talk to him today.  Right now, in fact,” Lafayette said, checking his watch.  “I’ll hunt him down.”

“What about Adrienne?”  Hamilton asked.  “You were going to take her around the city.”

“Hopefully this won’t take long,” Lafayette said.  “But until then, would you mind keeping her company?”

“Sure,” Hamilton said.  “Who needs a good attendance score?  I’m kidding,” he added quickly.  “I have a lecture first up.  I’ll just go to the later one, back to back it with my afternoon class.  It’ll be fine.  Thank you,” he said.  “Again.”

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” Lafayette promised.  “Remember to send me pictures if you go anywhere.”

 

“Oh, Gilbert isn’t coming?”

“Sorry,” Hamilton apologized, standing in front of Adrienne as she picked up her bag.  “It’s my fault.  I asked him to help me with something.  But I’m here to fill in for him until he meets up with us later.  If you don’t mind me showing you around instead,” he said.  “Was there somewhere in particular you wanted to go to?”

Adrienne hesitated for a moment, her hand hovering over the clasp on her bag, then she lifted it to her hair and tucked it behind her ear.  “Do you know where his yoga studio is?”

“The studio?  Yeah, I think I could find it.  I know what stop he gets off at least and he said it’s just across the street.”

“I want to go there,” Adrienne said, turning away and scanning the room.  “Is that all right?”  She turned back to him.

“Uh, sure.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “ _Cur non_ , right?”  He grinned when she smiled at that and then held the door for her.  “Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you,” Adrienne said sweetly, not making it clear if she understood the possible double meaning or not.  “And you?”

“Like the dead.  Is that a saying in French?  _Comme les morts…_ ”  Hamilton walked next to Adrienne as they went down the hall and then waited for the elevator.  “It’s kind of creepy—”  The door opened and Adrienne stepped in, past Hamilton and right next to Aaron Burr.

Hamilton stared for a moment before following her.  “You know,” he told Burr, “you’ve got the strangest timing.  I was just talking about spooky shit and look who the doors part to reveal!  It’s uncanny,” he told Adrienne as she looked on in mild confusion.  “But where are my manners?  Aaron, Adrienne.  Adrienne, Aaron.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Burr said, shaking hands.

“Adrienne’s Lafayette’s real life foreign girlfriend,” Hamilton said.  “Not the ‘I’m totally dating some chick in Canada’-kind.  Of course,” he went on as Burr did not look surprised by this information, “he’s from France as well so it’s not as exotic as it sounds.  She’s visiting for a week,” he explained.  “Lucky them, huh?”

“Exceedingly.  Have you ever been to America before?”  Burr asked Adrienne.

“No,” she shook her head.  “It’s very exciting.”  She glanced between Hamilton and Burr, not sure if Lafayette’s description of their relationship was inaccurate or if they were holding back for her benefit.  “Alexander is showing me around,” she said.

“Oh is he?  The blind leading the blind?”  Burr teased, not quite as gently as it seemed on the surface.  “Lafayette should have asked someone actually from here to give you the tour.”

“Born and raised, are you?”  Hamilton’s question back was just this side of sharp.

Burr laughed smoothly.  “I didn’t mean to offer my own services.  But if you need any suggestions for where to go,” he said to Adrienne, “I would love to be of service.  New York is a wonderful city, but it can be overwhelming at first.”

“I’d like that, thank you,” Adrienne said automatically.

“I’m sure our friend Burr is too busy to just jump in last minute like this,” Hamilton said as the elevator reached the ground floor.

“Actually,” Burr said, holding the door as Adrienne and then, reluctantly, Hamilton exited.  “My schedule is wide open for the rest of the day.  And I’d hate for my dear friend Hamilton to get lost in the city.”

 _You’re an asshole_ , Hamilton tactfully did not say out loud.  “Fine,” he said instead, “if Adrienne doesn’t mind adding a third?”  He looked back at Adrienne, hoping she would protest, but she was watching the two of them with great interest and just shook her head.

“Then it’s settled,” Burr said.  “Where to first?  I know an excellent place for breakfast if the two of you haven’t eaten yet.  We should just make it before they change the menu over.”

“That sounds lovely,” Adrienne said before Hamilton could protest that they already had a schedule set up.  “Is it far from here?”

“It’s a few stops on the metro.  Have you gotten a pass?”  Burr asked.  “I suggest you invest in a weekly one.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, thank you.  I didn’t ride the metro yet.”

“It shouldn’t be too unfamiliar for you,” Burr said, striking up a friendly conversation with Adrienne as Hamilton lagged a step behind.  “Am I correct in assuming that you are from Paris?  That’s where Lafayette was going to school before he transferred here, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.  Do you know Lafayette well?”

“No, no, we’ve hardly spoken.  But he’s quite popular.  Our circles overlap to some degree.”

“Lafayette knows practically everyone,” Hamilton said, cutting in and walking on Adrienne’s other side as they left the building, uncomfortably close to the edge of the sidewalk.  “I think he’s making it his goal to be friends with the entire country.”

“That sounds like him,” Adrienne agreed.  “He’s very, ah,” she faltered for a moment, looking for the right English word and talking slowly.

“Personable?”  Burr suggested.

Adrienne nodded.  “Yes.  He is very personable.”

“Do you know,” Burr said with another smooth laugh that covered how irritated he still was at having been led on for no reason, “for a while everyone, including me, thought he was actually dating Alexander?”

“Of course she knows,” Hamilton said.  “Lafayette told her.”

Adrienne nodded again.

“It was an odd practical joke,” Burr said, looking directly at Hamilton now.  “Why bother with it?  Why not just come out with it?  Surely it’s not a big different if you’re sleeping with the exchange student or the jock?”

Hamilton shrugged, deliberately casual.  “Hey, I didn’t start that one.  Blame your other friends for getting their information wrong.”

“I’m not blaming anyone,” Burr said.  “I’m just trying to understand.”

“I’m a freakin’ enigma.  Go figure.”

“Indeed.”  Burr’s eyes narrowed slightly, then his expression was back to carefully friendly.  “Adrienne,” he said, “tell me, how did you and Lafayette meet?”

 

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Lafayette said brightly as Jefferson walked up to his office.  He held up a slip of paper with a signature already on it.  “How are you?”  He handed the paper to a mildly bewildered Jefferson.  “I would like to take you to coffee.”

Jefferson frowned to himself as he read the paper and turned it over, his keys in his other hand.  “How did you get this?  This is a voucher from the Office of Graduate Student affairs.  It’s for graduate students and their professors.”

“Signed by Washington,” Lafayette said cheerily.  “I got an exemption.  They’ll still cover it,” he went on as Jefferson unlocked his door.  “Oh, but it expires today.  I only just got it,” he explained, perfectly truthfully.  “I told Washington how I wanted to get to know you better and he had the good idea to let the school fund it.  Not all of the vouchers were picked up,” he continued, following Jefferson inside and sitting in the same chair Hamilton had early that week.  “And they were already paid for!  So they should really get used.”

“This is all rather last minute,” Jefferson began, taking a book out of his bag and putting it back on the rotating holder on his desk.

“I know,” Lafayette said apologetically.  “But I really would like to speak with you more.  I never really got the chance to thank you when I was in France, but you are a large part of the reason why I am here at this school now.  You’ve completely changed my life!”  He was laying it on a bit strongly, but the earnestness covered for it.  “I was also hoping,” he went on, a little tentatively, “that you could give me some suggestions for where to take my girlfriend while she’s here.”

“Ah, she came after all?  You must be happy.”  Jefferson stood at his desk, one hand on it.  “All right.”  He pushed up his sleeve and checked the time.  “We’ll have to rush a little, but I can fit you in.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette beamed.  He got up quickly from the chair.  “I appreciate your taking the time out of your schedule.”

Jefferson, by now appropriately flattered, gave the voucher back to Lafayette.  “I hope you don't mind just going to the cafe downstairs.  Like I said, I’m short on time.”

“Not at all,” Lafayette assured him.  “Wherever is best for you.”

They headed out, Jefferson locking the room behind them, and Lafayette walking at his side a bit like an eager puppy.

“Professor,” Lafayette started.

“You’re not one of my students.  Call me Thomas.”

“Thomas,” Lafayette said agreeably.  “To begin with, I wanted to thank you for your kind words the other day.  It meant a lot to me that someone understood how badly I needed to hear back from Adrienne.”

“Like I said,” Jefferson began, “I know it’s hard to have to be apart from the one you love.  I racked up a huge phone bill myself while I was in France.  I can only imagine yours is the same.”

“Oh, yes,” Lafayette agreed immediately while making a mental note to maybe check what he was autopaying each month sometime.  “Your French is very good,” he went on, continuing to praise him, “I can see why you were chosen to go to Paris even though you weren’t a full professor yet.”

Jefferson laughed, pleased by the compliment.  “I’m good at languages,” he said.  “Taught myself Spanish in nineteen days with a copy of _Don Quixote_.  Of course,” he added, “Spanish is much simpler than French.”

“Nineteen days?”  Lafayette’s flattery faltered for a moment.  He was genuinely impressed.  “Do you know other languages?”

“I’m passingly fluent in Italian, Greek, and Latin,” Jefferson said.  “Not that there’s any need to actually speak Latin outside of the Vatican and,” he laughed again, pressing the down button on the elevator and taking a step back to wait.  “I _highly_ doubt they’d let me stay there past the first mass.  No offense meant, of course.”

“Oh, none taken,” Lafayette answered quickly.  “Adrienne is—I’ve never been religious myself.”

“But your girlfriend’s family is?  It must have been trying at times to live with them.”

“Every Sunday,” Lafayette protested.  “For _hours_.  Every _holiday_ ,” he went on as the elevator arrived and they stepped in.  “They made me go to Midnight Mass.  She knows I hate it so she stopped asking for the most part but I feel guilty if I don’t have other plans so last year I spent all of Christmas Eve retiling my grandmother’s bathroom floor!  I told her I would be on my knees anyway and I’d make sure to think about Jesus.  I took his name in vain a lot that night,” Lafayette added, thoughtful.

Jefferson laughed again.  “You’re very dedicated.  To your family as well as your girlfriend.”

“I should be!”  Lafayette protested.  “They’re very kind to me.  They let me come here, after all.”

“As I recall it,” Jefferson began, his drawl coming out more, “there was some issue with that at first.”

Lafayette blushed.  “Well…  Yes,” he admitted.  “I didn’t go about it very well.  You can’t blame them.”

“For being upset with you for practically running out on your girlfriend?”

“I don’t know how she managed to forgive me,” Lafayette said as they got out of the elevator.  “I was very afraid the entire flight over.  I still worry about it, that she’s harboring resentment and one day will just decide she’s had enough of me, especially when we’re apart for so long…”

“I doubt it,” Jefferson said.  “You’re very likable.  She must feel a little flattered to have so much of your attention.”

Lafayette perked up.  “I hope so.”

“Do you talk much to your other friends in France?”

“Mm,” Lafayette cocked his head to one side.  “No.  Not much.  Occasionally.  It’s not that we aren’t friends,” he explained, “just that I miss Adrienne the most.”

“With Facebook and whatever you kids have these days, I’m sure it’s easy enough for them to keep tabs on you.”

Lafayette glanced at Jefferson curiously.  He couldn’t be that much older than him.  Was he just teasing him?

“I like to share photos,” he said.  “Mostly on Instagram.  Here, let me show you one of her…”  Lafayette took his phone out of his pocket and opened the app, showing Jefferson a photo of Adrienne standing in front of Washington’s house with her suitcase.

“That’s a lot of likes,” Jefferson commented, putting on a pair of dark sunglasses.  “You going for your fifteen minutes of fame?”

Lafayette put his phone away.  “ _Cur non?_   It’s just for fun.”

“I won’t preach about not having any online presence,” Jefferson said, lifting his hand in greeting to a passing student.  “‘Cause life’s too short for having that kind of stick up your ass.  Don’t be an idiot and there’s nothing wrong with it.  Martha has a Pinterest,” he went on, “got me into it for a while, I admit it.”

“Adrienne has one of those.  She uses it for fashion.”

“I pinned pictures of Pleistocene animals.”

Lafayette almost stumbled over his own feet and forced himself to act natural and keep a straight face.  “Oh.  I see.”

Jefferson didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.  “Mastodons, ground sloths…”  He got the door to the cafe for him.

“I see,” Lafayette repeated, forcing an appropriately interested tone instead of sheer bewilderment.  “How fascinating.”  He handed the voucher to the girl behind the counter and they ordered and took a seat at a table nearby.  “…Did you study archeology?”  He asked for lack of a better topic of conversation, unable to remember for the moment what he was actually there to talk to him about or what they had been discussing before.

“Only informally.  Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

It took Lafayette another second to think back to his excuse.  “What should Adrienne and I see in the city?  I already made plans, but it won’t be enough for the whole week…”

“What’re your plans now?”

“I want to show her all of the statues of the Marquis de Lafayette,” Lafayette enthused, getting his second wind as their coffees were brought to them.

“Oh, of course—”  Jefferson took a sip of his drink, frowned, put it down, and raised one hand with two fingers lifted to get their server’s attention.  “Excuse me, miss?  I ordered a West Indies blend,” he drawled, a slightly annoyed tone at the edges of his words, “and this is not it.  That’s all right,” he said, a little condescendingly, as she apologized and took his drink back.  “Anyway,” he went on, talking to Lafayette again.  “I forgot all about those statues.  I’m glad you remembered them.  It’ll be cute to get y’all’s pictures taken in front of them.  You got a selfie stick?”

“Adrienne has one.”

“Good, good.  I went to them myself, back when I first visited New York.  They’re not a bad likeness.”

“You went to them too?”  Lafayette took a sip from his cup, then put it down.  Too hot.

“For much the same reason you’re going, I imagine.”

Lafayette looked at him, confused.  “The same reason…?”

“You’re doing the genealogy bit, aren’t you?”

Lafayette nodded.  “Yes.”  He paused.  “Are you…?”  Wait.  “Are you related to him as well?”

Jefferson laughed as the server brought him his correct order.  “Thank you, honey.  Yes,” he said, obviously relishing the stunned look on Lafayette’s face.  “Very distantly, of course.  I didn’t inherit anything _fancy_ like you did, sad to say.  No titles, only a bit of land down in Virginia…”

Lafayette was still staring when Jefferson lifted his cup to his mouth and then laughed harder.  “No, bless your heart, I’m just messing with ya.  I’m related to another guy of the same name.  I did go around and take pictures of those statues years ago, though, just as a joke.”

“Oh…”  Lafayette slouched down in his seat, disappointed.

“When I was a kid I thought I might’ve been, the first time I heard about your marquis,” Jefferson said, a little kinder.  “I didn’t realize they were two different people at first, thought the third president of the United States was also French nobility.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I didn’t realize ‘Daveed’ was such a common name.  Now it’s ‘John,’” he commented as an aside to himself.

“A family name,” Jefferson said.  “People were always naming their kids after other relatives.”

“So maybe we are related after all,” Lafayette said.  “A common ancestor?”

“Perhaps.  You’ll have to look into it.”

“I will,” Lafayette promised.

 

“This is _such_ a cute restaurant,” Adrienne enthused, taking a picture of her parfait and sending it to Lafayette.  “Thank you, Aaron.”

“You’re welcome,” Burr said.  “I passed this place for months and kept meaning to stop in.  When I finally did I knew I had to take others back.”

“Too bad you had to wait until now,” Hamilton said in false sympathy.  “That’s the problem with not having any friends.”

“Is it?”  Burr asked smoothly.  “I suppose having two boyfriends doesn’t give you a lot of time for getting to know anyone else.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said through a mouthful of hashbrowns that were, somewhat regrettably, quite delicious, “‘cause I’m too busy trading off which one of them I’m fucking.  I had to get a schedule made, couldn’t keep the times straight.”

Burr laughed.  Hamilton wasn’t sure if it was forced or not.

“Whatever,” Hamilton continued.  “Adrienne, where do you want to go after the studio?  I’d suggest we just take you out to the Statue of Liberty but I don’t want to step on any toes.”

“We could go to Central Park,” Adrienne suggested.  “If it’s big enough.  Is it worth going to twice?”

“There’s plenty to see,” Burr said.  “We could go to parts of it that you don’t have plans to visit with Lafayette.”

“That sounds good,” Adrienne said.  “Thank you again.”

“Here,” Burr went on, getting his phone out and handing it to her.  “This is a list of the things to see in it.”

“Oh…”  Adrienne was a little distracted as she scrolled through it.  “Alexander, do you know if Lafayette has a favorite?”

Hamilton shrugged, looking at the screen with her.  “He rode Balto like a pony once.”

Adrienne giggled.  “That sounds like him.”

“We can find it,” he promised her.  “We’ll send him an even better picture with you on it.  Make him jealous.  But not too jealous,” he amended quickly, remembering why Lafayette couldn’t join them.  “Just a little.”

“There are several food trucks there as well,” Burr said.  “When you’re done looking at that, I can check my Twitter and see what’s at the park today.”

“I’m on it,” Hamilton announced, taking his own phone out and getting on the restaurant’s wifi.  “That’s not a bad idea,” he had to admit, “they’ve got some good ones.  I hope the waffles and dingels truck is there,” he said to Adrienne.  “I swear, finding that thing is like a city-wide Where’s Waldo.”

“Are the trucks actually in the park?”

“Along the perimeter mostly,” Hamilton said.  “So it helps to know what stop to get off at, find the closest station.  Shoot,” he said at his phone.  “Not anywhere nearby today.”

“Is there anything interesting there today?”

“Eh, falafel, fro-yo, regular stuff.  Thanks.”  Hamilton headed Burr his phone back.  “I’ll remind Lafayette to check next time.”

“That’s too bad.”  Burr put his phone away.

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed.  “Oh well.  What can you do?  At least we’re eating here.”  He was relaxing into the conversation, his tone getting more genuine and less like he was looking for a fight.  “Did you ever try the pickle one?”

“Is it just…?”

Hamilton turned to Adrienne, who hadn’t been able to help but ask the question.  “Yeah, but all kinds of fancy junk.  I’ll take your boyfriend, blow his mind.  I don’t know if you can ship that kind of thing international but I’m sure we’ll find out.  Anyway,” Hamilton looked back at Burr.  “You know what I’m talking about.  You’ve seen it, right?  Ever try it?”

Burr shook his head.

“Man,” Hamilton said, shaking his head as well, “now _that’s_ the real tragedy.”


	93. Office Gossip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggestions; Adelaide and Aglae; Letting Things Slip

Lafayette had his chair pulled up next to Jefferson’s, sitting right next to him instead of across the table.

“So y’all can walk over to Broome,” Jefferson was saying, drawing him a rough map on a napkin.  “Some cute stores down there if she likes that sort of thing.  Not that she needs to come as far as New York for shopping, being from Paris and all, but it’ll be fun, and none of this puts you too far from Broadway.”

“Broome,” Lafayette repeated, watching intently.  “Do you have any suggestions for a meal?  Price is no problem.”

“Oh, there’re all kinds of options,” Jefferson said, writing a few names down off to the side.  “You’re a bit of a foodie, aren’t you?  Me, I love that sort of thing.  If you ever manage to come down to Virginia I’ll make sure you have a grand old time.  A grand old time,” he repeated.  “Y’all aren’t lactose intolerant are you?  It’s a little _atypical_ , but cross my heart you won’t have regrets.  There’s this macaroni and cheese place, serves it to you right in the cast iron skillet.”

Lafayette glanced up at Jefferson.

“My favorite place in the city.”

“Ah, really?”  Lafayette asked, filing that information away with the Pinterest board.  “Please give me the number.  I’ll see if we can fit it in.”

Jefferson had already written it down and he was moving on.  “Now there’s a cute tea place in the area,  if I recall you both drink that.  Plenty of coffee shops all over the city, of course.  You have a preference?  I like tea, of course, but coffee’s the most _civilized_ of drinks.  I’ve got a weakness for it, I admit it,” he drawled, taking another sip.  “West Indies or East Indies, mm!”  He drank again and then put the cup down.  “Do you know what the worst thing you can do with it?”  He asked.  Lafayette shook his head.  “Make the damn thing decaf.  What a waste.”

“Alexander likes coffee,” Lafayette said, attempting to pivot the conversation towards why he was actually there.  “I think it’s in his blood.”

“Could be.  He’s Caribbean, isn’t he?”  Jefferson said, misinterpreting and taking what Lafayette said as the more common saying instead of as a descriptor of the level of caffeine addition.  “His family’s plantation-stock?”

Lafayette cocked his head to one side, confused.

Jefferson noticed and laughed, raising one hand.  “Not important.”

“…Right.”  Lafayette said.  He paused before continuing.  “So Alexander—” 

“He didn’t want you to ask about his academics, did he?”  Jefferson was looking back at the napkin, adding a few small details to the map and talking in a somehow dangerously casual tone.  “‘Cause you know I can’t _divulge_ that information to any third party like this.”

“Oh, no, no,” Lafayette said quickly and making a note to hassle Hamilton until he gave him what sounded like a very interesting story.  “No, not at all.  It’s just,” he picked up his cup and took a drink.  It was almost empty now and he glanced at the counter.  “…Would you like a refill?  My treat.  Scone?  Blueberry muffin?”

“No, thank you.”  Jefferson sounded faintly impatient and he checked the time on his watch.

“It’s not very important in reality,” Lafayette said, taking a deep breath and then sliding into an attitude of nonchalance just as smooth as Jefferson’s.  “Except that it is to _me_.  Alexander mentioned that you saw him and John, my roommate, together the other night.”  No sense in beating around the bush.  “ _Il faut appeler un chat un chat_.  They are dating, as I am sure you noticed.”

Jefferson was watching him closely and he nodded, just a little curt acknowledgement.  “And?”  He asked.

“I was thinking,” Lafayette said, in reality thinking fast right then, fairly sure that he had found the right spin but nervous and not wanting to show it, “that I like them both.  They have been very helpful to me since I came here, both with adjusting to America and with salvaging my relationship with my dearheart when I thought several times that it was beyond repair.  I spiral quickly,” he said, maybe a little too lightly.  “It’s a character flaw.  They’re surprisingly patient and also they helped me pick out earrings to send to her that encouraged her to forgive me instead of breaking up with me like I am _certain_ that she was going to do.  Thomas,” Lafayette said, leaning forward on the table earnestly, “please do not breathe a word to John’s father.  It would be a disaster,” he paused, “for _me_ ,” he emphasized.  “Adrienne will go back to Paris and the next time I say something stupid there will be no one to talk me down from saying something worse and before I know what is happening the light of my life will have slipped through my fingers and I’ll be all alone on foreign shores without any hope of ever seeing my Adrienne ever again!  She’s too good for me,” he said, reining it back in and taking another sip of his coffee.  “I miss her,” he added with a sigh.

“Lafayette,” Jefferson began, and Lafayette felt his heart sink at the distinct lack of immediate unconditional agreement in those three syllables.

“I need another cup of coffee,” Lafayette said, getting up quickly and grabbing Jefferson’s empty cup from the table.  “Please hold.”

Jefferson held.  He was still sitting there when Lafayette came back a couple of minutes later, with two drinks and fewer nerves.

“I didn’t mean to sound like I was accusing you of anything,” he said placatingly.  “I just remembered that you know John’s father and I wanted to ask you to please make sure that nothing slips out.  It would make my life very difficult and,” he added, with a little dramatics, “things are already hard enough most of the time, since Adrienne is so far away.”

“Yes,” Jefferson said—dryly, Lafayette thought with anxiety he tried to hide.  “You said that already.”

Lafayette nudged his drink towards him and he picked it up, holding it in his hands and waiting for it to cool.

“Did you see the tusk?”

Lafayette wasn't expecting that.  “The… tusk?”

“Above my office door.  I’ll show you after this.  Looks real, like real ivory.  I pointed it out to your friend when he stopped by the other day,” Jefferson went on.  “Thought he might try to chew me out for it.”  He laughed.  “Sadly, no, I think he was a little too distracted.  Maybe next time.  If he asks you about it, though, you go ahead and tell him that it’s bakelite from the 1940’s.  I’ll show you how to identify it,” Jefferson said as Lafayette folded and unfolded a napkin.  “It’s all in the grain.  Real easy once you’ve got the hang of it.  Not as _classy_ as ivory, of course, but more P.C. and easier to keep on display somewhere with as little security as a school office.”

“It’s a nice space,” Lafayette offered weakly and at loose ends for what else to say.

“Thank you kindly, I just moved into it this semester, of course.  My old place, that was a hovel.  At least this office I don’t have to share with anyone else, even if I’d prefer a window.  I’m not _quite_ important enough for that yet.”

“I don’t know if I can get you a window,” Lafayette said, putting his napkin crane down on the table.

Jefferson laughed.  “Were you going to try to bribe me with some improved real estate?  Bless your heart, you’re too thoughtful.”

“Not, not _bribe_ ,” Lafayette protested.  “But if I could do anything to help…  Only I think offices are given by seniority…”

“Well, that’s one requirement, yes.  But, no, I don’t expect that from you.  Actually, I should have just told you straight up when you broached the subject that I would keep my mouth shut.  It wouldn’t do me any good to go rolling around in the mud with a couple of undergraduates, especially not when the big boss is right there on the sidelines.  Now,” Jefferson went on, taking a short sip of his drink, “I hardly think he’d believe them if they complained to him because, like I said, what am I supposed to get out of it?  But,” Jefferson said, his accent fading away for a moment as he put his cup down, “I wouldn’t like to gamble on whether or not he’d believe you.  You can tell your friend that sending you in his place was a clever move.  But of course,” Jefferson continued, his drawl comfortably back in place, “this is all speculative.  I’ve got no need to mess with the two of them just because they were obnoxious little pricks.  I’ve got far too busy a schedule to pencil any of that in.”

Lafayette nodded, smiling.  “Of course,” he said, mirroring Jefferson’s language and leaning back a little in his chair.  He was watching Jefferson closely but his gaze was more respectful than wary.  “I understand completely.  You must be swamped.”

“It’s a madhouse,” Jefferson said as the conversation settled into friendly waters once more.  “Don’t go into education,” he advised, “they’ll just run you like a slave.  What’s your major again?”

“I’m undeclared,” Lafayette said.  “I was thinking literature?”

“How cultured.  You should sign up for one of my classes next term.  You’d make a natural politician.”

Lafayette sounded obviously pleased by the compliment.  “Oh, no.  I have no mind for it.”

 

“This must be it,” Hamilton said as he crossed the street with Adrienne and Burr.  “The sign says they offer classes there.”

Adrienne quickened her steps a little and Hamilton realized suddenly that there was a very good reason why she might want to visit the studio, especially when Lafayette wasn’t around.

 _Shit_ , he thought to himself, unable to say anything to her on the off chance that he was wrong and especially with Burr right there.  _Shit_.  Well, this was great.  He sent Lafayette off to the lion’s den to do him a favor and how did he repay him?  Took his girlfriend right up to meet the girls he was fantasizing about, wonderful.

“I could kick myself,” Hamilton muttered quietly, watching with wide eyes as Adrienne stepped back onto the sidewalk and went straight up to the door.  “Wait—”  He couldn’t do it, he had to try.  “—Adrienne, I’m not sure you can go in if you’re not—”

Too late, she was inside.  The door swung closed behind her, the blinds on the window meant to keep out prying eyes from passersby also preventing Hamilton from knowing if she was being turned away at the desk or if she was being introduced to the two people in the entire city she should not meet.

“Aaron,” Hamilton said, actually reaching out and taking him by the arm before he could open the door and head in after her.  Sorry, Lafayette.  The best he could do with a third party present was to minimize witnesses.  “Seriously, it’s going to be like two hundred degrees in there, why should we torment ourselves like that?  Let’s just wait outside, it’s a lovely day.”

Burr gave Hamilton a skeptical look as a garbage truck banged noisily down the the street and a man on the corner shouted about jet trails and a 9/11 governmental coverup from behind his folding table.

“Alexander, please,” he said.  “The waiting area isn’t going to be heated like that.”  He put his hand back on the doorknob.

“But—”

“Stay out here and get proselytized to if you want, I’m going in.”

He walked inside and Hamilton was left clutching thin air, a stricken look on his face.

“Shit,” Hamilton said, out loud this time, and followed them in.

“Oh, that is _such_ a cute picture,” Adrienne was saying—in French, Hamilton noted with surprise—to a tall and very pretty girl in gym clothes with a cloth headband over her short dark hair.  “He told me there was a flyer but he never showed it to me!”

“We only just got this back from the printer,” Adelaide responded, standing next to Adrienne by the front desk, the two of them looking at a piece of paper folded up in thirds.  “I’m not sure if he’s seen it yet.  Here,” she said, pressing it into Adrienne’s hand.  “You should take it.  Would you like another one?”

Adrienne nodded.  “If you don’t mind!  I’m sure he’ll want to keep one for himself.”

“He’s funny like that,” Adelaide agreed, stepping behind the desk and taking out a stack of them held together by a rubber-band.  “Oh, I’m sorry.  May I help you?”  She said to Burr and Hamilton.  “Are you here for a trial period?”

Adrienne shook her head.  “These are two of Gilbert’s friends.  Aaron and Alexander,” she said, introducing them in English.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Burr said, shaking Adelaide’s hand.

“Pleasure,” Hamilton echoed, lifting his own in greeting.

“Oh, you’re Alexander,” Adelaide said, looking Hamilton over as if he had been mentioned to her several times before and yet he somehow did not meet her mental image of him.  “Where’s John?”

“Uh.”  Hamilton wasn’t quite sure what to make of any of this.  “Class, I guess.”

“They’re showing me around today because Gil’s busy,” Adrienne explained, talking in quick and easy French again.  “They just took me to a lovely place for breakfast and we’re just stopping in before we head out to the park.”

“Central Park?”  Adelaide asked.  “There’s always something going on there.  You’ll enjoy it.”

“I’m sure,” Adrienne replied with a smile that, to Hamilton’s surprise, seemed genuine.  “I’m only here for a week.  Is there anything in particular you think I should see?”

“If you’re going to Central Park already, you should see the Met.  You’ll need several hours, though.  You could easily spend the whole day there if you wanted to.”

“That’s on our list,” Adrienne said excitedly.  “Gil suggested it before I even came and it sounded lovely.  I’m looking forward to it.”

“In that case,” Adelaide went on, “you could add in the Cloisters.  It’ll be a bit of a trip, but they’re included on the ticket.”

“The Cloisters,” Adrienne said, searching her purse for a pen.  Adelaide gave her one from the counter and she wrote it down on the back of the flyer.  “That’s a good suggestion, thank you.”

“Not at all.  I didn’t know he was into art.”

Adrienne gave a little shy laugh.  “Oh, it’s more that I like things like that and he humors me.  I don’t know if he would go to them on his own.”

“That’s sweet of him.”

“He’s very sweet.”

Hamilton glanced at Burr, who was waiting patiently for the other two to finish chatting, completely unaware of the drama Hamilton had anticipated unfolding.

“No idea,” Hamilton said to Burr for lack of anyone better to talk to.  “No freakin’ idea what’s even going on anymore.”

“I’m sorry to take up so much of your time,” Adrienne finally said, giving Adelaide back the pen, several other suggestions now written down as well.  “I just so wanted to meet you and that other girl from his class.  He talks about the two of you a lot but he never really says anything.”

“Yes,” Adelaide said, “I’ve heard him do that before.  He must mean Aglae, right?  She came in just a little while ago.  If you don’t mind heading down into the heat of it we can find her.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you so much.”

“It’s not a problem.  The classroom is right down these stairs,” Adelaide said, leading the way down a flight in the colorfully painted cement.  “It’s just like a very specific tour of the facilities,” she joked.  “At least I don’t have to bore you with my spiel about the dressing rooms and meal services.”

Hamilton looked at Burr again.  The two of them shrugged almost in time with one another and then followed after, completely ignored.

“Gil’s one of our most regular students,” Adelaide was saying, “and he’s always so apologetic if he has to miss a class.  It’s really not a problem if he does, but it’s sweet that he thinks that he has to explain why he couldn't attend.”

“I’m glad he’s been making friends,” Adrienne said.  “He has a lot of friends back in Paris and I was afraid he would be very lonely on his own.  Oh.”  She glanced back over her shoulder at Hamilton.  “Since you and John have your own things that you need to attend to, I mean.”  Hamilton just lifted a hand, waving off the apology.

“He must be the life of the party in Paris,” Adelaide said as she led the way into the classroom.  “I bet he’s very popular with everyone.”

“He is,” Adrienne agreed readily.  “He’s such a social butterfly.  It seems like he’s always trying to meet new people.”

“That much hasn’t changed, I can tell you that.  Aglae.”  Adelaide switched back into English and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, getting her attention.  “Let me introduce you to Adrienne.”

Aglae’s eyes lit up in recognition.  “Are you Lafayette’s girlfriend?”

Adrienne smiled and nodded happily.  “Yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too!” Aglae offered her hand and they shook.  “I’m sorry, was it a weird way to greet you like that?  He’s shown me your picture.  Actually, I really love the dress you had on outside the museum.”

Adrienne furrowed her brow.  “Museum?”

“Um,” Aglae said, glancing at Adelaide as if she wasn’t sure if she was being properly understood.  “You know, the picture on the background of his phone.  The building with the steps,” she motioned her hand horizontally, “and the columns,” she motioned vertically.

“Oh!”  Adrienne’s eyes widened.  “That’s my house,” she said, a little apologetically.

“No way!”  Aglae touched her lightly on the arm and laughed.  “It’s so gorgeous, how old is it?”

Hamilton looked around the half-filled room, then back at Burr.  “Some sightseeing, huh?  I don’t know what to make of this.”

“It makes sense that she’d want to see the places that he talks about.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, thinking about what Lafayette had talked about and deciding not to say it aloud.  “You got a point, I guess.”

Burr glanced at him sidelong.  “You seem distracted, Alexander.”

“Too many girls,” Hamilton said, not looking at them at all.  He checked his phone.  No message from Lafayette.  “…It’s getting late,” he deflected when he noticed Burr watching him.  “We’re supposed to get to Central Park,” he said louder.  Adrienne heard him and turned.

“I’m sorry,” she said, moving back into French, then realizing her mistake and getting flustered and putting her hand to her mouth briefly.  “I’m sorry,” she repeated in English.  “Yes.  It was nice to meet you,” she said to Aglae.

“I’ll walk you out,” Adelaide said, her hand lightly on Adrienne’s upper back for a moment as she turned her towards the door.

“Is it possible…  Could I get your number?”  Adrienne held out the pamphlet again as they reached the top of the stairs .  “Just in case you think of anything else or something comes up and we need your help.”

“Oh, of course.”  Adelaide wrote down her the number with a pen from the front desk.  “Gilbert has it as well, so you can alway contact me through him.”

“Thank you so much,” Adrienne said, putting her flier away.  “And I will see you Tuesday night?”

“If you’ll be there,” Adelaide said.  “Honestly, I wasn't sure about it before.  The impression I had was that it was the party of a friend of a friend’s and that he was desperately trying to get girls to come.”  In the background Hamilton shrugged to no one in particular.  She wasn’t wrong.  “I didn’t want to go knowing only one person, and it seemed to me like he’s the type to flit from group to group.”

“Mm,” Adrienne said, agreeing gently.  “But I’ll be there and it would be so nice to know another girl.”

Hamilton watched in continuing surprise as the two hugged briefly before Adrienne herded him and Burr out the door and then was still off guard when Adrienne, unusually emboldened, asked directly, “So, why aren’t the two of you friends anymore?”

“Excuse me, what?”  Hamilton stared at her, then at Burr, who looked equally off balance, although he was doing a better job of not just blurting out nonsense.  “Wait—What?”

“I’m sorry,” Adrienne said, encouraging them back toward the subway station.  “But you seem like you should still get along well, except that there’s something there that keeps you from properly forgiving one another.  I’m very curious.  Gil is too, of course.  Oh, we don’t talk about it all the time,” she reassured them as Burr frowned, a suspicious glint coming into his eyes.  “It’s only come up on occasion, like when you ran into him in the building,” she explained to Burr.  “I won’t tell him if you don’t want him to know, I promise.”

Hamilton and Burr looked at one another again as they made their way one at a time through the turnstile.

“…It’s a long story,” Burr finally said.

“Those are the best kind,” Adrienne replied, starting down the next flight of stairs to the platform.  “I think I want to go to the park,” she continued, “and sit on a bench, and listen.  Gilbert is my boyfriend,” she added,  “so I’m very good at listening.”

 

“I told you it was easy to tell,” Jefferson said as he put the tusk back over his door.  He was tall enough that he didn’t need a stool to stand on as he settled it back into place.  “Don’t get conned.  Make sure you double check for yourself.”

Lafayette, not sure when he would ever find himself in the position of buying ivory, nodded.  “Fascinating.”

“It is,” Jefferson agreed.  “Now, even just the bakelite, that’s a vintage piece, so it’s still got the history behind it.  It’s not just some garbage from Pier One.”

Lafayette checked his watch.  He had spent well over an hour—actually, over an hour and a half—talking with Jefferson and it didn’t seem like the man was going to stop any time soon.  As interesting as he genuinely found him, this was severely cutting into his time with Adrienne.  “I’m not keeping you, am I?  I remember you said you were busy.”

“It’s fine,” Jefferson said.  “So I give them back their tests Monday instead of Friday.  It won’t kill them to learn a little patience.”

Lafayette, not particularly fond of that lesson, nodded politely.  “Well,” he started to make an excuse to go but was unable to finish.

“Lafayette,” Jefferson said, taking a seat behind his desk and motioning for him to sit as well.  “I’ve been meaning to ask.  Who’s your advisor again?”

“Dr. Bartow,” Lafayette answered.

“Theodosia?”  There was something about the way Jefferson said her name that made Lafayette sit up a little straighter.  “Didn’t know she was still taking students.”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side.  “What do you mean?”

“Just office gossip,” Jefferson said with a wave of his hand.  “Very unprofessional of me, pardon me.  It’s nothing,” he went on, “and I have nothing against her.  She’s got a fine teaching record.  I just thought she wasn't doing that anymore.”

Lafayette frowned.  “Is she planning on leaving?”

“It doesn’t matter much for you, does it?  You’re undeclared, after all.”

“Yes,” Lafayette started, hesitantly.  “But I did like the class I took with her.”

“Oh, please, let me snipe you from the English department.  You’d do so well here on the dark side with us.  Biscuit?”  He offered Lafayette a blue tin.

“Thank you.”  Lafayette took one, but he was still frowning, turning over this new half-information in his head.

“You should always have a plan b in mind,” Jefferson said.  “That’s just good life advice in general.  Always have another option in case your first choice doesn’t pan out.”

“What was your first choice?”

Jefferson’s eyes widened minutely as his casual posture became stiff.  Then he shook his head and laughed to himself.  “Oh, I _do_ like you,” Jefferson said.  “You know what?  Get the door.  I’ll tell you a story since you asked so nicely.”


	94. Even

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Burned Bridges; *Catching up; Scheduling

Hamilton draped one arm on the backrest of the bench.  He was turned to his right to face Adrienne, who was between him and Burr, both of them seated much more properly.

“I’ve heard so much worse in France,” Adrienne assured them.  “I won’t even tell you to be friends again,” she added in a second promise, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

Hamilton saw Burr glance at him and he started talking quickly before he could lose the opportunity to go first.

“I’ve just come to the mainland—”

Burr rolled his eyes.

“—and picture this, Aaron Burr’s my first friend in the city, Hercules Mulligan aside.  You’ll meet Mulligan,” he added to Adrienne as a reminder and, then, to Burr, “You won’t, you’re not invited.”

“I’ve met him before,” Burr pointed out dryly.

“The school’s got me stuck in some crap foreign exchange program, that same thing Lafayette got roped into as a condition of his acceptance.  Go to orientation meetings, have a touch guy, exchange numbers, blah blah blah.  It’s all very grade school, you know, lots of metaphorical hand holding and sadly not metaphorical sitting in a circle talking about feelings.  Seriously, what sadist invented group getting to know one another activities?  I’m a friggin’ extrovert and I still think they’re crap.  Right,” he said, catching himself on a tangent and bringing it back in.  “Where was I?”

“I was assigned to you.”

“He’s my touch guy.”

“And we took a class together.”

“We took several,” Hamilton corrected him.  “And it was fine.  That first one ended well so I figured what could go wrong with pairing up and intentionally taking a few more?  We both signed up for the student council at that point, too.  I mean,” Hamilton made air quotes, “we ‘ran’.  Not that there was a lot of competition.  You remember?”  Hamilton asked Burr, his tone lighter again.  “I’m pretty sure a loaf of bread could’ve won if we hadn’t stepped in.”

Adrienne, listening patiently, nodded.

“And, fine, cut to the chase.  I'm short on money, right?  So I take this tutoring gig.”

“He was writing papers.”

“I was helping to _draft_ them.  And for people who actually needed a hand up!  It’s not like I was pimping myself out to all and sundry.  That final girl aside, I wasn’t even in their classes.  I had to do it based off their notes and reading lists and shit, we met and talked about the prompt and I made them an outline or they had me check their work for grammar and coherence before they turned it in.”

“It’s one thing to be motivated by misplaced altruism,” Burr began, “but another to be charging people for your good deeds.”

“So I wanted compensation for a job well done, so does everyone.”

Burr turned to Adrienne.  “Alexander told me one day about this business plan he had set up for himself and I told him—”

“You told me you'd think about it.”  Hamilton cut him off.  “If you were that put off by it then you should have said something sooner.  Maybe actually try to convince me I was in the wrong or to do things different.  I’m open to criticism, you know.  And, hey, you know what a _normal_ response is?  It’s not out of the blue threatening to get me freaking kicked out after sitting on your ass for a full semester.”

“Luckily for you.”  Burr suddenly sounded more clipped.  “I must have gotten you a few extra hundred dollars from those poor students you were defrauding.”

Hamilton popped the collar of his leather jacket in implication and an unnecessarily aggressive challenge.  “Yeah,” he said smoothly, brushing invisible dust from its sleeves.  “Thanks a lot for that, by the way.  Too bad you didn't piss around any longer, I had my eye on a pair of boots, too.”

“If you really cared about their grades you would have directed them to the resources the school provides for its ESL students.  The fact that you instead came up with a marketing scheme—”

“Hey,” Hamilton cut him off angrily.  “Don’t tell me what I care about.  I didn’t charge a penny more than anyone could afford and much less than what I should have when you take into consideration the amount of time I had to put in—”

“If you were _putting_ in so much time,” Burr said, cutting him off in turn, “then you were clearly going beyond the bounds of what was reasonable assistance for a third party to offer on an assignment.  They’re at the university, they’re qualified and should be treated just like any other student.”

“Don’t make my stance into a straw man.  I admit with hindsight that I was toeing the line with _actus reus_ , but if I did anything wrong then your hands are dirty too since you didn’t give any indication that there was a problem until Dr. Bartow—English department,” Hamilton said, looking back at Adrienne, “Lafayette took a class with her when he first got here.  You should see the way she grades, it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, she’ll tear you to shreds if you haven’t grown up with some reified proper English drilled into you until your fingers type it out automatically.  It’s not fair.  I mean, I know how to do it,” he continued, finding his wind and letting the words come uninhibited, “I’ve practiced, gotten it burned into me, forgotten other things along the way, but that’s another story for another day.  The point is that if you’re not that lucky then say goodbye to the A, goodbye to your GPA, and if you’re in on a scholarship then that _hurts_.  That actually means something, which your average attendee who can afford to abide by C’s get degrees doesn’t understand, and what’s the point of knowing how to write English like you’ve got a stick up your ass when you’re not going to use it or, more importantly, what’s so wrong with leveling the playing field a little while people catch up so they _can_ use it?  If Bartow wants to waste her time expounding on the struggle of dead rich white women, act like changing just one category makes such a big freakin’ difference, to a kid who’s actually facing a real disadvantage that their peers don’t have to deal with and don't understand, serves her right for having admin take a closer look at her records when she falsely accused my client of plagiarism—”

Burr stood abruptly.

Hamilton cut himself short, watching as he obviously struggled with himself.

“It was a valid concern,” Burr finally said to Adrienne, then in a failed attempt at a lighter tone.  “And one that Alexander narrowly avoided being implicated in.  You said something about getting ice cream.”

Adrienne didn’t have the chance to respond one way or another before he turned on his heel and walked off.

“Shit,” Hamilton muttered, getting up and motioning at Adrienne.  “Wait here.”  He hurried after Burr, quickly catching up to him and walking at his side.

Burr glanced stonily at him but otherwise did not acknowledge his presence.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Barely.  You didn’t deserve to be in her class.”

“And yet they let me back in for another one.”

“You’re a child,” Burr said bitterly.  “You claim that you’re so worldly but as soon as anyone gets until your skin you prove that you still see the world in extremes.  Were you talking about another student feeling lost in the classroom back there, Alexander, or yourself?”

Hamilton was uncharacteristically silent and Burr continued.

“It wasn’t a required course.  A certain mastery of the English language was a prerequisite and was intended to be built upon over the course of the semester.  She was doing her job and you were undermining her.”

Hamilton felt himself bristle again.  “So?”

Burr set his lips in a thin tight line and looked away.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

They had reached the cart.  Hamilton took out his phone to get to his wallet.

“It’s stupid,” he muttered as Burr ordered for himself and Adrienne.  One new message.  “This whole freaking mess is…”

 

> G. Lafayette: Did you hear why Dr. Bartow is quitting?

 

“…Huh.  That’s kind of funny.”  Hamilton put his phone away as Burr moved to the side.  “One mint chip, please.”

Burr looked at him sidelong and Hamilton tried to explain.  “Lafayette just texted me.  I only say it's funny because he was talking to Jefferson and I guess Bartow came up ‘cause he wanted to know if I knew why she was leaving…”

Hamilton trailed off, staring at Burr in shock at the horrified expression that passed over his face before he could stop it.

The vendor announced Burr’s order and Hamilton took it when Burr didn't make a move for it.

Hamilton’s order was put out and Hamilton paused and then handed Burr his own cup so he could take it.  They started to head back.  It was several beats before Hamilton spoke again.

“You could have told me, you know.  We would’ve had dirt on each other, then.  It would’ve been even.  I like even.  Maybe I wouldn’t’ve spent the last year and a half talking shit about you at every opportunity.  I would have worked around it.  It never would have had to blow up into,” he gestured around them with one hand, more carefully than normal.

“Please.”  Burr’s voice was back to controlled, although a careful listener would hear an uncertain waver at the end of the word.  “You mean well enough, Alexander, but you can’t help but rock the boat.”

Hamilton was about to shoot back but he bit his lip and physically restrained himself.  Burr saw that and looked away again.

“I don’t _understand_ you,” Hamilton said as they approached Adrienne again.  “I thought you’d be willing to accept the olive branch as long as I was the one to offer it.  Why would you even think that I cared that you had the hots for her?”

Hamilton saw rage flickering like embers in Burr’s eyes and realized that he had miscalculated somehow.

Burr raised his chin in a gesture oddly akin to how Hamilton also indicated disdain.  “I don’t know what you were talking about, Alexander.”  His voice was smooth as he sat on the bench next to Adrienne.  “Your economic misadventure aside, we are perfectly even.”

 

“Adrienne,” Lafayette pulled her to him dramatically as soon as she was in the guest room with him and the door was closed.  “Six hours with Thomas Jefferson was too long.  I missed you so _much_.”

She tried to move back to respond but he didn’t let her, instead tightening his grip until she made a little involuntary and uncomfortable noise.

“Six _hours_ ,” Lafayette went on, loosening his hold on her but not letting go.  “Six hours that I could have spent with you!  And six hours that instead you had to spent with Alexander and that other one.  I’m so sorry, Adrienne.  I learned a lot, though,” he added, almost perking up with the obvious aside.  “I’ll fill you in later.”

“It wasn’t all with the professor,” Adrienne pointed out.  “You had class, and work…   It’s all right.”  Adrienne managed to get one arm free and she patted him on the back.  “We had a nice time.  They were good tour guides.”

“Did they fight?”  Lafayette asked, burying his face in her hair.  “It’s funny when they fight.”

“Only a little.”

“They must have been holding back out of respect.  Too bad,” he sighed.  “But they returned you to me safe and sound and that is all that matters.  Oh, and that I got my business taken care of so now there will be nothing else standing in our way…  Washington aside, of course.”

“We went to Central Park,” Adrienne said.  “But we didn’t see the statue you were telling me about.”

“Good.  I’d hate to have to kill Alexander for ruining my date with you just after doing him a favor.”

Adrienne managed to back them up to the bed and sat down on it.  Lafayette lay on the mattress and put his head in her lap, his arms around her waist.  “We saw the one of Alice in Wonderland.”

“That’s a good one,” Lafayette agreed as she stroked his face.  “Did you ride in a carriage?”

“No.”

“We’ll do that,” he promised.  “And walk over to the lake.”

“We saw the lake as well, but I’d like to go back.  It’s lovely in there.  I didn’t realize you could get so far away from the city while being right in the heart of it.”

“I saw a raccoon once,” Lafayette said.  “Actually, I was with Alexander and we named it Aaron.”

Adrienne laughed.  “Gil, why?”

“The hands,” Lafayette explained, drawing one of his arms back and mimicking with his own hand.  “The little grabby hands.”

“Well, we didn’t see anything as interesting as that.”

“It’s for the best,” Lafayette said, his arms around her again.  “Alex might have slipped up and called it by his name and then there would go all of their hard work to keep it together around you.  How was breakfast?  The picture you sent me looked delicious.”

“It was very good,” Adrienne assured him.  “We can go back if you would like.”

“No, there are plenty of places to eat in the city.  We should order food from a cart.  We can do that tomorrow.”

“We had ice cream in the park.”

“That’s a little different.  We should order actual food, not just dessert.”

“Hm…”  Adrienne smoothed his hair back.  “Gil?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Lafayette sighed again, contentedly this time, and closed his eyes.  “I love you too, my dearheart.  I’m so glad you came.”

“I’m glad I came, too.  Gilbert…”

“Yes?”  Lafayette asked again.

“We also stopped by the studio.  I wanted to see it since you talk about it so much.  I hope you don’t mind,” she added, unable to hide the worry in her voice.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Lafayette said quickly, looking up at her.  “Why would I mind?”

Adrienne smiled.  “You’re so cute,” she teased lightly.  “Sometimes it’s like you’re still sixteen.”

“Don’t talk like that’s so far away,” Lafayette said, wrapping his arms tighter around her and pushing her back onto the mattress with a playful growl.

Adrienne yelped in surprise and then laughed as he rolled on top of her, unable to push him off.  “Gil!”

“No, it’s too late,” Lafayette teased, grabbing her wrist as she tried to shove him away.  “You’ve wounded my pride!  Now we must fight, it’s the only way I can regain my honor!”

Adrienne was laughing harder, her hair coming loose and falling in her face as she tried to scoot away.  “What are you doing?  You’re being ridiculous!”

“Take it back, Adrienne!  Admit that you were wrong!”

“How can I?  You’re—”  She gave a short shriek as his fingers found their way to her ribs.  “— _Gil!  Stop that!_ ”

Lafayette stopped abruptly.  

Adrienne looked up at him, straddling her waist and grinning, all too pleased with himself.  “I take it back,” she said.  “You’re worse than sixteen.”

Lafayette bent down and kissed her forehead.  “You are so harsh, my light.”

He let go of her wrist and she put her hand on the back of his neck, easing him into an actual kiss.

Lafayette smiled and lay carefully on top of her, holding himself up on his elbows and kissing her back gently, sucking on her lip and lightly biting it.

“We have a little time,” Lafayette said before Adrienne could ask.  “I _miss_ you.”

“You’re here with me,” Adrienne said.  “And you, oh…”  Adrienne tipped her head back as Lafayette moved down to kiss her neck, one hand on her breast over her shirt.

“I miss you,” Lafayette repeated.  “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.  Adrienne…”  He was undoing her blouse and pulling it wide open.  He moved further down, kissing the soft skin of her chest, just below her collarbone, and ran his hand down over the front of her skirt.

Adrienne arched off the mattress towards his touch and spread her legs.  Lafayette immediately pulled her skirt up, running his middle and ring fingers over the soft cotton fabric between her thighs.  She gasped and shivered and he gave a little moan, lips against her skin.

“Gil,” Adrienne said, breathy.  “You say we have time, but…!”

“We do,” Lafayette promised.  “Alexander owes me.  He’ll take care of it.”

“I, oh—I don’t know what—”  Adrienne gasped loudly as Lafayette tugged the fabric to the side, stroking her slit.

“Don’t worry,” Lafayette said, his voice low and sending a shiver through her body.  “I promise, we have just enough time.”  He moved down her body further, sliding her underwear off and then _pressing_ his mouth to her so that she arched and bit her legs into his shoulders.  He pushed his tongue into her, curling it up and around, insistently repeating the motion until she whimpered his name softly.

Lafayette flattened his tongue and ran it up and over her, sucking on her clit.  He could feel his own erection behind his pants—the feel and the smell and taste of her had quickly gotten him hard, urged on by the desire in her voice, the way he was able to pull the reaction he craved out of her.  Adrienne— _his_ Adrienne—was so petite and demure, and the strength in her thighs when she held him in place was surprising.

“Gil…”

Lafayette held her clit in his mouth, tracing fast patterns over it with the tip of his tongue.  Sometimes, when he had done a good enough job, she would be so desperate for more that she would hook her leg across his shoulders to pull him down…  Lafayette rubbed up against the mattress a little, remembering the way she would force him against her.

“Ah.”  His breath caught and he pulled away for just a second.  “Adrienne.”

She immediately pulled him back down with one leg, putting her hand down on the side of the mattress for him to take.  He did so, intertwining their fingers, knowing what she wanted just like she knew what he had been asking for by pausing for a moment.

Lafayette could tell she was trying harder than usual to keep quiet and, considering their current situation, he didn’t try to encourage her to further noise. Instead he slipped a finger into her as he continued to tease her clit with his mouth, curling it up like he had done with his tongue earlier until she tightened her grip on his hand and opened her mouth in a silent cry.

Lafayette could feel her soft hair on his face and he kept his eyes tightly closed, visualizing what she looked like, how he must look from her angle…  She tugged him a little closer and he continued, insistent and not changing the pace.

“Gil,” she breathed.  “Oh—”  She gasped louder.  “Oh—!”  Her whole body tensed and she pressed her hips as far towards him as possible.  He quickly added a second finger and sucked against her as she came.

Adrienne ran her free hand over his head, dipping her fingers into his hair and then lay back against the mattress.

“My dearheart,” she breathed.  “Oh, I love you, Gilbert.”

He moved forward, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his face on her, turning it to the side.  She stroked the top of his head again and he sighed.

“I don’t want to get up.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“We have to.”

“Yes.”

Lafayette stayed there a moment longer after she spoke, then pushed himself up, the muscles in his arms flexed taut as he showed off a little by relying on his upper body strength to lift himself.  He went into the bathroom to wash his face and hands.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, trying to adjust his pants into some kind of more comfortable position.  What he wouldn’t give for another fifteen minutes.  Ten, even.

“Later,” Adrienne promised him as she came in behind him and leaned up high, putting her hand on his shoulder and tipping him down to kiss him on the cheek.

“It’s always later,” Lafayette complained.  “You’re finally here and it’s still later.”

He went back out into the bedroom, talking to her through the open door.  “By the way, we’re going to have lunch with Jefferson tomorrow.”

“I thought you were upset with him on Alex and John’s behalf?”

“I was,” Lafayette agreed, “but it’s hard to hold a grudge.  Besides,” he went on, “they never formally _told_ me they dislike him.  It might have come up in passing,” he waved his hand dismissively to the room at large, “but perhaps I missed it.  English is my second language, after all.  The point is, Adrienne, that those two aside he’s actually quite enjoyable and anyway I had to agree to it because I was buttering him up.  Also for them,” Lafayette added as an afterthought, studying the ceiling.  “So they can’t complain.”

“Gilbert,” Adrienne said when she came out of the bathroom a minute later.  “Do you know why they don’t like each other?”

“Alexander and John?”

“No, Alexander and Aaron.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette took her hand.  “No.  He never told me and I never bothered to ask.  I figured it was unimportant because he would have been sure to let me know otherwise.  Why?”

“I know,” Adrienne said, just a little smugly as she opened the door to the hallway.

Lafayette walked out with her, eyes widening in surprise.  “Really?  What is it?  How did you find out?”

“I asked and they told me.”

“ _They_?”

“Mmhm.”

Lafayette couldn’t press her any further because she was leading him down the stairs and Hamilton and Washington could already be heard arguing below.

 

“Sir,” Hamilton was trying very, very hard to keep his voice level.  “That’s what I’m telling you.  It’s all imported, all you have to do is put in your confirmation code and it’ll be registered again.”

“So it’s not put in yet and you didn’t finish setting it up.”

Lafayette and Adrienne (pristinely dressed, every hair in place, looking like the consummate adorable and pure couple) shared a glance as they stood in the doorway to Washington’s home office.

“It’s—!”

Lafayette watched as Hamilton physically restrained himself, one foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

“All right.  Okay.  Give me the code and I’ll,” he had to force the word out, “finish.”

“I don’t know where it is.”

Hamilton stared at Washington incredulously.  “What do you mean?”

“You’re my secretary.  I’m paying you to keep track of that sort of thing for me.”

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  “Okay.  Right.  Look, this thing is ancient.  Do you think you kept it at all?  Do you even want it registered?  If you don’t want to register it then it doesn’t even matter and I can be done with this.”

“It says it needs to be registered for security reasons.”  Washington frowned as he read the small pop up text box on the screen.  “So, yes, I would like you to register it for me.”

Hamilton made a little frustrated noise and Lafayette stepped in to save him.

“Adrienne and I were wondering about dinner.”

Washington stood as Hamilton checked his phone and then preemptively cut in again.

“One last thing, sir.”

Washington sighed.  “Yes, Alexander?”

“Twenty-eighth.  Can’t do it, have a prior commitment.  Sorry for not letting you know, it slipped my mind at the time.”

Washington shook his head.  “It’s unprofessional to cancel a job at the last minute.  What’s your commitment?”

“John, sir.  It’s his birthday.”

Washington glanced at Lafayette and Adrienne and sighed.  “Fine.  Take the night off.”

Hamilton grinned and took out his phone, typing quickly.  “Thanks, G-Wash.”

Washington raised an eyebrow and Lafayette made a little muffled squeak.

Hamilton looked up abruptly.  “Uh.  Sir.  Thank you, sir.”

“Tell John happy birthday from me,” Washington said, his face impassive.  “Adrienne, come, let’s discuss options for dinner.”  He escorted her out and Lafayette and Hamilton hurried after.


	95. Plus One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invitation; Communicating; Night Out

“So what do you want to do anyway?”  Hamilton was walking back from class with Laurens and he cut in front of him to go down the flight of stairs.  “I mean technically I’m free from this afternoon on since Dearheart is staying at the dorm tonight.”

“Dearheart?”

“Yeah, that’s their new celebrity couple name, I’ve decided.  They can’t be upset, they gave it to themselves.”

Laurens laughed.  “I’m sure they’ll be flattered.”

“Hey,” Hamilton stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him, waiting for him to catch up.  “What do we get?  The only nickname either of us tosses around is J., and that won’t work.”

“I call you Alex sometimes.”

“Yeah, so do a bunch of people, J.  That’s not really a nickname, that’s just the short form of Alexander.”  Hamilton took his hand.  Laurens gave him a confused look.

“You don’t mind…?  We’re on campus.”

“Hm?  ‘Course not.”  He sounded flippant.  “You told me you were okay with it and since when do I care what other people think?  Uh,” he paused and then lied a little, “the other night aside and that was just because I thought you'd be upset.  But since you weren’t…”

“That’s not true,” Laurens said, but didn’t take his hand away.  “You care a lot.”

Hamilton gave him a surprised look.

“You do,” Laurens insisted.  “Come on, Alexander, this isn’t news to you, is it?”

“…Whatever.”  Hamilton shrugged, a little uncomfortable.  “Don’t want to argue about it.  Can I interest you in a fuck instead?”  He grinned when Laurens turned red but then he took his hand away to run it over his mouth nervously and Hamilton relented.  “Sorry.  Seriously though,” he put his hands in the pockets of his jacket but walked close, “what’s the deal?  Do you have plans with your teammates or are you free?  We don’t have to hole up in my apartment.  It’s a great big city out there, John, I’m sure we can find something to do.”  Hamilton glanced over at the building that housed the political science department and then nudged Laurens.  “So?”

Laurens draped his arm across Hamilton’s shoulders and pulled him in for a moment, kissing the top of his head then letting him go.  “Thank you for getting out of work.  I appreciate it.”

It was Hamilton’s turn to blush.  “Uh, yeah.  I told you,” he said, trying not to trip over his words, “not a problem.  The guy’s pretty reasonable about most things.  Just remind me I need to find some old paperwork at his office.”

“Today?”

“I’ll try to grab it before my last class.  If not,” Hamilton shrugged, trying to regain a feeling of control, “Monday.  Anyway,” he went on, “plans?  Yes, no?”

“I usually do something with my friends…”

“Great,” Hamilton jumped back in, enthusiastic, “no problem.  So long as I get you Saturday night—”

“Why don’t you come with us tonight?”

Hamilton stopped talking abruptly, surprised to have been interrupted and by that.

“John, seriously?”

Laurens nodded.  “They told me to invite you when we did something and,” he paused, “and we’re doing something.  You don’t mind, do you?  You don’t have to come.”

“Of course I wanna come,” Hamilton said quickly. "Just didn't know it was an option.  Sure, count me in.  What are you guys doing?"

"We'll probably just go back to the bar they took Lafayette to..."  Laurens trailed off, realizing the problem with that and looked at Hamilton.

"No problem," Hamilton insisted, determined to make it work.  "I'll d.d.  You complained about how come it's always you, right?  I think I remember that.  Anyway even if you didn't it's your birthday.  Just don't actually get trashed, ‘cause I'd have to recruit someone to lug you back for me and that'd kind of kill the mood."

"I promise.  It's nothing crazy anyway, a group of us usually just get together for stuff like this.  André, Tallmadge..."  Laurens paused again.  There was one person who might not show and he wasn't sure if it would be worse if he did.

Hamilton picked up on it and he brushed up against Laurens with his next step.  "So, uh, awkward confession time.  I didn't get you anything.  I meant to," he went on hastily, "but I couldn't think of anything and then I got so swamped with work...  Not an excuse, I know.  I'm just letting you know that I didn't actually forget, you're just going to get something later."

"You're not giving me anything?"  Laurens teased.  "Come on, Alex, I thought you'd get me _one_ thing for sure."

Hamilton laughed and shoved him lightly.  "That aside, I already promised you _that_.  Why, you want to cash it in early?  Like I said, I _was_ gonna save it for the night of..."

"I only get one?  Some present."

"Don't be greedy.  I already had to take a personal day last minute to get this weekend off.  This is all going to be filed under miscellaneous for tax purposes, in case you were curious, which I know you were.”

Laurens shook his head, amused.

“Should I invite Dearheart?  Doesn’t matter,” Hamilton went on, getting more caught up in talking for the sake of talking and not giving Laurens the chance to respond.  “They’ll politely decline, so you don’t have to worry about bringing a plus three to your own party.  Let me paint you a picture of how this conversation’ll go—”

“Hey.  You don’t need to worry.  They already like you, remember?”

Hamilton—his hands up in the air in front of him like he was about to push aside the curtains blocking his description—was struck momentarily silent.  “I never said I was worried.”

“You start rambling.”  Laurens’ phone went off and he took it out of his pocket to check it.  “It’s a giveaway that something’s up.  Hold on, I’m just going to go ahead and tell André to let the others know to expect you.”

“I’m not worried about if they like me.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens sent the message and put his phone away.  “Then what is it?  You’re not exactly a wallflower, Alex.”

Hamilton could feel himself starting to blush again—moment to reflect on how stupid that was and how much he hated it—and wasn’t exactly sure how to explain himself.  “I…”  I what?  I’m so stupidly into you that sometimes it overwhelms me and I do very, very stupid things like use two iterations of the same adjective in one sentence or lock myself out of my own apartment building and have to call someone to come pick me up?  _What_?  

Laurens was still looking at him, now with mild concern, and Hamilton needed to say something before Laurens asked him anything that turned him properly red.

“…I know they like me.  I just don’t want to make an idiot out of myself,” there was that word again, “and embarrass you.  Or me in retrospect.  At least I won’t be allowed to drink,” Hamilton added as an afterthought, perking up a little.  “I take back what I said, you can all get as drunk as you want, I’ll look _great_ by comparison.”

 

“Oh,” Adrienne breathed, putting one hand up to shield her eyes from the glare, the sea breeze blowing her hair into her face.  “It’s bigger than I thought it was.”

“The Statue of Liberty,” Lafayette announced with a mixture of pride and excitement.  “I’m glad you’re here with me to see it.  It looks even better up close,” he added, stepping away from the binoculars.  “Take a look.  If the time runs out I have another quarter.”

Adrienne looked though the large binoculars curiously.  “Oh,” she repeated.  “You can see the people, too.”

“Ah, but on this side you can buy snacks,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, already taking money out of his wallet and buying a large cone of cotton candy.  “Can you do that over there?  No.”

Adrienne was skeptical of that claim, but she stepped away from the binoculars and smiled, taking his free hand.  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

“How could I not?  My two favorite things are right here in front of me.  You and an idealized vision of liberty.  Bite?”  He offered her the cone.

She laughed and straightened his jacket collar.  “You’re so earnest.  Some people said that you would become disillusioned after traveling here.”

“Well, it’s not perfect,” Lafayette said through a mouthful of cotton candy, strolling with her along the path.  “But nowhere is.”

“I can’t believe you said that,” she teased gently.  “How is it not perfect?”

“You have to tip the waiters and waitresses otherwise they don’t earn a living wage,” Lafayette informed her.  “I can’t find Belle Angevine pears.  And you’re not here.”  He stopped walking, looking at her seriously.  “Adrienne…”

She bit her lower lip and he took a step closer to her, still holding her hand.

“I miss you, very much.  I won’t go on again about how sorry I am because,” he took a breath, “because it’s done and I don’t want to bore you with it, you listen to me go on enough as it is.  But I miss you, and I think about you all the time, and I get very jealous when I don’t hear from you constantly, and—”

“I met Adelaide.”

Lafayette paused and cocked his head to the side.  “Oh.  Did you?  When?”

“And Aglae.  When I was with Alexander and Aaron.  I asked them to take me to your gym.”  Adrienne hesitated.  “Are you upset with me?  I just wanted to meet them.”

“No, no, of course not,” Lafayette answered quickly and honestly.  “They’re nice, aren’t they?”

Adrienne smiled, relaxing visibly.  “They’re very nice,” she agreed.  “I’m glad they are.  I wanted…  I just worry about you, Gilbert.  You’re very far away and if anything were to happen…”

“I can take care of myself,” Lafayette assured her.  “And I’ve learned a lot since coming here.  I’m _trying_ to learn a lot,” he amended.  “And I want—Adrienne, I just—I’m not sure what I want.  I haven’t figured it out yet, but I knew I wasn’t going to find it staying in France and wondering forever how things might have been different if I’d taken a chance.  I know it was selfish of me and I’m sorry I can’t at least tell you _why_ it was worth it or that I haven’t done anything stupid because you know me better than that, but—”

“There’s a lot to learn here,” Adrienne said, stepping in before he could totally talk himself in circles.  “I’ve learned a lot too.”

“What was your favorite thing that you’ve learned?”

“To double check the dates when you say you’ve bought theater tickets—” Adrienne said bluntly.

“We’ll still catch the show tomorrow night!”

“—and that you’re not going to actually abandon me for America.”

Lafayette looked confused.  “I already did that.”

Adrienne took a piece of cotton candy.  “No, Gil.  You flew to America to attend school without telling anyone ahead of time.  That’s not the same.  It’s still not _good_ ,” she clarified.  “But it’s much better.  And—sometimes—I worry that I’m not good enough for you.  That if I were,” she was looking at the ground, “you would have at least told me what you wanted.  I know I couldn’t have gone with you and I wouldn’t have told you to stay, but…”

“It’s in the past,” Lafayette said, being self-centered without meaning to, and he put his arm around her waist.

“But,” Adrienne insisted, obviously having to make a great effort to keep talking, “but—that’s true, it is in the past—but sometimes when you tell me about…  other girls, I…”

Lafayette’s eyes widened, realization finally, belatedly, dawning on him.

“You know that I don’t love anyone like I love you, my dearheart, no one could ever replace you.”  He was talking rapidly.  “It’s just that I can’t help looking at other people, even if I don’t mean to, and maybe it is a flaw with my character, but I like meeting people and imagining myself to be close to them.  I want to be loved by everyone, not just you, but by you most of all.  I admit that I keep going back and forth on this, sometimes I feel like it is harmless and some of my friends agree, but then I am alone and the weight of the world sinks into me and I remember the people who told me otherwise and I worry that I’m doing the wrong thing and it eats me up inside because—”

She was looking at him, eyes wet.  He felt something inside him give way.

“—Because if I have to think about it so much then I know what my answer is.  And I know that I am only going against it because I’m being selfish.  Adrienne.”  He looked around and his tone slipped for a moment into almost comically annoyed by contrast.  “There’s no bench.  If there was a bench I’d sit on it with you and you could put your head on my shoulder and this would be much more romantic.  Adrienne,”  He brought himself back to the moment.  “I’m no white knight.  But I wish I could be yours.”

She leaned against him, slipping his arm over her.  “I think you’ve learned a lot, my Lancelot.  And I understand that you get lonely.  I get lonely, too.”

He just nodded, sensing the tone and not speaking.

“I don’t mind if you want to be around other girls.  I’m with other girls all the time,” she joked.  “I understand wanting physical contact.  But I’d like part of you to be mine.”

“I never would have done anything.”

She turned and leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek.  “You’re a very dedicated boy.  And I give you my blessing if you want to sit with your friend in your lap or put your arm around her.”

He nodded again, guiltily.  “Yes, of course, my life.”

Adrienne leaned in closer, pulling his arm a little tighter over her shoulder.  “My Lancelot.”

 

“Hey, you made it!”

Laurens, smiling, casual, raised his hand in greeting as Humphreys moved over on the bench to make room at the already full table.

“Both of you, even.”

Hamilton (frowning at the stamp on his hand, using it as an excuse to hide how nervous he actually felt, unaware that he was doing the exact same thing Lafayette had) sat on Laurens’ other side.  “This thing wash off?”

“Try tomorrow,” Humphreys suggested.  “Nice to finally meet you, by the way.  Thanks for your help the other week.”

“Hm?”  Hamilton looked up.  “Oh.  Yeah, no problem.”  What was he talking about?  The paper, when was that?  Right when he was in the middle of panicking about Laurens and how he couldn’t stop thinking about him, his brain unhelpfully filled in.  Right before Laurens told the rest of them that they were dating.  So about two weeks before he fucked up meeting everyone, said something offensive or stupid because he needed to keep talking to avoid falling into that mindless brain fog where all he could think about was how much he liked him, and as a result embarrassed Laurens to be seen with him to the point that he not only became his first boyfriend but also his first _ex_ -boyfriend.

That was when.

“Can I get a Coke or something?”  Hamilton said, turning on the bench and looking for a server.

“You want a Rob Roy?”  Humphreys teased.  “You’re already halfway there.”

Hamilton tensed.  His gut reaction was to shoot something back but he wasn’t sure if it would come out witty or scathing.  “Coke’s fine,” he said instead.  “Not a fan of grenadine.”

“Laurens isn’t paying,” Grayson said, scanning the room with Hamilton for the waiter.  “Shit, does that mean we’re buying for both of them?”

Hamilton stayed carefully still as a couple others laughed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Tallmadge chided him.  “He’s the designated last man standing, his drinks are on the house.  One round, house tap,” he said to the waiter as he came up.  “You wanted a Coke, right?”  He pointed to Hamilton, who turned back to face front and nodded.  “And a Coke.”

“I know we’re here for Laurens,” Humphreys began, “but first toast is gonna be to no game this weekend.  Excellent timing,” he said with a wink to Laurens, who ducked his head, embarrassed but grinning.  “I feel like the stars’ve aligned for you and I should thank you for it since we’re all reaping the benefits.”

Hamilton sat up a little straighter, willing himself not to turn red.  Laurens’ hand was on his thigh under the table.

“The timing really is something,” Hamilton said and amazed himself by how smooth his voice sounded.  “Although it’s too bad,” he went on, adopting a teasing tone and nudging Laurens.  “For your birthday you could’ve added to your collection of medical supplies.”

Laurens turned to him in surprise but had to laugh at the joke when he saw the slight pleading look in his eyes that betrayed how hard he was trying.

“Do you know,” he asked the table at large, motioning to Hamilton, “this guy didn’t get me a present?  My baby sister sent me a card she marked up in crayon and he couldn’t even get me a gift certificate.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested, but feeling more at ease in spite of the jab.  “Raincheck, I told you!”

“Are we supposed to do presents?”  Grayson asked Tallmadge.  “I was just gonna comp him a meal sometime.”

“You guys suck.”  Tench and André had just shown up and Tench tossed Laurens a knotted black plastic bag.  “Here’s your starter kit.  That’s from me and Tallmadge.”

“Where’s my change?”

Tench sat next to him as Grayson moved over to make room.  “Spent it.  Delivery fee, sorry.”

“Oh, come on…”

Laurens meanwhile was opening the bag as the server came back with their drinks.  Fortunately for him that caused a distraction because he very quickly knotted it closed again and dropped it under the bench.  “Thank you.”

Tench raised his glass to him.  “No problem.  Here’s to the birthday—”

“Hey,” Humphreys cut him off.  “That’s the second toast, the first is to the weekend!”

André sat next to Hamilton.  “Hello.  How’re you doing?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Good, thanks.  And you?  Long time no, uh, randomly road trip to Vermont.”

André laughed but it was hollow.  “Yeah, right.  Been a while, sorry.  I guess I didn’t really see you since we got back.”

Hamilton glanced at Laurens and once he saw that he was comfortably engaged in conversation with the others, shifted to face André better.  “Are  you okay?”

“Yeah,” André said.  “Sorry, just, girls, you know?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Yes,” he said a little more forcefully than he needed to.  “I feel you.  What happened?”

“Nothing new, not really.  It’s just…”  André made a little helpless gesture.  “She didn’t really want me to come, but it’s fine.  She’s looking forward to Halloween, though,” he said, more cheerfully.

“Great,” Hamilton said enthusiastically.  “My friend’s a great host.  You guys’ll have fun.”

There was a round of laughter and Laurens put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder, drawing him back into the conversation.

“Tell them about the cat.”

“The porcelain one or the Instagram one or the app one?”

People laughed again and behind him André ordered himself a drink.

“Look,” Hamilton explained, “they’re all Lafayette’s really.  He started tagging me in pictures as his cat,” he went on.  “It really took off, I don’t know, I don’t understand the French internet.  I think he’s an it-boy on it?  He said he gets recognized on the street sometimes back in Paris, but I never saw it happen.  Anyway, so then he bought me this actual real life fake cat,” he said, gesturing the size.  “Pretty big.  I’ve got it stuck under his desk now because I glued some shit to it and regifted it to him, but before that it was in my bathroom and I banged up my shins on it in the middle of the night and also I had to turn it to face the wall or it’d watch me piss.”  He took a drink of his soda.  “Definitely the weirdest present I ever got.  That thing’s heavy, too, I’m surprised he lugged it all the way back from Europe.  I mean, he brought _you_ a book, that’s normal.”

“A book?”

“An art book,” Laurens clarified.  “Redouté.”

The name didn’t cause much recognition and there were some general polite nods.

“Oh,” André said, leaning forward on the table to talk around Hamilton.  “He gave you that?  It’s a nice copy.”

“It is,” Laurens said, pleased.  “Much better than some tacky porcelain animal.”

“Is it hollow?”

Laurens glanced at Humphreys.  “The book?”

“No, the cat.”

He shrugged.  “Yeah.  It’d really be a bitch to carry around otherwise.  Why?”

“Cut a slit in it and make a bank.”

Hamilton laughed incredulously and cut in.  “How the fuck is he supposed to do that?  You can’t just take an exacto to that kind of thing.”

“Hey, man, he’s the artist, not me.  What are you studying?”  He asked Hamilton.  “English?”

“Econ and poli-sci, double major,” Hamilton answered quickly.  “I could almost add a classics minor, though.”

Humphreys shook his head.  “Damn, kid.  How do you get all your work done?”

“Wait,” Tallmadge said, “do you still work for Washington, too?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Yup.  And let me tell you, it’s a pain and a half recently.  See,” he moved his glass to the side and leaned his elbows on the table, “the guy’s got this ancient computer and he’s _insisting_ —”

“Alex doesn’t want to just take it to IT,” Laurens said, cutting him off.

“Hey!”

People laughed but Hamilton couldn’t be upset when Laurens was grinning like that.

“Okay, okay, fine,” Hamilton conceded, rolling his eyes dramatically at André in a show of trying to get at least one person on his side.  “I’m stubborn but the point is that you’d think it’d be more of an interesting job.”

“Are you going to keep working there next year?”

Hamilton shook his head.  “Well, I don’t know.  He said if I don’t get an internship we could work something out—I’m graduating in the spring, we’ll see how it goes.”

Tallmadge looked mildly surprised.  “Already?”

Humphreys whistled, impressed, and elbowed Laurens.

“What’s wrong with the computer?”  Grayson asked.  Hamilton started to explain it to him and Laurens leaned back on the bench to talk to André.  “Where’s Lee?”  He had to force himself to ask the question.  “You guys usually walk over together.”

André shrugged and put his drink down.   “I didn’t hear from him.”  He paused, sensing the tone and added helpfully, “McHenry actually can’t make it, he’s not blowing you off.”

“I know, he told me earlier.”  Laurens had his hand on his drink like he wasn’t sure whether to pick it up or not.

“Hey, man, it’s okay,” André said reassuringly.  “Lee’s just…  You know?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens didn’t really look comforted.

“Lee’s a dick,” Humphreys stage whispered in Laurens’ ear.  “He’s not here because he’s pissed about how everyone thinks he should go soak his head.”

Laurens started then laughed.  “That’s not true,” he said, and then continued with just a little unintentional bite, “André likes him.”

“Hey,” André protested, putting his glass down.  “I just…”

Hamilton glanced between them.  Laurens had his hand clenched in his lap.

“André likes everyone,” Tallmadge said smoothly.  “You know who you remind me of?  That French guy.”

“Junior?”  Humphreys asked.

“Junior?”  Hamilton repeated, looking at Laurens with one brow raised.

“Lafayette,” Tallmadge said, supplying the name for himself.  “He was pretty eager to please as well.”

“That makes sense,” Hamilton said, eager to keep the conversation rolling.  “You guys hang out,” he said, meaning André.  “No wonder you get along, you both already want to be friends, it’s just in your nature.”

Laurens laughed, the tension broken.  He picked up his drink.  “Yeah.  I guess there’s nothing wrong with that.”


	96. Dearheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Heterosexuality

“Oh,” Lafayette breathed, his back flush to the wall in his dorm room and his palms pressed against it.  “Are you,” he had to pause for a moment and he looked down at Adrienne, kneeling in front of him.  “Are you sure the door is locked?”

She turned her face up, an amused smile playing on her lips.  “You locked it.”

“I know,” he said, “and I don’t trust myself.”

“I do.”  Adrienne ran her hands up his legs.  Lafayette shivered.  “I trust you,” she repeated, moving her hands over him again, her thumbs now brushing over his inner thighs.

Lafayette watched, enraptured, as she very gently kissed his upper leg, then pressed her forehead to it.

“…I should undress.”

“I think so.”  She was undoing his fly and she tugged lightly at the top of his pants.  “You were so nice to me yesterday,” she explained, sounding almost matter of fact.  “I should return the favor.”

“Mn—yes.”  Lafayette leaned his head back against the wall.  “Please do.  That was a very long, hard day.”

“It was,” Adrienne said, sympathetic as well as amused.  “My day sounds like it was much nicer.”

“Especially after we met up again,” Lafayette joked.  “Especially after I—Ah—”

His pants and underwear were both around his knees now and Adrienne’s mouth was on just the tip of his cock and his mind was spinning with the sudden rush of desire.

“—Ate you out,” he finished, knowing that she wanted him to.  He swallowed hard.  She ran her soft tongue around the rim of his cockhead while still holding it in her mouth, and he whimpered.  “I,” Lafayette began again, his words shaking, “I—think about—you.  Sometimes.  Not even about fucking you,” he continued with a low moan as she slid her mouth more onto his shaft.  “Just about _you_ , the _taste_ of you.  That’s one,” he swallowed again, “of the things I miss the most.”

A rush shot through him as he felt her laugh lightly against him.

“Adrienne,” he pleaded..  “Don’t think I’m making this up.  I’m always so—honest.”

Adrienne pulled off.  “I know.”

“Don’t stop to agree with me,” Lafayette said, a little desperate.  “I already told you I missed you.”

Adrienne obligingly, continued.

“How do you want to," he broke off again, his breath hitching.  "Adrienne," Lafayette continued after a moment to steady himself, her tongue continuing to move over him, "how would you like me to finish?"

She slid a little further down on him at that point, sucking slowly as she did and then as she pulled off.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized and then showed that she meant it genuinely by taking him back into her mouth, sucking on his head and making him moan.

“Adrienne,” he said, keeping his voice relatively quiet.  “Oh, my light.”

He refrained from putting his hands on her, letting her tease his cockhead and slit, not expecting her to take too much more of him into her mouth.  The shallow warmth was enough and he could feel his blood coursing through him, the heat pooling in his groin and he ran one hand over his hair, putting it behind his head as cushion before he pressed back against the wall again.

“Adrienne,” he repeated, relishing the sound of her name.  “Adrienne…  You're making me see stars.”

She hummed lightly against him and his hips jerked involuntarily.  He gasped.

“How,” he managed, eyes dark as he tipped his head down to watch her work her tongue around the rim.

“Twice,” she said.  “Here and then…"  She trailed off, looking over at his bed.

Lafayette groaned.  She put his cockhead back in her mouth, one hand cradling his balls.  His hips trembled.  His legs would be shaking if he did not have the walk to brace himself against.  It had been so long since France...

“Oh, I love you,” he breathed.  His cock was fully hard and it _ached_ in anticipation, even though she had not been working it for very long.  He had jumped to attention as soon as she had knelt in front of him and his mind was full of images of what they would do after, why it would only be a temporary reprieve before they started again, why he shouldn’t worry about losing control this time but just enjoy the ride.  He pressed one hand harder against the wall and felt the muscles in his arm tremble.

The sight of her on his shaft was almost as appealing as the feel of it.  When she had moved down she had left a light trace of her lipstick, rose pink, and now that her attention was back to only his head it was just visible against his skin.

Lafayette felt his orgasm building and he gently touched her shoulder with a trembling hand.

“Adrienne,” he said regretfully.  “You need to stop.”

She slowly pulled away and leaned back.

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, an idea coming to him.  “I’d like—to finish on you—”

“Oh,” she said, sounding surprised and breathy and before he could make his sentence into a question.  “Yes.”

“Take off your shirt.”

She did so and he took himself in hand, biting back a little groan at the contact, and began to stroke himself quickly, forcing his eyes to remain open and focusing his attention on the soft skin just above her bra.  What it would feel like to, after this, touch her and rest his face there, to lick the skin and bite it…  His eyes flickered closed as he came, spilling onto her chest and then falling to his knees a little harder than he meant to.  He pulled her to him and kissed her neck and collar, running one hand up over her breasts and sliding it in his own cum.  Adrienne put her hands on his back and shoulders, arching into his touch.  He tipped her face to the side and kissed along her soft jawline and then into her hair, breathing deeply and pulling her with him backwards onto the floor, easily rolling her under him and kissing her again, more languidly, still drawing his hand across her chest and collar.

Lafayette slid down her body, his exposed cock rubbing against her hip and then leg, and licked the dip in her clavicle.  He could taste himself on her and it gave him a feral rush.  He ran his tongue lower down, along the sides of her breasts, and then deftly undid the front clasp of her bra to suck on them, giving a soft moan against the skin.  She was here and they were together and instead of being sated he was going to fuck her, just as she had requested.

Adrienne arched towards him and it urged him on, encouraging him to fondle her and strip off the rest of her clothing.  She helped, then fell back against the floor with a gasp as he pressed two fingers against her clit and rubbed it.  Adrienne jerked in surprise and automatically moved away and Lafayette looked up at her in shock and hurt only to then take his hand away, starting to blush.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at his hand and then wiping it off on his shirt.  “I can wash it off first.”

“Do that,” she instructed him, sitting up.  “And double check that you locked the door, please.”  She stood and went to the bed.

Lafayette looked around.  No private bathroom at the dorm.  He unscrewed his water bottle and poured it out over his hand above his laundry basket, letting the dirty clothes catch the waste, then cleaned both of his hands off.  He used the last of the water to wet a paper napkin, made sure the door was locked, and lay next to her, handing her the napkin to clean herself with and kissing her shoulder and neck.

“Mm,” she agreed after a minute, putting her hands onto his back and easing him on top her.  “Do you have…?”

Lafayette pulled a condom out of his pocket.  “I also hid one in the pillowcase at Washington’s.  Remind me to take it out before we leave if we don't use it.”

“You’re too clever,” Adrienne smiled.  “You have a solution for everything.”

“It was Alexander, really,” Lafayette admitted.  With someone else he might have just accepted the compliment but there was not as much need to front around Adrienne.  “I should think of a way to thank him.”

“Later,” Adrienne said, putting one hand on the side of his face and kissing him, light and slow.  When she let him go he was starting to flush.

“Later,” he agreed, his voice a little breathy.  He put his hand back on her, rolling his fingers over her clit, and this time she made a pleased noise and lifted her hips towards him.

“I wish I had thought to stop earlier,” he admitted, teasing her between his index and middle fingers.  “I could already be inside you…”

“Gil,” she began.

“I just want it all.  I don’t know how I could possible fit in everything I want to do with—to?—you in a week.”

“You’ll have to visit me over your vacations,” Adrienne said with a smile.

“I’ll have to work extra hard,” Lafayette responded, kissing her and bringing his other hand down to stroke her slit at the same time.

“Gil,” Adrienne repeated, putting her hand behind his neck.  His hair was put up but her fingers still trailed through wisps that had fallen out.  “Give me a little—bit more.”  Her voice caught.

Lafayette breathed out slowly, feeling her get wet.  He moved his fingers together then over her again, sliding them around and then dipping them just into her.

Adrienne’s next breath was a gasp and she pressed her hand a little harder against the back of his neck.

Encouraged, Lafayette pushed them into her further, working them back and forth and watching as she bit her lower lip and closed her eyes.

“When should I—”

She cut him off.  “As soon as you can.”

Her words sent a shiver through him and he moved his hand faster, still teasing her clit with his other one, and she moaned softly, lifting her hips higher off of the mattress.

Lafayette wanted to enter her and he felt his chest tighten with desire and frustration.  _His_ Adrienne had said that she wanted him and he wasn’t obliging…  He kissed her, pushing his tongue into her mouth, and she sucked on it, mimicking what she had done earlier and sending a rush through him.

“Mm…!”

Adrienne gently moved his head to the side, cradling it so that her mouth was just off of his ear.  “Gilbert,” she whispered, her voice shaking.  “Gil…”

Lafayette bit back a moan and scissored his fingers, shifting uncomfortably and refraining from asking her to touch him.

She did anyway.

Lafayette gasped in surprise when he suddenly felt her hand on his cock.  She was very lightly stroking it, being even more gentle than normal, just touching him enough to coax him hard again while she continued to whisper his name in his ear.

Lafayette whimpered, unable to help himself.  He pushed his fingers in as far as possible, feeling her warm and soft around him, and he pressed against her clit a little more firmly, remembering taking it in his mouth and sucking on it…

“Now?”  The word was just barely audible but it shot through Lafayette like fire.

“Help me,” he managed to get out and he felt her pause and then smile and she pushed him away a little, gently, to give herself enough room to open and roll the condom onto his shaft.

Lafayette took one of his hands away, pulling out of her and leaving a slick trail behind, then very slowly pushed into her again, his breath catching as he held back a groan.

“Oh,” Adrienne breathed, clutching at his arm, and he froze with just his cockhead in her until she moved her hand to his hip and encouraged him closer.  “Yes,” she said, softly.

Lafayette closed his eyes.  Unlike when they were apart and having to communicate only through the phone or laptop, Adrienne didn’t say much to him when they were actually fooling around in person.  Hearing her voice on top of actually feeling her beneath him was a heady mix.

Lafayette pushed fully into her and waited until she pressed him again with her hand before sliding halfway back out.  He kissed her hungrily, trying to make the moment last as long as possible.

He could feel her all the way around him, tight—tighter than he remembered or expected, maybe she was still nervous about the door—and he moaned her name.  He had to force himself to keep his voice down as he repeated it.  “Adrienne, ah—I love you, my Adrienne…”

She was kissing him repeatedly and gasped as he moved inside her, pressing against her and then hitting that spot again.  “Oh—”

Lafayette had found his rhythm and was still rubbing her clit, making her arch off of the mattress and against him.  She dug her nails into his hip and back and he picked up the pace slightly, encouraged by the little bit of pain.  She ducked her head up, pressing it against the side of his face and neck, her breathing coming quickly and their sweat intermingling.

“Gil—!”

He felt her body tense and he continued, still thrusting as a shudder moved through her and she relaxed slightly.  He felt heat building in his groin and he pushed as far into her as possible, making her gasp.  She was twisting underneath him as he continued to toy with her—he faltered for a moment and she quickly grabbed his wrist, wordlessly begging him not to stop.

Lafayette felt his fingers sliding, felt the slick liquid that was coating them by this point, and he heard himself telling her to come again because he was almost finished.

Adrienne gave a very short whimper and wrapped her arms around him, clinging to his back and holding herself to him as he took his hand away to brace himself on the mattress.  His cock rubbed against her and she gasped his name, pressing her forehead against his collar.

Lafayette suddenly felt himself losing control and he only managed a couple more thrusts before his orgasm tore through him and he pushed once more as far into her as possible, his arms shaking badly as he held himself up.

“Gil,” Adrienne said, and the tone of her voice made him think that she had said his name a few times before.  His ears were ringing slightly.  “Gil.”  She pulled him gently down to her and held him tightly.  “I love you,” she said, completely out of breath.

Lafayette’s own chest was rising and falling heavily.  A bead of sweat ran down into his eyes and he blinked them hard.  “Yes,” he managed to get out.  “I know.  I love you too.”

He needed to get up but his whole body felt like it was made from lead.  She kissed him lightly, encouraging him to stand.

“I can’t move,” he admitted, his voice shaking.  She tightened her grip on him for a moment in acknowledgement.  “You’ll have to go first.”

“You’re on top of me.”

With great effort he rolled over and against the wall.  She curled into him for a moment, holding him again and kissing his cheek, then she slipped away and he felt his heart go with her.  She dressed and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her quietly.

“I love you,” he repeated, staring across the empty room and wondering if he rolled off the bed if he would get to his feet or just fall to his face on the floor.


	97. Tape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *After the Bar; koi29

Hamilton opened the door and turned the light on in his apartment.  “Not even that late.  Eleven pm?  I figured you guys’d want to be out all night.”

Laurens followed him in, plastic bag in his hand.  “Not all the time.  It was getting late enough.”

“Not a bad place though,” Hamilton went on, taking off his jacket and tossing it on his chair.  “For a sports bar, that is.  What’s it called again?  France’s something?”

“Fraunces Tavern.”  Laurens draped his jacket over Hamilton’s and put the bag down on the floor.  “Yeah, we’ve been going there for a while.”

“I noticed they know you,” Hamilton said, eyeing the back of his hand again.  “No one asked _you_ to show ID.”

“Would you have preferred one of those paper bracelets?”  Laurens teased.

“Maybe.  This is fine, whatever.  Not like we’ve got class tomorrow.  Didn’t feel like trying a fake driver’s license and getting kicked out of my boyfriend’s birthday party—”

Hamilton was cut off by Laurens tipping his face up and kissing him.  Laurens took his time, siding his tongue into his mouth and slowly pressing it against his before pulling back.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

Hamilton felt like someone must have spiked his drink.  He wasn’t sure how his hand had gotten clenched on the front of Laurens’ shirt but the room was spinning slightly.

“I…  For what?”

“For tonight,” Laurens said.  “I appreciate it.”

Hamilton nodded dumbly.  “Oh.”

Laurens kissed him again, running one hand up behind his neck and carefully taking down his hair.  Hamilton made a little needy sound into the kiss without meaning to and tugged on his shirt, taking a step back towards the mattress.

Laurens followed willingly, continuing to do so when Hamilton pulled him down so they were sitting on it, Laurens between Hamilton’s legs.  He put his hand on his shoulder and—suddenly, Hamilton thought, but maybe he was just distracted—pushed him onto his back, keeping himself just off of him but effectively pinning him down.  Hamilton felt his breath catch somewhere in his chest and he lifted his hips off of the mattress, pressing them to him.  The gasp was startled out of him—Laurens was already getting hard.

Laurens was leaning on one arm, stroking the side of Hamilton’s face with his other hand and keeping his chin tipped up so he could continue to kiss him and suck on his lip.

“Can I get my present now?”

Hamilton was unable to answer verbally.  He just nodded, his eyes closed, and tried to force himself to form words.  Instead he found himself kissing him again and pulling more forcefully at the front of his shirt.

Laurens was gone.  Hamilton sat up, disoriented, and then kicked himself mentally for not understanding.  Laurens had sat up and was undressing.  He pulled his shirt off over his head and then started to undo his pants, looking up and making eye contact.  Hamilton felt himself blushing.

“Hey.”  Laurens grinned, slowly, almost predatory.  “Let me help you with that.”  He stopped what he was doing and leaned over Hamilton, kissing him briefly and then stripping him.  Hamilton went with it, obligingly moving to help, and then once he was naked Laurens pushed him back onto the futon, reaching down and cupping him with one hand then sliding it back to rub against him.  Hamilton’s legs jerked apart.

“—J.!”

“My God, you’re hot,” Laurens murmured against his mouth.  Hamilton thought he said something else but it was very faint and he couldn’t make it out.

“I,” he began but Laurens was kissing him hard and running his fingers over him and Hamilton put one hand in his hair and arched off the mattress.  He whimpered and Laurens bit his neck.

“Shit,” Laurens swore, almost more to himself than to Hamilton as he rubbed up against his cock.  “I didn’t think you’d be hard like this already.”

“F-fuck me,” Hamilton said, meaning it as a curse and not realizing the obvious double meaning until it was already out.

Laurens bit back a laugh.  He spit in his hand—Hamilton jerked and opened his eyes, he recognized that sound and was he actually—and wrapped it around his shaft.  Hamilton moaned and leaned his hips into the touch, tension already building inside him.  The contact aside, the act was made additionally obscene by how Laurens had done it and Hamilton shivered, his cock twitching.

“I-is that—what you would—”  Hamilton couldn’t finish the question and his hands clutched desperately at the sheet.

“Is that what I’d do at home?”  Laurens asked it for him, his hand moving slowly over his shaft.  “Yeah, or when camping.  You learn to make do.”

Hamilton tried to make a noise of comprehension but it came out more as a whimper.  “I wasn’t thinking about it,” Laurens went on.  “We have lube here, I could have grabbed a bottle.”

Hamilton shook his head—it was more like a jerk.  “No.  I, ah, I thought that was hot.”  His hips were shaking.

“It seemed like you did.”

“Fucker.”

“Not yet tonight,” Laurens said with a grin that made Hamilton roll his eyes.

“And get actual lubricant for that.”

“Oh, come on.  I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “Thanks to _me_ —!”  He stopped short as Laurens picked up the pace, pumping his shaft insistently and whispering in his ear.

“There’s something I want to do, but you need to come first.  You’ll finish too quickly otherwise.”

In a flash, Hamilton remembered lying in front of Laurens as he jerked him off and quietly told him not to make noise.  It wasn’t quite the same act, but the heady, almost feverish longing was the same.  He whined.

“You’re not trying to hold out now, are you?”  Laurens teased.  “I think you'd have needed to get an earlier start than this.”

“No.  Please,” Hamilton gasped.  “I want to—”

Laurens kissed him and as he pressed his mouth to his Hamilton felt him draw out his orgasm.  He held his shoulder and moaned into the kiss as it overtook him.

Laurens sat up, then took the sheet and wiped himself off, ignoring Hamilton’s halfhearted protest.  “I’m not done,” he said.  “I just need to get something.”

“Bathroom,” Hamilton started, reaching for him anyway.

Laurens saw the motion and grinned, taking his hand and pulling him up into another kiss.  “Don’t need to.  It’s not weird if I use stuff I got tonight, is it?”

“Do whatever the fuck you want,” Hamilton said, moving one hand up over his collar and neck to touch his face and shifting closer.  His words were gentler than they should have been.  “It’s your birthday.”

Laurens put his arm around his waist and then leaned away to grab the bag.  “Open that.  I already looked inside at the bar.”

Hamilton took it curiously and undid the knot as Laurens pulled him into his lap, kissing his neck and behind his ear.  He paused.  “Did they go to an actual sex shop?”  He turned the bag upside down, dumping out the expected condoms and lube but also a thick blindfold and a roll of black tape with a very explicitly descriptive picture on the label for what it should be used for.  “Kinky,” he commented appreciatively, picking up the bondage tape.  “I can’t imagine you telling them about getting tied up, so I’m gonna go ahead and say good guess on their parts.”

Laurens took it from him, unwrapping it.  “Put the blindfold on.”

Hamilton was startled and he looked up.  “John?”

“Put it on,” Laurens repeated as he stood up and finally finished stripping.  Hamilton couldn’t help but stare, doing the exact opposite of what he was instructed to.

Laurens glanced down.  “Alexander.”

“…Hm?”  Hamilton’s eyes jerked up to his face.  “What?”

Laurens raised an eyebrow and Hamilton felt foolish about the stab of guilt.

“Do you not want to?”

“What?”  He was genuinely surprised.  “No, no, I just got distracted…”

Laurens knelt in front of him and took the blindfold.  “Do you need me to do it?”

“What…?”  Hamilton’s breath caught again and his heart rate picked up as Laurens leaned forward and tied it firmly over his eyes.

“How is that?  Too tight?”

“No, it’s—”  Hamilton yelped.  Laurens had once more pushed him unexpectedly onto his back and yanked his arms up above his head, forcing them together to the elbow, and holding him down with his bodyweight.  “H-hey!”

The sound of the tape ripping was even louder since he couldn't see and Hamilton found himself bound far past his wrists.  He yanked automatically against the restraints and was unable to move his arms apart.  “Asshole!”

Laurens kissed him hard, pushing his tongue into his mouth, and grabbing him between his legs.  Hamilton’s hips jerked towards him—he was still sensitive from before but he gave a low moan, trying again to get his arms free so he could grab Laurens and pull him closer.

“Stop struggling.”  Laurens put his other hand on his wrists, holding him down.  Hamilton felt his breathing quicken.  Dear God.

Laurens kissed him again, slowly biting his lip.  Hamilton was sure he would be able to see his pulse in his neck when he pulled away.

“Stay there.”  Laurens sat up.  Hamilton frowned a little, unable to see what he was doing.

“John…”

There was a pause.  Hamilton could practically feel Laurens’ gaze on him.

 “Get on your knees,” Laurens said with the air of someone who’d only just made up their mind.

Hamilton swallowed hard and got onto his knees without a word.  He stiffened when he felt Laurens’ hand run over his ass and a little voice in the back of his head couldn’t help but point out how weird this was.  Bound and blindfolded in his own apartment?  A year ago he was debating Lafayette on whether or not Laurens even liked guys.  A year ago, he thought, any kind of suggestion far less vanilla than this would have gotten him a confused and put off stare, even if he tried to play it as a joke.  A _year_ ago…

“Hey.”  Laurens swatted Hamilton lightly when he laughed.  “Cut that out.”

“Sorry.”  Hamilton sounded incredulous.  “It’s not actually funny.  I’ll tell you later, keep going.”  He grinned.  “Do I need a safety word?  I’ve got one in mind, it’s a failsafe, but I’m not going to tell you because it’ll totally kill the mood.  Damn, J.,” he went on, “maybe I should’ve guessed but I never knew you were so—”

Laurens got to his feet in front of him, put his hand in Hamilton’s hair, yanked his head forward, and Hamilton forgot what he was saying.  Laurens’ cock brushed up against Hamilton’s face and he jerked in surprise before half-laughing again.

“Way to ask, J.”

Laurens tightened his grip on his hair a little, trying not to let his pleased grin be audible in his voice.  This was easier than he thought it would be.  “Do I have to ask?”

“Never.”  Hamilton licked along the shaft until he found the cockhead and ran his tongue along its rim, sliding the top of it under his tongue and then teasing his slit.  He had planned to put up a token resistance when Laurens inevitably tried to encourage him further, but the push was harder than he expected and his shaft slid into his mouth.

“More.”

Hamilton obeyed, swallowing as much of him as he could and pressing his tongue against him.  He shivered at the low groan he pulled from Laurens and repeated the motion, sliding a little off just to take him again.

“More,” Laurens repeated, tugging on Hamilton’s hair, his voice a little strained.

Hamilton moaned appreciatively and took him again, forcing him back far enough that he brushed his throat.

Laurens’ breath caught.  “Alexander…”  He had to try hard not to repeat his name.  He didn’t want to give in that quickly and he tipped his head back, trying to maintain control as Hamilton continued to move over him with the ease of several months of frequent practice.

Hamilton sucked hungrily against him, tasting salt in his mouth and knowing that he should be able to finish him soon.  His arms were still bound or else he would have put his hands on his thighs to brace himself, but the inconvenience was made up by the thrill of being at his mercy.  He tried to hurry him along, eager to get him to come, to feel him shake and hear the heaviness in his voice…

“No.”  Laurens pulled him off—Hamilton tried to resist but was unable to—and took a step away.  Hamilton cried out a little and leaned forward.  Laurens wasn’t there anymore and he overbalanced with his arms bound, falling with a disgruntled noise onto the floor.

Laurens hadn’t been expecting that any more than Hamilton had and he quickly knelt.  “Hey…”  He helped him up as Hamilton swore.

“You moved!”

“You weren’t going to stop,” Laurens pointed out, but he ran his hand through his hair and kissed him lightly.

Hamilton leaned into the touch—he told himself it was just because he couldn’t see—and the side of his mouth twitched up.  “Yeah, well.  So,” he continued, if you didn’t want to do that…”

Laurens, satisfied that he wasn’t actually hurt or upset, grabbed him by the arms and pulled him onto the futon.  “It’s not that I didn’t want to do that,” he said, “I just didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of making it that easy.”

Hamilton felt the blood rush to his face.  “Oh?”  His voice sounded thin.  “I thought you’d like to enjoy yourself.”

“I am,” Laurens said.  “I’m enjoying seeing you want me this much.”

If Hamilton hadn’t already been blushing before he would have started now.  “John…”

He could hear the floor creaking slightly as Laurens changed position and then his hands were on him and and with a strength that seemed even greater because he couldn’t see it coming he was flipped onto his front.  Hamilton yelped, not really in protest, and Laurens licked up between his thighs.

“Move your legs further apart.”

Hamilton did so immediately, ducking his head down, his heart pounding.  He could feel the blood throbbing in his cock.  “J…”

Laurens ran his tongue over him again, even more on the inside this time, and brushed against him as he moved up.  Hamilton gave a little startled whimper and Laurens in response cupped his balls with his hand, moving them away from his body as he trailed his tongue over the curve of his ass.

“Shit,” Hamilton swore.  “What are you planning—Ah—”

Laurens pressed his tongue against him and Hamilton’s legs slid further apart.

“John,” he said, uncomfortably aware that he was pleading a little.  “John, c’mon…”  He made a started noise.  Laurens had bitten the very top of his thigh.  “John, seriously?!”

“I thought you said that you called me something else.”

“…J.?”

“Mm.”  Laurens kissed where he had bitten him, rocking his balls in his hand.

Hamilton let out a low moan.  “J…”

“Better.”  Laurens ran his tongue over him again and Hamilton whimpered, feeling himself start to harden again.  “Thank you.”

“J.,” Hamilton repeated, moving his hips forward uncomfortably.  “J., _please_ …”

“Please what?”

Hamilton _whined_.

“I like it that you call me that,” Laurens said, moving his hand forward to toy with Hamilton’s slit as his hips jerked and he gasped.  “It’s not quite the same when I have to make you…”

“You’re not—ah,” Hamilton had to swallow hard to get the words out.  “Not making me.  I’d say it—anyway.”

“Oh?”

Hamilton swore as Laurens continued to tease him.

“Alexander?”

Hamilton pressed his forehead to the mattress, straining his arms against the tape and feeling heat starting to prick behind his eyes.  He swore again.  Not yet, not again, come on…

“Alexander?”  Laurens repeated, frowning slightly but not stopping.

“Please, J.,” Hamilton pleaded, sounding more desperate than he had been.

“You’re not fully hard yet.”

“I don’t care!”

“Please what?”  Laurens asked, running his hand once down his shaft and then turning his attention back to his head.

Hamilton leaned his hips forward fruitlessly.

“Just—fuck me—”

“Not yet.”  Laurens took his hand away and leaned over him, rubbing his cock between his legs and brushing it up against Hamilton’s.  He put one hand on Hamilton’s shoulder to steady himself and Hamilton quickly reached up and took it with both of his, bracing himself on his elbows.

“Yes…”

Laurens rubbed against him again as he moved his hips back and then forward, closing his eyes for a moment at the contact.  He reached over and took Hamilton’s shaft into his other hand, stroking it fully.  Hamilton gasped and squeezed his hand, tugging it towards the side of his face.

Laurens laughed, quiet and low, and went with it, stroking his cheek and then touching his mouth, running his fingers over his lips and pushing them past them.  Hamilton sucked on them, eager to do something.  Laurens shoved them further in and Hamilton made an eager noise, one that turned into a moan when he hooked the side of his mouth and tugged.

“Gently,” Laurens warned him, grinning just slightly when Hamilton relented and continued much more carefully.  “Good,” he said, leaning forward and pressing his cock against him, then kissing the side of his neck.  He felt Hamilton tremble.

“Beg me,” he whispered against his skin.  He took his hand away, putting it back on his shoulder.  Hamilton grabbed it again.  “Alexander.”

“J…”

“Beg me,” Laurens repeated.  “Convince me.  Use your words, Alexander.”

“ _Please_ ,” Hamilton said, shifting very uncomfortably.  “J., please, it’s been—ah—”  His cock twitched as Laurens ran his thumb over his slit.  “Fuck me, please…”  He was rambling, talking faster as Laurens toyed with him, his fingers sliding in his precum.  Laurens had to force himself not to listen too closely because on the one hand he enjoyed making him plead but on the other all he wanted was to give in… 

Laurens bit him on the shoulder, hard.  Hamilton gave a short cry in pain and then a low moan, his breathing tripping over itself for a moment in between as his hips jerked.

“J.—!”

Laurens couldn’t help himself.  He took Hamilton’s shaft in his hand and started to pump it, pressing his body against his and wrapping his free arm across his chest.  A grin flickered across Hamilton’s mouth.

“F-finally,” he breathed.

Laurens thought about telling him not to sound so pleased but he couldn’t quite bring himself to.  Instead he let him go and leaned away—Hamilton whimpered and that seemed like punishment enough—and tore open the condom and opened the new bottle of lube.  It was very thick and it coated his hand and shaft easily, and when he slid his finger against him he heard his breath catch.

Laurens pressed one finger in, then moved it back out, and Hamilton gave a long low exhale.  Laurens leaned over him, feeling Hamilton stiffen at how near he was, and ran his tongue over his sharp shoulder blade.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he informed Hamilton and felt his erection harden fully at the very, very faint whine that elicited.

He ran his hand back over Hamilton's ass and looked at him.  He could be so abrasive, so demanding...  Laurens hardly ever saw him waiting patiently and yet there he was, just because he wanted to please him...

Laurens felt a rush of power as he added a second finger and Hamilton moaned his name.  He took his hand away, _pushing_ into him all the way and feeling Hamilton’s legs shake and inch further apart.

It wasn’t that Hamilton couldn’t think, just that he couldn’t stop the reel of times he had been with Laurens from replaying on a loop in his head, overlaid by what he was currently doing to him and how good it felt and how badly he wanted him to continue.  He heard himself beg him, felt a bead run down his face that he hoped was or at least could be mistaken for sweat, bit his lip and cried out anyway as Laurens continued to hit that spot within him until his orgasm was building faster than he could slow it down and then he felt himself hot and wet on his own chest.  His ears were ringing.  He felt his pulse pounding in them.

“Hold on.”

Laurens sounded distant but he felt him undo his wrists, kiss first one and then the other, and then take off his blindfold.

“Sorry, your hair’s tangled.”

Hamilton took his arm and pulled him down, putting it over himself and wrapping his own arms around his chest, burying his face in it.

Laurens stroked his hair.  “Hey,” he said after a minute.  “You like that, right?”

Hamilton, more or less back to himself, laughed a little.  “Was that not obvious?”

Laurens rolled him away enough that he could look at him.  He was grinning.  “You think we should shower?  You’re dripping.”

Hamilton took one hand away and ran it over his face, wiping sweat away.  He let out an internal sigh of relief, a little embarrassed that he had even had to consider the possibility that he had been crying.  “Later, unless you want to.”

Laurens ran a hand through his hair and then drew it close, kissing it.  “Later,” he agreed, closing his eyes.  Hamilton smiled, tracing his hand softly along his cheekbone and jaw.  Laurens smiled as well, his mouth curving up slowly even as his eyes stayed closed.

“You’re the only one who calls me that,” he said, his words thick with sleep.  “That’s why.”

Hamilton tipped his head to the side slightly, his brow starting to furrow.  “That’s why what?”

“That’s why I like it.  ‘J.’”

Hamilton’s eyes widened for a moment.  “Oh.”

Laurens kissed his forehead.  “Thank you,” he murmured.

Hamilton smiled again, tracing a light pattern on his back.  “It’s nothing, J.  I don’t want to make a fool of myself, of course I wanted them to like me.”

“That’s not it.”  Laurens was lying still.

“Hm?”

“The last year.  Thank you.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said again.  “Yeah, well.  You too.  You know?”  Laurens didn’t respond and Hamilton listened to his breathing slow.  After a minute he closed his eyes and tried to quiet his thoughts enough to sleep.

 

> A. Hamilton: koi29

> G. Lafayette: What?

> A. Hamilton: quoi de neuf

> A. Hamilton: what’s up

> A. Hamilton: you’ve beenin america too long, your French is slipping

> G. Lafayette: Alex, no one texts like that anymore

> A. Hamilton: I’m surprised you're responding, taking a break from all the sex?

> G. Lafayette: oui, merci

> G. Lafayette: We are watching Cinderella

> A. Hamilton: is that one of the ones that takes place in fake france?

> G. Lafayette: What’s wrong?  Why are you texting me?  I thought you were out with John and his friends?  Did something happen?

> A. Hamilton: chill plz

> A. Hamilton: that party wound down ages ago, it’s almost like thyre used to having to get up at the ass crack o dawn every other day

> A. Hamilton: Back at my place.

> G. Lafayette:  But John isn't coming back to the dorm, right?

> A. Hamilton: no and glad to see where your concern lies brah

> A. Hamilton: hes here, I just can’t sleep.

> G. Lafayette: The light from the screen will make that worse, put your phone away.

> A. Hamilton: if you wanted a little ~alone time~ you could just ask

 

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, “how long do I have to talk to him before it’s not rude when I tell him that, yes, I do have to go?”

Adrienne was curled next to him on his bed, the laptop open in front of them.  She paused the movie.  “Is something wrong?”

“No.  He’s just too tightly wound.”

“You could call him or invite him over.”

Lafayette whined with annoyance.  “ _Adrienne_ …”

 

> A. Hamilton: hello?  Hello?

> A. Hamilton: c’mon dearheart i know you’re still there

 

Lafayette frowned.  Hamilton sent another text as soon as he saw that he had begun to type.

 

> A. Hamilton: HAH I knew that would get you

> G. Lafayette: Please don’t call me by my petname.

> G. Lafayette: It’s very weird.

> A. Hamilton: nah. that’s your couple name now

> A. Hamilton: john and i decided earlier today

> G. Lafayette: Oh.

> G. Lafayette: All right then, I quite like that.

> G. Lafayette But dearheart are on a date.  I’m going to tell Angelica it’s her turn to babysit you

> A. Hamilton: wait, come on seriously

 

> A. Schuyler: What’s the matter now, Alexander?

> A. Hamilton: gdi


	98. Happy Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not Actually Awake; Two-Person Effort; *Change of Plans

Laurens woke the next morning to Hamilton practically lying on his chest, his phone still in his hand.  Laurens picked it up and unlocked it to check the time and was mildly surprised to see that was open to what looked like a very active conversation between him and—the bottom of a picture caught his attention and he couldn’t help but scroll—Angelica Schuyler, rather smugly holding up a thick printed paper.

Hamilton stirred without properly waking and slipped his hand behind Laurens’ neck, pressing his face closer against his chest.

Laurens ran his hand through his hair.

“Mornin’,” Hamilton said, slurred.

“What time did you actually go to sleep?”  Laurens asked, putting the phone off to the side.

“Dunno.  Four?”

“You’re ruining my plans for the day,” Laurens teased, not really meaning it.  “You’re supposed to be awake for most of them.”

Hamilton yawned and stretched without getting off of him.  “Okay, okay.  I hear you, J.  Shoot me, I was supposed to be the one to wake you up, _real_ nice.  You wanna pretend you’re still asleep so I can check that one off?”

“It’s fine.”  Laurens kept playing with his hair.

“Happy birthday, though,” Hamilton went on, sounding a little more awake.  “Do you want to get something to eat?  We can go out.  Your clothes from last night are probably fine, or else I think you’ve still got something here…”

“There’s no rush.”  Laurens kissed the top of his head.  “I’m comfortable like this.  Go back to sleep.”

 

“Oh my God,” Lafayatte panted, collapsing onto his back, his chest rising and falling rapidly.  “That was so good.  I’m so good.”  He turned his head to look at Adrienne, lying next to him.  “You’re very good, too.  It’s a two-person effort.”

She raised her eyebrows at him slightly.

“I know, I know.  I mean it better that it sounds.  My love,” Lafayette rolled himself onto his side and took her hand, switching briefly into English.  “The city is our oyster.  That’s an American saying,” he explained, in French once more.  “Food is very important to them.  And to me,” he added after a pause.  “One of the very first things Alexander told me when I came here was that.  He taught me about snacks.  And sugar.”

Adrienne laughed a little and squeezed his hand.  “I remember.  You told me all about it.”

“Did I?  I can’t keep track of it all.  I tell you a lot.  I must be an awful bore.”

“I think it’s sweet.”

“You are too kind to me.  I’m a prattler.  Oh, but food is important in France as well,” Lafayette said, rambling on without really thinking about what he was saying.  “There’s a restaurant here that is quite good.  It’s just like being back in _le Midi_.  They have good oysters.  Would you like to go there?”

“A French restaurant in New York City?  Why did you go there?”

“Why not?  I was curious.  I took Alexander there once, as a thank you for his help.”

“That was nice of you.”

“I know,” Lafayette said, not at all humbly.  “I wanted him to enjoy it and I didn’t know then that he would be able to come back with me.”

Adrienne brushed a strand of hair off of the side of his face.  “Are you going to see John today?  It is his birthday.”

“All the more reason to send him a congratulatory text and keep out of his way.”

 

Pushing eleven Laurens decided that they really should get up.

“Hey.”  He nudged Hamilton, who just slid off of him and rolled away, tossing his arm over his face to shield it from the sun.  “Alex, it’s getting late.”

“Thought you said you were comfortable.”

Laurens rolled onto his side and put his arm over him.  Hamilton settled into him again.

“Alexander,” Laurens tried again after a minute, kissing the back of his head.  Hamilton made a soft pleased noise and didn't move.  Laurens paused, then slowly trailed his hand down Hamilton’s chest and torso.  He hesitated when he hit his treasure trail and felt Hamilton tense.  He kept it there, lightly tracing a pattern, then slid his arm across his shoulders and pulled him to him, pressing his body against his.

“Mn.  John…”

Laurens kissed his neck.  “Are you up yet?”

Hamilton grinned.  “Yeah.”

“Good.”  Laurens let go and got to his feet.  “I’m going to shower.  Figure out where you want to go for lunch, I’m starving.”

Hamilton sat bolt upright.  “Oh, come on!”  The sheet was tenting over his lap.

“And check if we need to call ahead,” Laurens said just before the bathroom door closed behind him.

“I can’t even cuss you out because it’s your Goddamn birthday,” Hamilton complained, still sitting on the futon.  He slowly got to his feet and followed after him into the bathroom.  Laurens was just getting into the shower and Hamilton ducked in behind him before he could close the curtain.

Laurens turned, looked him over— _raked_ his eyes over him—and said smugly, “You’re too easy, Alexander.  But I want to shower and head out.”

“Yeah, I’d like that too,” Hamilton said, still annoyed and gesturing roughly downwards.  “Small problem though.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Funny.”

Laurens turned the water on and Hamilton watched as it hit his back and ran down his sides.  Laurens was still smiling, pleased with himself, as he poured shampoo into his hand and then worked it into his hair.  He saw how Hamilton watched his arms and he tipped his chin up, eyes closed and showing off.  Unfortunately, that meant that he wasn’t expecting it when suddenly Hamilton closed the little distance between them and was standing right up against him, cock on his leg, and intentionally sliding his body over his as he reached past him for the same bottle.

“Hey.”  He opened his eyes.

“What?”  Hamilton asked in fake innocence.  “I’m just getting cleaned up.  Damn, John, you were right, I really gotta wash off.  You freakin’ wrecked me last night.”

Laurens rinsed out his hair, trying to tune out what Hamilton was saying with the running water.  “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hamilton said, brushing against him and putting the bottle back.  “No wonder I had a hard time getting up this morning.”

“You’re being an ass,” Laurens muttered.

“No more than you were.”

He didn’t have a retort to that.

Hamilton, pleased to have made his point, relented and continued to shower without as obviously trying to get a reaction, although he did keep in physical contact, standing just close enough that his leg would bump against him or that he would touch his side or arm while reaching for something.

Laurens tried to ignore it but by the time they were finished he was embarrassingly aroused, made worse by the fact that Hamilton had apparently made up his mind to pretend that it wasn’t a problem in order to force his hand.  Hamilton stepped out of the shower and Laurens turned the water off.  He followed after, his mind made up to just take the loss and _grab_ him, pin him up against the bathroom wall and touch him until he was moaning and then turn him around, push him against the sink and _fuck_ …

He wasn’t expecting the wall to be at his back suddenly and he started, actually making a little noise of surprise into Hamilton’s mouth, his hands raised.

Hamilton pressed his body against his and Laurens relented, putting his hands on his back and pulling him closer, letting him grind against him and—forcefully—push his head further down into the kiss.

“You took too long,” Hamilton said, releasing him in order to speak.  His voice was a little rough.

“Y-yeah?”

Hamilton was cupping him.  “Stop me anytime, J., it is your birthday after all.”  He saw Laurens swallow and he grinned a little.  “Get on your knees.”

Laurens paused, unsure, then dropped to his knees, feeling awkward.

To his relief, Hamilton knelt too instead of pushing his head forward, and he kissed him again, running one hand up the side of his face and into his hair.  Laurens made a low pleased noise and tried to tug him closer but Hamilton resisted, putting his hand on his chest and keeping distance.

“Turn around,” he said with a tip of his head, indicating the direction.

Laurens paused again but then did so and let out a breath as Hamilton reached around him and wrapped his hand around his shaft.  He moved up between his legs, letting his cock rub against his thighs.  Laurens’ legs moved further apart automatically and he didn’t resist when Hamilton gently moved him to his hands.  His voice was already stuck in his throat when Hamilton pressed his fingers to him and it came out as a soft broken moan when he pushed them a little harder against him, his other hand still working his shaft.

“It’s a good thing I’m shit at putting things away,” Hamilton commented.  “Lube’s in the corner.  Pass it to me.”

Laurens picked up the bottle from the floor and handed it back.

“Thanks, J.”

Laurens was going to respond but then Hamilton was pushing his fingers further into him, working them back and forth and apart, and he leaned hard on his elbow, covering his mouth.

It didn’t do much to stifle the sound.

Hamilton added a third finger, pleased with himself.  “You say something?”

Laurens was already breathing heavily, too distracted to react to the little taunt.  “Alex,” he managed.

“Put your hand back down, J.”

Laurens took it away from his mouth, groaning as Hamilton pressed against him and then as he moved against his leg.

“Alexander…”

“Mm, yeah.”  Laurens could hear how self-satisfied he was.  “Say my name.  You like this?”

Laurens had to try—actually try—to get the word out because the first time coincided with when Hamilton pushed his fingers hard into him again and it turned into a moan.  “Yes—”

“Yes?”

Laurens would have laughed if he could.  Hamilton was so insistent.  “Yes, Alexander.”

“Mm…”  Hamilton took his hand off of Laurens’ shaft, then paused and frowned.  “Shit, J.  I’m not _that_ disorganized.  Can you reach the drawer?”

“It’s—”  Laurens’ words broke off and he cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice steady for the rest of what he had to say.  “It’s fine.  Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton raised his eyebrows.  “Right.  Okay.”

“Alexander.”  Laurens sounded impatient.

“Sorry.”  Hamilton was fumbling with the bottle of lube, trying to get what he needed done one-handed.  “One sec.”

Laurens let out a low hiss of a breath, frustrated about having to wait.  Hamilton worked his hand back and forth and Laurens felt precum start to drip down his shaft.

Before Laurens could ask him to hurry up again Hamilton had begun to push into him with a barely audible groan.

“Ah—!”  Laurens felt his heart skip and race.

Hamilton was swearing softly as he worked his way in, his hands tightly at Laurens' hips.  “Shit, J…"

Laurens groaned, his face down.

Hamilton was moving slowly, carefully, and he put his hand back to Laurens' shaft once he was fully in.  Laurens heard his own voice get louder as Hamilton stroked his cock, his hand wet and slippery with lube.

“John,” Hamilton said.  Laurens thought it sounded like his teeth were gritted.  “Look.  I hate to,” he heard him pause and take a shaky breath.  “I hate to tell you this.”  Laurens felt a little burst of uncertainty.  What was he doing wrong?  “Could you not—could you try to be quiet.  You’re gonna make me lose it.”

A rush of heat spread through Laurens’ body.  “A-Alex…”

“Please,” Hamilton said.  “J…”

Laurens leaned on his elbow and pressed his fist hard to his mouth.  His teeth pressed against his skin.

“I can’t—”  Hamilton was talking, trying to maintain or regain control.  “—I can’t help it, J., you’re so fucking hot and I can’t believe it but your body is just and your _voice_ , damn…”

Laurens gave a shaky laugh.  “That mean I shouldn’t listen to you?”

“Not if you want me to last.”

“Alexander…”

Hamilton shoved the back of his head.  “Cut that out.”

“Alex—”

Hamilton pushed harder into him and Laurens got cut off, his name turning into a moan that he tried to muffle behind his hand.

“Damn…”  Hamilton was moving faster, still touching his cock.  Laurens shut his eyes tightly until he was starting to see stars.

Laurens could tell that he wasn’t actually doing a good job of keeping quiet and he pressed his fist to his mouth harder, biting the flesh until the pain was almost a distraction.  He could hear his breathing, still heavy and loud, and each breath was jerking into a moan and he didn’t know _why_ but it was so hard to keep control.  The way they normally did it he had no real problem—sure, he could slip up occasionally, but with a direct request and a physical barrier, not to mention the amount of effort he was trying to put in…

Hamilton felt relief when Laurens’ hips bucked uncontrollably into his hand and he pressed into him while pumping him, finishing him and then pulling out as slowly as he could as his own restraint broke.  Laurens had dropped his hand from his mouth along with any remaining façade of quiet and Hamilton came on the back of his thighs with a jerk.

Hamilton put his hand on Laurens’ lower back, steadying himself as he panted.

“Shit.”  He laughed shakily.  “Should’ve done that before showering.  Sorry, you wanna get back in?”  Hamilton stood, lightly pushing himself up, then offered Laurens a hand.  Laurens took it but didn’t use it when he got to his feet.

Hamilton tugged him back into the shower, intentionally chattering away.  “Dunno why we let me plan anything, J.  I’m crap at timing.  Well, not always, but enough, you know?  I don’t know about you but I definitely want to rinse off again, but fast ‘cause if we stay to fool around in here I’m gonna be regretting it when I see my water bill.”  He stopped for a moment to close his eyes and let the shower hit him in the face, then turned and slid around behind Laurens, letting him use the water.  “You said you were hungry.  We could go back to that breakfast place, that was good.  Or if you want something new, I heard about this joint that does really good fried chicken…”

“I don’t want to go out.”  Laurens was automatically lathering a washcloth with soap.

Hamilton frowned a little but kept it from his voice.  “Hey, no problem, birthday boy.  I’ll order something.  There’re plenty of places in the area that do delivery.  Actually, both of those might even deliver, I’ll check.”

Laurens focused on washing himself off.  Left arm, right arm, torso…  “If you want.”

Hamilton put his hand on his waist and leaned up to kiss his shoulder.  “I’m gonna get out and place the order, J.  Don’t take too long.  Okay?”

The corner of Laurens’ mouth twitched up.  “All right.”

“I mean it.”  Hamilton got out of the shower and dried himself off.  “I expect you back on the bed in two minutes, _tops._ ”

Laurens took a steadying breath after Hamilton left and hung the rag back up.  He needed a minute to come back to himself, but he didn’t actually want to be separated and by himself for that long.  He rinsed off, feeling a little stupid that he had been distracted enough that Hamilton had left in the first place.

Hamilton had just closed his laptop and was wondering if he needed to go physically collect his boyfriend when Laurens came out of the bathroom, towel around his waist.

“Hey.”  Hamilton scooted over unnecessarily to make room on the empty mattress.  Laurens sat next to him and he kissed his cheek.  “I went with the chicken.  Wasn't sure how well the other would travel.  Says up to an hour, I guess we’re hitting lunch rush.”

Laurens pulled Hamilton down onto the futon and put his arms around him, ducking his face down against his collar and neck and breathing deeply.

Hamilton laughed and kissed his head, sliding one arm free so he could run his hand through and play with his wet hair.  “You’re so handsome.  You know that?  You are,” he went on when Laurens didn’t agree vehemently enough.  “And we all know I like your hair.  And your—” he paused, “—mind.  Did you think I was going to say something else?”

Laurens shook his head, amused.  “It’s all right.  I’m fine.”

Hamilton relaxed, the pace of his words slowing.  “Yeah?  Okay, cool.  I’d just feel bad if I wrecked shit.”

Laurens made a long, low contented noise, closing his eyes.

Hamilton kissed the top of his head again.  “Happy Birthday, J.”


	99. Cracks in the Foundation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette Miscalculates; Let's Talk About It

“How’re you liking America?”  Hamilton asked, bending down and fixing the ties on his boot as he waited with Adrienne outside the building.  He glanced back up at it.  “They should be just a minute.”

“Oh, it’s lovely,” Adrienne said with a practiced politeness, just as if she was complimenting someone on a less than perfect haircut.  “I’ve been enjoying myself and I’ve liked the opportunity to meet everyone,” she said with more feeling.

Hamilton glanced at her and then straightened back up.  “It was kind of weird for me too,” he said.  “New York, I mean.  It’s friggin’ giant.  But then I guess you’re already used to Paris.”  He folded his arms across his chest, rubbing them in spite of the jacket.  “Shit,” he muttered.  “Knew I should have gone with the coat.  Hurry up…”

“Do you want to borrow my scarf?”

“Oh, no.  God, no.  How would that look?  Your boyfriend comes out and I’ve stolen your scarf?”  Hamilton looked impatiently up at his apartment window again, then turned back to her.  “So, what, it’s not living up to your imagination?”

Adrienne looked uncomfortable.  “Gilbert is so…  _Je n’ai pas les mots_ …”

“He’s very enthusiastic,” Hamilton filled in helpfully.  “He’s got rose-tinted glasses—do you know the phrase?  He sees everything in the best light.”

“Yes,” Adrienne said with a fond smile.  “He’s very…  I’m very lucky that he sees me that way, too.  He would be bored of me by now.”

Hamilton didn’t know what to say to that and fortunately he didn’t need to figure something out.  “There you guys are,” he said as Laurens and Lafayette came out of the building.  “What took you so long?  Oh, hey, thanks.”  He took his keys and scarf from Laurens.  “You ever have Caribbean food at all?”  He asked Adrienne as they started walking.  “We can order a wide spread, I’m sure you’ll find something you like.  These guys like it, right?”

Lafayette nodded (enthusiastically, Hamilton noted) and shifted the still-unopened box that Adrienne had mailed Laurens from one hand to the other.  “Alexander brought me take-out.”  He took Adrienne’s hand.  “Adrienne, tell Alexander about the statue.”

“It does look like you,” she said dutifully.  “He has your smile.  And your nose.”

Lafayette nodded enthusiastically.  “I didn't think of that before, but it’s true!”

Hamilton touched his nose self-consciously.  He ran his finger down its length and glanced up at Laurens, who just shrugged.

“It’s a very nice nose,” Adrienne said reassuringly.  “I thought it made the statue look very handsome.”

“What statue are you talking about?”  Laurens asked.  “One of the ones of the marquis?”

“Of the first treasurer,” Adrienne explained.  “There’s one by the Met.”

“No wonder he looks like Alex,” Laurens teased.  “Politics and money, it’s meant to be.”

Adrienne showed Hamilton a picture on her phone.  He frowned a little.  “That guy doesn’t look like me.”

“Let me see.”  Laurens took it from her and studied it, looking between the phone and Hamilton.  “I can see it.  You’re right, there’s just something about it…”

“The nose,” Lafayette insisted.  “It’s right—”  He leaned in over Hamilton to  touch the dip between the bridge of his nose and his brow and Hamilton swatted his hand away.

“Stop that!”

“It’s just very distinctive,” Lafayette protested as Adrienne tugged him away and Laurens draped his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders.  Hamilton felt like he _should_ shove him off or at least have to fight the urge to do so.  Instead he took his hand and tugged his arm a little further down.  Somehow the weight of it was comforting rather than irritating.  Maybe Laurens picked up on it because he kissed his temple.

“‘Distinctive,’” Hamilton muttered.

“Handsome,” Laurens corrected.

“ _Les tourtereaux_ ,” Lafayette said to Adrienne.  “ _Ils sont très mignons, non?_ ”

“ _Non_ ,” Hamilton replied, a little sharply.

“ _Oui_.”

Hamilton looked up in surprise at Laurens, who pulled him closer for a moment.

“Wait, you don’t—sorry, you two, private conversation, one moment—you really don’t mind?”

Hamilton stopped walking.  Lafayette and Adrienne went on ahead.  Laurens took his arm off of his shoulders and shrugged again, now looking a little uncomfortable.

“I told you, Alex.”

“You told me you wanted to not hide in public, not that you were okay with PDA.”

“It’s not like we’re just making out on the street corner.”

“Irish Potato Famine monument,” Hamilton said quickly.  “That’s the weirdest place I ever saw a couple going at it,  Like, come on, can you not?  I thought they were gonna fall off the dang wall.”

“Alexander.”

“Right.  Sorry.  That makes sense.  I just didn’t realize there was, uh, a distinction.  I mean, yes, obviously, there’s a distinction.  One makes me very uncomfortable and one _you’re_ weirdly okay with—what’s up with that, you’d think we’d be on the same page here—”

“I don’t mind being in a relationship,” Laurens said, cutting him off.  “Like you said once, I’m more used to it.  _You_ , on the other hand…”

“Right, I’m the town slut, got it,” Hamilton said, a little louder, a little more aggressive, but not actually offended.  “No, that makes a lot of sense.  You’re not used to the sex and to the part where I’m not a chick, I just…”  He trailed off.  There was no way to finish that sentence that didn't make him feel uncomfortable and awkward.  “Yeah.”

“You’re a fast learner.”

“Not this fast.  The arm’s cute, I’ll give Lafayette that, but can we not have this conversation?  At least not right now?”

Laurens relented, not pointing out that Hamilton was the one who had started it in the first place.  “Can I ask you something else?”

“I might not answer, but go ahead.”

They started walking again.

“It never bothered you that I’m a guy.”

“Not actually phrased as a question, but okay.  No, it didn’t.  You’re just hot, J.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “I was attracted to you and I was curious about that.  You know how I get, I latch on, can’t stop thinking about it until I try it.  People knowing I like you—that’s the truth, whatever, I can’t be upset about the truth, you know?  But when it’s—”  Hamilton stopped abruptly, apparently deciding that he wasn’t going to answer.

Laurens nodded, but didn't put his arm back.  He was frowning a little as he looked ahead at Adrienne and Lafayette.

Hamilton looked up at him then nudged him.  “Hey.  I’m not trying to fight.  Just wanted to ask without those two butting in.”

Laurens still didn’t agree so Hamilton took his hand, intertwining their fingers.  “You ever see those couple’s gloves, J.?  They’re like an old fashioned muff where your hand’d go in one side and mine in the other.”

Laurens, without responding, put their hands in his jacket pocket.

 

“Why did you say that?”  Adrienne asked Lafayette in French as soon as they were out of earshot.  “You hurt his feelings!”

Lafayette looked surprised.  “John?”

“Alexander!”

Lafayette looked, if possible, even more surprised.  “Alexander?”

“You made him uncomfortable!”  She took her hand out of his and crossed her arms.

His eyes widened.  “I was just saying that his nose was like the statue’s—”

“Oh, not that,” Adrienne said, refraining from looking over her shoulder at the other two.  “Alexander was fine before you commented on what they were doing and now they’re _fighting_!  Why would you do that?  You know not everyone is as comfortable as you are!”

“My love,” Lafayette began.

“You need to fix it,” Adrienne scolded.  “You can’t do that to them!  And on John’s _birthday_ …”

Lafayette nodded, afraid of the possible consequences.  “Of course, my dearheart.  I’ll talk to them.  By the time we leave them tonight it will all be smoothed out, I promise.”  He paused.  “Are you angry with me?”

Adrienne let out a breath.  “I think you need to make it up to them,” she said instead of answering the question.  

Lafayette smiled nervously.  They stopped at the entrance to the metro station to let Hamilton and Laurens catch back up.  Lafayette wanted to point out to Adrienne that they were holding hands, but something told him it would not be in his best interests to do so.

“Alexander,” he said, stepping away from Adrienne.  “What line do we take?”

Hamilton took his hand out of Laurens’ pocket and rubbed the end of his nose before gesturing at the signage.  “Actually, there’s two options.  I usually go with—”

“Great,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, hooking his arm through his and pulling him down the stairs.  “Let’s split up.  We’ll take the longer way,” he announced.  “Please save us seats.”

“Seriously?”  Hamilton asked as Lafayette dragged him off.  “We’re gonna have to transfer…”

“Please help me,” Lafayette said, pushing him up against the wall as soon as they were around the corner.

“Okay…”  Hamilton tipped his face away slightly.  “Let go of me.”

Lafayette took a step back and Hamilton brushed himself off.  “Jesus, Lafayette, these walls are filthy…”

“I’m very sorry about what I said but please stop fighting with John.”

“We weren’t fighting,” Hamilton snapped.  “I just wanted to talk to him for a sec, is that a crime?”

“Adrienne says you were fighting.”

“Adrienne’s not a friggin’ psychic.”

“She’s—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lafayette, it’s not a competition!  I wasn’t insulting her, let it go.”

Lafayette folded his arms.  “You’re very touchy.”

“I have a short fuse, piss off.”

“What did I say wrong?”  Lafayette asked.  “I didn’t mean anything bad.  I was teased a lot too, you know, but I’m happy for the two of you.  I like being in a relationship like that.  The closeness, the cuddling…”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said sharply and more directly than he meant to, “‘cause you’re not being treated like the freakin’ girl!”

Lafayette looked at him in surprise and Hamilton, embarrassed, turned away.

“Shit,” he said, walking towards the platform.  “Don’t tell him I said that.  I didn’t mean it like that.”

“John doesn’t think of you as a girl.”

“I know that.”

“Well, if you know that…”

Hamilton didn’t say anything.

“Do you think other people see you that way?”

“Fuck other people.  How should I know what they think?”

“You would make a very bad girl,” Lafayette said.

“Shut up.”

“I don’t think anyone sees it like that except for you.  John certainly doesn’t.”

“I _know_ —look, fine,” Hamilton said, accepting that he was just going to be that annoying guy having a fight on the subway.  He dug a quarter out of his pocket and tossed it into a street performer’s open guitar case to try and balance his karma out.  “So he doesn’t, great.  I feel bad, okay?  I know he doesn’t—I like when—It’s just the way other people react sometimes.  Like I’m…”  Hamilton paused, gesturing helplessly as he tried to find the words.  “…Less than him.  Like with his friends, I liked that on the whole, it was great, I’m glad he had a good time and they were chill.  But there were a couple moments where it was like they were almost making fun of me.”

“They teased me, too,” Lafayette protested.

“Bully for you.”  Hamilton saw Lafayette’s hand twitch towards his pocket and he sighed.  “Go ahead, write that one down.  It’s dated, that’s probably why you haven’t heard it yet.”

Lafayette tucked the box under his arm then took out his notebook and copied the phrase out.

“I know it’s stupid,” Hamilton said, making an effort to lower his voice.  “It shouldn’t matter.  There’s nothing ‘feminine’ about it and even if there was, that’s not a bad thing.  But it’s weird, okay, and I don’t like it.  It’s not about being with him,” he went on after a pause in which they both waited as the train loudly pulled up.  “I just hate being made to feel like less of a man for it.”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side, considering this.  They got into a car and took hold of a pole near the door.

“Fucking bullshit heteronormativity,” Hamilton complained as the car pulled away, taking a step to the side for balance.  “Gender doesn’t function in a void, Lafayette.  In a perfect world none of this would matter and also I’d live in an apartment that didn’t leak heat during the winter.”

Neither of them said anything as the car rattled along to its next stop.

“You know what’s extra bullshit,” Hamilton started up again as the train stopped.  “ _I_ fucked _him_ today.  I should be the one getting all the accolades.  Instead it’s just, oh, look at the little guy, he’s so cute.  Bullshit,” he muttered again, tugging his scarf down.  “Doesn’t always bother me,” he added.  “I dunno, I know you didn’t mean anything by it.  Wasn’t even the tone.  I don’t know.”

“I think you’re very masculine.”

“Thanks.”  Hamilton still sounded sullen.

“You know that he, _comment dit-on?_ , he doesn’t mean for it to be a dominating thing.  He’s just trying to be—”

“Sweet, yeah, I got it.  I know.  I know he’s not _trying_ to do shit.  Hell, I know he’s trying to push himself _for me_.  I got it.”

Lafayette stood in silence for a minute.  “So…”

“So I’ll be nice at dinner.  It’s his night anyway and it’s my problem.”

 

“Hey.”  Laurens and Adrienne were already sitting at a table with four chairs and four glasses of water when the other two showed up.  “Sorry about that.”  Hamilton slipped into the seat next to Laurens.  “Were you waiting long?”

Laurens and Adrienne shared a look.  “Ten, fifteen minutes?”  Laurens said.  He checked his watch.

Hamilton put his hand on his wrist, nudging it down, and kissed his cheek. Laurens looked startled by the action, especially considering how they had left things.  He started to blush without being able to help it and Hamilton grinned, for a moment making pleased eye contact with Lafayette across the table.

“So,” Hamilton said, picking up his glass.  “Did you guys order or were you waiting for us?”

“We thought you might be a while, so I ordered a couple of appetizers already, just to get it started.”

“Thanks, J.,” Hamilton said.  Lafayette tried to act like he didn’t see him posturing—legs spread a little wider than they had to be, one elbow on the table, other hand on Laurens’ knee.  “I appreciate it.”

Lafayette glanced at Adrienne.  Good enough?

The owner brought out a plate of sweet potatoes and fried plantains and Hamilton turned in his seat, cheerfully giving him the rest of the dinner order.

“Did you two…”  Laurens wasn’t really sure what question he was asking.  “Whatever you needed to take him for?”

Lafayette nodded.  “Yes.  Alexander was very helpful.”

“Good,” Laurens said, serving Adrienne and then himself before handing the plate to Hamilton.  “I’m glad that worked out.”

“We actually caught the connecting line, too,” Hamilton said.  “I half expected we’d get stuck for ages.”

“That’s good,” Laurens said—Lafayette wondered if it wasn’t a little distant, but Hamilton didn’t seem to think so.  He had his hand back on his leg and was chatting happily with Adrienne about the spread of the raccoon from North America into France.  Lafayette shrugged to himself.  Good enough.

“Here, John,” he said, handing over the box.  “I carried this all the way from the dorm, please just open it.”

“Oh, right.  Thank you—is this from both of you or just Adrienne?”

“It’s from Adrienne,” Lafayette clarified.  “But I have something for you as well.  He took an envelope out of the inner pocket of his jacket.

Laurens took it then opened and unwrapped Adrienne’s first.  Hamilton continued to lean on his leg as he pulled back the wrapping paper to reveal a set of high quality watercolor pencils.

“I don't know if you use color,” Adrienne said, half-apologetic.  “I thought you might be able to make use of them.”

Laurens turned the case over, reading the information in French on the back, then put it under his chair.  “They’re very nice, thank you.  You didn’t have to do that.”

Adrienne demurred and Hamilton nudged him.  “Open the envelope.  Is that just a card?  I want to see where the low bar is so I can make sure I beat at least one of you.”

Laurens opened it—it was heavier than just paper—and then took out a small bag of blue-tinged white powder.

“For your hair,” Lafayette said cheerfully.  “Since you didn’t grow it out, at least this way you will almost look the part.”

“Thank you,” Laurens said dryly.  He put the bag back in the envelope and then in the box.  “It looks like you just gave me some designer crack.”

“It’s just flour,” Lafayette protested and then added, “I made it myself.”

Hamilton ran a hand up over the short back of Laurens’ hair.  “You don’t need it.  Besides, it might do something weird with the pomade.  Create a paste.”

“It is rice flour,” Lafayette admitted.  “Just make sure it doesn’t harden.”  He paused, thinking it over.  “Avoid water.”  He paused again.  “Throw it away.  I’ll just get you a second Christmas present.”

Hamilton laughed and leaned on Laurens’ shoulder, playing with his hair.

 

“All right,” Laurens said—literally as soon as the door to Hamilton’s apartment had closed behind them—, “let’s talk about it.”

Hamilton turned back to face him, confused, his hands still up at his collar to take off his scarf and unzip his jacket.  “About what?”

“You said we were going to talk about it later,” Laurens said, no longer bothering to hide just how upset he actually was.  “Lafayette and Adrienne are gone, we’re back at your apartment.  Let’s talk about it.”

Hamilton’s eyes widened.  “Jesus fucking Christ, John, have you been stewing in that the whole time?  What’s your problem?  I thought we were over that!”

“My _problem_ ,” Laurens said, his voice raising, “is that I do what you asked me to do, Alexander, and then you snap at me anyway!  What do you want?  Is it too much to ask for you to actually make up your mind and not get mad at me for trying to be considerate?”

Hamilton flinched back, then took a step forward.  “Get your head out of your ass, J.!  Not everything is about you!”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

Hamilton bristled.  “Seriously, are we doing this?”

Laurens folded his arms, somehow managing to make himself taller.  The doorway seemed to vanish behind him.

“I was _trying_ to communicate with you, you ass.  Not do what you’re doing right the fuck now and just shut up and wait for everything to get worse.  You didn’t want to tell me you were still pissed earlier?  I feel like an idiot going through an entire dinner like that, thanks.”

Laurens still didn’t say anything and leaned away very slightly.

“I’m not mad at you for touching me, okay?”  Hamilton was forcing himself to get the words out, in spite of feeling so angry—angry that Laurens was accusing him of anything, that he was trapped in his own apartment, that he was having his arm twisted into saying this for the second time that evening—that his voice was shaking.  “Luckily for you, I like it.”

“That’s bullshit,” Laurens said.  By contrast, his voice was steady and cold.  “Stop lying to me.”

“I’m not _lying_ ,” Hamilton said, his words getting a little louder.  “I’m not fucking _lying_!”

“Then what’s the problem?”  Laurens asked angrily.  “What did I do wrong?  You obviously didn’t like it, no matter what you say.”

“I didn’t like Lafayette rubbing it in my face!”  Hamilton was just short of yelling by this point.  “All right?  When he said—when he brought attention to it, it made me feel like I was your fucking girlfriend and I hate that!  It’s bad enough that you’re—”  He just gestured at him.  “I feel like I shouldn’t like it as much as I do and sometimes shit like that just gets to me, okay?  Don’t be a fuckin’ ass about it!”

Laurens didn’t respond to that, but he seemed to take up less space in the room.  He looked away, out the darkened window.

“Shit,” Hamilton muttered, running a hand across his face and then over his eyes.  “This is such _bullshit_.”

“You’re right.  It is.”  Laurens put his hand in the pocket of his jacket—Hamilton heard his keys jangle—and turned to the door.  “I’ll see you later.”

“J.—”  Hamilton’s voice was suddenly desperate.  He stepped forward and grabbed his arm.

“Let go of me, Alexander.”

“Don’t go.”

Laurens hesitated and turned back.  Hamilton was flushed red and obviously trying to keep a grip on himself, but his eyes were wide and damp.  Laurens felt something crumble and he just sat on the floor where he had been standing, putting one hand over his face.  Hamilton quickly dropped next to him, his hand still on his arm.

“It’s too hard.”  Laurens’ voice was muffled.

“J.,” Hamilton tried to pull Laurens’ hand away.  He wasn’t able to, so he kissed the side of his face.  “J., it’s okay.  It’s okay.  I’m sorry.  It wasn’t about you, I like it when you’re affectionate.  It’s nice.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to direct anything at you.  You wanna be pissed at Lafayette with me?  You’re his roommate, we can turn all his stuff inside out or cover his bed with post-its or something.”

Laurens laughed hollowly and Hamilton pressed a little closer, touching the back of his head and then slipping his hand around his arm.  “You’re not going anywhere, right?”

Laurens shook his head.

“Good.  Jesus, J., you kind of freak me out when you make to just leave all of a sudden.  Every time…”

“Sorry.”  Laurens took a deep breath and dropped his hand.

“It’s fine.”  Hamilton took his hand.  “It was my bad.  Don’t just stop altogether, okay?  Please.  I wasn’t just trying to sugarcoat it, I do appreciate it.”  Hamilton toyed with his fingers.  “Did you hear me earlier?  It’s not about you.  You remember back when we were at Mulligan’s, and I was kind of a jerk, and you told me I was making you feel emasculated?”

Laurens nodded.

“So you get it.  That’s how I felt, that’s why I kinda flipped.  I’m sorry I took it out on you.  It’s my problem, not yours, and I don’t want to make it yours.”  Hamilton sat back on his heels.  Laurens wasn’t really responding to him still.  “…Come to bed?”  He asked tentatively.

“Yeah.”  Laurens stood and started to undress.

“Good,” Hamilton said, relieved.  “I’m just gonna wash up, J.  Get the light if you want but don’t you dare run out on me.”


	100. Expression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Finally, Goddamn; Commentary Feat. Lafayette & Adrienne

Hamilton woke early the next morning, his head on and one arm draped over Laurens’ chest.  Laurens was already awake, holding his phone up above him and typing one handed.

“Mmph.”  Hamilton couldn’t read the screen.  “Who’re you talking to, J.?”

“My father.”

“Your _father_?”  Hamilton tightened his hold on him.  “Tell him you have to get ready for practice.  He can’t seriously expect you to talk at—what time is it anyway, five?  It’s still dark out, J.!”

“I messaged him.”

“For Chrissake, J., I love you but you’re a moron for doing this to yourself.”

Laurens paused, thumb hovering just off the keyboard, and looked down at him as best he could at the awkward angle.

Hamilton moved away a little.  “I…  It’s an expression.  Don’t make it weird.”

Laurens put his phone down without looking at it.  “Love you too.”

Hamilton’s throat was suddenly tight.  “Okay,” he managed to get out.  “That’s cool.”

Laurens paused.  Was Hamilton really that nervous?  He hadn’t been sure how casually he had meant it and was just trying to respond in kind, but…  He grinned, suddenly unable to help himself.  “Is it?  Are you sure?  You’re blushing.”

Hamilton looked away.  “You can’t see shit in this light, J.”

“Is that an admission?”  Laurens teased.  He flipped them, pinning Hamilton to the mattress.

Hamilton felt like he was immobilized, unable to even try to get free.  “H-hey—!”

“Your face is red,” Laurens, completely over the previous night’s argument, went on.  “You’re so embarrassed.  Did you really not mean to say that?”

“Come on,” Hamilton protested.  “Drop it.”

“Not yet,” Laurens grinned, kissing the side of his face and then his neck.  “You slipped up.”

Hamilton jerked his head away, but he was trying to hide the start of a smile.

“How long were you trying to not say that?”  Laurens asked.  “I can’t believe you’d mess up right off the bat.”

“Ass,” Hamilton said as he turned his head in the other direction.  “I like you, okay?  Don’t make me regret it.”

Laurens wasn’t listening.  He kissed the other side of his face now that it was turned to him.  “Was it a secret?”

“John,” Hamilton protested.  Laurens kissed him again, properly this time, but playfully, and he bit his lip.

In a low voice he added, “Were you afraid to tell me?”

Hamilton felt his heart racing.  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to steady it, but then let out a soft moan when Laurens took advantage to turn his head back and bite and kiss at his neck.

“I love you,” he whispered against his skin, his hand trailing up over his chest and feeling Hamilton arch very slightly into his touch.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton swallowed.  His head was spinning.  “Mm.”

Laurens lightly bit him again and moved his hand down.  “Are you still embarrassed?”  He cupped him and Hamilton jerked his legs apart.  There was something about Laurens’ weight against him, the near-humiliation of him talking to him like that, and then the _comfort_ of having him there…

“Tell me again.”

“Oh, come on—”  Hamilton was cut short as Laurens stroked him, slipping his hand into his sweatpants and wrapping it around his cock.

“Tell me,” Laurens repeated, kissing him.  “I want to hear you say it properly.”

“L-like hell this is— Ah—”

“I love you,” Laurens whispered in his ear, his hand continuing to move.  “I love you, I love you.”

“J.,” Hamilton said desperately, grabbing his shoulder.

Laurens nudged him.  “Alexander.”

“Jesus Christ,” the name came out as a single word.  “I love you too, J.”

Laurens was grinning from ear to ear and he turned his attention more seriously to getting him off, looking for the pace and rhythm that most made Hamilton twist beneath him and kissing his mouth and jaw and neck.

Hamilton was breathing quickly and he closed his eyes for a minute.  When he opened them again, he found himself looking right into Laurens’ and he suppressed his initial urge to turn away.  He could get lost in them, he thought dimly.  What a cliché.  The protest was weak and he felt himself sinking.  He knew—or at least he thought he knew—that he should close his eyes again but he couldn’t help it.  There was something addictive about Laurens’ face and he wanted to overdose on it, in spite of the rational voice telling him to take a step back.  Normally that voice was much louder, even if it had been less convincing recently.  Hamilton compromised.  He put his hand behind Laurens’ head and kissed him.

Laurens slid his tongue into Hamilton’s mouth, returning the gesture with enthusiasm.  He kept the kiss going until he had started to pull the orgasm from him and Hamilton jerked away with a gasp.  He didn’t move far, keeping their lips just barely apart and breathing hard against him.  Laurens sunk his head down to nuzzle the juncture of his shoulder and neck once he had stilled.  Hamilton worked his hand into his hair and he sighed contentedly.

“J.”  Hamilton tugged very lightly on his hair.  “What do you want?”

“You.”  The word was muffled against his skin.

“Be more specific.”

Laurens just kissed his collar.

“I can feel you trying t’ impale my leg.  It’s like I’m a friggin’ vampire over here.”

Laurens paused.

“…Did I break the mood?”

“A little.”  Laurens kissed him again.  “I forgive you.”

Hamilton felt his heart skip a beat and he laughed a little, more at himself than anything else.  “C’mere.”  He nudged Laurens up and slid down underneath him, putting his hand on him and kissing his chest as he touched him.  Laurens gave a low moan, _pressing_ his hips forward and his cock into his hand, his pulse already racing.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton closed his eyes and took a steadying breath.  “John.  J.  Can you reach the lube.”  He felt Laurens jerk slightly.

Laurens swallowed.  “Yes.”

“Please, J.”  Hamilton kissed his chest again and Laurens pushed off of him and quickly stripped as he picked the bottle off the floor.  Hamilton arched off the bed, pulling his pants down and tossing them to the side.

Laurens was back on top of him, biting and sucking at his neck as Hamilton leaned into his weight and ran his hands down his back to his ass.  To his surprise Laurens suddenly flipped him onto his side, pulling one arm across his shoulders and holding him to him.  He made a little startled noise but then Laurens was pushing into him with one finger and it turned into a moan.  He shifted his hips, trying to find the best angle, while Laurens moved his hand and tucked his face to the back of his neck.

Hamilton pulled the pillow to him, holding it to his face—more for comfort than to really stop the noise as he gasped out Laurens’ name.  Laurens had two fingers in him now and was moving his hand faster.  Hamilton could tell that he was a little impatient, ready to fuck him, and trying not to just go through the motions before he could get to that point.

“Please,” he said, wanting to encourage him.  “J…”  Hamilton bit back a gasp as Laurens took his hand away and pushed his cock into him.  Fortunately the angle made it easier and he bit the pillow as Laurens worked his way in further.

“Alex,” Laurens said, cutting his name short, holding him a little tighter, gripping his shoulder with his hand.  Hamilton whimpered.

The position forced Laurens to go slow, only able to push shallowly into him, and Hamilton felt himself starting to get hard again as he whispered in his ear.  He could feel how hot his face was getting and he put his hand over Laurens’, desperate somehow for contact.

Laurens stopped for a moment, trying to regain control in order to prolong the sensation, but then Hamilton whined and he gave in, pushing back into him and allowing himself to let go.  His orgasm quickly built and overtook him and he dug his fingers into Hamilton’s shoulder, biting the muscle between it and his neck and shaking as it washed over him.

Hamilton’s breath was still coming in short jerking whimpers as Laurens slowly pulled out and nuzzled him.  “Hold on.”

He leaned away and Hamilton made a short desperate noise.

“Sorry,” Laurens said, kissing the back of his head.  “Hold on,” he repeated.  “Just a second.”  He took off and knotted the condom, then tossed it in an overhand arc through the air and into the trashcan.  “Yes!”  He exclaimed quietly when it went in.  “Did you see that?  All air.”

“ _John_ ,” Hamilton protested, starting to sit up.

Laurens looked guilty.  “Sorry, sorry.  Don’t get up.”  He put his arm around him and pulled him back down.

“The fuck was that,” Hamilton started to complain.  He quickly stopped when Laurens put his hand on his cock and began to stroke it, setting a fast pace and working to get him off.  “Ah—”  Hamilton was shaking slightly and he grabbed Laurens’ arm with both hands, tipping his hips forward and into his grip.  Laurens responded enthusiastically, letting him and moving his hand more forcefully, not stopping until Hamilton had come a second time and then just holding him to him.

“Hey.”  After several minutes Laurens nudged him and tried to sit up.  Hamilton was still holding his arm and prevented him from doing so.  “Alex.”

“What?”

“Do you have anything to eat?”

“No.  Stay.”

Laurens—feeling a little like a dog—settled back down.  Hamilton turned around, staying under his arm but facing towards him instead of away.  He was breathing slowly and deeply and Laurens smiled, almost embarrassed about how happy he was, and kissed his forehead, closing his eyes.

 

> G. Lafayette: I hope you had a good time last night

> G. Lafayette: Because you weren't here I was not allowed to sleep in the same room as Adrienne

> G. Lafayette: or in my own room

> G. Lafayette: I had to sleep on a cot in Washington’s bedroom

> G. Lafayette: you're ignoring me and I don’t appreciate it.

> G. Lafayette: Mrs. Washington slept in my bed.

 

“Gil?”

Lafayette quickly put his phone away and stood, offering Adrienne the seat next to him on the bench on the house’s wide back porch.  She sat, offering him a mug, and he took both it and his seat beside her.

“It’s a lovely view.”

“It’s a very nice property.  Do you see that spot right there?”  He pointed.  “About a foot to the left of the greenhouse.  That’s where my leg was cut open,” he said cheerily.  “I wanted to videochat with you when the doctor came back to remove them, but the hour was very bad.”

Adrienne looked a little pale.  “That’s all right.  I’m glad it went well.”

“I held you in my mind,” Lafayette said.  “You gave me strength.  Well, actually, knowing that Washington cared so deeply gave me strength, but you helped a great deal.”  Lafayette looked at Adrienne and saw how she was watching him in mild confusion.  “…I didn’t get much sleep last night,” he admitted, taking a drink from the mug.  Hot chocolate.  “I missed you too much.”

“Gil,” Adrienne began.

“I know you were right there, but…  Besides, I had to get up early this morning.  Washington was having me help him map his property lines,” he added proudly.

Adrienne took his hand.  “But you are free now?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said.  “Did you want to do something?  We could go sightseeing.  Oh,” he said, “or we could go out for lunch.  I saw a paleo restaurant that I wanted to try…”

Adrienne put her mug down on the ground and slipped her arm through his.  "Thank you for talking to Alexander.  I didn't feel right about them having problems."

"They'll be fine now," Lafayette reassured her.  "When we see them again they'll be just the same as before."


	101. Offers and Invitations and Deals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Problem Solved; Gym Bunnies; Awkward Photos; Exchange of Services

On Monday Lafayette fully expected Laurens to stop by the dorm very early in the morning to pick up his things for the gym.  He didn’t expect Hamilton to have come over with him.

“Do you have work to do?”  He asked, letting both of them in.  Hamilton had his hand in Laurens’ pocket and they were standing close enough together that they were touching.  “A paper?  Filing?”

Hamilton shook his head to every suggestion.  “Later.  Good morning, Adrienne,” he said.  She was wearing a robe over her nightdress and sitting in Lafayette’s chair.  She waved.  “I’m going with John to the gym.”

Laurens gathered his belongings one-handed—his other was still trapped in his jacket pocket—and nodded.  “We’re going to grab breakfast after, so I won’t be back.  You can have this place to yourself.  Alex, do you know where my—Oh, thanks.”  He took the shirt from Hamilton and packed it in his bag, then kissed Hamilton lightly on the temple.  Hamilton was smiling uncontrollably.

Lafayette stared, dumbstruck.

“I did a much better job than I thought I did,” he commented to the room at large.  “Gold star to Lafayette.”

“What was that?”  Laurens asked, breaking off a half-whispered conversation with Hamilton.

“Nothing,” Lafayette lied.  “Alex, what are you doing at the gym?”

“He’s going to say hi to the guys,” Laurens answered.  “And then—”

“I thought I’d work out for a while.  I was up anyway—don’t take your laptop and books, J., we can just come back here after breakfast—” Hamilton said.  “So, you know, why not?  Cur non,” he added, looking at Laurens instead of Lafayette and grinning as he toyed with the front of his jacket with the hand not in his pocket.

“I’m glad we’re not this disgusting,” Lafayette said to Adrienne.  “I’d have to send out letters of apology.”  She shushed him.

“Right, I think that’s everything.”  Laurens closed his bag and slung it over his shoulder.  “I’ll change there since we’ve got company.  See you two later.”

They left and Lafayette sat at Laurens’ desk.  “Well?”

“You did a very good job,” Adrienne reassured him.  “I know you talked to Alexander but I didn’t think it would take that well.”

“I know…”  Lafayette looked at the door with consideration.  He shook his head after a minute, clearing it.  “Very strange.  Alexander never got back to me, either.  It reminds me…  Oh, but you weren’t there.  That was when I had such poor reception in Vermont, my dearheart.  I should ask André about it,” he said.  “Adrienne, maybe the two of us should go down to the gym as well.”

“Now?”

“No.”  He crossed the room and lay back down on the bed.  “In an hour or so, after they’re done.  I’d like to catch André and the two of you only briefly met.  Besides,” he added, stretching his lean body out, “we can get into perfect shape right here.”

 

Hamilton had to admit to feeling a little awkward as he entered the gym after Laurens.  He took his hand away as he carefully removed his jacket and scarf and trailed after him, imagining that he must look a bit like a duckling following its mother.  What a mental image.  He blinked hard to clear it and flashed his student ID to the girl at the desk, who pointed him with great ennui towards the free lockers.

“I’m going to change and meet the other guys at the weight room,” Laurens said, standing off to the side as Hamilton stored his belongings.  He put his jacket in last, folding it over itself as if concerned about his keys or wallet falling out of the pocket.  “Are you set?”

“Guess so.”  Hamilton glanced down at himself.  “Sleep clothes, workout clothes, same dif.”

“I’ll take you to get something better later,” Laurens promised.  “You sure you don’t want to just use my locker?  It’ll be cramped, but…”  He took his keyring out of his pocket and started to hand it over.

“It’s fine.  Go get changed.”  Hamilton put his hand on Laurens’ shoulder and leaned up, kissing him lightly.  “I’ll be around.”

“You don’t want to join in?”

Laurens started and looked over his shoulder to see his coach waiting for him.

“Did you tell him that he’s invited to come around?”

“Uh,” Laurens was at a temporary loss.

“I don’t want to distract him.”  Hamilton, on a whim, slapped his ass.  Laurens whipped back around, turning red.

Von Steuben laughed and put his hand high on Laurens’ back, leading him away.  “ _Danke_.  Come, Laurens, did you have a good birthday weekend?

 

“—And this is the gym,” Lafayette announced, ending his tour of the campus between the dorm room and the gymnasium.  “It’s not bad,” he went on.  “It looks better on the inside.  I fence here sometimes.  I’m undefeated,” he said proudly.  “But to be fair no one else had any previous lessons.”

“I’m sure you’re teaching people a lot,” Adrienne said, her hand on his arm.

“Oh, I am.  But it’s been very educational for me as well.  I’ve been learning a lot,” Lafayette said.  He loitered to the side of the door, waving when it opened and a couple of Laurens’ teammates came out.

“Hey, Junior.  You waiting for Laurens?”

“No, we’re looking for André.  Oh, this is Adrienne,” Lafayette said, nudging her forward.  “Adrienne, this is Humphrys and McHenry.  They play with John.”

“How do you do?”  They both shook her hand.  “Nice to meet you.  Junior,” Humphreys went on, “I gotta get to class.  You’re both welcome to join us for lunch if you want.  Noon at the cafeteria.  Here, give me your phone and I’ll put my number in it.”

Lafayette perked up, flattered.

“Really?”

“We’ll probably have two open seats anyway,” McHenry joked.  “It’s a good thing you want André instead of Laurens because you wouldn’t be able to get him by himself.  Coach even took pity on him and let him go spot instead of finishing his set.  It’s a little embarrassing!”

Lafayette and Adrienne exchanged a glance.  Once the others had left they went into the building and looked around.  It didn’t take long to spot them.  Laurens was still in his gym clothes but his shirt was only barely damp and his hair still looked dry.  Hamilton was still wearing what they had last seen him in and was sitting on a weight-lifting bench, deep into something like an argument with Laurens.

“I told you, J., fireman carry.”

Laurens laughed.  Neither of them noticed Lafayette or Adrienne.  “Do you even know what that is?”

“Over the shoulder, come on, what’d I just do?”  Hamilton mimicked it and then leaned forward, his face flushed, presumably with exertion, as he tugged playfully at the front of Laurens’ shirt.  “Your knuckles’ll probably drag on the floor but it’s not my fault that you’re a giant.”

“Come off it, you’re just short.”

“Not that short, not that weak.  Admit it, you didn’t think I could do it.”

“No one saw it.”

“You saw it.”  Another tug at the fabric.  “Who cares about the friggin’ iron, I’m not on stage.  Real world application, that’s what really matters.”

Lafayette cleared his throat and Hamilton looked up.

“Lafayette?”

“ _Oui_.  What are you doing?”

“Showing off my killer ripped bod.  What are you doing?”

Lafayette wasn’t sure how much of that was a joke so he just ignored the entire first sentence.  “Adrienne and I are looking for André.”

“He’s showering,” Laurens said.  “He’ll be out in a minute.  Go shower,” he said to Hamilton.  “I want to get breakfast.  I’m starved.”

“You coming?”

“One sec.”  Laurens’ attention was caught by his coach motioning him over from the other side of the room.  “Go ahead, I’ll be right there.”

Laurens clapped Hamilton on the shoulder in a kind of muscle memory gesture triggered by the setting and crossed to talk to von Steuben.  “Thank you for letting me duck out.”

Von Steuben brushed that off.  “It’s just one day.  If he’s interested, the gym has personal trainers—”

“I think he was just trying to prove a point,” Laurens said quickly and honestly.  “He’s really busy normally.”

Von Steuben nodded.  “Fine.  But if he changes his mind you know about the facilities.”

“Yes, sir.”

Von Steuben lowered his voice for privacy.  “So how are things going for you?  With Alexander.”

Laurens blushed slightly and fidgeted, making a loose fist and running his thumb across the undersides of his fingers.  “It’s, it’s going well, sir.  Thank you for asking.”

“Good, good.  And the others?  Your friends?  It looks like everyone knows.”

“Yes,” Laurens said, trying not to be terrified of those words.  “Pretty much, I guess.  Alexander’s not—Yeah, pretty much.”

Von Steuben chuckled.  “He seems like a nice boy.”

“He is.”

“You don’t need to answer this, and we can talk later if you’d prefer.”  He put his fist into his other hand once, twice.  “How has your family taken it?  Are they supportive?”

Laurens felt his throat constrict.  “They don’t know.”

“Ah.”  Von Steuben paused for a long moment.  Laurens struggled to steadily hold his gaze.  “ _Sehr güt_.”  He put his fist in his hand for a third time.  “If you need anything,” he started.

“Yes,” Laurens interrupted at the first hint of a pause, “you told me that already.  Sir.”  He took a half step backwards.

“One last thing,” von Steuben said, verbally stopping him from leaving.  “The other boys.”

“On the team?”

“Yes.”  Von Steuben was patiently silent as a student passed them nearby, waiting until she was well out of earshot to continue.  “How have they been?”

“They’re fine,” Laurens said automatically.  “They’re—it’s not a big deal, they’re fine.”

Von Steuben studied him again, then nodded and turned away slightly with a note of finality.  “Good.   _Dankeschön_.  Just what I was hoping to hear.  Good job today, Laurens.”

Laurens nodded in return and quickly left.

 

“Are you going to the party tonight?”

McHenry shook his head and put his glass down.  “No.  Excuse me.”  He wiped his mouth on his napkin.

“You should come,” Lafayette urged, his arm across the back of Adrienne’s chair.  “It’ll be fun.”

“Thanks,” McHenry said, “but I’ve been really busy.  Besides, it’s not like I’ll know most of the people there.”

“You don’t have to stay the whole night,” Lafayette said.  “It really will be fun.  You can meet Laurens’ boyfriend properly,” he added, not really feeling guilty about using Hamilton as bait.  “You didn’t get to meet him at the bar, right?”

“I’m coming,” Humphreys announced, taking a bite out of his sandwich.  “Me and Tallmadge and Tench,” he went on, motioning down the table.  “Don’t worry about it, Junior, we’ll fill the place up.”  He leaned back, putting his own arm over the back of McHenry’s chair in teasing imitation of Lafayette.

McHenry, looking smaller than he actually was by comparison, frowned and leaned away.  “Could you not?  I’m trying to eat.”

“Hey,” Tallmadge cut in as Humphreys took his arm down.  “Do you know if we should bring food as well as drinks?”

“I don’t think it would be a bad idea,” Lafayette said, “but I don’t think you need to.”

“Right.”

“I can tell him to stop,” Adrienne said, leaning across the table to talk to McHenry.  “He listens to me.”

“It’s fine.  Is Laurens’…?”

“Alexander will be there,” Adrienne confirmed.  “And some of his friends.”

“I’ll check if I have the address later.  Uh,” he cast around for another topic, picking up his glass again.  “So how long have you two been dating?”

Lafayette jumped back into the conversation.  “Adrienne and I have been friends since we were children.  She was friends with me before my grand metamorphosis.”

McHenry snorted into his drink and was forced to put it down for the second time.  “Yeah?”

“Are you telling us that you weren’t always so suave?”  Humphreys joked.

“I know,” Lafayette said, “it’s a great shock.”  He brushed his hand over his hair.  “I was once a complete loser.”

There was a round of laughter.

“It’s hard to believe you when you say it like that,” Tallmadge said.  “It makes it sound like you’re fishing for a compliment.”

“No, it’s true,” Lafayette replied.  “I’ve decided to own it.”  Adrienne put her hand on his arm.  He smiled at her.

“So,” Tallmadge asked, “what do you mean by ‘complete loser’?”

“Oh,” Lafayette said cheerfully.  “I really was.  Did John Laurens tell you about the time that I fell on my face at a party and everyone laughed at me?  All of my peers were there.  I hate it when Louis tells that story,” he complained to Adrienne, dropping his light tone for a moment.  “It’s only appropriate when _I_ tell it.”

“Do you have any old pictures of him?”  Tallmadge asked Adrienne.  “You know…  Bad haircut, too much eyeliner?”

“Is emo a thing in France?”  Tench asked the table at large curiously.

“Pants with those big loops?”  Tallmadge pressed.  “Mesh shirts?”

“Are we set on that look?”  McHenry asked.  “I was envisioning more of a faux-edgy graphic tee and sandals with socks.”

“He was always cute,” Adrienne began, but Lafayette made a noise of protest.

“It’s all right.  Here.”  He was clicking around on his phone.  “Let me find an old album…”  Satisfied, he handed it across the table to McHenry, who leaned over to Humphreys so they could both scroll.

“What’s he look like?”  The other two got up and crowded behind them.

“I’m disappointed,” Tallmadge announced, “these aren’t that bad.  You just don’t look like you’ve grown into yourself yet.”

“I don’t know,” Humphreys snickered, “what happened to your hair on that camping trip?”

“I tried to bleach it,” Lafayette explained.  “It went orange.”

“I can see that.  Ginger’s not the best look for you.”

“I tried to straighten it, too,” Lafayette went on, leaning forward across the table.  He sounded almost proud.  “Can you tell?  We used a metal spatula and a frying pan.”

“That’s possibly the worst idea I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”  McHenry flicked through the pictures.

Tench put his hand on his shoulder.  “Hey, stop there.  What’s that?”

“A giant-ass American flag,” Humphreys said, “and Junior hidden in the middle of it.”  He tipped McHenry’s hand towards Adrienne and Lafayette so they could explain.

“Oh,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, “this is all from English Camp.  I wanted to make it clear which brand of English I wanted to study, so I brought clothes to make it obvious, only now when I show these pictures people just assume I was at an American, ah, theme party.”

“I don’t know where I’d find a pair of shirt and pants with the French flag on them,” Tench commented.

“I don’t think they’re from a set, it looks like the colors are a little different.”

“These aren’t that bad,” Tallmadge said as they reached the end and McHenry handed the phone back.  “Everyone went through an awkward phase, anyway.  Besides, you seem to have come out of it all right.”

“Junior’s pretty cool,” Humphreys agreed.

Lafayette took Adrienne’s hand and beamed.  “I am pretty cool,” he told her, kissing her forehead.

 

> A. Hamilton: Can we confer, sir?

> A. Burr: What do you want, Alexander?

 

Hamilton met Burr at the cafe on campus he frequently went to with Lafayette.

“You know this place, right?  Not one of the ones you showed me, but the drinks are only mostly overpriced.  Hi, yes, excuse me.”  He turned away from Burr to give his order to the barista.  “I’m getting his as well,” he added before stepping to the side.

“That’s… kind of you.”

“Coffee is the apology drink,” Hamilton said.  “Universal truth.  I’m making that up, but it is an apology for being a dick to you the other day.  I didn’t realize I was poking around such a sensitive subject.”

“Mm.”  Burr stood next to him.  “What do you want?”

Hamilton clicked his tongue.  “You are always so perceptive.  Right, I’ll cut to the chase.  I think we can help one another out a little.  Trade some information.”

“What kind of information?”

“I’ll see where your friend stands with her boss and coworkers,” Hamilton said, being deliberately vague in a nod to Burr’s sensibilities and their public location.  “I’ve got an in, I can tell you what people are actually saying when she’s not around.”

Burr scoffed.  “Do you think they’ll actually talk to you?”

“Nah.  Lafayette, though.”  Hamilton felt a triumphant spark when he saw Burr’s eyes widen slightly.  “He’s real useful when it comes to that. Don’t even have to tell him why I want to know.  Don’t have to tell him that we met up today.  He’ll assume that I’m just curious because it’s potentially juicy or because I want to laugh at _his_ source getting something wrong.”  Hamilton waited while Burr turned the suggestion over in his mind.  He tried not to show how impatient he felt.

“And you?”

Their drinks were put out and they took them.  Hamilton led the way to a table in a corner.

“I want you to ask your friends to find something out for me as well.”

“I’m surprised you trust them as sources,” Burr said.  “You’ve proved them wrong before and their misinformation was floating vaguely around half of campus.”

“Probably more like a fourth, just concentrated around people who knew the parties in question.  Conservative estimate.”  Hamilton leaned in across the table.  “Ask them to find out if the football captain’s been creating a hostile environment.  Violation of Title IX, you know what I mean.”

“The captain?”

“Right, captain.  Not coach,” Hamilton clarified.  “I’m curious about the student captain.”

“And you want them to… investigate in the same way that they did before?”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, leaning back and turning his hands palms up, “it’s a delicate operation, not nearly as open and shut as what I’m trading you for.  I understand, they’re gonna have to ask questions, talk to some people.  Word might get out.”  He shrugged.  “I’d hate for that to happen.”  He took a careful sip of his coffee.  “That’d be a real shame.”

Burr smiled slowly and raised his cup.  “In this,” he said, “we have a deal.”


	102. Halloween Pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party Start

“Buon giorno,” Hercules Mulligan announced as he flung open his door, letting out a loud round of already-drunken laughter.  “I’d offer to take your coats but this ain’t a nudist beach.”  He slapped Lafayette on the back and turned, leading him into the room.  “This’s the one I was talking about,” he explained to a group seated on the couch, slapping Lafayette on the chest.  “And I hear he’s got a lovely lady friend with him tonight so ix-nay on the iquor-lay.”  He shoved Lafayette down as people moved over to make space.  “Speaking of ladies,” Mulligan went on, taking the hand of a woman dressed from the belt up like a shepherdess (and from the belt down like a shepherdess in bloomers) and helping her off the couch, “this is the _lovely_ Elizabeth Sanders.”

She shook Lafayette’s hand and he led her across the room to where Hamilton was helping Laurens put the drinks down (if “helping” really meant just standing next to and trying not to play with the buttons on his jacket).

“Hamilton,” Mulligan said, making a side comment to Sanders and laughing, then letting her step forward.  “You two never met.  Elizabeth Sanders, Alexander Hamilton and John—I’m tryna be formal here, is that short for Jonathan?—Laurens.”

“It’s a pleasure,” she said, shaking both their hands.

“Pleasure.  What are you supposed to be?”  Hamilton asked Mulligan, unable to wait to make small talk first.  “Did you literally just drape a dishcloth over your shoulder and call it a day?  I thought you were supposed to be a tailor.”

“Don’t be elitist, I had a rough couple ‘a weeks at work, shift-wise.  Too fuckin’ tired to do the sexy goatherd to match.  It’s a toga and you can all deal with it.”

“Hot.”  Hamilton took a cup.  “Mulligan, make me something on fire.  I keep hearing it talked up and I feel like a badass rebel general-whatever.”

“Where’s Adrienne?”  Laurens asked, scanning the room.

“She found a friend, relax,” Hamilton said, motioning with his free hand towards the door where Adrienne was in conversation with Adelaide, both of them neatly sidestepping the supposed costume requirements by just wearing dresses instead.  “You really like her, huh?”

“I like Lafayette,” Laurens clarified.  “Someone needs to watch out for him.  He’s so distracted sometimes.”

“He’s not as bad as he pretends,” Hamilton said, “but you’re cute.”  He put his hand on his arm and tugged him down so he could kiss him on the cheek.

“Whooo,” Mulligan nudged Sanders.  “We got a rule here, you commit gross acts of PDA you take a shot.”  He handed Hamilton back his cup, now somehow on fire.  “We’re doing this shit German army style, _Scheißhaus_!  You know other _Scheiß_ , right?”  Mulligan asked Laurens, keeping his hand over the top of Hamilton’s drink.  “Not so fast there, bud, grab a straw.”

“A straw?”  Hamilton took one off the table.

Mulligan spread his fingers slightly and put the straw just past them.  “Inhale.”

Hamilton did so without thinking and then started coughing.  Laurens looked startled and patted him on the back.  Hamilton waved him off.

“Shit,” he said after a minute.  “Fumes.”

Mulligan pressed the cup into his hand once he was steadier.  “ _Now_ drink.  You know any other German swears?”  He asked Laurens.  “I’m _Scheiß_ out of luck.”

“ _Hackfresse_.”

Hamilton put the cup down on the table and leaned on it with one hand, not wanting to admit how much stronger that had been than he had expected.  “John,” he said, making an effort to keep every word sounding sober.  It would take him a minute to shake it off.  “Did you hear from André?  Is he still coming?”

“Should be.”  Laurens paused to take his own shot.  “That’s really neat,” he told Mulligan.  “Show me how to do that later.”

“I taught him,” Sanders said, leaning on Mulligan’s shoulder, “and in exchange he made me something pretty.”  She tugged a little at the collar of her dress.

“Got me,” Mulligan agreed good-naturedly.  “I’d be a pretty excellent househusband, if I do say so myself.  All right,” he said as he picked up a veggie platter and headed off to mingle, “which of you sons of bitches need some crudités?”

“What’re you doing?”  Hamilton asked as Laurens took out his phone.

“Checking if André got lost.”

“Right, right.”

Laurens glanced at him, one eyebrow raised, but didn’t say anything.

Hamilton went on, talking about nothing in particular.  “These jackets are pretty cool, J.  Hope André could find one.  Anyone else we know coming?  Mulligan was making it sound like it’s gonna get lit but so far it’s not that many more people than last time…”

“You’re drunk,” Laurens teased, rather pointedly pouring himself another drink.

Hamilton flushed.  “I am not.”

“You had one drink and you’re just rambling on.”

“I’m buzzed, sure.”

“I’m going to have my hands full with your twenty-first, aren’t I?”

Hamilton cocked his head to one side.  “We still gonna be dating then?”

It was Laurens’ turn to look a little flustered.  “I didn’t…  Yeah, probably, right?  Your birthday’s only in January anyway.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton leaned in towards him, a possessive smile on his face.  “Don’t make it sound so underwhelming, J.”  He put his hand on the stiff collar of his jacket, tugging him down not _quite_ enough if he had been planning on kissing him.

Across the room Mulligan shouted.  “Shot!”

 

Lafayette laughed, reintroduced to Mulligan’s brother and his friend and having a good time.  He looked around for Adrienne and was pleased to see her talking with Adelaide—he had been planning on calling her over, just for a moment in all reality before he got swept away in conversation again, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves and he turned back to the others on the sofa.

“It’s better than the Louvre,” he insisted, to a sound of uncertainty.  “Oh, the pyramid is very nice, I like that a lot, but the fountain in front of the Met is more fun.  I took selfies with Adrienne there,” he went on, taking out his phone and scrolling up for the correct pictures.  “There.  The fountains change how they are shooting and go through different patterns!”

“That’s a relatively new addition.”

Lafayette looked up as a new, older voice entered the conversation and then amiably moved over on the couch to make room.  “Oh, I liked it a lot even without that.  I was being a little facetious.  I’m Lafayette,” he went on, offering his hand.

It was taken and shook.  “Benedict Arnold.  I’m the other roommate.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.  Have you been to both museums?  Which do you prefer?”

“They’re both nice,” Arnold said.  “But neither holds a candle to the British Museum.”

Lafayette frowned a little.  “Is that an art museum?”

“Nah,” Mulligan said, joining them as well.  “But it’s the one with the Rosetta Stone.  Nice choice.”

A sudden wave of noise in the room caught Lafayette’s attention and he strained to see over the people around him.  It sounded like someone had just let more guests into the apartment and Mulligan was turning around to see who was there, welcoming them in his loud voice.

“Thanks,” Lafayette heard someone say, and then, a second after he realized it was André, “Oh, hey, Laurens.”

Mulligan laughed.  “You’re a fuckin’ traitor!”

Lafayette stood.  He was tall enough to see over the others now that he was on his feet and after a moment of surprise he had to laugh as well.

André was standing in front of Laurens and Hamilton, Peggy’s hand on his arm, and looking a little embarrassed in a bright red coat.

“That’s not blue,” Lafayette said without thinking, loud enough to be heard.

“Red suits him better,” Peggy said, fixing one of the buttons on his uniform.  “And this way he’s not stepping on any toes by taking your idea.”

Lafayette didn’t quite see it that way and he saw Adrienne looking at him with mild concern.  He made an effort to shrug in a show of indifference to his theme being broken.  “It is a nice color.  But now you are outnumbered and on the wrong side of history.”

Peggy laughed a little and parried his comment.  “Things don’t have to go as the history books say.  Besides, maybe there is a spy or two here to help him out.  I’d be on your guard if I were you,” she teased.

“Where did you get that?”  Hamilton asked André, looking him over.  “It’s a good fit.”

“I found it at a costume store,” André admitted.  “I’m surprised it’s as nice as it is.  They were all out of blue.”

“Did you have to pay for the whole thing or did they give it to you half off?”

André laughed.  “It was a set.”

“Too bad,” Hamilton said, his eyes flicking over him again.  “I’d have given you a discount.”

“Right.”  Laurens put his hand on his shoulder.  “I’m glad you could find something, André.”

“It was a little last minute,” André said.  “I didn’t really start looking until…”

“Last week,” Peggy filled in for him.  She smoothed down a seam in her very small, very ruffled shorts.  Hamilton’s eyes shot down to the movement and he snapped them back up.  “I managed to throw something together, though.”

“You certainly did,” André said, leaning in and nuzzling her cheek a little too enthusiastically.  She flinched away.

“Mm, no, John, I _just_ did my face.”

“Would you like a drink?”  Laurens interrupted, stepping aside to motion to the table so that Hamilton was forced to move away as well.

André made an agreeing noise and Peggy, talking more playfully to Hamilton in spite of Laurens’ efforts to separate him from both of them, turned in a circle to show off her costume.  Her hair was piled up on top of her head in careful curls and she was wearing a delicate lace ribbon around her neck.  The coquette shorts aside, she was wearing a pinched and elaborately ribboned jacket with tight sleeves to the elbow.  It was cut very low and square and Hamilton made an effort to look her in the eye.  “Guess where I’m from.”

“France, pre-Revolution.”

“Very good,” she said enthusiastically, putting her hand lightly on his arm for a moment.  “I didn’t think you would get it on the first try!”

“The detailing isn’t period accurate,” Lafayette complained not-quite-as-discreetly as he could have to Mulligan’s brother.

“You look good,” Hamilton told her truthfully.  She smiled like she already knew but appreciated the compliment anyway.

“Thank you,” she told him, and then, to André as he offered her a glass, “oh, and thank _you_.  Shall we mingle?  It’s always nice to meet people.”

They left and Peggy’s voice could be heard easily though the still mostly-male room and Hamilton looked up at Laurens, whose hand had never left his shoulder.

“I’m not doing anything.  That wasn’t flirting.  Don’t storm off this time.”

“Don’t tell me to get out.”

“I like legs,” Hamilton said, and Laurens was surprised how nonchalant he sounded.  He laughed a little, unsure.

“I don’t know, J.”  Hamilton subtly took his hand and brought it down to his side, playing with his fingers.  “I gotta say, she’s very pretty but I like you more.”

Mulligan—neither of them somehow had seen him come up—moved Hamilton’s hair to the side with his thick fingers and whispered in his ear: “Shot.”

Hamilton started and then dropped Laurens’ hand, shoving Mulligan.  “How the fuck do you do that?  You’re a goddamn tank most of the time!”

“Secret.  C’mon, Alexander, you’re the one who wanted this party in the first place.”

“Not true,” Hamilton argued for the sake of arguing, even as he willingly poured himself a drink.  “Lafayette did, it was all his idea.  And it’s not like you don’t take advantage of all the big drinking holidays anyway, jackass.”

“I do,” Mulligan agreed, nodding at Laurens.  “Halloween, Fourth of July, New Year’s Eve, Easter—not Saint Patrick’s Day or Cinco de Mayo, that’s racist, yo…”

“…Easter?”

Mulligan just shrugged, spreading his arms.  “What can I say?  I make mean vodka jello eggs.”

Hamilton put the red cup back down on the table, hard.  He looked just a little ridiculous doing so but was unaware.  “Fine,” he said, “I’ll talk about something other than John.”

“Good luck,” Mulligan said, slapping him on the back.  “You’re gonna need to find some other eye candy to distract you from that one.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.  “I can—John’s hot, too!”

“I just said that,” Mulligan laughed while Laurens watched in confusion.

“No, shit, wrong John.  John André.  He’s pretty cute.  I mean I wouldn’t go out of my way to lure him into my bed—”  Laurens put his hand on his shoulder again and Hamilton misinterpreted.  “—Sorry, right, my futon.  But he’s got a nice body and he’s smart, I like smart.  He talks like five languages, that’s hot.  And he plays at least one instrument,” Hamilton added, picking his cup back up and toying with it.  “So, like, there’s that.”

“And you’re off the hard stuff for a while,” Mulligan informed him, taking the cup away as Laurens’ eyes flicked towards the ceiling but he held his tongue.  “Beer for you, tiger.”

“Oh, come on.  Laurens is the tiger,” Hamilton said, reaching automatically for his cup as Mulligan moved it out of his reach.

Mulligan laughed again and ruffled his hair affectionately.  “And you’re a little lion.”  He nudged him towards Laurens.  “I’m leaving him in your capable hands, my man.  I’ve got other people to corral but give me a shout if you need something.”  Mulligan split off, slinging his arm over someone else’s shoulders and steering them away to make an introduction and Laurens put his hand on Hamilton’s arm as if to steady him.

“You okay?”  He sounded a little less concerned than he might.

“‘Course I’m okay, J.  It’s not like this is the first party I’ve been to, I’m not gonna get sloppy drunk like the marquis.”

“I never said that,” Laurens looked over at Lafayette, seated on the couch and talking animatedly with Sanders, apparently in complete control of his facilities.

“Whatever.”  Hamilton started to reach for another cup, then begrudgingly changed his mind and took a plate.  “What’s the food like?”

Laurens shrugged.  “We’re standing right in front of it.”

“Smartass,” Hamilton said even though that had been a logical response.  He grabbed a handful of chips.  “You know Washington hates this kind of thing?”

“Parties?  I’m not too surprised.”

“Nah, parties he’s actually okay with.  I meant this.”  Hamilton motioned at the food and drink table.  “I guess he went to some dinner party a couple weekends ago, came back to work on Monday and just bitched about the cracker and cheese table.  Seemed like he thought it was a waste.”

Laurens just nodded, distracted.  “I want to talk to André.”

“She was right,” Hamilton said, not giving context.  “It was rude.”

“What?”

“Touching her face.”  Hamilton motioned to his own.  “You don’t just touch a girl’s face after they put it on, J.  Like rubbing your hands all over a painting.”

“Right.”

“See?  I learned things, too.  My education was a little different from yours, but I know some shit.”

“You do.”

“I know.”  Hamilton refilled his plate.  “I’m gonna go crash Lafayette’s couch party.  Maybe I’ll get cool by proxy.  I’ll see you in a bit, J.,” he said, squeezing his hand and lightly moving away.

 

The door opened again and Laurens turned towards the sound as several of his teammates walked in.  André temporarily forgotten, he went to greet them, clasping arms with Humphreys, and then looking down at his long black robe.

“What’s with the dress?”

“I’m death, man,” Humphreys complained, moving to the side to let the others in.

“You look like a kid at wizard school.”

“Then why did you ask if it was a dress?”  Humphreys moved to the side to let Grayson and McHenry in.  “Cheap shot.  At least I don’t look like a revolutionary pervert.”

“Hey,” Laurens said with a nod to the other two.  Then, “Where are your costumes?”

“We forgot.”

“Look at that,” Mulligan said, coming up behind Laurens and leaning his arm against him.  “I don’t have the most half-assed costume anymore.  Welcome,” he went on,” offering his hand around, “ _chez Mulligan_ , seems like all you college kids speak French.  I got food and drinks on that table in the back and being passed around.  You got this?”  He asked Laurens, slapping him on the back and vanishing back into the ebb and flow.

“Uh, yeah,” Laurens started, looking around the room again and getting distracted when he saw André start to come over, “like he said, there’s the table…”

“Hey, Junior,” Humphreys said as Lafayette joined them.  “Nice digs.”

“ _Merci_ ,” Lafayette said cheerfully, looking down at his jacket.

“See,” Humphreys said to Laurens.  “ _He_ can pull it off, that’s the difference.”  He turned to see his expression but Laurens had already left.

“Rude,” Lafayette commented with a nod.  “Do you know everyone?”

“We just got here,” Grayson said.

“Ah, right.  Well,” Lafayette clapped his hands together.  “How do you say, no time like the present.  I am excellent at this part.”  He scanned the room.  “I can’t introduce you to the Johns Laurens or André, but that was Hercules Mulligan and—”  Lafayette turned back to the sofa but Arnold was gone.  “Oh.  Ah, this is Hugh Mulligan,” he said, leading the way over anyway.  “He is the younger brother and he lives here, too.  Hugh,” he said once he was in front of him and motioning at the others.  “These are my friends.  They play with John Laurens.  Hugh,” he went on, “you and Humphreys both have piercings.  Discuss.”

Humphreys laughed and sat down next to Hugh.  His braids were out and his hair was twisted on top of his head, exposing his ears as he touched one lobe and struck up a conversation.

“Let me see…  Oh, excellent.”  Lafayette grabbed Grayson’s wrist and pulled him back towards the door as it opened and closed again.  “Have you met?”  He asked, releasing Grayson and shaking briefly with Gouverneur.  “You should meet.  I don’t actually know him,” he said as a quiet aside to Gouverneur.  “He is John’s teammate.”

“…Is that a pie?”  Grayson asked.

“Hm?”  Gouverneur looked down at it unnecessarily.  “Yeah, I was in a rush and this is what the grocery store had.  Pumpkin, though.  Very thematic, right?”

Lafayette backed up after Grayson responded, letting Gouverneur take control of the conversation.  He turned around in time to see McHenry check his phone and put it back in his pocket.

“ _Non_ ,” he said, “I know…”  He looked around the room again and frowned.  He turned back to the sofa but there was no seating left on it and Gouvernor and Grayson were suddenly in a heated debate about basketball.  Hamilton was lost to sight.  “…Me.”  Lafayette tried to cover.  “Hello.”

McHenry laughed and raised his hand.  “Hello.”

“More people will come,” Lafayette assured him.  “I have more friends who have not arrived yet.”

“It’s fine,” McHenry said and then after a pause, “So, you must be happy that Adrienne is here.”

“ _Oui_ , of course.”  Lafayette motioned at her across the room.  “But right now she is talking to a friend.  …I hope they are not talking about me,” he added after a pause to consider.  “Do you have many finals this year?”  Lafayette switched trains of thought, putting that aside until later.  It was mingling time.

 

“You’re not upset, are you?”  André asked when Laurens intercepted him halfway across the room.  “Sorry,” he gestured at himself, “I know I changed it last minute.”

“It’s fine.”

André’s shoulders relaxed.  “Good.  I was worried.”

“Be more worried about Lafayette,” Laurens said, his words just a little clipped.  “I think he feels like you stepped on Adrienne’s toes.  Which is stupid,” he continued as André turned to watch as well as Lafayette rearranged the guests.  “It’s not like she made you something.”

André frowned a little.  Laurens noticed and asked, “What?”

“It’s nothing.”  André shook his head.  “Is something up?”

Laurens was looking around the room again, more out of suppressed agitation than actual interest.  “Hey,” he finally said.  Their teammates were far enough away and safely distracted.  “Do me a favor.  Stay away from Alexander.”

André looked confused.  “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I barely said two words to him, Laurens.”

“And that was enough.”

“Laurens—”

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Laurens said, cutting him off.

André stopped short and paused before finding a way back into the conversation.  “…Anyway, this is a nice place.  The commute’s a little rough, though.”

“I had to bring back two drunks last time,” Laurens said.  His voice was still stiff.  “Trust me, I know.”

André forced a laugh and adjusted the cravat at his neck.  “You’re a good friend.”

Laurens shrugged.  “I couldn’t just leave them.”  He looked over at Lafayette again.  Hamilton had come over and was being introduced to McHenry as they drifted slowly away from the door.  Laurens heard André apologize and turned back to see him talking to Benedict Arnold.

“You came here with Peggy Shippen, didn’t you?”  Arnold was older, more like Mulligan’s age.  “We were talking a little.  She’s very bright.”

André perked up.  “Oh, yeah, she really is.  She’s a theater major, did she tell you?”

“It came up.”  Arnold looked slowly back at Peggy, now introducing herself to Adelaide.


	103. Halloween Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party Party Hot Mess Party

Lafayette nudged Hamilton.  “She’s very pretty, _non_?”

“Which one of them?”

“Adrienne, of course,” Lafayette said, although he was looking at Adelaide.  “She’s very pretty.”

A couple of drinks did not stop Hamilton from tracing his gaze.  “Adelaide, too.”

“Of course,” Lafayette agreed quickly.  “But they’re different.”

“Of course they are, they're different people.  You know what would be nice?”

“Hm?”  Lafayette glanced at Hamilton and was a little surprised to see the devious look in his eyes as he lifted three fingers and mouthed the French phrase.  “Oh, no, I can’t ask for that.”

“Why— _cur non_?”  Hamilton laughed.  “You can ask for anything, you just might not get it.”

“You’re awful,” Lafayette said in a huff.  “That would be a horrible idea and you know it.  Besides,” he said, motioning to McHenry and using him as an excuse, “you are making me look bad.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t really serious.”

“Don’t propose things if you’re not serious about them,” Lafayette chided him.  “I’m very impressionable.”

Hamilton laughed a little harder than he might have normally, ducking his head down and shaking.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just…  You have this huge ego over most things and then you say shit like that.  It’s endearing.”

Lafayette smiled and put his arm over his shoulder.  “I like you, too.”

“Get off me, that rumor is finally dying.”

“I thought you weren't bothered by it,” Lafayette said as he left his arm in place.

“Yeah, I’m not.”  Hamilton didn’t try to remove it.  He half-shrugged towards McHenry.  “That one made its way back to you guys, right?  Because you knew Lafayette?”

McHenry looked a little guilty.  “Yeah, I heard something about Lafayette having a boyfriend here.”

“That’s me,” Hamilton told Lafayette almost proudly.  He patted his arm awkwardly with his left hand even though that arm was partially trapped between them.  His right was still holding his plate.  “Your boyfriend.  I’m kidding, don’t worry.”  He stood up straighter as Lafayette took his arm off of him.  “No need to pull away like that.  Did you hear from anyone else?  Angelica was assuring me they’d arrive, if late.”

“Oh, they’re coming?”  Lafayette nodded at McHenry, indicating that these were the people he had been talking about.  “That’s good.  Adrienne hasn’t met them yet.  I hope they don’t come too late,” he added with a frown.  “We can’t stay out forever.”

“I thought you were at the dorm tonight.”

“We are…”  Lafayette looked vaguely uncomfortable.  “I promised Adrienne I’d take her to mass tomorrow for All Saints Day.”

Hamilton laughed again.

“I’ll take her.”  Mulligan had to raise his voice for them to hear him as he shoved his brother off the couch and sat down heavily on it.  “For the love of God, go mingle, Hugh.  This is your fucking party too, you know.  Shit,” he swore, as his brother left.  “Why’m I always the host?”

“You know the churches?”  Lafayette asked, leading the other two over and suddenly very hopeful.

“‘Course I know the churches.  She’s Roman Catholic, yeah?  You take her to see St. Patrick’s?  It’s probably not as nice as whatever French Notre Dame she goes to normally, but I’ll take her to check it out.  What time did she want to go?”

Lafayette made a little uncertain gesture.  “Early.”

“I’ll ask her,” Mulligan said, getting up again.  “Save my spot.”

“I didn’t know he was Catholic,” Lafayette said, watching him move through the crowd.  “I would have told Adrienne.”

“Nah,” Hamilton said, “Jewish.  He just likes architecture.”

“Oh.  I still want to leave before it gets too late,” Lafayette continued in a quieter voice to Hamilton.  “We are still at the dorm, after all, and some things are just easier there.  Not that I don’t appreciate your help.”

Hamilton snickered.  “No problem,” he said—the answer was just a little illogical to give in response to the statement—“I completely understand.”

“Good,” Lafayette said, patting his shoulder.  “Then you won’t interrupt.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Hamilton said, offering first Lafayette and then McHenry a chip from his plate.  “I’d never…  This is good,” he commented as Mulligan sat back down.

“The five bean dip?  Thanks, the girlfriend made that.  Old family recipe or something.  Speaking of girlfriends, I will be escorting Adrienne tomorrow.  I’ll pick her up at five-thirty at the dorm, think I know how to find that.”

“So does the pew threaten to crack under you, or what?”

“At least I don’t burst into flames,” Mulligan said, reaching across Lafayette to shove Hamilton.  “Be careful who you’re insulting, kid.  I got way more dirt on you that you have on me.  Now go grab me a beer and a plate before I decide to let your friends in on the know.  Make it balanced,” he called after Hamilton as he headed back to the table.  “I’m not twenty like you, I don’t want just a pile of chips and dip.  So how’s it going?”  He asked, slinging his arms over the back of the sofa.  “Nice having your lady-friend around?”

“Very nice,” Lafayette said, enthusiastic as always to talk about his relationship, even though this was the second time in three conversations that it had come up.  “She likes New York a lot, almost as much as I do.  We’ve been all over.  Time Square, Central Park, museums, we saw the Statue of Liberty…”

“Nice,” Mulligan said, leaning forward and putting one hand up to stop one of his coworkers from accidentally backing into the sofa, then settling back again.  “Watch it.  I know it’s crowded in here but it’s not like you’re trying to get another drink cart down a two foot aisle.”  He turned back to Lafayette.  “Sounds like I should be asking you for date night ideas.”

“Would you like some?”  Lafayette asked.  “I have notes.”

“Sure.  Nothing too frou-frou, though, no offense, not our style.  You got anything more basic but off the beaten path?”

“I’ll think about it,” Lafayette promised.

“Hey, no problem.  If it doesn't come to you, it doesn’t come to you.  You seeing anyone?”  He asked McHenry.

“No.”  He shook his head.

“Right.  I’ll skip all the boring questions, then.  I’m sure you don’t need another uncomfortable conversation about your personal life.  This one,” he said, jabbing his thumb at Lafayette, “he loves it.  Talked all of our ears off last time.  The only reason I ask about his girlfriend now is I figure it’ll make his night.”

“Almost,” Lafayette agreed.

“Thank you,” Mulligan said, sitting up properly and taking the plate and one of two beers from Hamilton.  “You know what I never got?”  He asked, opening his beer.  “Atkins diet.  I like my carbs.”

Lafayette made a mental note for future restaurant-finding purposes.

“That’s true,” Hamilton said, trying to steal a roll off his plate and getting his hand swatted.  “Oh, come on!”

“You were just there,” Mulligan scolded him.  “Get yourself some actual food next time.  I’m not your dad, you don’t get to help yourself to my plate.”

Hamilton rubbed his hand and opened the other can.  He offered it to McHenry and then Lafayette who waved it off.

“That looks interesting.  What is it?”

“Hm?”  Mulligan looked down at his plate.  “Koolickles.  Pickles made in koolaid.  Here, try one, it’s better than it sounds.”  He held out his plate and fork for Lafayette, who curiously took one and popped it in his mouth.  “Well?”

“Oh,” he said, nodding as he chewed.  He put his hand in front of his mouth so he could answer.  “That’s not bad.”

“Hey,” Hamilton started to protest.

“He _asked_ ,” said Mulligan with dignity.  “And he’s foreign.  I just wanna give him a good experience.”

Hamilton set his jaw and didn’t respond to that.  Mulligan offered him a cracker as consolation.

“Thanks, dad.”  Hamilton took the cracker, then paused and gave it back.  “I can’t, that just feels wrong.”

“Yeah?  You call John that?”

Hamilton made a face.  “No, and now I never will.”

“I call Adrienne my light,” Lafayette said happily as André sat next to Mulligan on the arm of the sofa, raising his hand in greeting to McHenry and waiting patiently for a lull in the conversation as he did not look at Hamilton.

“You call her a lot of stuff, none of it dirty.  This conversation is boring, move on,” Hamilton said.

Lafayette looked a little put out and André laughed.

“Hey, Lafayette, some of the guys are looking for you.  They offered to make you a Rob Roy to make up for the Roy Rodgers.”

“He’s not drinking,” Hamilton said, noticing that more several of Laurens’ other teammates had shown up during their conversation.  “What’s in that?”  He asked, his beer forgotten on the coffee table.

“Hey, hey!”  Mulligan couldn’t grab him with his hands full and he went off with André.  “Damn kids,” he muttered.

Lafayette patted him consolingly on the knee and looked up to strike up a conversation with McHenry again, but he was gone.  Lafayette frowned.  “I’ll be back later,” he told Mulligan.  “Thank you again for letting us invite people.”

Mulligan raised his beer to him.  “It’s my kid brother’s party, too.  It would be a mixed crowd anyway.  Go have fun.  I’m supervising from afar.”  He tipped his face up with a distracted smile as Sanders sat on the arm of the couch next to him running her hand across the back of his neck and squeezing his shoulder.

Lafayette left with a nod of agreement, but was promptly distracted by Mulligan’s younger brother opening the front door and letting in Aglae in a skin-tight white leotard and leggings with a large pink bow around her neck.  It was falling low into the deep-v of the collar.

“You’re a cat!”  Lafayette exclaimed, shoving Hugh out of the way and greeting her with an enthusiastic kiss on both cheeks.

“How did you guess?”  She asked, putting on a headband with little white ears.

“I love it,” he announced.  “Would you like something to eat or drink?  Milk?”

“Please.”

He offered his arm and she took it, letting him escort her through the crowd and pressing up against him when their path narrowed uncomfortably.

“I don’t know if we really have milk,” Lafayette apologized.

Aglae laughed.  “That’s okay.  I’m good with this for now,” she said as they got stuck between the shelving for the television and stereo equipment and a large group of Mulligan’s friends.

“Oh, good.”  He sounded mildly relieved.  “Adrienne is…  Ah, there.”  He pointed across the room to where she was still talking with Adelaide.

“Adelaide came, too?”

“It’s great, isn’t it?”  Lafayette said happily.  “You all made it!”

“You sound pleased,” Aglae teased, having to raise her voice a little to be heard over the loud chatter.  “I was going to bring a friend but she didn’t want to go out on a school night, but I _so_ wanted to go do something, even though I know it was dumb to come out alone…”

“You only made the trip by yourself.  You know several of us here already.  I’m in my element,” Lafayette informed her.  “Or, ah, I would be if this was in French.  It’s a little distracting to…”  He glanced up at a round of laughter.  “…Speak in English.”

“I’m sure.  You’re doing very good job,” she reassured him, untangling herself from him but then putting her hand on his arm.  “Congratulations.”

“I try hard.”  He somehow managed to get them a space in the circle Mulligan’s friends had made.  “This is Aglae,” he said to the stranger at his right.  “She’s a cat and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“James Armistade.”  He shook hands with both of them.  “And you are…?”

“A general,” Lafayette said, missing the actual question.  “Do you mind if I leave for a moment?”  He said to Aglae.  “I’m actually looking for someone.”

“Not at all.”  She adjusted his collar for him.  “The crowd,” she explained, then slowly dropped her hands, drawing them down his chest and smoothing out the material.  “There.”

“Ah, yes…”  Lafayette was a little flustered but smiling as he caught her hand and kissed it.  “Please enjoy your conversation.  I’ll be back later,” he promised Aglae as he backed away.

 

Hamilton was at the table with Humphreys and what was probably too full of a cup of a Rob Roy that he was trying to convince him to let him turn into a _flaming_ Rob Roy when his attention was caught by a familiar voice.

“What are you getting into now, Alexander?”

“Angelica,” Hamilton said, turning with a grin.  “You made it.”

“Of course I did.”  Angelica took a step closer and leaned on his shoulder.  “Eliza and Peggy are here too—my sister,” she clarified, a little more necessarily than Hamilton wanted to let on.

Hamilton drew back to look her over.  Purple and white dress and a green sash.

“Suffragette.”

“Good job,” Angelica said approvingly.  “I got here before you got completely trashed.  What are you having?”

“Rob Roy,” Humphreys answered and lifted one of the bottles.  “Would you like one?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He poured and she turned her attention back to Hamilton.  “Do you know who Peggy went as?”  She asked, motioning across the room to where Eliza was coaxing her into conversation with another girl.

“I can’t figure her out, you’re all enigmas.  Must be a family trait.  Actually, haven't met Peggy yet, but that’s just my theory.”  Hamilton, resigned to no one lighting his drink on fire this time, took a sip.  “Right, Peggy’s got the lab coat and a radiation warning sticker.  I take it back, that’s too easy, Marie Curie.”  Angelica nodded and he went on.  “You didn’t even say anything about Eliza, so she’s gotta be even less of a challenge.”

Angelica took the cup then raised an eyebrow and held it back out.  Humphreys, a little embarrassed looking, filled it to the same level as Hamilton’s.

“Thank you,” Angelica said.

“Another suffragette,” Hamilton said as Peggy took a step to the side and Eliza’s matching sash became visible.  He took a drink, his brain pleasantly fuzzy around the edges.  “You’re kind of cheating with the no-pants deal, though.  I’m here committing to the bit and you guys just found a loophole.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” Angelica said lightly.

“No you’re not.”

She smiled at him and raised her glass.  “A toast?”

“What to?”

“What would you like?”

“Angelica,” Lafayette said happily as he appeared suddenly at her side, interrupting their converastion.  “Have you—Oh,” he said, a little disappointed once he realized it was Hamilton next to her.  “You already know him.”  

“Pretend to introduce us anyway,” Angelica teased.  “You look so put out.”

“Ah, all right.  Angelica,” Lafayette began again, “this is my dear friend Alexander Hamilton.  You should talk.  He’s very witty but I think you might be able to best him.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.  “What kind of wingman are you?  Do you have your notebook?”  Hamilton asked when Lafayette just gave him a blank stare.  “I could’ve sworn that one came up by now.”  He finished his drink quickly and put the cup down, patting his jacket pockets for his phone.  “Lemme just…  I’m gonna text it to you,” he said, “then you can remember for later.”

Humphreys offered Lafayette a cup and he took it politely then handed it to Hamilton.  “Benedict,” he said, spotting him and flitting off again, “have you met my friend André?”

Angelica laughed.  “He’s a character.  So how are you, Alexander?”

Maybe it was already being rather drunk, but Hamilton forgot about his phone.  He smiled back and it eclipsed Angelica’s.  “I told John I love him.”

The look that flashed over her face was—to steal Hamilton’s earlier phrase—enigmatic.  “That’s wonderful, Alexander,” she said genuinely.  “I’m glad for you.  John could maybe do better,” she added, as a pretended afterthought.  “No, I’m just teasing you.  I presume from your expression that he feels the same?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton laughed.  “He’s not that good a liar.”

“You look happy.”

“Shit, blame the drinks, Mulligan forced them on me.”

Angelica laughed as well and took his hand.  “Come talk with me and my sisters.  We came here to see you, after all.”

“I’m flattered,” Hamilton said, pleased and following after her, fortunately able to trail her instead of having to pick his own way.  “Is your boyfriend coming?”

“John Church?  No, he couldn’t make it.”

“Too bad.  Would’ve been fun to meet the guy who can keep up with you.”

“Do you run your John into the ground?”  Angelica deflected.  “No, I suppose not.   Looking around it seems like most of the guests are his.”

“I dunno about that.  A bunch are, though.”  Hamilton turned and looked about them.  “Shit, you’re right, does this mean I’m popular now?”

“Or eye-candy.”

Hamilton made a face, but then he took a long drink during which he apparently changed his mind—and lost a little of his balance, putting his hand on Angelica’s arm to steady himself.  “Where’s Tallmadge?  Is he here?”

“I don’t see him,” Angelica said, a little impatient as she tried to pull him into a circle with her sisters.

“Nice costume,” Eliza said, touching Hamilton on the arm to get his attention.

“Right back atcha.”  Hamilton tried to fix his hair and accidentally dropped the tie.  “Shoot.  Sorry—Oh, thanks.”

Eliza picked it up and handed it to him.

Angelica made a drinking motion over his shoulder with her free hand and raised her eyebrows pointedly.  Eliza hid her mouth behind her hand and looked away before she could laugh.

“What?”  Hamilton asked, a little defensive.

“How’s your semester going?”  Eliza asked.  “It was John’s birthday this last week, wasn’t it?”

“Saturday.”  Hamilton couldn’t hide his grin, especially not with the alcohol hitting him hard.  “Yeah, Saturday.  It was, well, okay fight aside, it was good.  We fixed it,” he said.  “I fixed it.  All on my own, mostly.  Hey,” he said, sticking his hand out.  “Nice to meet you, Alexander Hamilton.  You’re Peggy?”

The youngest sister looked like she was trying not to be uncomfortable in the crowd.  “Yes.”

“Pleasure.  I’m sure your sisters have told you all about me,” he joked.

“They have,” Peggy said, a little blunter than Hamilton was prepared for.  He glanced at Angelica and Eliza but neither looked guilty.

“Uh, okay, cool, cool.  What did they say, exactly?”  He added after a pause.

Angelica laughed and cut in, putting her hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and turning him slightly away from Peggy.

“Alexander, relax.  We like you.  We only told her what an idiot you are, what, a handful of times?”  She smiled at him again like she was teasing and he just nodded slowly.

“Uh-huh, sure.  You know, I’m not even offended.  Seems par for the course, Mulligan was threatening to—shit, I left him alone with Lafayette, you think that fake-innocent French jerk got anything out of him?”  He spun to look for them, forgetting that Lafayette had already moved on, but the couch was empty and the motion made him lose his balance a little and he put his arm out to steady himself, spilling some of his Rob Roy.  “Shoot, party foul.”  He took a long drink in an attempt to lower the level in his cup, then shook his head, putting his hand back up to his hair as it flew into his face and reminded him that he hadn’t actually put it back yet.

“Here,” Eliza said, taking the tie back from him and standing behind him.  She quickly combed his hair out with her fingers and then pulled it back.  “How did you want it?”

“Uh, loose, loose ponytail is fine.  Historical.”

She gently put it up for him, fixing the sides so it looked more-or-less period appropriate, and then turned him with her hands on his shoulders.  “There.”  She smiled at him and Hamilton noticed the way it made her dark  eyes turn up at the edges.  The moment went on a little too long.  “What is it?”

“Sorry.”  Hamilton shook his head and took another, shorter drink.  “Your eyes are almost black, I never noticed.  Interesting,” he said, taking one more.  “Usually I just see them brown.”

“Alexander is the one with the interesting eyes,” Angelica said, her hand on his back and turning him away from Eliza.  “Peggy, look at this.  He has such interesting starbursts in them.”

“You notice a lot of things when you do a guy’s eyebrows,” Hamilton joked, smiling easily.  “Although actually I had my eyes closed for that,” he added after a pause.  “When the heck were you staring into my eyes, Angelica?”

“It’s polite to look someone in the eye when they talk,” she responded, “and you are an inveterate talker.”

Hamilton nodded and said to Peggy in a conversational tone, “That’s true.  I haven’t shut up since I was born.  Hey, what time is it?”

Peggy looked at her sisters like she was about to make some previously aired complaint known again and Eliza quickly cut in.

“It’s not that late yet.”

“Are you thinking of going already, Alexander?”

“Nah,” Hamilton looked around again.  “Just wondering if Dearheart ducked out.”  He finished his cup.  “You wanna…”  His tongue was starting to feel unwieldy.  “Couch’s open.  You wanna sit?”

“Dearheart?”  Angelica asked as she led him to the sofa with a glance at the other two, who followed.  She seated him and sat to his left, the others took the right, Peggy shooing away one of Mulligan’s other friends to give them some space.

“That’s their couple name,” Hamilton said cheerfully.  “Lafayette and Adrienne.  Lancelot and Dearheart.  The marquis and his light.  Gil—”

“Got it.”  Angelica cut him off and took his empty cup, putting it in hers and both of them on the floor.  “Alexander, I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“How come every time I introduce you to one of my sisters you’re being a hot mess?”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.  “I’m _fine_.  You want to see drunk, you go back in time to the last party, you see Lafayette.  I had to carry him out of here, practically over my shoulder.”

“I’d pay to see you try that.”

“Oh, it’s _on_.”  Hamilton started to stand and Angelica and Eliza simultaneously pulled him back down.

“If we see him,” Eliza said.

“The next time he comes by,” Angelica promised.

Hamilton had to be satisfied with that and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  “I could carry him.  I can lift John.”

Glances were exchanged over his head.

“Congratulations?”

Hamilton turned to Angelica.  “Thanks.  Seriously, he didn’t believe me, I had to prove it to him.”

Eliza patted him fondly on the shoulder.

“God, he’s hot,” Hamilton said.  Somewhere someone either turned on music or turned the volume of the music up, he wasn’t sure.  “Like… _God_.”

“He’s okay looking.”

Hamilton looked at Peggy with wide, disbelieving eyes.  “Are you not into men?  He’s fuckin’ _fine_.”

Peggy just shrugged and Hamilton kept talking.

“Whatever.  To each her own.  John’s hot,” he said, looking at Angelica for approval.  She laughed and nodded.  “And, like, okay here’s the thing.”  He cleared his throat and moved forward a little, dropping his hands between his knees so he could talk with them.  “He’s good, like, he’s actually a good guy.  And he’s smart.  I like smart,” Hamilton said, echoing what he had been saying about André earlier without thinking about it.  “He’s so fucking smart.”

“You’re smart, too, Alexander.”

“Yeah, I know, obviously.  I got an ego.  You know what, though?”  Hamilton looked over at Eliza.  “Shit, I think sometimes that he’s smarter than me.”

Eliza laughed.  “Really?”

“Not always.”  Hamilton reached for a drink that wasn’t there, then caught himself.  “Sometimes, though.  He’s definitely more ripped than I am, so why not?  He’s fuckin’ perfect sometimes,” he said, dropping his head into his hands and running them up into his hair.  “I don’t know where he is right now, how th’ fuck did I lose him, this’s a one room party, almost.”

“Do you want a glass of water?”

“Please.”

Peggy got up and Hamilton kept talking.

“Shit, this is so fuckin’ pathetic I’m sorry.  Can I say ‘lol’?  Is that still some sorta crime against humanity or are we all just too millennial by this point t’ care?”

“Don’t say it,” Angelica advised.  “Then you’ll start talking in emojis and none of us will be able to follow you.”

Hamilton laughed, shaking.  “Sorry, sorry.  Trying to imagine how that’d work.”

“Facial expressions, probably,” Eliza mused.  “You’d only run into trouble when you moved into other categories.”

“Alexander, quick, how would you say this?”  Angelica pulled her phone out and had it open to the emoji keyboard.

“Hey, come on,” Hamilton protested, shoving her hand away.

Eliza moved a little closer to him on the sofa.  “Let me fix your hair.  You messed it up when you ran your hands through it.”

Hamilton tipped over to the side, collapsing into her lap.  It was an intentional motion, at least, even if not well-thought out.  Eliza gave Angelica a startled look and then patted Hamilton on the shoulder.

“I can’t do it like this.”

“I miss him,” Hamilton said, muffled, into her thigh.  “He’s somewhere at this party and I miss him.”

“Go find him,” Angelica said.

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t walk.”

Angelica and Eliza exchanged another look, more concerned this time.

“Are you all right?”  Eliza asked.  “Do you feel all right?”

“I feel drunk off my ass.  One drink too many and it was a big one.  Fuck, I didn’t feel it at first.”

“Do you want to go lie down?”

“Am lying down.”

“In private?”

“I want the water.”

Angelica motioned Peggy back over.  “You’ll have to sit up to drink it.”

“Have to sit up anyway before people start askin’ questions.”  Hamilton got up—to his credit without help.  “Thank you.”  He took the glass and drank.  “Yeah, that’ll help.  I don’t want John…”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go in the back?  We’d come with you.”

“And throw the already strained gender ratio off?  Please don’t.”  He took another drink.  “Hey, Margarita, can you grab me something to eat, too?”

Peggy just gave him a look and left.

“What’s up with her?”

Eliza fixed his hair.  “I’m surprised you knew what Peggy is short for.”

“Weirder than Jack for John,” Hamilton replied.  “I feel a little left out, I don’t get a nonsensical nickname.”

“I told you, you’re the little lion,” Mulligan said, taking the spot that Peggy had once again vacated.  “How’re you holding up there, champ?  I told you to cut it out.”

“I’m fine.”

“You remember where the bathroom here is, yeah?  Good thing you lived here for a couple ‘a months, ‘cause you know about my policy about makin’ anyone who hurls on my carpet pay to get it deep cleaned.  I’m all about the hygiene,” he explained to Eliza.  “Would you ladies like to go mingle?  I can take over babysitting duties for a while.”  He took a plate of crackers from Peggy.  “Thank you kindly.”

“Will you be all right with him?”

“‘Course I will.”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Angelica told Hamilton.

Mulligan laughed.  “We’ll be fine.  I’ve seen worse.  Hell, I’ve seen _him_ worse—”

“Please stop,” Hamilton cut him off.

“Right.”  Mulligan stood, still holding the plate in one hand, and pulled Hamilton up roughly, supporting him by the arm.  “Can you walk a straight line like that or do I need to get my arm around you all cozy?”

“I’m fine,” Hamilton said, pushing away and standing on his own.

“Suit yourself.  C’mon, Hamilton, I need your help with something,” Mulligan said, leading them away with that excuse.  He let them into his bedroom.  “Sit.”

Hamilton didn’t need to be told twice.  He was lying on his back on the bed before the door was even closed, the room spinning around him.

“So what happened out there?  Got too caught up tryin’ t’ impress your new beau’s friends?”

“Shut up,” Hamilton muttered in a tone that suggested that Mulligan wasn’t too far off from the truth.

Mulligan sat as gently as he could next to him on the mattress and patted his leg.  “They’ve seen worse,” he said.

“Thanks,” Hamilton said.  He maybe meant it.  “You don’t have to stay here.”

“I wanna make sure you don’t make a mess of my stuff.”

Hamilton laughed, a little disconnected.  “I fucked a girl here once.”

“Yeah, you did, you little punk.”

“You think I’m ever gonna fuck girls again?”

“You plannin’ the nuptials already?  Don’t tell me you forgot to invite me.”

Hamilton hit Mulligan with the back of his hand and let it fall next to him.  “I’m just—I _love_ him.  You were right.”

“I never said ‘love,’ I said ‘crush.’”

“You said ‘young love.’”

“I _meant_ a crush,” Mulligan amended.  “But you’re serious about this one, huh?  Does he know?”

“I didn’t even know until I said it.”

“When was that?”

“Sunday.”

“Shit,” Mulligan laughed.  “No wonder you’re a little crazy right now.”

“I miss J.”

“You want me to call him in?”

“Yes.  But don’t,” Hamilton said quickly with a last shred of dignity.  “I’ll find him later.  He didn’t go, did he?”  He asked in sudden panic.  “Lafayette left.  Did he leave with him?”

“Relax, they’re both still here.  This place’s really filled up, makes it hard to find anyone at a glance.  Fortunately for you,” Mulligan went on, “‘cause it’ll take them a little longer to realize you’re MIA.”

“Okay.  Okay, good.  I trust you.”

“I know you do.”  Mulligan patted his leg again fondly.  “You’re a good kid.”

“Herc?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too.”

Mulligan shook his head with an amused smile.  “Right back atcha.”

“I mean it, you’ve helped me a lot.  I dunno where I’d be without you.  Maybe I wouldn’t’ve made it past the first semester, given up an’ gone back to St. Croix.”

“Nah,” Mulligan said.  “You’re a fighter.  Real scrappy.”

“It’s hard sometimes.  To fight.  All the time.  It’s hard.”

“It’s a good thing you’ve got John then, isn’t it?”

Hamilton shook his head and instantly regretted it when the spinning intensified into a wave of nausea.  “No, it just means I need to—For him, too, I—”

“You feel like you gotta protect him?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton swallowed hard.

“You can’t protect him from everything, kid.  Besides which, he seems like the sort of guy who wants to fight his own battles.”

“He’s so… broken,” Hamilton said, unable to find a better word.  “Not all the time, of course, but—”  The room had steadied for just a moment but now it was turning upside down.  He swallowed again, trying to will it to stop.  “Sometimes I just—I can—”

“Hamilton?”

“I—”

Hamilton sat up suddenly and Mulligan shoved his empty trashcan at him.  He grabbed it and retched while Mulligan rubbed his back sympathetically.

“I told you not to,” Mulligan said after he had stopped, shaking his head.  “Feel better?”  He offered him the glass of water.  “On the positive side, that was a mostly coherent conversation we just had.  You want me to find your boyfriend now?”

“John?”  Hamilton leaned back, breathing hard.  He still felt drunk, but more pleasantly so, and the world was no longer moving dizzily.  Hearing Laurens referred to as his boyfriend sent a happy thrill through him in spite of the circumstances.  “Uh, no.  No, that’s fine.  You said he’s here?”

“Outside, yeah.  Last I saw he was talkin’ sports with that East Indian guy.”

“Got it.”  Hamilton took a steadying breath and another long drink of water.  He took a handful of crackers off the plate.  “Let me, uh, let me clean up.  I just need to sit here a minute and then I’ll take care of this.”

“All right.”  Mulligan clapped him on the shoulder and stood.  “Give me a shout if you need anything.”


	104. Halloween Pt. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party Finale

“What are you doing?”

McHenry jumped, automatically tipping his phone towards his chest.  If he hadn’t been standing against the wall he would have taken a step back.  “Nothing,” he said.  “Just checking my messages.”

Lafayette nodded and leaned up against the wall next to him.  “Do you know where Alexander went?”  He scanned the room, then turned back to McHenry.  “Have you met Adrienne?”

“No.”

“You should.  She’s talking with Eliza.”

“Yeah.  We’re in English together,” he explained when Lafayette looked at him curiously.  “I don’t actually know her either.”

“You should,” Lafayette enthused, stepping forward and urging him to follow.  “Why come all the way out here if not to meet people?  You look very handsome,” Lafayette encouraged him when he seemed to hesitate.   “And I will feel very bad if I leave you in the corner.  Please come.”

“I wasn’t in the corner,” McHenry protested but followed.  “I just wanted to check my mail.”

“When I was a child,” Lafayette said, threading his way through the crowd, “my aunt had a friend with a little dog.  When this friend had parties—oh, Peggy, have you met Aglae?”  He paused, distracted from his story to nudge Aglae towards Peggy Schuyler.  “I don't know what you two have in common, but please discuss.  The dog went around the room,” he said to McHenry, picking right back up where he had left off, “and, how do you say, _rassemblait_ the people who were alone back into groups.”  He beckoned McHenry forward and presented him to the other two.  “I am that dog.  Adrienne,” he said brightly, “this is James McHenry.  He studies medicine and plays with John.”

“Nice to meet you.”  McHenry shook hands with her and then rather awkwardly raised it in greeting to Eliza.  “Hi.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette continued, slipping his arm around her waist, “I missed you.  Are you enjoying yourself?  Where’s Adelaide?”

“Oh, she was just talking to my sister,” Eliza said, turning and scanning the room for them.  She frowned.  “Maybe they went out onto the balcony.”

“There’s a balcony?”

“I thought Alex said you had been here before?”  Eliza teased.

“I was distracted.  Where _is_ Alex?”

“The host wanted him,” Eliza said, then moved him away from that line of questioning.  “So do you two know each other through John?”

Lafayette was trying to see through the people.  “ _Is_ there a balcony?  Does it have a view?”

“It’s small,” Eliza told him.  “I don’t think there’s much room for all of us on it.”

“If it looks nice, could you take a picture of Adrienne and me on it later?”

“Of course.”

Lafayette spotted Adelaide and patted McHenry on the shoulder.  “Don’t get lost again.  I will collect you.”  He left them again, slipping through people until he was right behind Adelaide.

“ _Ciao_.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled and turned.  “Gilbert.”

“Is there a balcony?”

She laughed.  “How much did you have to drink?”

“None at all.”

“Yes,” she relented, “there is.  Would you like to see it?”

“I’d like some air.  It’s difficult making sure that everyone is enjoying themselves.”

“I thought this was that Hercules Mulligan’s party.”

“It’s his apartment.  And three others’.  But it was all my idea in the first place, so I feel obliged to help out.”

“I’m sure he appreciates it,” Adelaide said, lifting a window and climbing out onto a narrow landing.  Lafayette followed her.  “It’s a little cold out here.  Are you going to be all right?”

“I don’t want to stay very long—oh, Gouverneur!”

“Hey.”  Gouverneur was sitting next to Grayson at the end of the balcony.  He raised his hand in greeting and a cloud of smoke followed.

“Close the window,” Adelaide told Lafayette.

“Ah, right.”  Lafayette carefully passed in front of her and even more carefully knelt next to Gouverneur.  “Have you been out here the whole time?”

Gouverneur looked at Grayson.  “What, twenty minutes?”

“Something like that.  Could go for a slice of that pie about now.”

“Told you.  Hey,” Gouverneur turned back to Lafayette with a grin, “Junior, you wanna be a doll and go get us some pie?”

“Is that catching on?”  Lafayette complained.

“Junior?”

He looked up at Adelaide with a little frustrated noise.  “No.”

She put her hand on his shoulder sympathetically.

“God,” Gouverneur said, taking a deep breath.  “You smell that?  That’s NYC, sinking right into your soul.  You don’t get this kind of organic cityscape most places.  It’s big enough here that it’s its own kind of animal.  You know what I mean?”

The lazy traffic on the street a few floors down continued to pass by them and Adelaide stepped forward, crossing her arms on the metal railing.  Lafayette looked at how she was lit from behind through the window and then turned his attention back to the other two.

“It’s like a kind of ecosystem.”

“Alexander likens it to the sea,” Lafayette said.  Grayson leaned forward to look at him around Gouveneur.  “What did he say…”  Lafayette paused, thinking.  “Ah,” he picked up again, “he told me once when we had just met that the city was like an ocean because of the currents in it.  People coming in and out.  Making…” he motioned helplessly with his hand in front of him.

“Eddies,” Adelaide filled in when it became apparent that the other two were at a loss.  “Or ripples.”

Lafayette nodded thankfully.  “Yes.  One or the other, I don’t remember how his analogy went exactly.  He was talking very quickly and we had only _just_ met.”

“Laurens likes him a lot,” Grayson said.  “I always kind of figured that if he was dating someone we’d just never find out.  I didn’t think he’d actually talk about it.”

“Were you surprised?”

“Hell yeah.  Give me that.”  He took a long drag.  “He outed himself, man.  I dunno if he or everyone else was more surprised.”

“Good for him,” Gouverneur said.  “He’s got nothing to hide.  We should all be trying to live authentically.”  It came off as faux-deep and Grayson cracked up at the irony.  Gouverneur nudged him and started to laugh as well, then draped his arm across his shoulders.  “You jackass, what’s wrong with what I said?  Don’t you think I’m right?”

Adelaide put her hand to her mouth, smiling behind it.  Lafayette got to his feet and put his hands on the railing, leaning forward and then pushing himself back up.

“…This thing is strong enough, isn’t it?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“I’m getting cold,” Lafayette admitted, “but the view is so nice.”

Adelaide looked across the street at the blocky apartment complex rising up to face them, then down along it to the row of worn storefronts with irregularly lit signs.  “It is,” she agreed and turned to him, no longer hiding her smile. 

“…I should go back inside,” Lafayette said after a long pause, his gaze lingering on her eyes.

“I’ll stay out a little longer,” Adelaide said, facing forward again.  Lafayette nodded and left her, almost bumping right into Aglae and Peggy as he climbed through the window again.  “ _Excusez-moi._   Ah, I thought of something,” he said as they kept talking, ignoring him completely.  “You are both dressed as Maries.  _Voilà_.  Discuss.”

They continued to ignore him and Lafayette made a vaguely annoyed gesture and left to find Adrienne again.

He spotted Eliza by the entrance to the kitchen and headed her way in the hope that Adrienne would be with her.  When he got closer he could see that she was facing McHenry instead and he couldn’t really feel disappointed.

“I didn’t lose you,” he remarked lightly as the other two turned to include him in the conversation.  “You two just moved.”

“It was so crowded over there,” Eliza explained.  “There’s a little more room over here.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette agreed.  “Is that the trick?  I like being in a crowd.  They’re so energizing, what’s the point of going to a party and not be right in the fray?”

“Not everyone is as extroverted as you are.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Lafayette promised.  “What are we talking about?”

“Not much.”  Eliza waved her hand smoothly towards McHenry.  “We were just talking about class.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Lafayette nodded.  “Did your sister ever tell you that I’m in class with her as well?”

“Peggy?  Yes.”  Eliza laughed when a pause betrayed that Lafayette was waiting for more information.  “She didn’t say much.  When I mentioned your name before she said that she knew you.”

“She’s a good student,” Lafayette said.  “She does well, she’s very smart.”

Eliza smiled.  “I’ll pass the compliment along.”

“Thank you.”  Lafayette tapped McHenry on the shoulder.  “Have you seen Adrienne?”

“I think she’s…”  He raised up a little on his toes and scanned the room, then pointed towards the front door.  “She was talking to Angelica and Humphreys.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette repeated, wondering if he should be concerned.  “I’ll check the, how you say, _périmètre_ for you two later.”

 

Laurens kept glancing around the room during his conversation with Tench, unable to spot Hamilton in the crowd but also not wanting to go look for him.  He had seen him talking to Lafayette, and then Angelica, and he knew no one had gone past him and out the front door, but…

“J., there you are.”

The problem was suddenly resolved as Hamilton appeared out of nowhere to slip his arm through his.  He leaned against him.  Laurens tried not to feel embarrassed and focused instead on being pleased that he was back with him again.

“Where were you?  I lost track of you.”

“Talking to Mulligan.”  Hamilton was running his fingers lightly over his arm.

Laurens saw Tench notice that and make an effort to maintain eye contact and he put his hand to his face for a moment, awkward.  “I see.  And now?”

“Now I’m back.  Here with you.”  Hamilton seemed unaware of what his hand was doing.  “I missed you, J.”

Laurens actually did start to blush at that and Tench held a carefully neutral face.

“Are you drunk?”  He asked him.

“I just said that I miss you,” Hamilton repeated, grinning like it was a private joke.  “You’re pretty hot, J.  He is, isn’t he?”  He asked Tench, who laughed and agreed.

“Yeah, he’s a ladykiller.”

“Not the word I’d’ve used,” Hamilton said, “but, you know,” he lowered his voice just a little, “I can be a real maneater.”

Laurens turned redder.  “That’s not what that—”

“But _you_ know what I mean.  C’mon, J.”

“Excuse us,” Laurens said and Hamilton practically chased after him as he started to walk away.

“Come on, J., let’s just—”

“No,” Laurens said, properly embarrassed now but taking his hand to ensure that he followed.

“But J.—”

“No.”

Hamilton laughed, catching up to and standing in front of him and slipping his free hand in his back pocket so that Laurens was trapped as he pressed his hips against his and moved them in a circle.  “I just want to suck you off in the bathroom.”  His voice was low, feral, but still tinged with the flirtatious drunken buzz he felt.

“Stop it,” Laurens said.  “You’re drunk.”

“I know.”  Hamilton pulled his hand free from Laurens’ grip and put it behind his neck, bringing him down into a kiss that Laurens found himself unable to resist.  Hamilton tasted sharp and minty and he rubbed against him in just such a way that Laurens felt himself begin to stir.  “I don’t care,” Hamilton said.  “Please, J.”  He traced his fingers over the back of his neck.  “I love you,” he said, in a whisper, his hands now on the lapels of Laurens’ costume and then smoothing out the jacket over his chest.

Laurens felt rather than heard the words and knew there was no way he could say no.

He let Hamilton take the lead now, pulling him by the hand through the room and to the hall at the end of it.

“The door’s closed,” Laurens said.  “I think someone’s—”

“It’s empty,” Hamilton said.  “I was just in here—”

Hamilton pushed the bathroom door open and they both stopped abruptly.  Hamilton let go of Laurens’ hand.  Inside, Benedict Arnold and Peggy Shippen were up against the wall, mouths together and his hand on her breasts, freed from their top.

They jerked away (he jerked away, she had nowhere to go) and Laurens took a step forward angrily, Hamilton’s proposition immediately forgotten.

“What the fuck is this?—I’m not talking to you,” he said with a sharp gesture at Peggy, his eyes narrowed and trained on Arnold like the sight of a gun.  “What the fuck are you doing?”  His voice was loud and people were already being grabbed by it, starting to crowd into the hallway to see.

“Look,” Arnold said, taking a half step forward and then a full step back as Peggy did up her top and Laurens seemed to grow another inch or two in height, his shoulders back and his right hand in a fist that was already starting to be drawn.

“Well?”  Laurens hardly paused, there was no real time to give him an answer.  “Time’s up.”  He turned at the waist, pulling his arm back and snapping the punch so that it hit Arnold in the jaw with a loud crack.

Arnold staggered back a couple of steps but then his foot hit the shower stall and he steadied himself and came back at him with his right and then, when Laurens leaned out of the way, his left as an uppercut to the body.  It collided and people were shouting now and Laurens could hear Peggy’s voice yelling at them to stop but he had tunnel vision and the only thing  he could see was Arnold in front of him—he wanted to see him on the floor underneath his foot—and the hit hadn’t been enough to immobilize him, only to urge him on—

Things were falling off the shelving and sink.  Something shattered.  Laurens missed and hit the shower stall with a loud bang and then there were hands on him, forcing him away even while he tried to keep swinging—at least, until his arms were forced behind his back—and someone was shouting at him.

“John.  _John_!”

He was still struggling but he was becoming aware of the crowd again, of how many people were watching, of his own sweat and heavy breathing and of Arnold, kept at a distance by Mulligan standing between them.

“Get off of me.”  The words came out much harsher than they should have and he was not released.

“The fuck happened here?”  Mulligan asked, gesturing around them.  “You trying t’ get the cops called or some shit?”

“He hit me,” Arnold said—he had managed to hold his own nicely and although one of his eyes was starting to swell he was still standing and was able to talk clearly.  “I was kissing his friend’s date.”

“You would’ve done a hell of a lot more than that if I hadn’t come in when I had,” Laurens said angrily.  “Get the fuck _off_ of me,” he repeated, “I’m not going to hit him again.”  He was released and he touched his face automatically, realizing for the first time that there was blood dripping down it.

There was a stoney silence.

“You were kissing him?”  André’s voice was quiet.

Peggy was next to him in the hall and people moved to give them space, circling them.

“What were you—”

For the briefest second Peggy’s eyes darted around them, wide and blue and calculating, then she let out a little wail and dropped her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs.  “Yes,” she said brokenly.  “Yes, I’m sorry, John.”

André was staring at her in disbelief.  “You…”  He looked helplessly through the crowd at Laurens, then back at Peggy.  “I don’t…”

She made a desperately sad noise and continued to cry.

“Come on,” André said after a moment and stepped away.  People parted to let him.  “We’re not doing this here.”  He grabbed his clothes and his coat and left.

Peggy followed him out the front door.

“Right,” Mulligan said once the door closed.  “Let’s get some breathing room, people.  Back it up.  Return to your previously enjoyable evening.  You all right?”  He said, with professionalism more than sympathy, to Arnold, who nodded and muttered a response.  “Good.  Now,” he looked over at Laurens, who didn’t need to be told but turned and walked away.  Hamilton followed him.

“J.?”

“I know.  He can’t kick that son of a bitch out.”  Laurens was sorting through a once-organized pile by the door.  He pulled his pants on, too angry still to feel ridiculous about it, and then his shoes.

Hamilton grabbed his own things.  “You’re still bleeding, J.”

Laurens ran his hand across his face.  It came back red and wet and he swore.

Lafayette handed him a fistful of tissue.  “Put your head down.”

Laurens took it and cleaned himself roughly, then held it to his nose, not lowering his head.

“We’re heading out as well,” he said, collecting their belongings.  “We planned to leave at about this time anyway.  It was a good party until the last five minutes or so,” he added, handing Adrienne her coat.

“How are you?”

Laurens looked over at Tallmadge and recognized dimly that he had been the one holding him back.

“Nothing’s broken.  He’s got a weak arm.”

“Good,” Tallmadge said, not touching that last part.  “Are you guys okay?  Do you want me to head back with you?”

“I’m fine,” Laurens said, aggressively.

“There’s four of us,” Lafayette said more diplomatically.  “Please enjoy the rest of the party.”

Tallmadge nodded and let them go.


	105. Bloodied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Cleaning up

Outside in the hall, then going down the stairs, Laurens didn’t speak.  Lafayette was chatting with Adrienne—to reassure her that everything was fine, he suspected—and Hamilton was trailing behind them.

As they left the building and stepped out onto the sidewalk, Laurens finally spoke.

“Should I go back to the dorms?”

“Of course not,” Lafayette answered quickly.

Laurens shook his head at him and looked to Hamilton.  “Alexander?”

“Hm?  No, don’t.”

“Are you sure?”  It was hard to talk while trying to keep blood from dripping down onto his costume.

“Don’t,” Hamilton repeated, catching up to him and taking his free hand.

Laurens nodded and stopped talking again.  This time he was silent all the way down the street and through the subway ride, letting Hamilton say their goodbyes for him when their paths parted a little after the station.

“I’m sorry,” he said in the poor light of street lamps and the occasional lit store sign.  He didn’t mean it and it was audible in the tone, even with his voice rather muffled.

“I’m not.”

Laurens looked down in surprise at Hamilton and found that he was watching him steadily.

“I saw him talking to André earlier.  There’s no way he didn’t find out then, that guy slips her into every conversation possible.  And André is your friend,” Hamilton went on, taking his hand and sticking them in Laurens’ pocket.  “I don’t blame you at all for going a little ballistic.”

Laurens sighed, hard.

“Are you worried about André?”

“Of course.  But they’re talking.”

“He’ll be fine.”  Hamilton bumped against him and Laurens remembered how not-exactly-sober he had been back at the party.

“Are you okay?”

“Me?”  Hamilton asked.  “Yeah, totally.  Yeah.  …You?”

“…I kind of like fights,” Laurens admitted, his hand still holding the tissues to his nose.

“Oh, good, me too.”

Laurens was surprised to be pushed suddenly up against the wall of the building they were walking past, Hamilton knocking his hand aside and kissing him hungrily.  He was almost more surprised to feel that Hamilton was already hard as it pressed against his leg.

Laurens dropped his hand and put them both at Hamilton’s waist, holding him to him even as he pushed his tongue into his mouth, apparently no longer able to restrain himself.  Hamilton moaned softly into the kiss, the sound low and much more like a growl than a whimper, and Laurens felt a hot finger trace down his spine.  Hamilton pressed his hips more firmly against him, holding Laurens securely in place by the lapel, and practically eating him alive until—

Laurens jerked his head back, knocking it against the wall and starting to cough.  “—Can’t breathe like that,” he made out after a few seconds, Hamilton now standing a step or two back and watching in alarm, his own face smudged a little with blood.

Hamilton’s shoulders relaxed.  “Oh.  Right.”  He laughed.  “My bad.”

Laurens blew wet air hard through his nose and wiped it on the back of his hand with another streak of red.  “Sorry,” he muttered, embarrassed.

“Don’t apologize.”  Hamilton took his hand, leading him away more quickly now as Laurens put the tissues back to his face.  “Are vampires still in?”  He asked as they neared his apartment building.  “Not the sparkling kind, I don’t have any glitter, not my aesthetic.  The blood goes, though.  Hold up.”  He took his keys out of his pocket and let them in, pulling Laurens up the stairs and to his room, where he eagerly let them in and then pushed Laurens up against the closed door.

“Is your face still bleeding?”

“Not—”  Laurens found it hard to talk when Hamilton was rubbing him over his pants.  “Not sure.”

“Come on,” Hamilton said, stepping back, “let’s get you cleaned up.”  He was already undoing the top buttons of his jacket like he couldn’t stand to be constrained as he led the way to the bathroom.  “Sit.”

Laurens, obediently, sat on the closed toilet.

“Toss that.”  Hamilton was wetting a handful of paper and then he leaned in, carefully looking over his face.  “Let me.”  He straddled him and Laurens felt himself respond.  Hamilton was gingerly wiping off his face, cleaning it, and Laurens let his eyes close, enjoying the attention.  His face was already starting to bruise and swell—his nose, mostly, and Hamilton apologized when he touched it.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Laurens said, meaning it.  The care made it more than worth it.

“You’re such a reckless moron,” Hamilton murmured, very slowly wiping off one last trail of blood and touching the damp paper to the swelling.  “I love it.”

Laurens was grinning without being able to help himself.  “Yeah?”

By means of response Hamilton kissed him again, more gently than before but still tense with desire.  He moved away after a few seconds.  “I think it’s mostly stopped.  Here.”  He tossed the wet paper and handed him a dry fistful, intentionally rocking against him so that Laurens’ eyes closed again and his lips parted.

A breath of a moan escaped him and Hamilton moved over him again, sliding his hands up over his chest and then slowly undoing the buttons to his jacket.  “This suits you.”

“The uniform or the blood?”

“Both.  I’d have gotten all kinds of historically freaky with you, J.”  He tugged his jacket open and undid his cravat, running a hand up over his neck.  Laurens pressed his hips forward.

Hamilton slowly got up, his hands on his chest and leaning in but stopping _just_ before their lips met.

“Fuck me.”

Laurens reached for him, heady with desire, but Hamilton stepped away with a grin.  “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”  The word was almost growled and Laurens stood, discarding the paper and grabbing Hamilton at the waist, pulling him to him and kissing him, hard and short, then turning and pushing him against the sink.

Hamilton gasped, eager, and spread his legs as Laurens ran his hand between them and back up.

“Jacket,” he said, tossing his own out the door.

Hamilton got back to work on his buttons as Laurens leaned over him, his hands on either side, and kissed his jaw and ear.

“Mm…”  Hamilton tipped his head to the side.  “John…”

“Alex.”  He bit his earlobe, harder than Hamilton had expected, and _pressed_ his hips to him.  

Hamilton moaned softly, feeling Laurens hard against him and he yanked his jacket off, dropping it to the ground and immediately bringing his hands down to undo his fly.  Laurens encouraged him, grinding against him and biting his neck as Hamilton made an impatient noise and tugged his pants down.  They fell to his knees and he spread his legs as far as he could, leaning further over the sink.  He glanced up and caught sight of himself in the mirror—face starting to flush, hair still pulled back, long sleeved white shirt tugged a little to the side as Laurens bit him.  A little smear of blood was still visible on his jaw and he grinned.  He tipped his head further to the side, admiring the sharp cut of his neck in the mirror and drew one arm back, putting his hand on Laurens’ head and holding him down.

Laurens took one hand off of the sink to tug at Hamilton’s boxer briefs and Hamilton quickly pulled them down as well, biting back a moan as his bare cock rubbed against the wooden cabinet.

“Open the drawer.”

Hamilton leaned to the side a little, opening and fumbling inside of it one handed.  He offered up the bottle of lube and then, when Laurens just wordlessly presented his open hand, poured some out.  He was well-rewarded for it.  Laurens wrapped his hand around his shaft, stroking it as Hamilton groaned, and then cupping his sac and running his thumb over it.

“John,” Hamilton gasped, rocking his hips.  “I’m ready.  Don’t you—”

“Yes,” Laurens said.  His voice was low and it made Hamilton’s knees weak.

Laurens moved away slightly and let go of him to pull down his own pants and underwear.  He let his cock press against him as he pushed a finger into him.  He couldn’t help but touch himself as Hamilton moaned.

“John…”

Laurens bit his neck again and worked in another finger, hearing Hamilton gasp and feeling him lean back towards him.  Laurens bent his fingers, pressing against him, and Hamilton moaned encouragingly.

“J.,” he said.  “John, yes, please…”

Laurens couldn’t wait any longer.  He took his hand away and pushed into him with a long hungry noise.

Laurens quickly set a fast pace, thrusting hard into him, the adrenaline from before still in his veins.  Hamiltons heart was racing and he closed his eyes against the pain.

“More…”

God, the pain was good right now.

Laurens didn’t hesitate—maybe he wasn’t thinking, probably he would feel guilty later—and slammed into him, knocking his legs into the laminate wood.  Hamilton gasped and cried out, repeating his name, and Laurens continued, throwing restraint to the wind and letting himself be consumed by the blend of anger and arousal, how good it had felt to hit Arnold and how good it felt now to fuck Hamilton.  He looked up and saw Hamilton’s face reflected back at him in the mirror, his own mostly blocked behind his shoulder.  Hamilton’s eyes were tightly shut and sweat was beading and running down his brow, his mouth open as he called his name.

Laurens wrapped one arm around his chest, partially to support him and partially to hold him tightly to him as he felt the edges of his mind go blank.  It was a hot, rough, _need_ more than anything else and he was surrendering to it, not thinking about how hard he was going.  It was just sensation and the knowledge that Hamilton had surrendered to him, that he had given himself over to him and—

Laurens came, forcefully, deep inside of him.

Hamilton shuddered and came as well, letting Laurens hold him up as his knees buckled.

Laurens stayed there for several long seconds, breathing hard with his heart pounding, then stepped away.  Hamilton gave a little cry of protest and grabbed him with one hand, his other arm shaking as he put his weight on it.

“Wait—”

Laurens nodded, his chest rising and falling heavily.  While he didn’t say anything he also didn’t move away again.

After a minute Hamilton pushed himself up taller.  “All right.  You can go.  Make the bed?  I’m gonna…” He stumbled and braced himself on the wall when he tried to turn for the shower.  Laurens was immediately behind him again with his arms around him, kissing the side of his temple over his damp hair.

“I’m fine,” Hamilton said.  “Just…  I gotta wash up, J.  Give me a minute.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.  Shit, you really went for it.”  He laughed shakily and got into the stall.  “Make the bed.  I’m gonna fall right into it.”

Laurens hesitated, concerned and uncertain, as Hamilton turned on the water and leaned against the wall, letting it hit him.  He grabbed yet another handful of paper and wet it, washing himself off in the sink, then left him and went to unfold the futon.

After about ten minutes Laurens went back to the bathroom.  “Alex?”

The water was still running and Hamilton was standing with his back to the wall, lips parted slightly and eyes closed, the curtain half open so that the floor was getting wet.  “Are you all right?”

“Get the water.”

Laurens did.  Hamilton put out his hand and then, when Laurens offered his, grabbed his arm to steady himself while he climbed out.

He immediately sat down on the floor of the bathroom.

“Alex?”  Laurens asked again, surprise and concern in his voice.  He quickly knelt next to him.  “I’m—Did I hurt you?”

“Shit,” Hamilton swore, brushing his wet hair out of his face.  “No, I—” His voice was a little unsteady.  “—I can’t walk.”

Laurens just stared.

“This is so stupid.  My legs,” Hamilton was embarrassed and trying to explain.  “I can’t…  I thought if I just took a minute…”

Laurens offered him a hand again.  Hamilton stopped talking and took it.

Laurens stood, pulling Hamilton up with him, then slipped under his arm and picked him up.  Hamilton put his arms loosely around his neck and his face against his neck.

“Don’t say a word,” he muttered.

“Now we know that I can lift you as well,” Laurens said.  Hamilton tensed in annoyance and Laurens kissed the side of his head.  He could feel his cheeks hot against his skin.  “I love you.”  They felt like they would brand him.  He wished they would.  “Here.”

Laurens knelt just off the side of the mattress and Hamilton let go, sliding off of him and lying down on his back.  Laurens lay on top of him, propping himself up on his elbows and toying lightly with his hair, and kissed him.

“I love you.”  Hamilton said it this time and it sounded like he had forgiven him.

“Good.”  Laurens was comfortable like that and he kissed him again, then nuzzled the side of his face and gave a long slow sigh.  His own limbs felt heavy and he was more than willing to stay put when Hamilton wrapped his arm around one of his to hold him in place and closed his eyes.


	106. 1776

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Getting Historically Freaky

“Oh,” Adrienne said.  She was kneeling on the floor in front of Lafayette’s open desk drawer.  “That’s what they sent you.”

“Yes.”  Lafayette was watching her.  “I haven’t…  Well, no, I definitely have, but not very much.”

Adrienne gave a little self-conscious laugh.  “And you wanted to use one tonight?”

“Yes.”

“We have before,” she mused.  “None of these.”

“No, none of these.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“I’d prefer if you chose,” Lafayette answered honestly.

Adrienne smiled and sorted through the drawer.  “Sit on your bed.  Please.”

Lafayette did quickly and folded his hands in his lap, waiting.  “Would you like me to…?”

“No, stay like that.  That’s fine.”

He nodded, anticipation building as she took another minute to decide and then stood, hitching her skirts up off of the floor and holding the stroker and a bottle of lubricant in her hand.

“All right.”  She put it on the mattress next to him and straddled his legs, putting her hands lightly on his shoulders and kissing him.  He made a pleased and eager noise into it and kissed her back, putting his hands at her waist.  She moved her hands down, over his chest without undoing the jacket, and then to the sash at his waist, which she untied with the familiarity that came with knowing every inch of the costume.  She discarded it gently and slid forward to rub up against him a little before undoing his fly and murmuring against his lips.

“Arch.”

He lifted off the bed and let her slide them down, giving a soft moan at the feel of her skirts on his bare legs.  The soft fabric shifted and was replaced with warm flesh under sheer stockings and he felt his body react instinctively.  Her legs were on the outsides of his and the were pressing firmly against him, pinning him in place, and he could feel her muscles tense as she slid forward and back against him, one hand in front and rubbing against him when she moved towards him.  He moved his hands up higher and his fingers brushed silk ribbons.

He groaned.  “Oh…”

“I enjoyed myself tonight,” she said.  “Although I wish we had left on a lighter note.”

“So—did I.”  Lafayette leaned into her.  “So did I.”

“But it was the right time to go,” she went on.  “I didn’t want to stay much longer anyway.  I need to be in bed in an hour or so…”

“Mm.”  He cracked a smile.  “A whole hour.  Oh, my love, I look forward to it.”

She kissed his cheek lightly, her lips just brushing against him, and traced her fingers just as faintly over the front of his briefs.  Lafayette’s hips jerked.

“As do I.”  She continued to tease him—just the tips of her fingers and feather light.  He moved his hips in a small circle, impatient, knowing what he could look forward to and—while he was aware that this was going to make it that much better—eager to get there.

“Adrienne,” he said, not quite pleading.

“Not yet.”

“I know.  I know…  You couldn’t use it yet, I know.”

“Soon.”

“Yes, soon.”  He was smiling again, his head tipping back.  “Once I—can.  Then?”

She gave a little laugh.  “You’re in a rush tonight.”

“I can’t help it,” he breathed.  “I—can I tell you something, my dearheart?”

“Of course.”  She was still moving her hand.

“I love these costumes.”

She gave him a little look—it wasn’t quite as surprised as he might have liked.

“We’ve done things in them before,” he said quickly.  “And that’s probably—part of it.”  His voice got a little breathy as she ran a finger over his slit repeatedly.  “But it’s more than that.  Oh…”  He tightened his grip on her and she _teased_ him, not letting up even when he closed his eyes and ducked his head against the side of her neck, his breathing coming faster, little short gasps.  “My love.”

“You’re getting wet,” Adrienne said.

Lafayette laughed, almost embarrassed.  “You haven’t even touched me yet.”

“I am touching you now”

“Not directly.  Not even with the whole of your—hand.  I know you did briefly,” he clarified quickly.  “Not barely.  You’re just—I like thinking about it,” he said in the tone of an admission.  “I like thinking about you in that dress, all the layers that get in the way and impede me from what I want.  The stockings and garters and underskirts…  And I like the uniform on myself and the figure I—cut in it.”  He paused and continued, sending a little more self-conscious.  “I imagine sometimes…”

“Yes?”  The cloth really was damp now and she was still running her finger over it.  “Tell me.”

“…That I’m meeting you, just for a night or a week or a month, fresh from battle and victory.  Still smelling like—gun powder.  And you’re so,” he gasped as she pressed a little harder.  “You missed me and we didn’t know if we would see one another again, but we did, and I’m unscathed and we’re so—we just have to celebrate it somehow and who knows—”

“When we will have the chance again,” she finished for him as he opened his mouth against her skin in a silent gasp.  She slid her other hand

“Really?”

“Mm.”  She tugged lightly at the material and he groaned.  “Gil.  Take these off.”

He lifted off the bed again a little and slid them down as far as he could.  She raised with him and when she sat back they were hidden in her skirts.  Somehow that sent an additional thrill through him.

His cock was hard and jutting and she was careful not to touch it with either her hand or the fabric of her costume.  He thought that she would pick up the stroker then but instead she leaned back—she _rubbed_ herself over his legs to do so and he thought he felt the cotton of her underwear drag a little against him as if he was not the only one getting aroused.  Lafayette was going to protest but then she put one hand on his cheek, turning his face down a little to look at her body and drew her hands slowly up the front of her costume to the collar.  There were several inches of skin above it and she brushed her hand over that expanse and then set about deliberately undoing the buttons of her dress, all the way down to her waist so that the thicker fabric fell open and revealed her white underdress.  She gently pulled the fabric down, the tie becoming undone and the garment loosening, and exposed her breasts.  His breath caught in his throat.

“Touch me,” she said.  “I missed you.”

Lafayette understood immediately that she was giving him permission to continue the fantasy and he eagerly cupped her breasts, leaning in and kissing them.  She tipped her head back with a soft gasp.

“I missed you as well,” he said.  “It’s been too long.”

“And it won’t be long enough.”

“No.”

“How long do you have?”

“Just an hour.”

“An hour,” she pouted.  “That’s not enough.”

“No,” he said with genuine regret.  “It’s not.”

“We’ll have to make every minute count.”  She moved forward and he couldn't help the moan that escaped him when her dress brushed over his shaft.  “Hold me.”

Lafayette put one arm around her, keeping her close, but left the other at her chest as he sucked lightly on her breast, running his tongue over her nipple and taking it gently into his mouth.

She made a soft pleased sound and then he felt a slick pressure over  his cock.  He groaned louder.

“Oh, my dearheart…”

“Is that enough?  Do we need more oil?”

He tensed slightly.  “You didn’t grab the—”

“Oh, no, sorry.”  She sounded embarrassed.  “It’s water-based, I was just trying to keep to the part.”

He relaxed immediately, although he mentally kicked himself for breaking the tone.  “Don’t apologize.  Please, keep going.”

Adrienne nodded and pushed the stroker further down on him as he continued to play with her breasts, moving from one to the other as if he couldn’t decide what he wanted.

She slowly pulled it off of him and his breathing quickened.

“Please…”

“More?”

“More.”

“Before you have to leave again?”

“We have so little time.”

She moved it over him again.  Down and then up, using it like she would her hand and his hips were arching towards her and his cock was already starting to ache.  He squeezed her breast harder but pressed his face against her neck and shoulder again, eyes tightly shut and his breath coming fast and hot on her skin.

“I’ll miss you,” he managed.

“Don’t say that yet.”

“I will.  I’ll—Ah—”  He whimpered as she sped up.  “Oh, Adrienne—”

“Tell me you’ll return to me.”

“I will.  I will, Adrienne, I —”

“You sound desperate.”

“To let you know.”

She laughed a little.  “I don’t think that’s it.”

His response was just a desperate whine.

“Why is it really?”

“I—told—you,” he said with difficulty, his hips jerking and his eyes closed with such force that the black was edged with white.  “I’ll—”

“Gilbert?”

“—I’ll miss you, that’s, that’s why.”

“And?  What else?”

“And that—It feels so good, my love, but I don’t want it to be over so soon…”

“Finish now,” Adrienne said.  Her words encouraged the heat coiling in his groin and he felt it start to spread towards his shaft.  He fought it back in spite of her command.  “Finish now and then we will have time for me to try again.”  She nudged one of his legs in a little and shifted to the side and rubbed herself against him.  If he had any doubts before they were quelled—she was definitely wet and he heard her breath hitch at the friction.  That did it.  He couldn’t control it.  Lafayette came with a long moan as he held her and he bucked his hips as she refused to just let him but instead kept moving the stroker over him, pressing him with it tightly.

Once he was done she pulled it off—his hips shook again and for a moment he thought he wasn’t quite finished yet—and then she put it to the side and slid up his legs and let her skirts fall over him, holding herself up above him.  She would have kissed him except he wouldn’t let her, still wanting to keep his head pressed to her neck.

“Gil?”

“I love you,” he said.  “Please, keep going.  I just—I have to leave soon and—I want—I want to remember this.”

She smiled fondly and put her hand on the back of his neck.  He moaned softly at the touch.

“You’re such a good man.”

“I shouldn’t have gone.”

“There was a war to fight.”

Lafayette knew he could easily fall back into an old circular argument, one that was held mostly in his own head, and he pushed against it.  “True.”

“Let me give you a hero’s goodbye.”

He let her tip his head up this time and she kissed him, her tongue in her mouth, and lowered herself against him.  He groaned into the kiss as she rubbed his tender cock.  The fabric was wet enough that it dragged against him and he wished that he hadn't already finished.

“Condom,” he gasped.

“Not yet,” she pointed out.

“Off the side of the bed.”

“I remember.”

He nodded and surrendered himself to the kiss and the movement.  She was grinding against him and his heart was racing.  He ran his hand up her side, feeling the seams of the dress and he imagined them a new setting, over two hundred years ago, more lavishly furnished, more fraught with danger.  He imagined how desperate she must be for him, for his touch and his heat, and he imagined how little contact they would have and therefore how much advantage he should take of this moment in time.

“Gil,” she breathed in a pause in the kiss, “my love.”

“Touch me,” he gasped.  “Touch yourself.  Please.  I want to—I just need—”

She kissed him again and then leaned away—in spite of his command to her he whimpered a little in desperation.

Adrienne hitched her skirts up again and pulled them back over her legs.  He watched as she put one hand on his thigh to steady herself and then slid her other into her own underwear, rubbing her clit with one finger and tipping her head back with a silent moan.  Her fingers bit into his leg and he was mesmerized.  He could feel the blood pounding in his head, his heart, his groin.

Adrienne dripped her hand further back and then moved it off of herself and onto him and he felt a rush through his whole body.  It was wet.

“Oh—”

His eyes were wide.

“Please,” she said.  She was running it over him as he hardened.  “Please.  I need this.”

“Take it,” he said in a breath.

He watched as she leaned to the side to retrieve a condom and then opened it and worked it onto his shaft.  It was barely on when she lifted herself up and slowly—so gloriously slowly—lowered herself onto him.  He moaned her name and put his hands on her thighs over the folds of fabric.

She was so wet, so slippery, and she pushed all the way down on him and clenched against him with a moan.  Her voice was a thrill through him.

Lafayette could hear how loudly he was breathing and he couldn’t help it, didn’t want to help it, didn’t care about anything other than her moving over him and how amazing it felt.  He could tell that she was angling herself to get the most pleasure for herself from it and that she was already close to the edge.  She grabbed his shoulders to support herself and her hands were tight and her eyes were closed and—

“Oh—!  Gil—”

Adrienne pressed down hard on him and held it, her legs holding him firmly.  He put his head against her collar, closed his eyes, and let himself be overwhelmed by her.

“—Ah.”  She took one hand off of him and wiped her hair away from her eyes, then very carefully lifted off of and sat further back on his legs.  He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her for several long minutes.

“What time is it?”  Lafayette finally asked.

Adrienne gave a little laugh, still sounding shaky.  “1776.”

He kissed her again and she stood.

“I need to change.”

“Yes,” he agreed with a little regret.

“And clean up.”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

He smiled and collapsed back on the bed.  “Yes.”


	107. Damsels & Distress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calling Out; André; Scolded; Benefit of the Doubt

> A. Hamilton: Tell Washington I can’t come in today and that I’ll take care of anything phone or digital at home

> G. Lafayette: Rough night?

> A. Hamilton: I get sick days, it’s an actual job and it’s in the contract

> A. Hamilton: I havent even used any yet i get to fucking call out if i want to

> A. Hamilton: im still willing to take calls and shit when I should have been on duty, I don’t even need to do that

> G. Lafayette: I notice that you didn’t answer my question.

> A. Hamilton: shut your damn mouth

> A. Hamilton: I dont mean that, please tell him for me 

> G. Lafayette: I had a good night too!  :D Do you want to guess what we did or shall I tell you?

> A. Hamilton: I will let you tell me all the sordid details later if you talk to him for me.

> G. Lafayette: Consider it done!

 

Hamilton dropped his phone on the pillow and fell back on the mattress.  “Done.”

“I’m really sorry,” Laurens said, sitting awkwardly at the desk and dressed for the gym.

“I’m not.”  Hamilton looked up at him upside down.  The room was swaying a little and his temples were starting to tighten.  “Don’t apologize, it was hot.  Also you look pretty bus’ up yourself, J.”

Laurens touched his face gingerly.  It was cleaned of blood and nothing was broken but both his eyes were blackening from the hit and his nose was swollen.  “It’s pretty bad,” he admitted.  “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Eh.”  Hamilton waved a hand lazily.  “It’s not the worst look for you.  Besides, you’ve taken a beating before, don’t be so self-conscious.”

“Yeah.  I just can’t believe you’re calling in.”

“Long fuckin’ night,” Hamilton replied, eyes closed.  “J., either go to the gym or come back to bed.  You’re gonna be late.”

He was right.  Laurens stood and hoisted his bag up on his shoulder.  “I’ll see you later.”

“Mmkay.”

Laurens left.

 

Laurens didn’t even make it to the gym before he was forced to confront his actions once again.

“You look like you got hit by a fuckin’ truck,” Humphreys laughed with a shake of his head.  “I mean that literally,” he clarified, “I got into an accident once and you look just about as bad as I did, except they didn’t have to take you to the hospital to get staples in your head.”

“He wasn’t _that_ good a fighter.”

“No, and he’s also flesh and bone, not steel.”  Humphreys put his arm around him and held his phone out.  “Smile.”  He took the picture before Laurens could shove him off.  “Seriously, though,” he said, putting his phone away, “are you okay?  You can still play?”

Laurens nodded.  “Bruising aside, I feel fine.  I’m not sure what hurts worse, my face or my ego.”  He rubbed his knuckles.  “Or my hand.”

“If it’ll make your ego feel any better, I would’ve done the same thing.”

“I just saw red.”

“Like I said.  Besides, you and André have been tight for years.  It’s no wonder you snapped.”

“Yeah.  Hey,” Laurens said, lowering his voice a little as they reached the gym, “I haven’t heard from him.  How is he?  Do you know?”

“I’ve been better.”

Laurens and Humphreys both started and turned to the sound of the voice.  They had walked right past André, seated on a bench in the semi-dark, a couple of yards from the entrance.

“Hey.”  Laurens went over and sat next to him.  Humphreys lifted his hand in greeting and went into the building, giving them some privacy.  “I’m sorry I didn’t catch up with you last night.”

André laughed bitterly.  “I’m not.”  He looked like he hadn’t slept.  His black hair was unstyled and messy in a way that made him look several years younger and his eyes were red.

“If you had wanted…”

“I didn’t.”

Laurens nodded, locking his hands and letting them hang between his knees.  He waited for André to speak again.

“I wasn’t even the one who broke it off,” he said finally.  “She dumped _me_.  How crazy is that?  We go to a party, she cheats on me,” the verb sounded foreign on his tongue, “and then I don’t even have the balls to end it.  What the hell.”  He was silent again for a minute and just before Laurens thought he should say something he went on.  “I’m sure everyone’s sick of me.”

Laurens was surprised.  “What?  Why?”

“This is me,” André motioned at his past with a suddenly violent wave of his hand, “all of the _goddamn time_.  I’m _always_ bitching about how she’s ending things.  And I never learn!  I’m stupid, I know she’s—I know what I sound like, I just can’t help myself.”

“No one is sick of you,” Laurens said firmly.  “Especially not me.”

“You should be.”

“No, I shouldn’t.  You’ve been there for me through a lot and—and I haven’t always been the smartest or the easiest to deal with either, so—If you’re a pain in the ass then I’m one too, so we might as well stick together.  I was so,” Laurens paused, not sure of the right word, “terrified when I first got here.  My mother had just died, we still didn’t know how Jemmy would be, I had—hey, you want to talk about spectacularly failed relationships, well,” he laughed, a little overwhelmed by the memory, and was encouraged to see André smile slightly.  “It was really scary.  And I’m so thankful that through some twist of fate the guy they put me with as my roommate was someone as understanding and approachable as you.”

André nodded slowly.  “I’m glad we were roommates, too.”

“Right?  Can you imagine getting stuck with some of these jackasses?”  Laurens jabbed his thumb at the gym.  “Hotels on away games are bad enough.  McHenry _snores_.”

“So did Peggy,” André said, sounding tentative, as if he wasn’t really sure he could say anything less than glowing about her.  “She had a deviated septum.”

“If I’ve got one now I’m gonna go back and punch that son of a bitch again,” Laurens complained, touching his nose gingerly.  “Hey.”  He put his arm over his shoulders.  “Do you want to do something later?”

“Thanks,” André said, “but I’d rather be alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“I haven’t slept yet.  I’m just going to go back and pass out after this hopefully.”

Laurens nodded and stood.  “Ready to go in?  I’ll probably attract all the interesting questions, at least.”

“Ha.  Yeah.  Okay.”  André paused for several seconds and then stood as well.  “After you.”

 

> G. Lafayette: I miss Adrienne.

> G. Lafayette: I hate the Church.

> G. Lafayette: But I like Mulligan for taking her this morning so I didn’t have to.

> G. Lafayette: I have many many feels.

> G. Lafayette: Shall I tell you about them in greater detail?

> A. Hamilton: shut thefuck up I’m triyng to sleep

> G. Lafayette: What I hate most about the church is how they take Adrienne’s attention away from me

> G. Lafayette: what I hate second most is that she goes to confession and I find it uncomfortable that strangers know as much about our sex life as you do

> A. Hamilton: gdi lafayette i said “later”

> A. Hamilton: LATER

 

“How’d you make out last night?”

Laurens looked up, startled, from his locker.  “Excuse me?”

Tallmadge gestured to his own face to mirror Laurens’ injuries.  “You look a little rough.  Did you get any out of sympathy?”

Laurens started to turn red and went back to packing his bag.

“He was drunk, too,” Tench said, meaning Hamilton.  “He was all over him even before the fight.  Was that why you were in the bathroom?”

Laurens grinned, a little from embarrassment at the awkward questioning but also because he was pleased with himself.  “Yeah, well…  Yeah.  It was good.  Very good.”

“Super descriptive,” Humphreys said.  “Look, if you all want a good story, I can tell you how my night went again…”

Laurens looked around.  Neither André nor Lee were present so he ventured, “We went back to his apartment and I bent him over the bathroom sink.  He called out of work this morning because he still can’t walk.”

Tench laughed.  “ _Nice_.”

“You’ve come so far,” Tallmadge teased.  “I didn’t get any action last night at all, I’m jealous.”

“That sounds uncomfortable,” McHenry said.  Laurens looked at him in surprise.  “I’m just saying.  …Not that I would know.”

“I asked if he was okay,” Laurens said, a little guiltily.

Tallmadge nudged him.  “Hey, whatever you two consenting adults get up to in the privacy of your own homes, right?”

“Hey,” Tench cut in.  “Are you coming to breakfast today?”

Laurens hesitated.  “I shouldn’t.  I’ll catch you later though.”

“Tomorrow,” Tench said with a wave of his hand as he and the others left.

 

Hamilton was still in bed, head throbbing and feeling vaguely ill, when Laurens buzzed from downstairs.  He got up with a long complaint of a groan and hit the speaker.  “I’m a broke atheist.”  He figured he should get straight to the point.  “Not interested in what you’re selling.”

“Alex?”

“Oh.  Sorry.  Hang on.”  He let him in and opened his door a crack then lay back down on the mattress.

Laurens came in with a paper bag.  “Hey.  I picked you up breakfast.”  He had been concerned to find the door ajar and now was even more so to see Hamilton, lying on his side and facing away, only partially dressed and on top of the covers.  “Are you okay?”

“Hungover.  Think I was still a little buzzed when you left.  Definitely not anymore.”

“You’re hungover?”  The surprise was very clear in his voice.

“Yeah.  I was so fucking drunk last night.  Puked at Mulligan’s, which was a good thing or I would’ve been bent over the sink for a totally different reason.  Took painkillers, waiting for them to kick in.  If you’re not going to come soothe my broken ego, could you stand approximately two feet to your left?”

Laurens moved over, blocking the early morning sun from the window with his body.

“Thank you, J.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“What’d you bring me?”

Laurens glanced at the bag.  “Strawberry bagel.”

Hamilton debated if he wanted it.

“Or a blueberry?”

“Blueberry,” Hamilton said decisively.  “Gimme.”

Laurens sat behind him so he was still shielding him from the light.  “I didn’t realize you were that drunk,” he said, offering him the bagel.

“That makes two of us.  The worst was over, I didn’t feel that much past buzzed.”  Hamilton broke off a piece and shoved it in his mouth, talking with it full.  “Oh ‘ell. ‘oo ‘uch al’eady, I ‘ink.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

Hamilton swallowed with effort.  “Yes please. Making coffee was gonna be my next task.  You know what I want, J.?”  Hamilton asked as Laurens got up.  “I want one of those fancy cold-brew coffee machines.  The hipster ones.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens scooped coffee into the machine.

“Washington’s got one of those popular ones that makes single servings, I don’t want that.  Too expensive when I can go through a whole pot.  Bet you that Lafayette will end up either taking one back to or purchasing one in France, though.  Thank you for bringing food,” he said, changing topics abruptly.  “I wasn’t sure if I was ready for food but this is good.  Thank you for coming back, too, I like company.  I’m not gonna be sick again or anything, so don’t worry.”

“It’s fine,” Laurens said, sitting back next to him as he waited for the coffee.  He put his hand on his shoulder and Hamilton took it.

“I feel pretty stupid,” he said.  “First last night, now this morning.  Good thing you’re so smitten or this would be real humiliating.”

Laurens laughed, sounding embarrassed enough to make Hamilton relax some.

“Hey.”  Hamilton rolled over onto his back and closed his eyes.  “Ask me after coffee if I’m DTF.”

Laurens laughed again.  “No way.”

“Seriously, it helps sometimes,” Hamilton insisted.  “Or maybe just hand stuff.  I’ll trade favors.”

Laurens leaned down and kissed him gently.  “Remind me.”

“I don’t gotta remind you, you’ll remember.”

He was right, Laurens had to admit to himself.  “Do you want anything else?”  He asked instead.

“You got class at nine?  Don’t cut it.”  Hamilton tugged on his hand and rolled onto his side again.  Laurens took the hint and lay down behind him, putting his arm lightly over his shoulders.  “How’s André?”

“He looks rough.  I think he’ll be okay.”

“Good.  Rough for both of them.”

Laurens was surprised to hear him say that.  “Both of them?”

“Well, yeah.  You saw her.  Not saying it was a good idea on her part but a mistake’s a mistake.”  Hamilton pulled the sheet to his face to dim the room but kept talking.  “I feel bad for her.”

“You feel bad for her?”  Laurens was incredulous.

“Don’t you?”

“I…  No, not at all.”

“John, come on.  I know André’s your friend and he’s right to break up with her—”

“She dumped him, Alex.”

“—Whatever, I wouldn’t have blamed him, but you saw her last night.  Just one of those things, I guess, it sucks all around.”

Laurens didn’t say anything while Hamilton maneuvered the bagel under the sheet and ate it.

“She’s been jerking him around for ages.”

Hamilton waited until he was finished chewing this time.  “She’s just high drama.”

“She’s a bitch.”

“John, she was crying.”

“She was cheating on him,” Laurens said, a little more forcefully.

“So she’s a slut and she deserves it?”  It was a loaded question.  Laurens knew better than to agree.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Just admit that you’re biased, John.  I don’t blame you for taking his side.”

“It’s not—”  Laurens was frustrated.  “It’s not a matter of taking sides.  You said it yourself, she was in the wrong.”

“You don’t know the full story.  Give her the benefit of the doubt.”

Laurens bit his tongue.  Did he really want to get into an argument over this?  “You didn’t seem to disagree with me last night,” he said carefully.

“You hit Benedict Arnold, not her.”

“I’m not going to hit a girl.”

The only sound for a few minutes was traffic and the coffee machine.  Finally Laurens couldn’t take it any longer.

“So why was it okay for me to go off on that asshole and not her?”

“Because it is, okay?” Hamilton said sharply.

“Don’t tell me that’s all the answer you have for me.”

“He never met her before but he knew that he shouldn't have done that.  It’s as simple as that.  He could’ve hit on any girl there.”

“So?  She could have gone after any—”

“No,” Hamilton said forcefully.  “She couldn’t have.  All of her options but one would have ended the same, with you punching the guy in the bathroom.”

“Then why not just keep her legs together and—”

“Because not everyone is so lucky!”  Hamilton actually sat up and turned to face Laurens.  “Yeah, if she didn’t want to be with him then she should’ve broken it off sooner.  But, hey, stop me if you can refute this, but from where I’m standing it looks like she tried before, several times and was either too guilty or too scared.  I like André more than her, but it’s not a popularity contest, John.  She’s allowed to make a mistake and doesn’t need to have people chasing her around with it!”

Laurens was silent.  Hamilton looked away, angry, but didn’t get up.

“Why does it matter so much to you?”  Laurens asked quietly.  “We’ve had this argument before.”

“Not quite we didn’t.”

“Alexander.”

“Why do you think?”  The coffee finished brewing and Hamilton pushed himself to his feet.

“I don’t know.”

“My mother was the village slut, John, don’t tell me you’re surprised by that.  I’m a fucking bastard child, there’s a reason I have to check that fucking ‘unknown’ box for father when I’m filling out paperwork.  Did you think I was joking when I said I don’t have one?  Sure, there was a man for a while, the loser who up and vanished on her when I was ten, the piece of shit she uprooted us from Nevis for, but who knows which one he was?  Hardly ever saw him, even when he was there, he was more interested in blowing her money than in her.  Or maybe it was the man who hung around when I was real little, the one she almost went back to after we moved.  For all I know, John, it was the fucking landlord who let me stay after she died.  Maybe that was less out of the kindness of his heart and more out of guilt.  ‘Shit, my whore died and the whelp is still hanging around.’”

“Alex.”

“‘Guess I should do my good Christian duty and see that he’s got a roof over his head.’”

“Alexander.”

Hamilton poured himself a cup of coffee.  “‘Too bad she didn’t abort the bastard before he could grow up to be a drain on the state, but, hey, I can step in and keep the kid from eating up any more tax dollars, even get a nice government subsidiary for being so fucking charitable.’”  His hand was shaking.  “Of course, if it was guilt, he couldn’t’ve felt _too_ bad or maybe he would’ve intervened before I got shuffled around the first two times.  Maybe that was it, you know?  Shit, foster system’s full and the cousin blew his fuckin’ brains out, you know, it’s like when you pass a panhandler on the subway.  The first time you see him he’s easy enough to ignore, second time, even.  Third time it’s like, well, dang, maybe it’s a goddamn sign that you should toss the poor bastard a quarter.”

Laurens was standing by this point.  “Alexander.”

“I don’t talk about the details for a reason, J.  Fuck, I’m so—”  He took a long drink and put the mug on his desk.  It was a real effort not to slam it down.  He made a frustrated noise.  “I know you weren’t trying to fight.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fine.”

“What do you want?”

“I want the fucking acetaminophen to kick in.”

“I love you.”

“Good.  Get me a shirt.”

Laurens dutifully sorted through Hamilton’s clean laundry and handed him a t-shirt.  Hamilton took a long breath and put it on.

“Thank you.”

Laurens sat on the edge of the desk.  He hesitated.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s making my head hurt worse.”

Laurens nodded.

Hamilton leaned on the desk, closing his eyes for a second.  “Change the topic.”

“To what?”

“I don’t fucking _care_ , J.”

“Coach told me if the swelling messes up my ability to judge distance he’s going to personally flay me.”

“Shit, I didn’t think of that.  How is it?”

“I think it’ll be fine.”

“You wanna put ice on it?”

“I probably should,” Laurens admitted.

“I don’t know if I filled the tray but you can stick a frozen dinner for one to your face or something.”

“Yeah, that’s real sexy.”

Hamilton laughed, a crack appearing in the tension in the air.  “Hey, it’s not my fault you had to go and be a hero.”

“Maybe not, but it will be next time.”

“Yeah?  How’s that?”

“Well, now I know you get off to it.  I’m going to be looking for any opportunity to get into a fight.”

“Mm, yeah, you got a point.  I need to find some safer turn-ons.”

“Knitting.”

Hamilton forced himself to laugh again, still leaning on the desk.  “Come on, I want a cold press but I’m not _that_ hipster.”

“Do you want the rest of your bagel?”

“Yes, please.”

Laurens picked it off the floor and handed it to him.

“Thanks.”  Hamilton sat in the chair, still sounding a little on edge.  “After you go I’m going to look over my proposal again and send it.  Don’t remind me how late it is.  Then I’m gonna jack it and sleep.”

“That sounds like a good day.”

“Oh, it will be.  Except for the part where I have to go to Washington’s this afternoon and fake like I was genuinely ill this morning.”

“I’ll go in your place,” Laurens offered.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Then you won’t have to lie to him.”

“You will, though.”

Laurens shrugged.

“If you’re serious I’m not going to stop you.  You’ll get a couple of good meals out of it at least.”

“Great.”

Hamilton took another drink of coffee.  “Thank you, J.”


	108. Frustrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner Conversation; Family Conversation

“Oh.”  Washington looked at Laurens in mild surprise when he walked into his office, face hidden behind a pair of dark tinted sunglasses, with Lafayette and Adrienne.  “He really is under the weather, then.  I half expected him to show up nursing a weak excuse and a hangover.”  Somehow the combination of Hamilton unexpectedly avoiding work after a long night, Laurens sent in his place and trying to hide the fact that his face was obviously beaten in, and Lafayette preoccupied with his girlfriend and when he could next be alone with her seemed very familiar to Washington.  Was it possible to feel someone else’s deja-vu across the centuries? 

Laurens carefully kept his expression innocent and shrugged, avoiding both a lie and the truth.  “He told me he gets sick every winter.”

“Yes, he’s complained to me about the same thing.  Well, that’s fine, thank you for coming in his place.  And thank him for me for being so responsible as to find a substitute.”

“Alexander is sick?”

Lafayette shushed Adrienne.  There was no need to go to confession a second time.

“Fine.”  Washington stood, stacking a couple of folders and putting them in his briefcase with his laptop.  “I hope he’s well enough for the meeting tomorrow.  I wanted him to attend that.  Regardless,” he said, “he’ll be missing out tonight.  Since tomorrow is Adrienne’s birthday I thought I’d take you all out to dinner somewhere nice.”

“Oh,” Adrienne said after a moment to translate and process that unexpected statement.  “Oh, you don’t need to do that.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Washington said.  “You’ve been a lovely houseguest and I would like to mark the occasion.  Shall we go?  You don’t mind eating a little early, do you?  Then let’s be on our way.”  He held the door for Adrienne and led them out of the building and to his car.

“I didn’t know it was your birthday,” Laurens said, feeling guilty.

“It’s all right.”

“No, I mean, you got me something.”

“John,” Lafayette said quietly, putting his hand on Laurens’ arm.  “You are coming along tonight.  That will be gift enough.”

Laurens made a little face but let it go.

 

> A. Hamilton: Wait, seriously?

> A. Hamilton: the ONE NIGHT I beg out??

> G. Lafayette: Oui.

> A. Hamilton: show me to take a break

 

Lafayette sent another picture of his lobster by means of agreement.

Laurens glanced at him.  “Stop that.

“I’m just taking a picture.”

“You’re rubbing it in his face.”

“You’re tempted to do the same.”

Laurens looked down at his beef tartare.

“Come on,” Lafayette urged.  “Just send one.”

Laurens took his phone out.  He paused.  He quickly took a picture at an angle to show off just how tender and red it was.

 

> A. Hamilton: you all suck

 

Lafayette clicked his tongue, looking at the reply in the group chat.  “Those aren’t proper manners for this kind of establishment.”

Washington cleared his throat and they both quickly put their phones out of sight.

“John,” Washington began.

“Yes, sir?”

“You didn’t have a game last weekend.  Did you get injured in practice?”

Laurens started—he had forgotten for a moment that even dressed nicely enough for the restaurant in slacks and a collared shirt he looked obviously rough.  His sunglasses were folded and put away in his shirt pocket.  “Uh.”  He was about to say that, yes, he’d had an accidental run in with a teammate or a piece of equipment, but then he remembered Hamilton mentioning that Washington and his coach actually did talk and he couldn’t bring himself to lie a second time.  “No,” he admitted, putting his hands on his knees under the table.  “I got into a fight.”

“A fight?  With another student?”

Laurens held Washington’s gaze steadily.  “No, sir.  I was at a party with one of my friends from the team and I walked in on someone with his girlfriend,” he explained levelly.  “I lost my temper.  Sir.”

“That was not an appropriate response.”

“I couldn’t let him do that to my friend.”

Washington sighed.  “Where was this party?”

“It wasn’t on school property.”

“That wasn’t my question, John.”

Laurens hesitated, then gave the address.  “Hercules Mulligan—the guy who was throwing it—he broke the fight up.  He asked me to leave and I left.  None of this was his fault, he—”

“Handled it more appropriately,” Washington said, cutting him off.  He was frowning slightly as if trying to remember something.  “You’re a public face of this school, John, you have to take that into consideration.  Your behavior off of the field reflects on this institution.  You should know that, what with your father’s position and your responsibility to him.  What was the other man’s name?”

“Benedict Arnold, sir.”

“Benedict?”

Laurens saw surprised but friendly recognition in Washington’s face and he raised his brows.  “Yes?  He lives there too.”

“Yes, of course,” Washington nodded.  “I was wondering why it sounded so familiar.”

“How do you know him?”  Lafayette asked.

“He’s a graduate student.  Just got back from a national research grant in London, I believe.  He’s going to be presenting on campus in a couple of weeks, his name just came up when I was talking to the head of his department, he’s done excellent work for the university.”

Laurens couldn’t believe it.  “He was,” he fumbled over his words in his surprise.  “He was—making out with a student.  Sir.”

Washington frowned, the spark of conviviality that had been burning lightly in his eyes abruptly gone.  “How old is she?”

Laurens paused, then realized he knew the answer.  “Twenty-one,” he admitted.  “But you’re not going to let him get away with that, are you?”  He asked.  “I mean, what I did— _That’s_ way more inappropriate than anything _I_ did.”  Washington didn’t say anything immediately and he continued.  “It wasn’t on campus but, like you said, that doesn’t matter.  It’s about the publicity and social recognition and there were many students there.  A solid dozen of my teammates showed up, and everyone saw what happened, it wasn’t contained.  John André’s really upset about it, too, he’s been talking to loads of people about it.”

Washington held up his hand as Laurens slowed.  “Benedict is a student as well.  The girl was not a minor or his subordinate.”

Laurens leaned away a little, dissatisfied.  Of course no one would step in.  Of course he was left to take the fall.

“John.”

“Yes?”  Guarded, his reply tense. 

“Thank you for telling me the truth.  I appreciate honesty.”

Laurens looked down at his plate.  _That_ he hadn’t expected.

 

Lafayette woke and sat up carefully.  He slipped out of bed, being very quiet so as to not wake Adrienne, and noticed that the light was on in the attached bathroom and the door wasn’t closed properly.  He knocked softly.  “John?”

“Sorry.”  Laurens opened the door without looking up from his phone.

“We’re done out here,” Lafayette said, stating the obvious.  “You don’t have to stay in there all night.”

“I didn’t want to wake you and I didn’t want to lie down.”

Lafayette cocked his head to one side.  “Are you talking to Alexander?”

“No.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Nah.”

“Usually I’m the one who wanders off to be dramatic and sad in the middle of the night.”

Laurens ran a hand over the back of his neck.  “I don’t know.  I just can’t get some things off my mind.  A lot of things were mentioned lately that I…  Sorry, did you want to use this?”  He motioned over his shoulder.

“Yes, and then I think I want a glass of water.  Come with me to the kitchen.”

Laurens nodded and waited outside in the hall.

 

> M. Laurens: I’m only applying to schools up here to get dad off my case you know how he is

> J. Laurens: It’s a good school, Martha, you should look into it.

> M. Laurens: I HAVE, Jack

> M. Laurens: It doesn't have the program I want and its too close to home okay?  I'm not going there even if i get in

> J. Laurens: Don’t be a child about it.

> M. Laurens: dont be a dick about it

> J. Laurens: What program did you look at?

> M. Laurens: Drop it, Jack

> J. Laurens: Do you even know what you want to major in?  It’s a good liberal arts, it’ll give you a good base for exploring your interests until you figure it out.

> J. Laurens: And the facilities are nice, you could keep playing up here, and it’s not like I go home every weekend.  NYC isn’t actually in South Carolina

> M. Laurens: I know what I want to majorin!

> J. Laurens: Not typing.  I thought that was still a required class.

> M. Laurens: it’s like one in the morning!!!  Let me live asshole

 

Laurens actually did look up from his phone and then put it in his pocket when Lafayette came out, closing the door quietly behind him.  Lafayette motioned him to follow him and led the way through the dark building.

“Who are you talking to?”  Lafayette asked as he turned the light on in the kitchen and took out two glasses.  He filled them from the sink and gave Laurens one.

“My sister.”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side again.  “I didn't think you usually talked to her.  Is it her birthday too?”

“On the third.”  Laurens held the glass without drinking from it.  “I don’t talk much with her,” he admitted.  “At least not when I’m away.  When we’re both home, I mean, she's the closest one to my age, so we hang out sometimes.”

Lafayette was drinking and just nodded.

“…I didn’t really want to talk to her,” Laurens said after a pause.  “But I had meant to ask her about her college applications, and…”  He trailed off and seemingly changed topics.  “Did Alexander ever talk to you about his mother?”

“Yes.”

“A lot?”

“Mm, no, I don’t think I’d call it a lot.  Why?”

“I knew a little, just from context.  I accidentally—”  Laurens gave a dry laugh.  “He got real pissed.”

“He’s touchy,” Lafayette agreed.  “John?”

“Yeah?”

“I think he’d tell you more if you asked.”

Laurens looked skeptical.

“When we did talk,” Lafayette went on, “he told me that it was easier to tell me about his family than you.  But he didn’t say that he didn’t want you to know.”

Laurens glanced down at his phone.  “Easier?”

“Both Alexander and I lost parents when we were young.  It was much longer ago for us.  He brought her up and now you’re calling home in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t call.  Don’t,” Laurens said, raising his hand before Lafayette could point out that he was splitting hairs.

“We’d like to hear about her sometime,” Lafayette said gently.

Laurens concentrated on a spot on the wall.

“We have a lot of birthdays all at one time,” Lafayette finally said, once it became apparent that Laurens was done talking for the time being.  “Let me see, nine months ago…  The end of January, beginning of February.  That’s a little odd, don’t you think?  A month earlier would make more sense.”  He paused again to see if Laurens would take the bait.  “Adrienne’s mother was born on February twelfth.”

“I’m going to go back to bed.”  Laurens took a drink.  “Thank you for the water.”

“It helps to talk about them,” Lafayette said as Laurens put the glass in the sink and froze.

“I don’t know that it does,” he said carefully.

“My father died when I was very small,” Lafayette said with another sip from his glass.  “I don’t know if Alexander ever showed you one of the articles discussing it when he was in that phase of his where he looked up everything about me, but it was in the line of duty while he was stationed overseas.  Men in my family have a talent for dying on the battlefield,” he went on, speaking relatively casually.  “I have no memories of him.  I think I remember the funeral, or the reception afterwards, but I can’t be certain.  It’s difficult to know what is a true memory at that age.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.  He was given a grand military funeral, from what I understand.  My grandmother told me all about it.  I might have driven her mad as a child, always asking about her son’s death, but she would just smile and draw me into her lap and tell me again.”

“He said he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“He’s talked about her before.”

“Then maybe he just doesn’t want to tell me,” Laurens said, unfairly.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Then why say it?”

“You said you were arguing.  Maybe it just wasn’t the time.”

“So he gets to pick when to share things and I’m expected to just deal with it?”  His words were obviously bitter and defensive.

“Yes,” Lafayette said.  “He does.  So do you.  No one is making you talk about things you aren’t ready to, I was just pointing out that it might help.”

Laurens leaned against the sink, bracing his hands against the cool surface and putting his weight on his arms.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m not afraid of it or anything, so don’t go pulling that bullshit on me.”  His phone lit up and he automatically glanced towards it but didn’t reach for it, then turned away from the sink.  “It’s too late for this.”

Lafayette finished his glass and put it next to Laurens’ after a pause to see if he would say anything else.  “It’s too bad it’s not Halloween anymore.  It’s not even All Saints’ Day.  Just November.”  He waited until Laurens was leaving the room and then followed after, getting the light on the way out.  “Although,” he added quietly as they headed back up the stairs, “we are visiting your home in a couple of weeks.  I think if you don’t tell him, he will ask you regardless.”


	109. Making Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthday Tea; *Elevator and Hall and Bed

“You’re very excited,” Adrienne said as Lafayette led her down the sidewalk by the hand.  He was staying a half step ahead of her as they walked.

“Of course I’m excited,” Lafayette responded cheerfully.  “It’s your birthday, after all.”

Adrienne laughed.  “Shouldn’t I be the excited one?”

“Hm, perhaps.  But I’m very generous and considerate.”

“You like to showboat.  Just a little.”

“Just a little,” Lafayette agreed, raising his voice as they passed construction work.  “Oh, but this was a suggestion I received from Thomas and then I went down myself to take a look and I’m very very happy to be able to go back with you.”

“Another statue?”  Adrienne asked, a little hesitant.

“No,” Lafayette said, “we’ll do that later.”

She laughed again, fondly.

“Here we are.”  Lafayette led the way across a side street and pushed open a door, letting them into a quiet storefront, its walls lined with tea and teaware.  “Happy birthday,” he announced.  “And if we come back tomorrow, happy unbirthday,” he added.  “It will still be thematic.”

Adrienne was looking around curiously, studying the large tins behind the long wooden counter.

“Come on,” Lafayette urged, pulling her to the back of the store where a couple of shelves divided off a small cafe area.  He sat them at a round table and enthusiastically waved over an employee.  “We’d like the full service, please,” he said, switching into English and without looking at the menu.  “You can choose the tea.  It’s my girlfriend’s birthday,” he went on happily, “so whatever you think would be best.”

Adrienne blushed a little and thanked the waitress and turned back to Lafayette.  “I completely forgot the two of you talked about tea houses.”

“It was not the most memorable part of that conversation,” Lafayette agreed.  “The macaroni and cheese and paleontology overshadowed it a bit.  Oh, but this place is good.  After breakfast we can have some free samples.  Then we’ll have plenty of energy for the rest of the day.  I think I’ll try the yupon black,” he said to himself, peering through the shelves at the sign on the counter.

“What’s yupon black?”

“I don’t know.”  Lafayette leaned across the table and took her hands in his with a contented sigh.  

"Are we going back to campus after this?"

"No," Lafayette said, blissfully and intentionally ignoring the fact that he had several classes that day.  "We're going to go to the Met.  There's an extensive early American art collection..."  He trailed off, looking away and then back to see her expression.  "I'm joking, of course.  It's your birthday so you can choose what we see.  Besides, I can always go back with someone else."

Adrienne's eyes lit up.  "I read about their Medieval exhibit," she began tentatively. 

"I thought that one looked good," Lafayette enthused.  "And maybe we can find something for John in the gift shop."

"That's a good idea," Adrienne said as the waitress brought them two small pots of tea and two cups.  "Thank you."

Lafayette took a sip.  Black tea with vanilla.  He offered Adrienne his cup.

"I wonder if I should buy Thomas anything from here..."  He twisted in his chair, peering through the shelving that blocked them off from the rest of the store.  "Do you see anything ice age themed?  Or made of Bakelite."

"We can ask after we eat," Adrienne said, privately doubting they would find anything.

"It's all right if we don't."  Lafayette faced forward again.  "Oh, my dearheart.  I don't want to split up, but if there is time I think I should check in on André before you leave.  It seems rude to take you with me and flaunt our love in front of him, but he's been through a difficult patch and I want him to know that I support him.”

"You could call him," Adrienne suggested.

"I have been.  He won't pick up."  Lafayette took out his phone to check it again before taking a carefully arranged picture of their drinks.  "...But to be fair, I didn't try very hard.”  He took her hands again.  “Adrienne.”

“Yes?”

“Will you write me, when you’re back in France?”

“Gilbert…”

“You’re right,” he said, “I shouldn’t talk about this yet.”  He straightened up.  “May I try your tea?”

Adrienne smiled, a little sadly, and offered him her cup.

He took a sip.  “Oh,” he commented, adding his previous train of thought to the list of things he was decidedly ignoring.  “White tea.  And lavender?  It’s good.”

“Gil.”

Lafayette hesitated a beat before answering.  “My light?”

She raised his hands and kissed them lightly.  “Thank you for convincing me to come.  I can see why you don’t want to return to France yet.”

“Soon,” Lafayette promised.

Adrienne just continued to smile at him as the server brought a multi-tiered tower covered in assorted food items to their table.

“…Soon enough,” Lafayette tried again, pausing after he took a slice of cucumber with dill.

“Gil.”

“I should stop again,” Lafayette said with an air of mild consideration.  “I don’t always know when to stop.  I’m better than Alexander when it comes to talking, at least.  I bet I’m worse than John when it comes to actions.”

“Let’s hope you never have to make that a contest.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “let’s.  Scone?”

 

“I _missed_ you,” Hamilton said, pinning Laurens up against the wall of the elevator as soon as the doors closed, already cupping him over his pants.  “Is that weird?  It was only a day and you had your phone.  It’s probably because I didn’t really do much, I didn’t have any distractions.”  He was rubbing him and the elevator started to move.

“A-ah.”  Laurens braced himself on the rail along the wall, his hips leaning forward in spite of himself.  “Alex, we’re gonna—”

Hamilton kissed him, putting his free hand behind his neck and pushing his tongue into his mouth.  Laurens gave in.

Hamilton was moving his hand quickly, familiarly, and Laurens—no longer trying to hold back in spite of the circumstances—was hard and he impatiently moved his hands to Hamilton’s waist, pulling him in a little closer.

“Room,” Laurens managed to get out.

“Please,” Hamilton said, taking his hand away to a low whine from Laurens and hooking his fingers in his belt loops and grinding his hips against him.  “I don’t got a lot of time, J.  Can’t skip again and I’ve got a board meeting to pass papers out in but I need this first.”

His word choice sent a rush through Laurens and he grabbed him and pulled him into another kiss as the elevator stopped and the doors opened.  They broke apart as another student hesitated outside in the hall, not sure if she should step in or not, and Laurens dragged Hamilton past and down to his dorm room as Hamilton laughed and cocked two fingers at her in a salute.

“You don’t care,” he said as Laurens got his keys out.  He slid his hands around his waist, practically purring as he leaned against his back.  “I love it.”

Laurens grinned, a little embarrassed at having it pointed out.  “Come on, Alexander, you’re all over me.  You make it hard to care.”

“Oh, is that the trick to it…?”  Hamilton slid his hands down just to the brink of inappropriate.  “I never knew.  I’ll have to keep that in mind.”  Hamilton kissed his shoulder blade over his jacket, trying not to sound too amused.  Of course Laurens cared, he had just managed to make him forget that for a second.

Laurens opened the door and they practically tumbled inside and onto the bed.  Hamilton was laughing, amused and delighted as he ended up on top of him with Laurens’ hands on his back and holding him in place.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said fondly, kissing him, running a hand into his hair, biting his lip and shifting his weight so he pressed against him.  “And I wish I had more time.”

“How—long do you have?”

“Mm, enough for this.”

Laurens gasped when Hamilton popped his fly and slid his hand inside, cupping him.  He rocked his hips forward as Hamilton slid down his body and bit his neck.

“Alex…”

Hamilton was sucking on his skin, moving his hand back and forth as Laurens arched into his touch.

“Wait, I,” Laurens was distracted.  “I don’t want to—get these dirty.”

Hamilton lifted a little off of him and Laurens slid his pants down to his knees then moaned as Hamilton tugged his underwear down as well and cupped him again.

Hamilton kissed his jaw and wrapped his hand around his shaft, making a little pleased noise as Laurens tensed—started to sit up, gave in, lay back down—and grabbed the sheet tightly.  “Are you busy tonight?”

“No.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Gym.”

“Before that.”

Laurens grinned.  “No.”

“Mm, afternoon?”

“Just—”  Laurens gasped again.  “Stay with me all day.”

“God, I wish.”  Hamilton felt his hand get wet and he bit his neck again and pulled Laurens’ shirt further out of the way.  “I’ll just have to schedule you in wherever I can.”

Laurens breathed out hard.  Hamilton was still moving his hand, each stroke taking him closer to the edge and encouraging the burning desire already pressing within him.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton kissed his neck again as he continued and Laurens tightened his grip on the sheets.

Laurens gasped suddenly, his hips jerking.  Hamilton had shifted his grip so that he was only touching him with his thumb and first two fingers.  Laurens moaned.  “Alexander…”

Hamilton brushed his thumb briefly over his cockhead and then went back to what he was doing, smiling against his skin—he could feel Laurens’ pulse racing just beneath it.  “John.”

“Mm…”  Lauren’s voice was thin.  He put one hand on Hamilton’s back, holding him to him as he felt the heat and sensation continue to build within him.  “Alex…”

Hamilton sped up just a little and was rewarded by Laurens urging him closer with a moan.  He was leaning his hips into him, his eyes closed, and Hamilton knew the moment before he finished that he was about to come when he tightened his hold on him suddenly, his arm tense.  Hamilton let him spill on his arm and torso as he lay over him, and he slid up, rubbing along his shaft as Laurens gasped with the contact and turned his head down to look at him.  Hamilton kissed him slowly and Laurens wrapped his arms around him, putting one hand hard on his shoulder as if he needed force to keep him lying on top of him.

Maybe he did.

“John,” Hamilton started and Laurens made a displeased noise, knowing where he was going.  “I need to get up.  Probably should change,” he added, slipping out and rolling to his feet.  “Let’s see what Lancelot has clean for me to steal.”

“We should take the same classes next semester.”

“Yeah, they’re not going to line up perfectly, John.  Cute thought, though.”  Hamilton was distracted, sorting through Lafayette’s drawers.  “This fit?”  He tossed a shirt on the bed and took off his own.  “Wait a minute.”  His voice was muffled as he pulled it off over his head.  “You’re only saying that so our breaks line up, aren't you?  I’m on to you.”  He tossed his shirt into Laurens’ laundry basket and started to dress again.  He looked over at Laurens who was just barely turning red.  “…Question.  Are you embarrassed because I called you out on it or because the actual answer was just dang precious instead of crass?”

Laurens blushed harder and Hamilton bit back a laugh.

“I’ll let it slide.  Damn, but you’re cute sometimes.  Anyway,” he went on, dressing.  “I’m busy the rest of the day but I’ll see you tonight.  It’ll probably be late, sorry, I have a feeling I’m going to get stuck at the office after hours going over the minutes.”

“Washington isn’t actually making you stay overtime.”  It was somewhere between a question and a statement.

Hamilton paused just a moment before answering.  “No,” he said simply.  “He isn’t, not really.”

“Not really?”

“Not at all.  He does email and call me when I’m off the clock,” Hamilton said.  “You’ve heard him do it.”

Laurens nodded and Hamilton went on, almost sounding guilty.  “I can’t help it, okay?  It’s a compulsion.  I hate leaving work undone and once I get started on something, if I can see a way to make it better—I have a hard time stopping sometimes.  That’s how I got this job, anyway, and that’s how I got in here in the first place.”

“You don’t need to defend yourself to me.”

Hamilton shrugged.  The movement was a little tense.  “Yeah, well.  No, John, he isn’t forcing me to stay.  I’m just telling you, I’m gonna be late.”

“That’s fine,” Laurens said.  Hamilton relaxed slightly.  “I’ll get dinner with the guys.  I’ve got my own work to do, anyway.”

“Sounds good.  Hey,” Hamilton said, turning away from the mirror.  “You want to just take my keys?  Then I don’t have to worry about meeting up with you on campus in case I get detained.”

Laurens nodded.  “That sounds good.”

“Great.”  Hamilton patted his pockets, then looked around the room for his bag, spotting it where he had dropped it by the door.  He picked it up and took his keys out, tossing them to Laurens who caught them one handed.  “I’d joke about how you shouldn’t take advantage of my giving these to you to clean me out, but, seriously, it’s not like I got anything you couldn’t afford to buy yourself a nicer version of.  Just don’t feel like you need to clean up in there again, J.  I know I left it a mess but it’s organized chaos, or something.  Besides,” he added, checking the time on his phone, “I’d prefer you to pay me back some other way. I really do gotta run, J., but I’ll catch you later.”  He put his hand on the doorknob.  “Be good and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Laurens shook his head.  “You’re the worst person to say that.”

Hamilton was half in the hall and he laughed.  “Whatever, J.  You know what I meant.”


	110. Provincial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Greatest City in the World; One Last Statue; An Ocean Away

“It’s just stupid, you know?”  Hamilton was mid-rant over breakfast Friday morning at his apartment, sitting on the ground with his bowl of cereal.  “I love New York, greatest city in the world, don’t get me wrong, but, come on, why are we even comparing it to Philadelphia like it was some kind of contest?  They were both fuckin’ _provincial_ compared to hispanic cities.  Ciudad de México?  Havana?  Just think about the trade routes and friggin’ _years_ those places had to build up a population base, British America had a late start and now all the prosperity of the north predetermined bullshit, like, great, congratulations, you maybe want to not conveniently forget you were modeling yourselves after more than just London and Paris?”

He gave an annoyed shake of his head and Laurens leaned forward, tucking his hair back behind his ear.  His hand lingered a little.

“Yeah, I’d have liked a more actually global perspective as as well.”

Hamilton barely heard him, the blood rushing to his face.

“…Alexander?”

Hamilton put his bowl down and picked up his mug, hiding his face behind it.  “Yeah?”  He muttered, trying to make eye contact.  “What?”

“I didn’t think you were finished.”

“I wasn’t.”  Where the heck had he been going, though?  It wasn’t like Laurens had really _done_ anything that distracting and yet here he was, completely awestruck.  “Hold on,” he managed, getting up and unplugging his phone.  “Forgot I told Lafayette the four of us could go do something.  I think he wants to show me that stupid statue still.  You’d think he could just send me a picture or something but no, I have to go all the way down in person.”  He faced the wall as he typed.  He could feel that he was still blushing.

“It’ll be weird to actually see him again.”

“Without him trying to duck out to get some?  Yeah, but we’ll probably see too much of him.  Wanna bet that he’ll be real clingy?”

“No thank you.”

“Yeah, I wouldn't want to lose to me either,” Hamilton commented as he sent the message and came back to sit on the floor.  This time he dropped down right next to Laurens, casually resting his arm on his leg.  “So what’s up?  I talk a lot, I’m over it.”

Laurens laughed.  “Jemmy told me he got my postcard.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton wasn’t really paying attention, instead watching Laurens’ face as he talked, the way the early morning light played over his mouth.

“He said he’d send something back.  I’m not sure he will.  He means to, of course, but he’s just a kid, so that means Martha will have to take him to the store to pick out a card and then they’ll have to actually mail it…”

“Mm.  You know,” Hamilton prodded, “I know you’ve mentioned the others, but I keep forgetting it’s not just you and Jemmy.”

“I talk about him the most,” Laurens admitted after a pause, remembering his conversation with Lafayette the other night.  “We’re pretty close.”

“I thought you’d be tighter with your sister.  She’s the next oldest, right?”

“Yeah, but…”  Laurens shrugged.  “Jemmy and I have always…  Besides, Martha’s my sister, that’s different.”

“Wouldn’t really know.”

“You sort of had siblings.”

“Sort of.  I used to pretend I had an actual brother,” Hamilton said, leaning to the side and picking up his coffee again.  “An older one.  Pretended we got separated after my mother.  You know, like he got into a work-study or something and that’s why I never saw him.”  He laughed a little.  “Shit, I haven't thought about that in a while.”

“You’ll like Jemmy,” Laurens said.

“Yeah, I get the feeling that I better,” Hamilton teased.  “There’s a reason he’s the only one I remember you having.”

“He’s a good kid.”  Laurens paused again.  “When I was in my senior year of high school, he got into an accident.  Got hospitalized.  We weren’t sure he’d come out of it.”

“Shit.”  Hamilton put his mug down but left his hand on it.  “Car?”

Laurens shook his head.  “He was just playing outside the house and slipped and cracked his skull.”  He could feel his stomach and chest and throat tightening one after the other and knew he wouldn’t be able to finish his food.  “My father was in DC at the time.”

“Shit,” Hamilton repeated.  “He’s okay now, though.”  It was somewhere between a question and a statement.

“He’s not fucked up or anything,” Laurens said with sudden aggression.  Hamilton started and glanced from side to side as if there was someone he could share the surprised look with.  “…Sorry,” Laurens said.  He had to bite his lip and force the word out.  “Sorry.  That wasn’t…”

“I got it.  He get teased a lot?  Kids can be real assholes.”

Laurens shrugged darkly, which was enough of an answer.

“I mean I don’t know the guy,” Hamilton said, the placating tone in his voice an obvious attempt to diffuse the situation.  “But he seems pretty cool.  Likes maps, can read your shitty handwriting.  Wanted to make sure you didn’t get drowned in that stupid storm.”

“My handwriting’s better than yours.”

“Okay, but only because you probably had to take propriety classes with Miss Manners after school.  Can you balance a book on your head while you walk, too?”

Laurens breathed out deliberately.  He was still holding himself tensely but his words were no longer angry.  “He has to take medication for the seizures and has a slight tremor.  It’s not noticeable most of the time.  He's fine.  It’s not like any of this really slows him down.”

“Hey, no judgement.  I’m glad he’s okay.  He sounds like a tough kid.”

“He’s been through a lot.  It…”  Laurens had been starting to pick up speed but now he slowed down again.

“J.?”

He let out a long, shaky breath.

“You good?”

“I have a picture of him,” Laurens said, pulling back a little from the subject and picking his phone up off the floor.  He scrolled for a while and then held it out for Hamilton to see.  “Here.  This is us last summer when I took him fishing.”

Hamilton tipped his head to the side, furrowing his brow as he studied the picture of Jemmy, his face mostly hidden behind a hat and large tinted sunglasses.  Brown curls were escaping from below the brim of the hat and hanging behind his ears, emphasizing his scrawny prepubescent frame and jumble of freckles.

“Cute.  I can see the relation.”

“Really?”

“Mm.”  Hamilton didn’t elaborate.  “Did you have braces too?”

“Everyone did.”

“Well excuse me.”  Hamilton ran his tongue over his canine.  “Do you have any others?”

“There are a bunch from that trip…”  Laurens started to scroll.  Jemmy sitting at the edge of the dock, Jemmy standing up and holding his fishing pole, the two of them mugging for the camera in a poorly lit selfie as Laurens motioned enthusiastically to the small fish his brother was holding up.

Hamilton laughed.  He was smiling fondly at the screen.  “He’s a lucky kid,” he said.  “I’d have loved a brother like you.”

Laurens blushed and looked away.

Hamilton’s phone buzzed and he got up, pushing himself off of Laurens’ leg.

“Lafayette wants to meet us by the Met.  I’m telling him we can leave in about ten minutes.  Is that okay?”

Laurens nodded and forced himself to drain his mug.  “I’ll get dressed.”

 

“I don’t see the resemblance,” Hamilton declared as the four of them—him, Laurens, Lafayette, Adrienne—stared up at the statue.  A woman and her small dog sat on the grass nearby.  The woman read her book.  The dog was watching them curiously.

“What do you mean?”  Lafayette asked incredulously.  “It’s right—Alexander, maybe it’s just because you can’t see yourself at the same time as him.  Turn around and take a selfie with it.”

“I’m not taking a selfie with the statue, Lafayette.”

“Then I’ll do it for you.  Adrienne,” he said, “please take a picture of me and Alexander with the statue.”

She obligingly took out her phone and Hamilton shrugged off the arm Lafayette draped over him.

“J.,” he protested.  “Come on, I don’t want to say that we got dragged down here for nothing, but do you really think I look like that dead guy?”

Laurens was standing a little away from them, studying the statue of Miranda carefully, one arm across his chest and his other hand to his chin.

“J.?”

“You do have his nose,” Laurens concluded.

Hamilton groaned.

Adrienne snapped a picture.

“It’s a compliment,” Lafayette assured him.  “I thought you'd take it as such from the start.  You are such a go-getter, Alexander, and this man was incredibly prolific.”

“I can’t—Lafayette, there’s no guy who ended up memorialized on a pedestal who’d actually give me the time of day, much less find it reasonable that I see myself in him.  Why the hell should I let some ghost or statue condescend to me by trying to scrape together some imaginary connection?”

“I think you look like him,” Laurens repeated, as if he hadn’t heard any of that.  “And I bet you’d give him a run for his money.”

“No, nuh-uh, it’s too early in the morning for the bad puns.”

Laurens kissed him on the tip of his nose.

Hamilton blushed and turned away, pulling his phone from his pocket.  “You’re all making fun of me.  I’m ratting you all out to Eliza, at least she’s properly sympathetic.”

“Come on,” Laurens said, stepping up to him as they started to walk away.  “I thought you’d take the comparison as a compliment.”

Hamilton didn’t hit the call button.  “Keep talking.”

“Why do I get there’s a very specific answer you’re looking for?”

“Because you’re smart and there is.  Take a shot.”

Laurens sighed and ran a hand over his hair.  He was silent for a moment, glancing back at the statue.

“Well?”

“You’ll get there.”

“Where?”

“Up there.”  Laurens gestured.  “On your own pedestal.  Come on, Alex, we all know you will.  They weren’t faking anything.  It’s funny that you look like the guy, but the connection wouldn’t stick if we didn’t think you weren’t just as likely to do something…  Something.”

“Ha.”  Hamilton was smiling to himself.  “Thanks.”

“Now will you put your phone away?”

“Nope.”  He pressed call and lifted it to his ear.  “I’m telling Eliza what a kiss-ass you are.”

“Oh, come on,” Laurens protested as Hamilton laughed and picked up the pace.

 

“Saturday,” Lafayette announced, clapping his hands together in the crisp November air as he stood with Adrienne outside the entrance to the subway station, all of New York City seeming to open itself up before them in a stunning sweep of cement and iron and humanity.

“Saturday,” she repeated after him, the word still accented on her tongue.  She slipped her hand into his arm.

“Your last full day in the city.  What shall we do?”  He looked down at her with a smile caught somewhere between forced and genuinely excited.  A stiff breeze shook his hair and jacket and she closed her eyes against it.  “Coffee first.”  He started walking with determination.  If she wasn’t so used to his pace she would have been dragged after him.  As it was she pressed against him to slip through the crowd.

“Do you have a place in mind?”

“I want a bagel,” he said.  “We didn’t get that yet and we should.”  He had switched into French and was making an effort to chatter away like nothing was wrong, like she wasn’t about to leave, like he didn’t wish he had the resolution to return with her.  She squeezed his arm lightly and he continued.  “I will get one with lox and capers and onions and—oh, that’s not good.  But it’s so classic…  Would the coffee cancel it out?  I don’t think so.  I’ll have to buy mints.”

Adrienne laughed and his smile relaxed.

“You can get whatever you want.  Just have a bite of mine and then you can say that you experienced it.  They have sweet bagels too that are very good.  We’ll just go into the first place we find and look at what their options are.  If they don’t look good, we will leave and find another.  There are many restaurants in the city and there should be something to our tastes around here.  Look at all these office buildings,” he said with a sweep of his free arm.  “All of these workers need to get lunch somewhere.”

She tugged on the arm she had a hold on and nodded her head across the street to indicate a small storefront.

“Oh!”  He stopped in his tracks and looked back down at her.  “You’re very good at this.  I would compliment you on becoming so cosmopolitan, but,” he laughed to himself as they darted across the street while traffic was at a standstill, “you _are_ from Paris, after all.”

“That would be rude.”

“Very rude.”

“We had a city first.”

“Long before,” he agreed happily.  “And therefore it is in our blood.  If we want to pretend that things work that way.”  He held the door for her and launched into an explanation of how to order that she patiently listened to while trying to decipher the options listed above the counter.

“I’d like a strawberry bagel,” she told him, “with the matching filling.”

“All right.  Alexander likes that one.”  He ordered for both of them, bagels and coffee, and paid, then loitered with her off to the side.  “I think we should keep walking.  We can find a little park to sit in.  I like all the little parks and statues here.”

“They remind me of Paris.”

“Mm, yes, the statues in particular.  Which is your favorite?  I _do_ like Balto.”  He glanced back down at her, suddenly a little self-conscious.  “…I’m not counting the ones of the Marquis.  Those are in a different category.”

“Of course.”

“So…?”  He prompted.

“I liked the Statue of Liberty.”

“Ah…”  He put his hand to his forehead.  “I forgot!  How could I forget?”

Adrienne smiled and nudged him towards the counter to pick up their order.

“Now where?”  He asked, handing her one of the paper cups of coffee.

“Are we just wandering?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s keep going in the direction we were headed.”  They left the store and joined the crowded sidewalk outside again.  “Let me see…”  She thought and waited for her drink to cool.  “We went to the park and to the museum and to another museum and the cloister and the water and up to the tops of buildings and shopping and to tea and lunch and dinner…”

“And breakfast.”

“That wasn’t with you.”

Lafayette raised his hand with the paper bag holding their bagels and she laughed.

“Yes, and to breakfast.”

“And we saw all the statues I wanted to.”

“And you showed me where they will light the Christmas tree.”

Lafayette sighed.  “There’s so much left that we will not be able to do!  You’ll have to come back.”

“I’d still like to go to Broadway,” Adrienne began hesitantly.  “Unless it really is that bad…?”

“It’s very crowded,” Lafayette said just as the sidewalk around them began to open up.  “And there are people who perform on the street and ask you for money for pictures.  But we are cosmopolitan,” he went on, “and it’s no worse than Rome in the summer.  Maybe more colorful,” he conceded.  “And all…”  He motioned with his hands, one holding his drink and the other the bag.  “All in one place.  Ah, it’s like that there too.  It’s like that around every tourist attraction in a city.  We should go,” he finally said.  “Alexander was just being a bad sport.  He’s only been here one year longer than I have and it’s not as though he’s particularly worldly, in spite of what he says.  We’ll go down,” Lafayette said, getting back to his point, “but let’s go later.  The neon signs will be more striking at night.”

They were stopped at an intersection, waiting for the traffic to still and the pedestrian crossing light to change, and Adrienne raised up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.  Lafayette felt the heat rise to his face, in spite of the fact that it was far from the first time she had done that, and he shifted the bag to the same hand that was holding his coffee and put his arm over her shoulder, tugging her close against his side.  She leaned wordlessly into it, closing her eyes for a moment and tipping her head against him.  He squeezed her and turned his face down, burying it in her hair and breathing deeply.  Roses, from her shampoo and perfume.  Roses from her skin, from Paris, from a short ride outside and a sunlit bedroom with a white floral blanket and faded stuffed animals on the shelves.  Roses and salt from the ocean between them and the air at the park where they had looked across the water to a French statue on a small American island and reasserted their commitment to one another.

Adrienne tugged at the front of his shirt as someone knocked into him from behind.

“The light.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette let her go and straightened up, blinking back salt from his eyes.  He took her hand and they hurried across the street as the sign changed from “walk” to a count down.  “How utterly provincial of me.”


	111. Agua

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Public Shower; Family Ties

Laurens was typing on his phone when he let Hamilton into the dorm.  “Hey.  Sorry, one second.  I’m asking my father if he can send me a couple of things.”

“More clothes?”  Hamilton took off his jacket, sitting on Laurens’ bed.

“No.  I was talking to Lafayette and we thought it would be fun to get a television and game console in here.”

“Jesus, J.  You don’t want to just pick that up when you go home for break?”

“Well, we wanted it sooner and it was for my birthday…”  Laurens sounded a little guilty, like he hadn’t really thought through what he was asking and that it was in all honesty a rather ridiculous request.

“Hey, your money, I’m not telling you how to spend it.  Actually, his money and therefore I’m even less involved.”

“When are you going over to Washington’s?”  Laurens changed the topic.

“Not until dinner.  Lancelot wants to take his lady fair around the city for her last day.  Cram in all the stuff they didn’t get around to yet.”

Laurens nodded.  “Right.  I think he said something about taking her souvenir shopping.”

“Good French loan word,” Hamilton said approvingly.  “Hey.”

Something about the way he said it caught Laurens’ attention and he looked up from his phone.  “What?”

Hamilton had his head cocked a little to the side as he watched his face.  “So we’ve been dating, what, since June at least.”

“At least,” Laurens agreed.

“And, like, we’re pretty good about most things.  Solid,” he went on, “we’re solid.  Strong communication, most of the time.  Well, some of the time.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“I’m just saying, J., so if there’s something one of us wants we should be able to tell the other, right?”

“Seriously, Alexander, where are you going with this?”

“I really wasn’t kidding about wanting to fool around in semi-public.”

Laurens just stared.  Hamilton was looking at him seriously, trying not to feel too awkward about putting what he wanted out in the open, straight up, not hidden behind a joke or a come on.

“I…”  Laurens wasn’t really sure how to respond to that, and Hamilton jumped back in.

“I figured you might be okay with it since you didn’t mind messing around a little in the elevator the other day and we already made out in the hallway at my building once—I’d suggest something less visible than that, you know, where we wouldn’t _actually_ get walked in on by someone just trying to get to their room—”

“Wait, their room?  Are you thinking of somewhere here?”

Hamilton glanced up at the ceiling.  “Well…”

“Alex…”

“No one would know,” Hamilton said, talking quickly.  “I was thinking we could go into one of the shower stalls.  The door would be closed and it’s not like anyone will be spending too much time in there anyway.  The sound of the water will cover everything, so they won’t be able to hear anything either.  You said you get off in there already anyway…”

Laurens started to turn red.  “I said that?”

“Yeah, you did.  You told me you don’t like to jerk it when Lafayette’s in here.  You also said that for all the shit I say you thought I was actually serious about this one.”  Hamilton said.  He moved forward a little so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.  “I’d get so hot, John.”

Laurens found, to his surprise, that he was very much on board with the suggestion.

Something must have shown in his face because Hamilton grinned suddenly.  “It’s the weekend.  You free now?”  His voice was a purr.

Laurens cleared his throat.  “I, uh, I could be free.”

“Excellent.”  Hamilton stood and went to his closet, casually getting out two towels and grabbing Laurens’ shower supplies as if he had been planning this for a while (which, Laurens realized, he had been).  “I’ll go in a minute after you, J.  The stall at the end would probably work best.  Don’t worry, I’ll wait until no one is around before following you in.”  He rocked back on his heels, trying not to look too excited, as he handed Laurens his things.  “See you in a sec.”

Laurens felt distinctly self-conscious as he headed down the hall, holding his towel a little in front of himself.  He actually glanced both ways before entering the men’s room and quickly made his way to a stall in the back, mortified at the thought of running into someone he knew—even though his friends didn’t live in the same hall as him and it wasn’t like anyone would have stopped to interrogate him just for going to take a freakin’ shower.

He set his things down in the dry area inside the stall and and stripped and decided he should probably turn on the water rather than just stand there naked when he heard the door open and decisive footsteps head for his corner of the room.  There was a pause, in which time Laurens stepped out of view of the door and into the shower and then Hamilton slipped in.

“Am I late?”

Laurens motioned him to silence and Hamilton grinned and rolled his eyes but lowered his voice.

“There’s no one else here.”

“Still.”

Hamilton was stripping and Laurens watched as he undid his shirt and hung it, then followed it with his pants and underwear, sticking his shoes in the corner away from the spray of the water.

“Okay, just,” Hamilton made a little motion at him.  “Just do what you would do normally.  Wash off.  I’ll join you in a sec.”

Laurens turned away reluctantly.  He faced the shower head and closed his eyes, letting the water hit him.  He had it a little colder than normal—his face was still tender—and that was probably a good thing because he found it impossible to take his mind off of the fact that Hamilton was naked just a foot or so away and eagerly waiting to set his plan into motion.

Laurens heard Hamilton step into the shower behind him as he started to wash his hair and felt his hands run up his back to his shoulders, pressing deep into the muscle for a second, and then moving down along his arms.  He couldn’t help but turn to face him and Hamilton took a half-step towards him, letting himself brush up against him.

Laurens felt his pulse quicken and then heat stir in his groin when Hamilton  dropped to his knees.

“Ah…”  He tipped his head down and closed his eyes as water ran into his face.

Hamilton didn’t say anything.  Instead he put his hands on his thighs and slowly took his cock into his mouth.

Laurens heard the bathroom door open and someone enter, then run the water in the sink.  He felt a jolt of fear, as if he would somehow automatically know what they were doing, as if he would be be able to see them, see Hamilton’s mouth on him…  Hamilton, on the other hand, seemed encouraged and pushed further onto him and then swallowed against him hard enough that Laurens, in spite of his anxiety, had to press his fist to his mouth and urged them back a step or two so he could lean against the wall.

Hamilton followed him and cupped his sac, lifting it away from his body and sucking against him again.  Laurens let a little moan escape him.

Hamilton repeated the motion and Laurens had to force himself to keep quiet.  It was hard to tell over the running water but he thought that the other person was still in the bathroom.  Hamilton seemed to take it as a challenge, pressing his fingers to the space behind his sac and moving slowly over his shaft, obviously trying to coax a sound out of him.  He wrapped his free hand over the base of his shaft, working it in tandem with his mouth.  Laurens put his hands hard on Hamilton’s shoulders, his breathing heavy.

Hamilton slowly pulled off of him, using just his hands.  “Hey,” he whispered.

Laurens gave a little shake of the head.

Hamilton grinned and took just his cockhead into his mouth again, pressing his tongue up underneath it.  Laurens gasped and bit back a moan.

Hamilton was moving his hand faster, even as he sucked on just his head and Laurens leaned a little heavier on him.

Hamilton moaned quietly against him and Laurens tightened his grip on him.  Dear God.

Hamilton ran his tongue around his head, then took his hand away to slide further down on him again, bracing himself once more against his legs as Laurens slid one hand into his hair.  Hamilton gave a low pleased noise and the vibrations made Laurens’ knees feel weak.  The water was still beating hard against him and although Hamilton was being partially shielded from it his hair was wet and it slid between Laurens’ fingers.  He wanted to urge him on and as soon as he heard the door close he groaned out his name, still softly, but audible over the running water.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton immediately pushed as far down on him as he could and Laurens braced himself with one arm against the wall, gasping and repeating his name.

Hamilton wrapped his arms around his legs, pressing his hands against his inner thighs and holding him in place as he moved against him, working him with his mouth and tongue.

Laurens was breathing harder and he blinked his eyes open hard against his desire to close them and the water running down his face.  “Alex…”

Hamilton made a low noise, pleased and encouraging him louder, and Laurens tugged at his hair, urging him on with a little groan.

Hamilton was sliding his hands over his legs, inching them down and then moving them back up to the very tops of his inner thighs where they brushed against his sac and made Laurens moan a little more.

So much for keeping quiet, Hamilton thought to himself, amused.  He slid one hand between his legs and cupped him, making Laurens lean a little harder on the wall and pull a little more desperately on his hair.

“More,” Laurens managed, softly.

The door opened again and someone else walked in.  Laurens froze as he heard the stall next to them open and close.  Hamilton slowly moved away and for a moment Laurens thought that the stakes had been raised too high for him as well and that he was going to stop.  He felt a pang of frustration and regret.  Fortunately, when Hamilton stood he kept his body very close to Laurens’ and slid his hands up over his body.  He leaned in and Laurens automatically tipped his head down.  Hamilton brushed a wet strand of hair out of his face and nudged Laurens’ head to the side slightly so he could whisper in his ear as the shower one stall over turned on.

“God, John,” he breathed against his skin.  “I can’t believe you’re letting me do this to you.”

Laurens realized he had no intention of stopping just because someone was close enough to heighten the danger of hearing—that had been the whole point, after all.  Hamilton slid his hand between his legs and Laurens tipped his head up as he rubbed him.  His hand was moving faster and Hamilton was continuing to whisper to him, keeping his voice quiet even while he encouraged Laurens to make noise.

“You said you touch yourself in here all the time, J.  Just a little, just give me a little moan.  Just loud enough that I can hear you over the water.  I want to hear your voice, J…”

Laurens cut short a whine.

“Yes, J., like that.”  He lightly kissed his jaw and Laurens took a sharp breath.  “No one knows that you’re the one in here, much less that I’m with you.  _Please_ …”

The needy way he said the last word pushed Laurens closer to the edge and he let himself moan—a long, low, obvious noise.

Hamilton could picture the stranger in the next stall hear him and pretend not to and he grinned, his own erection pressing against Laurens.  “Again.”

Laurens repeated it, a little louder, as Hamilton pumped his shaft.

“Is this how you would do it?”  He asked.  “This fast?  This is how you use your hand when you jerk me off, J.”

Laurens could feel how close he was getting.  He wasn’t sure if the shower next to them was still running and he couldn’t remember why he cared.  All he could think about was Hamilton’s hand on him and the memory of his mouth…

“Alex…”  Laurens’ mind was filled with sensation and desire and he came onto Hamilton’s arm, his hand balled into a fist against the wall.

Hamilton continued to touch him for a few seconds, his heart still racing with adrenaline, and kissed him, a little more quickly than normal.

Laurens wiped water out of his face and ducked his head to return the kiss, still feeling Hamilton’s erection against him.

“Finish yourself in here,” he said, the words coming out more like a command than a suggestion without his meaning to.  Fortunately Hamilton took the tone well, his grin broadening a little as he stepped back and repositioned them so he was the one under the shower head.

“Yeah?”  He didn’t wait for Laurens to confirm but put his hand to his cock, touching himself.  “You don’t mind staying in here a little longer?”  Fortunately he did have the presence of mind to keep his voice soft.  Laurens could barely hear him over the water.

Once more, Hamilton did not wait for a response.  He tipped his head up, intentionally drawing attention to his neck and chest, and letting the water run down his body in rivulets to his cock.  He moved his hand quickly, not bothering to draw it out but just seeking release.

Laurens watched as Hamilton bit his lip and sped up his pace slightly.  He had already been flushed but now he could faintly hear his breathing as it grew more needy, and Hamilton was moving his hand deliberately, _drawing_ the orgasm out of himself…  He spilled onto the shower stall with a jerk of his hand and his hips.

Laurens stepped forward, putting one hand at his waist and then kissing him.  Hamilton drew it out this time, leaning into him, and putting his hand on his arm for support.

Laurens wrapped his other arm around him and kissed his cheek and neck, nuzzling the side of his face.

“Okay,” Hamilton said, a little awkward and a little irritated because of it.  “We’re good.”  He moved away to turn the water off.  “Pretty shitty for the environment,” he half-joked.  “And not great for the plumbing.”  He stepped out and dried himself off.  “But thank you, J.”

“I know you’ve been wanting to try that.”

The shower next to them was still running and Laurens carefully kept his voice down.

“Mm, for ages.  Not cured of it, either.  We’ll have to do it again.”

Laurens watched as Hamilton dried off and got dressed once more.  Hamilton looked up and saw his eyes on him.  He tossed him his towel.  “C’mon.  We should get out of here before that guy does.”  He nodded his head towards the other stall.

“Right.”

Hamilton grinned.  “Did I convert you?  Are you into this now too?  _Excellent_.”

Laurens dried himself off and Hamilton cracked the door open and looked out.

“Coast’s clear.  I’m going to take your key and let myself in.  Knock when you’re back.”  He slipped out, leaving Laurens in the bathroom.

Hamilton had barely had time to scroll through his messages and was beginning to compose a response to Washington when he heard a soft knock at the door and he got up from the desk to let Laurens in.  “That was fast.”

Laurens shrugged.

“I’m not complaining.  Hey, I’ve got some time.  Washington emailed me, I don’t need to actually go in, I can do all of it from the home office.  Which no one needs to know actually means your bed and actually means naked.”

Laurens laughed.  “Again?”

“I dunno.  Do you want to?”

“Maybe in a little while.”  Laurens sat on his bed.  “You should stay, though.”

“Oh, I will.”  Hamilton sat next to him, tucking one leg up underneath himself and putting his hand on Laurens’ knee.  “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna make out?”

Laurens laughed again.  “Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah, I’m in a pretty good mood, J.  I finally got to do the thing I wanted and I don’t need to head back to campus proper.  Get Jefferson to eat his words on my proposal and this will be the best day ever.”

“I’m not sure if I can do that last one.”

“Lafayette might be able to.  Luckily I’m too proud to ask.”  Hamilton tipped them both over backwards, his hand in Laurens’ shirt.  “Because he’d jump at the chance to help and with my luck we’d both end up in trouble.”

“With his luck he’d get out of it,” Laurens corrected.

“Mm, yeah, that’s true.  Damn, how is the guy so slick?”

“He’s been studying since an early age.”

“If it’s breeding then shouldn’t you be a smoother talker?  I’m better than you and I’m hella abrasive.”

“You can turn it off when you want to.  You just don’t always want to.”

“Code switching,” Hamilton agreed.  “That’s maybe not the best example of it, it’s more about linguistic choice than actually being a dick.  They’re tied, I guess, since I tend towards crassness when I’m speaking more casually, too.”

“You’re aware?”

“Of course I’m aware, J.”  Hamilton breathed out deeply as Laurens put his arm over him.  “I’m all up in my own head, remember?  I can’t help but notice this kind of stuff.  You do it too, just a little.”

“I do?”

“Just a little,” Hamilton repeated.  “Mostly it’s that you get more formal when you’re speaking to authority figures.  Your tone changes slightly.  It’s not as dramatic as when I do it, but then you don’t have that same customer service voice that I do.”

Laurens didn’t say anything.

“J.?”

Laurens kissed him instead of responding and Hamilton smiled into it, sliding his hand into his hair.

“Yeah,” he said after a few moments, “more making out, less talking about Lafayette.  I agree.  Good plan.”

“Mm,” Laurens said, leaning into his hand.  “I don’t mind talking.”

“You’re the one who shut up, J.,” Hamilton pointed out.

Laurens closed his eyes, surrendering to the touch.  “Whatever you want.”

“I like talking.”

“I know you do.  Keep going.”

“You don’t self-efface like I do,” Hamilton said.  “I guess you never needed to learn it.  That’s not a bad thing, don’t think I’m passing judgement on you.  It’d be bad if you were a prick, but you’re self-aware enough to make up for it.”

“I had to learn how to talk to authority.”

“Yeah, your father and his friends,” Hamilton said.  “That’s not the same thing, J., don’t fake like you think it is.”

Laurens was silent, letting Hamilton continue to toy with his hair.  After a minute Hamilton went on.

“What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“Passing.”

Laurens tensed and Hamilton kept moving his hand, letting the rhythm soothe him.

“I’m not blaming you, John.  You can’t choose your genetics any more than I can.  And, shit, you got your dad, so that would be a thing either way.  I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“I don’t know how to answer you.”

“Yeah, I guess not.  It’d be easier if I phrased it the other way.  What’s it like when you don’t fit in?”

“I got stopped at his office once,” Laurens said after a moment.  “I was in fourth or fifth grade.  It was during the summer and it was hot out, so I was wearing some old clothes and I was just waiting around for him to finish up his work.  A guard accused me of being there when I wasn’t supposed to be and tried to kick me out.”

“And?”

“I told him who my father was,” Laurens admitted.  “And he apologized.  And he left.”

“Hm.”  Hamilton frowned to himself as he looked over Laurens’ shoulder and across the room.  “That was rude of him.”

“I can’t blame him.  For all I know it was just because I was a kid.”

“You can still sense the tone,” Hamilton said.  “I believe you.”

“Maybe it was more surprising because it didn’t usually happen.”

“Dress like you belong, act like you belong,” Hamilton agreed.  “I bet if I went around in that suit I’d have people falling all over me.  Well, that’s just a theory, it didn’t go so well for me at the dinner anyway.”

“Things like that happened to my sister and brother more.”

“James?”

“Harry.  Jemmy’s just a child.  He’s hardly ever on his own.”

“Right.  They look more like your mom?”

“They all do,” Laurens said.  “I look at them and I can see her, I look at myself…”

“Lafayette said you look like your father,” Hamilton said after it became apparent that Laurens wasn’t going to finish that thought.  “I told him to drop it.  ‘Cause, I mean, gross, I’m into you, not your dad.”  Laurens gave the ghost of a laugh.  “But even besides which, you’re not his frickin’ twin.  Sure, you’ve got some features, and the height plays into it, but correct me if I’m wrong, J., you’ve got her hair and eyes.”

Laurens sat back a little.  “When did you—”

“I’ve never seen her,” Hamilton said, tugging him back.  “But your hair curls when it’s wet and salt and pepper aside it looks a shade darker than your father’s, and your eyes…”  He kissed the side of his head.  “I don’t need to have met her to know.  Those are your mother’s eyes.”

Laurens’ chest tightened.  He turned his face up and kissed him, slowly and tenderly.  Hamilton let him and didn’t try to move away or deepen it.

“I love you,” Laurens finally said, kissing him again.  “God.”

“I love you too.”  Hamilton squeezed his shoulder.  “You want to show me a picture sometime?  I’d offer to trade but I don’t have any.  Maybe I can get something sent from St. Croix, but I don’t know where all that stuff ended up.”

Laurens nodded.  “When you visit.  Over Thanksgiving.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

Hamilton was quiet for a moment.  “Hey…  J.?”

“Mm?”

“About your father…”

“It will be all right, Alexander.”

Hamilton chewed his lip.  “I don’t believe you,” he admitted.

“I promise that as well.  It’ll be fine.  Hell,” Laurens half laughed, “he’d have to walk in on me actually kissing you to believe it.”

Hamilton smiled, still a little uncertain.  “Don’t jinx it, J.”

“Maybe don’t call me that there.”

“Got it.  You’re really not nervous?”

“No, I…”  Laurens paused.  “No, I am.  But I’m telling the truth.  He has no idea and it’s so far away from how he knows me.  I don’t like the idea of someone telling him or presenting him with some kind of actual _proof_ , but just having you around…  Besides,” he went on, “Lafayette will be there, too.”

“He’s real distracting.”

“Yeah, he is.”  Laurens kissed the side of his mouth.  “He keeps distracting you from me.  I thought we were done talking about that guy.”

“Sorry, sorry.”  Hamilton tipped his head back, giving Laurens access to his throat.  He ran his hand over the back of his neck, encouraging him, but his brow was furrowed as he stared at the ceiling.  Somehow he couldn’t believe that Henry Laurens was really that tone deaf.


	112. Lonely Men's Breakfast Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saying Goodbye; Hey There Buddy, Hey Champ, You Doin' Okay There Bud?

Early Sunday morning, Lafayette sat next to Adrienne in the back of a cab, her carry-on at their feet and her suitcase in the trunk behind them.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said to her, her hand in his and his face pressed against her neck.  “I know you have to.”

“I do.”

“I don’t want you to go anyway,” he said again, his voice soft enough that even if the driver of the car spoke French he wouldn’t be able to understand him.  “Promise me that you’ll talk to me at the airport.”

“Of course I will.”

“Should I buy a ticket so I can come with you to the gate?”

“They won’t like that, Gil.”

“I’ll be paying for it myself.”

“Gilbert…”

“I know,” he sighed, not taking his face away.  “Will you tell me when you get in?”

“Yes.”  She was looking straight ahead as if willing her voice to remain strong.

“I miss you already.  I don’t know what I’ll do once you leave.”

“The same thing you were doing before I visited.”

“It won’t _be_ the same,” Lafayette insisted.  “Not anymore.  Not when you’ve seen everything with me.  Now your ghost will be there in all of it.”

“Should I have not come?”

“No, not at all.  That’s not what I meant.  It’s better this way.  It is,” he said, a little more decidedly.  “I’ll enjoy seeing you wherever I go.  It’s just…”

“I know,” she said.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Lafayette whined against her collar.  Sometimes he was dramatic just for the sake of being dramatic.  He liked putting on a show.  Right now he really did mean it.

“I’ll come back to France as soon as I can.  I can’t cancel on John, but over Christmas break…”

“I’d like that.”

“I won’t even complain about staying up late to go to mass.”

Adrienne tapped his hand with her free one as the cab turned into the airport, passing the first several airlines listed.

Lafayette sat up straight, still holding her hand.  The car slowed and maneuvered between two others to pull up to the curb.  Lafayette dutifully paid and tipped the driver.  A mere second later, or so it seemed to him, they were standing alone with her belongings after he had told the man that he would get back on his own.

“I have to go,” Adrienne said, pushing up her sleeve and checking her watch.  She sounded reluctant.

“You do,” Lafayette agreed.  He kissed her, not as passionately as he wanted to, and embraced her.  “Let me know when you’re through security and when you’re at the gate.  I miss you already, my life.”

She smiled at him, a little wanly, and picked up her bags, passing through the revolving doors and into the airport with a sad wave and a last look over her shoulder.

Lafayette felt like his heart was going to physically break.

 

Laurens rolled over and for a moment was confused to feel an empty space beside him.  Then he remembered that he was in his own bed at the dorm and Hamilton was at his apartment.  He sat up slowly.

“Is she on yet?”

Lafayette was sitting at his desk, back to him, staring at his laptop.

“Lafayette?”

“She was,” he said after a long pause.

“Not anymore?”

“She had to get on the plane.”

Laurens yawned and nodded.  “I’m going to wash up.  Do you want to get breakfast or something?  I don’t have practice today and McHenry was telling me about this Australian place he found…”

“No, thank you.”

Laurens took his phone with him down the hall to the bathroom, typing one-handed as he brushed his teeth.

 

> J. Laurens: He’s pretty upset.

> A. Hamilton: :(

> A. Hamilton: More or less than after vacation?

> J. Laurens: You know, I’m not sure. I guess normally theres a buffer between them leaving and us actually seeing him again

> J. Laurens: do ou think you should get Washington to invite I'm over?

> J. Laurens: *you, him

> J. Laurens: Sorry, I’m typing with one hand.

> A. Hamilton: out of respect for our friend the marquis I won’t even go for the easy joke there.

 

“Hey, buddy,” Laurens said when he got back from the shower, freshly dressed with his towel over his arm.  He rolled his eyes internally at himself  and his word choice.  “What are you doing?”  He hung up his towel.

“Nothing.”

“Just messing around online?”

“No.”

Laurens stood behind him and looked over his shoulder.  Lafayette was just looking at the chat window with Adrienne.  The last message she had sent him was time stamped from over an hour ago.

“…Have you just been waiting for her to come back online?  That’s going to be a real long wait.”

“I know.”

“You look like a kicked puppy.”

“I’m very endearing.”

“I didn’t say that.”  Laurens sat at his own desk and then quickly amended when Lafayette turned to look at him, obviously wounded.  “…But I also didn't not say that.  You can’t just sit here until she gets on the ground again, Lafayette.  Grab a jacket and let’s go out.”

“But she might be able to get wifi on the plane!”

“If she hasn’t come back yet, I don’t think it’s happening.  You’ll have to wait a few hours to talk to her.  Don’t you want to be able to tell her about what you did in the meantime?”

“I will tell her.”

“You’ll sound like a moron and make her feel bad if you say that you literally just sat and stared at the screen the whole time.  Alexander is up, I can call him and the three of us can do something.”

“No,” Lafayette said, injecting a little extra melodrama into his voice as he shut his laptop to make it clear that he didn’t actually want to be doing so.  “I don’t want to bring the two of you down.”

“Oh, come on, Lafayette.  Neither of us care about that.”

Lafayette didn’t respond and Laurens tried another track.

“What about André?  He’s pretty upset still.  I could see if he’s free later and the four of us could hang out.”

Lafayette seemed to consider this, so Laurens continued.

“I’m going to call Alexander and tell him that we’re going to meet him for breakfast.  I’ll text André as well and see what his schedule is like.  All right?”

“Yes,” Lafayette mused.  “It’ll be difficult to see the two of you all over each other, but at least I’ll know that it’s due to my meddling.”

“Right,” Laurens said as he dialed.  “You always get a kick out of the ego boost.  Hello?  Hey, we’re taking Lafayette out for breakfast,” Laurens said into his phone.  “I don’t know, the cafeteria?  Yeah.”  Laurens glanced, a little uncomfortable at Lafayette, then coughed behind his hand and said rather quickly, “Love you too, see you later.”  He hung up.

Lafayette clicked his tongue.

“What?”

“I’m paying for his meal now,” Lafayette complained.  “He bet me that he would be able to get you to say that.”

Laurens reddened a little.  “When did he do that?”

“While you were showering.”  Lafayette got up.  “I’m not hungry anyway,” he announced, “but since I’m paying I suppose I can’t back out of it.”

“Right,” Laurens said, not quite certain.  “That’s the spirit.”  He slipped his wallet into his pocket and patted Lafayette on the back.  “I’m sure you’ll find something you like there.  How did you get back here, anyway?”  He asked as he herded him out the door.  “Do you know about ride-shares?  Alexander can probably give you better information than I can.”

“I called Washington for a ride.”

Laurens stopped in his steps.  “You did _what_?”

“He came and picked me up.”

“Are you serious?  Didn’t you drop her off at like four in the morning?”

“He told me that if I ever needed anything to let him know.”

“I don’t think that’s what he meant…”

“He picked me up,” Lafayette said with a slight shrug.  “I needed to be with someone who understands me.”

“Was that a jab?”

“You don’t have a car,” Lafayette pointed out.  “He was very sympathetic to my needs.  He told me I could smoke if I wanted.”

“ _Do_ you smoke?”  Laurens couldn't imagine Washington smoking and he just filed that away to ask Hamilton about later.

“No.  It’s very unhealthy.  Adrienne disapproves of it.”

It seemed like an inappropriate time to point out that Lafayette indulged in many other things that Adrienne disapproved of so Laurens just let that go.

 

Laurens and Lafayette met Hamilton outside the cafeteria.  He looked up from his phone as they walked up, locked the screen, and refrained from taking a step towards Laurens.

“Hey.  I just got here.  Checking my mail.”

“You can greet him,” Lafayette said with resignation.  “Just because my life is ruined does not mean that I want my two best friends to be unhappy as well.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything, Lafayette,” Hamilton complained.  “Come off it.  Besides,” he said, taking Laurens’ hand now that he had permission, “she just went home.  It’s not like one of you died.”

“A piece of me died.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton joked, “ _un petit mort_ , stop bragging about how much tail you got during her visit.”

Lafayette sniffed.  “That’s in poor taste.”

“Seriously?”

“Today it is.  Remind me in a day or so how many times you intervened to my benefit and I’ll gladly reminisce.”

“Gotcha.”

“You too, John,” Lafayette said as he picked up a tray.  “Thank you for staying the night that one time.”

Laurens shrugged.  “You’re welcome.”

“We went to _Miranda_ yesterday,” Lafayette complained, a little louder than he needed to, “and it was _great_ , but now all it does is remind me of all of the things that I will not be able to do with her.”

“Wait,” Laurens said.  “You saw _Miranda_?”

“ _Oui_.”

“How did you get tickets?  Haven't they been sold out for months?”

“We were walking by and someone offered to sell us his at cost,” Lafayette said, somehow managing to still sound bitter.  “Don’t change the subject, John.  That is also very rude.”

“How the fuck are you real?”

“My heart died,” Lafayette went on, ignoring him and passing the tray down, and then a second tray for Hamilton.  He didn’t pick up a third for himself, stepping away from the counter as the other two served themselves.

“That’s poetic.”

“My heart is nauseous like I would be if I were on the plane with her.”

“That’s less poetic.”  Hamilton said, rethinking the bacon he was about to put on his plate.

Laurens took the tongs from him, apparently not put off enough to change his plans for breakfast.  “Does that mean you’re not eating?”

“No.”

“You should eat something.”

“I have no appetite.  What time is it?”  Lafayette checked his own watch.  “How quickly do you think the plane could land with a strong tailwind?”

“You’re not going to miss her while we’re at the cafeteria.”

Lafayette sighed.  “Is André coming?”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.  “Do we count for anything?”

“John promised me that he’d contact André.”

“I did,” Laurens said.  “But thank you for implying we shouldn’t have bothered coming out.”

“You’re too happy,” Lafayette complained.  “It makes me happy for you and that makes it hard to wallow.”

Hamilton blew Laurens a kiss.  He pretended not to notice but Lafayette made an overly dramatic disgusted noise.

“Stop that,” Laurens said, meaning both of them.

“Aw.”

“It’s no use,” Lafayette went on with a wave of his hand.  “I will be inconsolable for weeks.”

“I’m very impressed with how quickly your English has improved.”

“Thank you.”  Lafayette’s face brightened very momentarily when he saw André step through the front doors and he motioned him over.  “Shall the two of us find you a table?”

“At least ask André if he wants to get something to eat.”

“Coffee,” André said in response as he walked up.  “I’m not real hungry.”

“I told you so,” Lafayette said, leaving Hamilton with his wallet and leading André off to get coffee and a table.

“Wow,” Hamilton commented, watching them walk away, “this’ll be a real fun breakfast.  What good company.”

“Be nice.”

“I am being nice,” Hamilton said as he went back to filling his plate.  “I feel bad for them, really.  But, come on, J., I’m not wrong.”

“It’s just breakfast.”

“That mean we can ditch after?”

Laurens cast a glance around the still only slowly filling cafeteria.  “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I guess so.  Unless Lafayette needs company.”

“Of course,” Hamilton agreed, sounding much more cheerful.  “What about André?  They should just hang out.  Get some real bonding time in.”

“I’ll suggest it,” Laurens said.  “He probably will want me out of the room when Adrienne is scheduled to get in anyway.”

Hamilton nodded eagerly.  “Right, give them a little privacy.  Totally.  That makes perfect sense.”

“So at two…”

Hamilton’s face fell.

“…You’re busy, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”  The word was a drawn out complaint.

Laurens laughed.  “Maybe they’ll want to head off together.”

“André and Lafayette?  Don’t make it sound like we’re trying to get rid of them.  Lafayette’s my friend.  I want good things for him.”

“Only _your_ friend?”

“Excuse me.  Our friend.  We want.”

“Better.”

“We could go on another road trip.  Except I’m already heading down to South Carolina over Thanksgiving and I really can’t lose any more time, so veto on that.”  Hamilton waited until Laurens was done making his plate and then headed to the register.  “I guess we could do some weird five-person coffee date— _oui, bien sûr_ this is my student ID, don’t tell me you can’t recognize me in that picture.  Jeez.”  Hamilton put Lafayette’s ID away, having successfully charged his meal to him.  “People.  What was I saying, J.?”

“Not much of anything.”

“Fair enough.”  Hamilton took a seat across from Lafayette and André.  “Thanks.”  He handed the wallet back.  “So do you ever win bets or am I just your kryptonite?”

“I often win,” Lafayette said, sounding offended.

Hamilton grinned, pleased at having gotten a reaction that wasn’t just moping.  “Yeah?”

“ _Oui_.  I bet Gouverneur that his taste in literature was very poor and I won astonishingly well.”

“He said to try again high,” Hamilton reminded him.  “You told me the story.”

“Please don’t encourage him.”  Laurens picked up his fork.  “What are you doing today, André?”

André shrugged, still subdued.  “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“He’s trying to push me off on you,” Lafayette informed him.  “Fortunately, I would actually like that.”

André shrugged again.  “All right.  Actually, there’s some stuff I need to take care of.  If you don’t mind, I could use the company.”

“Anything,” Lafayette assured him, “as long as I can get back online by the time Adrienne lands.”


	113. Des Amis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Silver Tongue; Returning Items; Slumber Party

“I’m glad that all worked out.”  Hamilton leaned against the back of Laurens’ desk chair, tipping his face towards the ceiling and running his hand through Laurens’ hair as he knelt between his legs.  “It’s, ah, it’s better this way.”

“Definitely,” Laurens agreed before taking his cock into his mouth, causing Hamilton to give a low appreciate moan.

“Yes…”

Laurens pushed his tongue against the underside of his shaft, eliciting another moan from Hamilton.  Hamilton moved his hands to rest on his own legs, balling them against his thighs.

“I, ah, I’m sorry I’m not going to be free this afternoon,” Hamilton continued as Laurens moved down over him.  “I’ve got, well, I told you I’ve got work to do.  And you should probably stay here tonight unless he—says otherwise, I don’t know if he’s planning on getting freaky on the phone.”

Laurens hummed a noise of assent against his shaft, making Hamilton’s hips twitch.

“I mean you’re more than—welcome to come back to my place.  Of course.”

Laurens made that noise again and Hamilton tightened his fists, running his tongue over his lower lip.  Sweet Jesus.

“J…”

Laurens moved his hands up Hamilton’s exposed legs, feeling the way his muscles tensed and he pulled back to turn his attention solely to his cockhead, which he sucked on as he teased the slit with his tongue.  He could taste Hamilton now, a drop of salt, and he slid back down him, earning a groan and one of Hamilton’s hands grabbing his wrist.

“This—Tomorrow, you think he’ll—I wanna steal you away, J.”  Hamilton was starting to get a little incoherent, Laurens noted fondly, and his voice was trembling.  Laurens took hold of his hand.  Hamilton whimpered and flexed and clenched his free one.  Laurens was moving steadily over his shaft now and he slipped down a little in the chair, his breathing elevated and heart racing.  He felt like Laurens might just pull the orgasm out of him before he was done enjoying himself and he wasn’t even sure that was a bad thing.

Laurens was varying the pressure against his shaft in a steady rhythm, letting him twist and lean into it.  He pressed his tongue against him against as he slowly pulled off and kissed his cockhead, lightly touching his lips to it and then running his tongue over it.  Hamilton’s hips jerked and he tightened his grip on his hand desperately.

“J.—!”

Laurens flinched to the side as Hamilton came, hitting him on the side of the face and neck.  “Jesus,” he swore, sitting back and untangling his hand to wipe at himself.

“Sorry.”  Hamilton sounded more breathless than really apologetic.  “Sorry,” he repeated, a little more genuinely.  “That was—Didn’t realize, sorry.”

“Could’ve warned me,” Laurens grumbled as he wiped his face again and then took the box of tissues Hamilton offered him.  “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t help myself,” Hamilton said consolingly.  “You’re just getting too good at that.”

“You’re a flatterer.”

“Mm, silver tongue, I should be saying that about you.”

Laurens laughed.  Hamilton noted with relief that he didn’t seem to be holding a grudge.

“I wish I had time to make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, you say that, but we both know you wouldn’t complain.  Besides, I like doing it.”

“Tonight, if I don’t need to be here.”

“I could stay over,” Hamilton offered.  “I mean, I don’t think I could do _that_ , but I could…  I could stay over.”

“I’d like that.”

“But would our favorite marquis?”  Hamilton wondered.  “I don’t know, I’d say it could be fun to act like this time last year, but I can’t think of any junk food off the top of my head to introduce him to and also you just make a very good pillow.”  He was standing and doing up his fly.  Laurens smiled.  “I could sleep on the floor,” he went on.  “I mean, I basically already do anyway.  Or do you think Lafayette’ll want to dog pile?  He’s really clingy with her when they sleep, did you notice when you stayed over at G-Wash’s?  Like, shit, let the poor girl breathe.”  Hamilton picked up his bag, still talking.  “You know what, J.?  You’ve convinced me.”

Laurens smiled.  He hadn’t said anything.

“I’ll pick up something different on my way back tonight and the three of us can chill.  Maybe we can stream a movie or something.”

 

“Are you sure about this?”

“Definitely.”  André took the watercolor landscape down from where it was hanging on his wall and handed it to Lafayette.  “I can’t stand looking at it every day.  It’s infuriating.”

Lafayette nodded.  Infuriating was better than depressing.  “Does she want it?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t ask her.  I think her parents liked it, though, so she can give it to them.  I painted it at their place, anyway.”

Lafayette wasn’t sure how her giving her parents a painting from her ex-boyfriend would go over, but he didn’t say anything as André led the way into his spacious bedroom, collecting other items from shelves and the floor and passing them over.  A jacket, a phone charger, a photo of Peggy and her sister on vacation.  André paused next to his unmade bed and picked up his sketch book.  While he hesitated, Lafayette remembered the picture in his desk drawer.

André put the book back down.  “I think that’s it.  Unless you see anything of hers?  I like to think we don’t have quite the same style,” he said in a weak attempt at humor.

Lafayette looked around, more to make a show of it than because he really thought he’d be able to spot anything like that.  “No, I think you got it all.”

“If I didn’t…”

“I’ll go back with you.”

André nodded.  “I’d offer to drive, but it’ll be just as fast if we catch the train.”

Lafayette followed him out into the sitting room, where André grabbed his wallet and keys.

“Thank you for coming with me.”

“Not at all,” Lafayette said, meaning it.  “I don’t mind.”

“I haven’t seen her since…  You know.”

“Have you spoken with her?”

“Barely.  I told her I would bring her things by the sorority house.  She…”  André trailed off and Lafayette waited until they were in the elevator to press him.

“She…?”

“She’s dating that guy.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, he, uh, he called her up to apologize for that night.”  Neither of them asked aloud how he got her number.  “And they hit it off.  Well, I guess they had already hit it off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

They didn’t talk as they left the building and walked down to the subway entrance.

“I feel like an idiot,” André said as they waited at the platform.  “A complete idiot.  You know, Laurens never liked her.”  Lafayette made a small disbelieving noise.  “No, it’s true.  I kind of, I dunno, I pretended not to notice.  I thought he’d come around.  I guess he’s a better judge of character than I am.”  André sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.  Lafayette shifted the items, wishing he had gotten him a bag for them.

“André,” Lafayette began, “I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

“You’re too nice.”

“I’m not blind,” Lafayette said.  “I’m not completely indiscriminate, I just like to act it sometimes.  You’re very smart and you had reason to believe that she truly cared for you.”

André sighed.

“Maybe Laurens saw something else, but he should have been up front with you about it.”

“I didn’t want him to be.”

“Still,” Lafayette insisted as the train pulled up.  “Still,” he repeated himself, louder as it stopped.  André nodded that he heard him the second time around.  They got into a car and took seats opposite the door.  Lafayette put Peggy’s things down next to him.  “It would have been the right thing to do.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Lafayette stopped abruptly, a nervous guilty look on his face.  “I…  am sorry,” he finished.  “To tell you the truth, André, Adrienne and I…”

“I know you didn’t ask to meet with us again after that one time.”

Lafayette nodded and hung his head, resting his arms on his legs.  “You are my friend, I should have been honest with you.  But shortly after that you also thought you were going to break up with her, and I was distracted.  There was nothing wrong with Peggy,” he explained.  “It just didn’t seem like you two clicked quite as well as you thought you did.”

“Not like you and Adrienne.”

Lafayette smiled sadly.  “No.”

The car rattled along.

“You’re really lucky,” André said after a minute, quietly.  “You’re just really lucky.  Not a lot of people find what you did and just, that’s all…”  His voice was getting tight.

Lafayette looked over at him.  His fists were tight on his legs and he was staring down at his lap.

“Don’t joke about her breaking up with you,” André said.  “I mean it, if you’re actually worried about it, Lafayette, then do something.”

“I did,” Lafayette said quickly.  “Well, we did.  We talked while she was here.  I think it was good.  It went well.”

André nodded.  “Because otherwise it’s just, like, it’s just like you’re too casual about it.  Like you don’t appreciate what you have.”

“I know.”

“Okay.”  André turned away to surreptitiously run a hand over his face.

“I really miss her,” Lafayette said, in part to keep the silence (as much of it as they could have in the car) from growing uncomfortable.  “I’m sorry if that sounds like I’m not respecting what you’re going through…”

“No, it’s fine.  It’s not the same, but it’s a similar thing.”

Lafayette nodded, a little enthusiastically, relieved to have not offended him.  “Yes, you always understand me, André.  She has half of my soul and now it’s being taken away from me again.  When I grow used to that loss it will be all right again but for now it’s just so painful.”  Lafayette paused.  There was more he wanted to say but he couldn't find the words for it in either language.  He draped his arm over André’s shoulders instead and stared straight ahead at the increasingly blurry door.

 

“Remind me again why we’re here?”

“Because Lafayette’s sad and I know you both like him.  Where’s Peggy?  “Didn’t she want to join in the fun?”

“She had a prior commitment.”  Angelica looked over Hamilton’s apartment critically.  “Eliza and I call dibs on the mattress.”

“Figured.  Even put clean sheets on it.”

“You’re a gentleman, Alexander,” Angelica said, seating herself at his desk and looking through his books.  “These aren’t all for class.”

“Nope.”  Hamilton leaned on the back of the chair as Eliza put away the drinks and food they had brought over with them in the fridge.  “Wanna guess what’s what?”

“Most of this pile is from Jefferson’s class,” Angelica began.  “Then there’s the textbook…  I assume that these are for your senior project?”  She motioned at the ones most on top of the mess.

“Pretty much, yeah.  Hey, you think I could get a copy of the Kama Sutra from the library?”  Hamilton turned back to Eliza with a grin.  “If it’s got the pictures then it wouldn’t even matter if it never got translated into English.”

“I take back what I said about you being a gentleman,” Angelica said as Eliza came over and stood with one hand on the desk.  “You’re a scoundrel.”

“Insatiable,” Hamilton agreed cheerfully.  “But my apologies ladies, I promised to keep it together for the night, so you’ll be deprived of a free show.”

“How tragic,” Angelica said, very dryly.  “Alexander, when is your handler getting back?”

“John?”  Hamilton checked his phone.  “Should be anytime now.  He was just going to meet Lafayette.  I thought just in case he needed someone to make sure he actually showed up.”

“We could have collected him,” Eliza said.  “Or just stayed at the dormitory.”

“Don’t want rumors of an orgy spreading.  The walls are not quite thin enough.”

Eliza wrinkled her nose at Angelica who leaned back and swatted Hamilton.

“Hey!  Besides, I’ve got more space.  We’d be really crowded in there, and there’d be nowhere to put the food.”

“That’s true,” Eliza agreed, then looked at the door as the buzzer rang.

“That should be them.”  Hamilton nudged past Eliza to unlock the downstairs door and then opened his own to the still-empty hallway.  “I didn’t tell them I was inviting you over.  Shall we jump out and surprise them?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”  Angelica asked, not getting up.  “We don’t want to intrude if you were going to have a stag night.”

“I—”  Hamilton paused, mouth open.  He closed it, frowned, and then asked a question.  “Does it still count as stag night if John and I are an item?  I thought that was like ‘get away from your significant other and/or be a bunch of horny bachelors on the prowl.’  But, I mean, we’re both still _stags_ , so…”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Eliza pointed out.  “You’ve ruined it.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed, “now we’re just a bunch of deer.  Hey, you need a hand bringing anything up?”  He called down the stairwell as Lafayette and Laurens climbed it.  “Btw, I brought company and they brought dinner, so on the plus side we don’t have to go out to get anything but also everyone needs to keep their clothes on.”

“I don’t think you of all people need to…”  Laurens trailed off as they walked into the room and he saw Angelica and Eliza.  “Oh.”

Eliza waved politely.  Angelica leaned a little further on the table.

“Hello,” Laurens tried again.  “Alex, you didn’t say you were inviting anyone else.”

“Come on,” Hamilton said, touching Laurens’ arm as Lafayette leaned moodily against the wall.  “It’s not like we’re not all friends.  Don’t make it sound like it’ll be a crowd.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean that,” Angelica said, standing and taking Eliza’s hand, leading her over.  “Don’t worry,” she told Laurens directly, “we don’t bite.”

“I didn’t think…”

Lafayette cut in, taking pity on him and pushing himself off of the wall.  “Did I show you the pictures I took at Central Park with Adrienne?”

Laurens rolled his eyes, secretly relieved.  “There he goes again.  Lafayette made me look through his entire camera roll on the way over here.”

“Then it’s a good thing I wasn’t talking to you,” Lafayette said with dignity as he scrolled through his photos for Eliza and Angelica.  “We went on a hunt to find all of the statues.”

“Are you standing on Balto?”

Hamilton refrained from craning his neck over to check the screen.  Laurens nudged him and moved past him to put their things down.  “You can look.”

“Thanks.”

Eliza slipped her arm through Hamilton’s, tugging him closer so he could see the phone properly.

“She took this one,” Lafayette explained, sounding much more cheerful than he had looked a moment ago.  “And, ah, that one.”  He scrolled to another one, where he was balancing with one foot on the dog’s head and striking a dramatic pose as he shielded his eyes from the sun and pointed off into the distance.”

“Do you even know the story about Balto?”  Hamilton asked.

“Of course I do.”  Lafayette seemed indignant as he continued to show off his pictures.  “He was an American hero and also I saw the movie.”

“Ah.”

Laurens frowned as he came back and stood behind Hamilton, putting his hand on his shoulder.  He squeezed it.

“Hey.”  Hamilton tipped his head back against his chest, looking up at him.  “Thought you saw all of these already.”

“Numerous times.”

“I’d ask if you wanted to get the food out, but Eliza literally just put it in the fridge, so that seems like a waste of her effort.”

Laurens felt the twinge of annoyance grow.  “I can get it later.”

“Sure.”  Hamilton was back to looking at the pictures.  “Hey, how’s André?  He okay?”

“We returned some of Peggy’s belongings,” Lafayette said as he scrolled.  “But she wasn’t there.  We dropped it off at the shared house with her friend.  Her sister?”  He cocked his head to the side, not sure of the correct terminology.

“She didn’t show,” Laurens clarified, his words short.

“Maybe it was a misunderstanding.”

Lafayette glanced up, looking between Hamilton and Laurens, and shrugged.  “She wasn’t there.  It might have been for the best.”

“André didn’t want to come over?  He would’ve been welcome.”

“Alex, it’s crowded enough as is.”

“Come on, J.,” Hamilton said, leaning back against him again.  “There’s enough space.”

Laurens looked away and accidentally made direct eye contact with Angelica.  She was watching him closely and he was unable to read her expression.  He glanced up at the ceiling instead.

“Wait,” Eliza said with a short laugh, reaching out and touching Lafayette on the arm.  “What was that one?  Go back.”

Lafayette obliged, scrolling back as Angelica spoke to Laurens, forcing him to look back at her.

“So how _is_ your friend?”

“André?”  Laurens half shrugged.  “I didn’t see him.”

“You’ve spoken to him since Halloween.”  Angelica angled herself away from the others to talk to Laurens more directly.  “At least, I assume you have.”

“He’s…”  Laurens hesitated.  “He’ll be fine,” he amended.  “I’m a little surprised he didn’t want to come over.”

“He seemed like a people person.”

“Yeah, he is.  He’s very friendly.”  He glanced back at Hamilton, chatting happily with the other two.  “Are we just going to stand here?”  He asked Lafayette.

“I don’t know, this isn’t my party.”

“Oh, right.”  Hamilton extracted himself from Eliza and took his laptop off the desk.  “Thought we could watch a movie or marathon something.  That sound good to you?”

“Am I allowed to use my phone at the same time?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Sure.”

Lafayette settled himself down at the base of the bed.  “Then it sounds perfect.  Thank you for hosting, Alexander.”


	114. Old/New Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jealousy; Night Owls; *Olympic Village

It was still well before midnight when Hamilton laughed at a joke, his arms draped loosely across Eliza as she sat in front of him.  The laptop was still playing cheerily.  Angelica had one hand on his knee as they watched and Lafayette seemed content enough with the company and his phone.

Laurens was sitting at the desk, watching.

“Your hair smells amazing,” Hamilton enthused as she turned to say something to Angelica and it brushed him in the face.  “Seriously, is that coconut?”

Laurens let out his breath in a hiss.

“I thought you didn’t like coconut.”

Hamilton barely glanced over at Lafayette, who hadn’t turned his attention away from his phone.  “I don’t like it when you drench the entire east wing in it.  I told you about his chateau, right?”  Hamilton asked Angelica.  “I guess that one wasn’t technically his.  Are you going to inherit it?”

“That’s not my place to say,” Lafayette said with dignity.  “…And Adrienne has an older sister.”

“So probably not.  Too bad.  I’d say fight for it, but you don’t want to strain those family ties.  Shit,” Hamilton exhaled.  “I’d love to inherit property.  That’s money right there in your pocket.  Better than money, money that you can set to work for you.  You know what I got instead?”  He slouched and dropped his head to rest it on Eliza’s shoulder.  “A real good story for whenever I finally get my reality tv break.  You think I should apply for some of those things?  I bet I can work the camera.”

“Don’t,” Eliza said, patting the side of his head gently.  “You would become insufferable.”

“Mm, that’s true.”  He closed his eyes.

Laurens’ screen lit up and he picked his phone off the desk, welcoming the distraction.

 

> G. Lafayette:  Are you okay?  Do you want to come back and sit with us instead of over there by yourself like a creepy gargouille?

 

Laurens looked up from his phone.  Lafayette was typing away, apparently to Adrienne.

Hamilton lay down, tugging Eliza with him and kept his arms around her.  They both jumped at a sudden noise on the screen and Laurens pushed his chair back as Hamilton settled back down, his grip slightly tighter.  He crossed the room and sat behind them.

“Oh.”  Hamilton lifted his head and smiled at him.  “Hi, J.”  He rolled onto his back, leaving one arm under Eliza but putting his other hand on his leg.  “Wanna lie down?  There’s space.”

“Not really,” Lafayette said without looking over.

“Hush.”

Laurens hesitated.  He meant to make eye contact with Lafayette but he wasn’t paying attention and instead he found himself holding Angelica’s gaze again.  He turned away, uncomfortable.

“There’s plenty of room,” Angelica said, nudging Lafayette and scooting over.  She patted the mattress and Laurens, after a moment’s hesitation, lay down behind Hamilton.  Hamilton grinned at him, still on his back, and sat up just a little to kiss him lightly.

“What’s up?  You have a lot of work to get done?  I do,” he went on, answering the question as if it was posed to himself.  “I’m gonna kick you all out in the morning—not you, J.,” he clarified, kissing him again.

Laurens shifted a little, still not relaxed, and put his hand on Hamilton’s shoulder, encouraging him to stay down.

“We don’t have to stay if it’s inconvenient,” Eliza said.  Hamilton turned his head toward her.

“No, don’t.  I didn’t say that.  It’s nice to have people around.  Besides, I called you guys over here to keep Lafayette company.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, looking up at his name.  “ _Merci_.”

“ _De rien_.”

“Is your girlfriend still up?”  Angelica still had her hand on Hamilton’s leg, now on his thigh.

“She’s asleep,” Lafayette said with a sigh.  “I’m talking to someone else.”

“Whoa, whoa.”  Hamilton sat up abruptly.  “You’re not allowed to be on the phone if it’s not with Adrienne—or André, I guess.  Come on, this is all for you.  Who are you talking to?”

“No one,” Lafayette said, turning his phone further away.

“You’re a fucking liar.”

Lafayette put his phone in his pocket.  “What’s happening in the movie?”

Hamilton let Laurens tug him back down.  “He’s unappreciative,” he complained.

“I know,” Eliza and Laurens said in unison and with the same half-amused and half-sympathetic tone.

Hamilton paused, then laughed.  “Shit.”  He laughed again.  “There’re two of you now.  _Plus_ Angelica,” he added after she nudged him, a little harder than she needed to.

“ _Excusez-moi!_ ”

“Right, right,” Hamilton agreed.  “And Gilbert the Marquis.  You know what you should do?”  He said suddenly, sitting back up as Laurens made an almost inaudible irritated noise.  He turned to face Lafayette with a grin.  “You should start introducing yourself to people with your various names.  Just cycle through them.  You’re always looking for more people to network with anyway—”

“I do not _network_ , I like meeting people for their own sake.”

“—so you’d have plenty of fodder for the experiment.  See how long it takes before two of them meet up and start discussing you with your different names.  ‘You met a student from France named Marie-Joseph?  You should introduce him to my friend Paul, he could show him around the city.’  Come on, it’ll be funny, you’ll end up accidentally perpetuating some stereotype that we all know one another ‘cause we’re foreign, it’ll be great.”

“Or he’ll confuse people into thinking that the school has a stunning French exchange program.”

“Or that,” Hamilton agreed, nodding at Angelica.  “Which he might as well, he’s already the poster boy for the department.”

“ _Bonne nuit_ ,” Angelica said to Lafayette, holding out her hand.  He took it and kissed it graciously.  “ _Je m’appelle Angelica.  Et toi?_ ”

“Seriously,” Hamilton said, turning back to Laurens.  “I’ve asked this before, but how do we all know French?  It’s frickin’ ridiculous.”

“It’s my fault,” Lafayette said, having finished introducing himself to Angelica.  “I’ve collected all of you intentionally to make this strange city feel more like home.”

“That would be a better story if I wasn’t the one who introduced you to the Schuyler sisters.”

“Ah, or so I would have you believe.  But perhaps I was the one who encouraged you to become friends in the first place.”

Hamilton opened, then closed his mouth, then frowned.  “Come off it.  That didn’t happen.”  He glanced down at Eliza, who held his gaze without indicating one way or the other.  “Right?”

Lafayette took his phone out of his pocket to check his messages again.

“Is that André?”

Lafayette looked up guilty at Laurens.  “ _Non_.  It’s just, ah, a friend.”

“You’re being shifty, Yves,” Angelica informed him.  “‘Fess up.”

“I am not!”  He sounded indignant.

Angelica and Eliza shared a look.  Eliza sat up.

“Who is she?”  Angelica asked.

“A friend,” Lafayette repeated.  “You said that I was supposed to have friendly company tonight to make myself feel better.”

“Leave him be,” Hamilton said, lying back down and turning to face Laurens, losing interest in the argument when there were better things right there in front of him.  He put his hand lightly on the side of his neck, his eyes slightly hooded.  “It’s just one of the girls from his gym.  So long as he keeps it in his pants he can do what he wants.”

“We’re just talking,” Lafayette insisted.

“Seriously, Lafayette?”  Laurens sat up.  Hamilton whined in annoyance and hit at his side.  “What about all that crap you made me listen to about how much you miss your actual girlfriend?”

“We’re _talking_ ,” Lafayette repeated.  “Besides, Adrienne met Adelaide.  Alexander was there, and you were all at the party.  They get along now,” he said with a decided air, recrossing his legs and getting comfortable, “so it’s not a secret and I’m not a homewrecker.”

Eliza looked like she was about to explain that he was using the term incorrectly, but Angelica gave her a little shake of the head.

“J.,” Hamilton complained, still lying down but now put out that he was the only one doing so.

Laurens couldn’t help the corner of his mouth twitching up, just a little, but he stayed sitting.

“J.  John,” Hamilton continued, tugging at the back of his shirt.  “Seriously, one of you needs to get back down here, this isn’t a good enough movie to watch it seriously.”

Eliza made a little motion with her hand at Laurens and he glanced up at the ceiling but lay back down.  He felt self-conscious and very aware of the others in the room as Hamilton curled into him, happily nuzzling the front of his shirt and clearly wanting attention.  Laurens wanted to give it to him but putting his arm over him seemed so physically difficult somehow…

“Did I show you the flier I’m in?”  Lafayette, thankfully, offered a distraction for himself, Angelica, and Eliza.  “Look, that’s me, right there.”

Laurens slipped his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders.  Hamilton made a low pleased noise.

“You’re cute.”

Laurens thought he hadn't heard him right at first.  “Excuse me?”

“You’re so awkward.  I thought you told me you were popular,” Hamilton teased.  “Doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to be good around people?”

Laurens didn’t have a rebuttal.  He tucked his head down into Hamilton’s hair instead.

“Mm.  It’s okay, J.  They’re just our friends.”

Laurens decided not to debate the use of that pronoun.

“It’s nice to have people over,” Hamilton went on, “I should do it more often.”

“…Yeah?”

“You can sound more enthusiastic.  It’s nice,” Hamilton repeated.  “I get lonely sometimes, too.”

Laurens felt his chest tighten a little.

Hamilton dropped his voice.  “But they’re all getting kicked out in the morning,” he said.  “I wasn’t kidding about that at all.  You, on the other hand…”  He tightened his fist on Laurens’ shirt, drawing him just a little closer and turning his face up, so his mouth was just off of his.  “…You’re gonna stay here with me a while longer, right?”

Lafayette cleared his throat very loudly and readjusted his position so that he jostled against their legs.  “I’m sorry,” he said with a restrained air, “I didn’t mean to knock against you.  Please continue your conversation.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes but the moment was gone and he moved a millimeter away.  It was enough to let Laurens breathe again.  “Ungrateful jackass,” Hamilton muttered.

 

> G. Lafayette: And then sometimes I wonder if my memories of her are real at all.  It’s difficult when they’ve been told to me so often, not that I am complaining, of course.  I appreciate that they told me about her.

> G. Lafayette: I’m sorry, I’ve been going on for hours.

> G. Lafayette: I don’t like talking about this with John or Alexander.  They both clearly have mother issues and it seems unfair to bring mine up.  I’m not upset about her at all

> G. Lafayette: I just wonder sometimes.

> A. de Simiane: I’m surprised that you’re not upset

> G. Lafayette: Why?

> G. Lafayette: I don’t even know if I remember her

> G. Lafayette: I have had many mothers

> A. de Simiane: But didn’t she leave you?

> A. de Simiane: I would be very upset

 

Lafayette was leaning against the wall, typing in the dark.  He tried to stretch out his legs and knocked into Angelica’s back.  “ _Pardon_ ,” he whispered.

 

> G. Lafayette: It’s all right.

> G. Lafayette: She needed to take care of herself and I was left in very good hands

> G. Lafayette: I just wish it could have worked out better.

> G. Lafayette: Why are you up?  It’s very late

> A. de Simiane: Work, Gilbert.  I told you I have a deadline 

> G. Lafayette: ohhhhhh

> G. Lafayette: It was lost in translation.

> A. de Simiane: Uh huh…

 

“You’re still awake.”

“I just said that.”  Lafayette looked up from his phone.  His eyes weren’t adjusted to the lighting but he recognized Angelica’s voice and, after a few seconds, her profile as she sat up carefully.  “Well,” he amended, “mostly.”

“Being a homewrecker?”  Angelica moved away from her sister to sit next to him, against the wall.

“No, just talking.”  Lafayette didn’t lock his screen.  The conversation was still up on it.  “My friend, Adelaide, she is at work.  I’m keeping her company.”

“I feel like that’s the other way around.  Where’s Adrienne?”

“She is busy.  I wanted to at least wait for her to come back before going to bed.”

“I assumed Alexander would be the one with the most messed up sleep schedule, not you.”

“I know, I work hard to make up for it.”

Angelica drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.  “I pull my fair share of all-nighters, too.  Sometimes Alexander talks to me during them.”

“He’s a good friend.”

“He’s an insomniac when he’s on a tear about something.”

“That too.”

Angelica tipped her head to the side, watching the dim light filtering in through the small window.

“You can talk to us, too, you know.  My sister and I didn’t come over just because Alexander wanted us to.  You’re a good guy, we like you.  It’s not like it would be a bother.”

“I couldn’t be worse than Alexander.”

“Exactly,” Angelica agreed.  “So how are you doing?  I’m not one of those two morons, you don’t have to worry about having already talked my ear off.”

Lafayette paused.  “I’m fine,” he answered truthfully.  “I miss her a lot, but I knew I would.  I’m more worried about André.  He was very upset that Peggy didn’t even meet us and he refused to come back with me.”

“Do you think he’d talk to John?”

Lafayette frowned.  “Maybe.  He said they’re not as close as they used to be.”

“You boys are all too high drama,” Angelica complained.  “I got out of high school as fast as possible for a reason.”

“I hated high school.”

“Everyone does.”

“I think Adrienne likes it.”

“She can be the exception that proves the rule,” Angelica said reassuringly.  “I didn’t like it because there was too much petty fighting and boys were even stupider than they are now and I was only allowed to check out three books at a time.  What about you?”

“I was very unattractive,” Lafayette said, lighter than might be expected.

Angelica paused and then laughed.  “What do you mean?”

“Did I not say it right?”  He sounded confused.  “I’m sorry, it’s very late.”

“No, no…  Why did you say that?  What was wrong?  No one actually _wants_ to peak in high school, it’s okay.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining, it’s just the truth.”  Lafayette opened Facebook on his phone and loaded his pictures.  “I was very awkward looking.  I suppose the last year and a half or so wasn’t bad, but I grew—” he paused a moment to convert units in his head.  “—six inches after starting?  Yes, I think that’s right.  Here.”  He handed her his phone and Angelica smiled at the pictures on the screen of a younger and decidedly more gangly Lafayette, in clothes that were very nice but somehow didn’t quite hang right on his frame.  His face was rounder, made worse by a haircut that was trendy but maybe too freshly done.

“This isn’t too bad,” she said.  “I thought you were going to show me yourself all mall goth.”

“Mall goth?”

“Tomorrow,” she promised.  She handed his phone back and leaned against the wall.  “Do you often stay up this late?  You can text me too, you know.  My boyfriend knocks out before midnight and I’m the night owl in our family.  If Alexander isn’t letting his brain run him in circles then I’m out of luck.”

“That happens a lot less than it used to,” Lafayette said.  “He doesn’t bother me like he did even just at the start of the year.”

“So?”

“I’ll text you,” Lafayette agreed.

“Good.  You can give my number to Adrienne as well.”

“Oh, excellent,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.  “She’s been wanting to practice her English with someone.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”  Lafayette looked surprised.  “I enjoy speaking it so much.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“But…”  Lafayette frowned.  “But she likes the same things I do.”

Angelica patted his hand.  “You know, I once told Alexander that I’d let him know when he was being a moron.  I’ll do the same for you.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette wasn’t sure how to take that exactly, but he smiled.  “Thank you.”

 

“Okay, bye, see you later, text me if something’s come up, bye.”

Laurens stood by the mattress, watching as Hamilton ushered the others out the door and feeling a little awkward about being so obviously singled out.  A little awkward, a little pleased.

“Great.”  Hamilton closed the door with a flourish and turned back around.  “Bit of a delay, not too bad.”

“It’s barely eight, Alex.”

“Nah, delay from last night.”  Hamilton put his hands on Laurens’ waist and kissed him slowly, leaning into him.

Laurens felt his heart skip a beat and he let him, after a minute putting his hands on his back and encouraging him in closer.

“I wanted to make out last night,” Hamilton said when he came up for air a minute later.  “It was nice just lying around with you.”  He slipped his hands up under Laurens’ shirt, making him stand a little straighter.  “Oh, hey, J.  Read something interesting the other day.  Realized I was kind of being a moron for not putting this together.”

“Mm…”  Laurens was only mostly listening as he pulled Hamilton down onto the mattress.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  Real interesting.  And it kinda got me thinking, I think it might be something relevant to you.”  Hamilton was lying on top of him, their legs intertwined and Laurens’ shirt pulled half up so one of his hands was on his bare chest.

“To me?”  Laurens tipped his hips towards him.

“Right.  Could be wrong, though, maybe we should talk about it.”  Hamilton pressed his leg lightly against Laurens.

“Alexander…”

“You ever hear of the freakin’ Olympic Village, J.?”

Laurens frowned.  “Of course.”

“Right, right.  And you ever hear about what those athletes get up to in the Olympic Village?”  Hamilton was sliding his hand over Laurens’ chest, moving it up over his collarbone and to the base of his neck as he talked.

“I…”  Laurens sounded confused.

“They have so much friggin’ _sex_ there, J., that they should be giving out gold in those games as well.”

“So?”  Laurens asked, even though he could see where Hamilton was headed with that.

“So, come on, it’s just—It doesn’t matter, they’re performing on a world stage and they’re still fucking right up to the minute of their event!  They literally got people in charge of giving out condoms like after dinner mints!”  Hamilton had pushed himself up some and was looking at Laurens, a mixture of incredulous and insistent.

Laurens was hesitating, even as he had one hand on the small of Hamilton’s back, keeping him close.

“…I can ask your coach,” Hamilton offered.  He yelped when Laurens rolled him off.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Okay, okay, sorry!  I don’t think it’s a big deal, that’s all I meant.  I mean,” he slipped back on top of him, kissing his neck.  “You could experiment, see how it goes.”

“I’m already experimenting.”

“Ooh, a gay joke, you’re in a good mood.”

Laurens laughed, just a little, not really wanting to argue.

“Come on, J.”  Hamilton kissed him again and Laurens stretched out on the mattress, giving Hamilton a better angle.  “It’s only Monday anyway.  We could do something that only sort of counts…”

Laurens spread his legs automatically as Hamilton’s hand slipped between them, cupping him over his sweats.

“Yeah…  That’s true.”

“Hey.”  Hamilton kissed him lightly on the mouth.  “I just think it’d be a good idea.  I really, really don't want to have to tiptoe around our time together until the season’s over.  Makes me lonely, which is stupid, since you’re right here in front of me.”

Laurens thought back to the previous night, to Hamilton pulling Eliza to him and putting his head on her shoulder.

“You know?”

It took Laurens a moment to realize Hamilton was talking to him.

“John?”

“Sorry.  Yeah.  I know.”

“So…”

Laurens, with a great feat of will, pushed the memory aside.  “I think you’ve got a point.”  Before Hamilton could say anything he tugged him down and kissed him hard on the mouth.

Hamilton made a little surprised noise but it quickly turned into a pleased moan and he pressed his hand harder between his legs.  He grinned when Laurens leaned into the touch and he rubbed him slowly.  “I don’t know about you,” he began, “but I had a hell of a time waiting last night.”

“Looked like you were enjoying yourself,” Laurens said without thinking.  Fortunately Hamilton missed just how dangerous the tone was.

“No, no way.  Nothing against the rest of them, I love them, but they’re not you, J.  I thought Lafayette’d do better with more people around, but if this wasn’t a studio I would have snuck you away into another room, even if we didn’t do anything.”

Laurens relaxed a little.  “Even if we didn’t do anything?”

“Mm.  Kissed a little maybe?”

“Is that what you want now?”

“Always.”  Hamilton kissed him again.  “But maybe some other stuff too, yeah?”  He was still rubbing him over his pants and Laurens shifted into it.  “I know we don’t have a ton of time, but we can be pretty fast, right?”

Laurens smiled a little without meaning to.  “I think so.”

“Good, that’s what I like about us, J.  We’re on the same page.”  Hamilton slipped his hand past the elastic band on his pants and Laurens gasped.

“Y-yeah?”

“Definitely,” Hamilton said, kissing his jaw and wrapping his hand around him.  “No one else understands me like you do.  It’s incredible.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Laurens felt his smile widening and he leaned off of the mattress as Hamilton moved his hand over him.  “Love you too.”

“I never said that,” Hamilton teased.  “You’re such a frickin’ sap, J.”  He nuzzled the side of his face.  Laurens put his arm over his shoulders, holding him to him as Hamilton picked up the pace.

Hamilton felt a rush run through him and he ducked his face down, fitting it into his neck and breathing out, a little harder than normal.

Laurens didn’t quite notice, getting very distracted by what he was doing and tightening his grip on his shoulder.  He could feel himself fully erect and just starting to get slick with precum as Hamilton pumped him.

“I can feel your pulse,” Hamilton murmured.

“Ha.”

“I like it.”  He pressed a little closer against his neck.  “It’s picked up.  Faster.  I like that I know your body, that it’s so familiar.”

“Me too,” Laurens breathed, his hips shaking a little.

“I never knew…  I mean, okay, there were people, moving on.  I never knew anyone like this.”

Laurens couldn’t, in that moment, respond.

Hamilton sighed and adjusted a little closer.  “I could stay here forever.”

“Then stay.”

“Mm.  We’ll see if you change your tune in a couple minutes,” Hamilton teased.  “I bet you’ll be like, ‘Alex, get off me, I want to shower.’”

“I wouldn’t.”

Hamilton laughed against his skin, still touching him.  “God, you’re the best.  I love you, J.”

“There.”  Laurens grinned, his words breathy and his hips shaking.  “There, you—said it.”

“Damn.  Caught me.”

Laurens would have laughed in another situation.  Instead he let out a low moan.  “Don’t stop…”

“Not going to.”  Hamilton picked up the pace very slightly.

Laurens felt himself near the edge, heat building within him, and his body tensed, abs engaged, as Hamilton tightened his fist a little, increasing the pressure on his shaft.  His nails dug into Hamilton’s skin as he let him build him to climax.  Hamilton sucked in a breath against his neck and Laurens jerked in surprise.  He couldn’t help but picture his mouth somewhere else, and he spilled up his arm, only then falling fully back against the mattress.

Hamilton ran his hand over him for a few more strokes, then pulled away, turning his arm as he did so and subtly wiping himself off on Laurens’ pants.

Laurens put his hand behind Hamilton’s head, holding him in place as his heart raced.

“You don’t have to get up,” he said after a minute.  Hamilton paused and then laughed.

“Making a point?”

“You know I never kick you out.”

“Hardly ever.  But that’s true, I had no idea you’d be so clingy.  Physically, I mean.  After the sex.  Sometimes before the sex,” Hamilton added.  “God, don’t get offended.”

Laurens tangled his hand in his hair.

“Mm,” Hamilton made a pleased sound.  He was half-hard against Laurens’ leg but not not bothering to bring it up.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know.  I need a wall clock.”  Hamilton tried to sit up but Laurens stopped him.  “I can check my phone.  We didn’t take that long, though.”

“Good.”  Laurens kissed him, deep and slow and hungry and Hamilton felt himself melting into it.

“You’re a good kisser, J.,” Hamilton said after a couple of minutes.  “You can tell your friends I said that.”

Laurens laughed, just a short hard exhale.  “Yeah?”

“Mm, yeah, some people—”  Hamilton gave a little gasp as Laurens slipped one hand down to cup him.  “—Some people, they, ah, it’s too much tongue or not enough.  You’ve found the ratio.  You’re a natural.”

“I’m glad.”  Laurens was rocking his hand over him and Hamilton leaned into it.

“Me too.  Obviously.”

Laurens kissed him again, still slow, and Hamilton clenched his hand in his shirt.  Laurens responded by moving his hand inside his pants and Hamilton moaned into the kiss, pressing himself closer to him.  He slid his tongue into his mouth and Laurens sucked on it.

Laurens stroked him, waiting for him to ask for more, and kept his other hand on his back, holding him to him.  He felt his mind starting to wander back to the previous night and he pushed it away forcefully, trying to stay in the moment: sated, with Hamilton on top of him, making him arch into his hand.

“Yes…”

Hamilton’s voice helped to ground him.  He sounded eager and Laurens moved his hand over his entire shaft, as far down to his base as possible.  He was rewarded with another moan and Hamilton’s breath catching against his lips.

Hamilton tugged at his shirt and Laurens moved his hand more forcefully, drawing a moan out of him.  The sound rushed through his body, urging him on, and he kissed him more insistently, his tongue in his mouth as Hamilton pressed one of his legs up against his.  Hamilton hooked his foot on Laurens’ leg, desperately trying to maximize his contact.

Laurens pulled Hamilton a little higher up on his body, giving him space to grind into his hand.  Hamilton eagerly did so, groaning into his mouth and then ducking his head to breath hard against his neck.

“J.—”

Laurens felt his heart skip.  Hamilton was desperately pressing into him, pulling on the fabric of his shirt, and he could hear his voice shake with the name.  He tightened his hold on him and Hamilton gave a short nod against him.  Laurens continued to pump him, letting Hamilton thrust into his grip until he came with a short but loud cry.

Hamilton lay on top of him, panting and not wanting to move.   His voice seemed lost somewhere.

Laurens put both his arms around him, heavy but relaxed.  “…That was hot,” he said after a minute.

Hamilton laughed soundlessly and cleared his throat.  “—Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton kissed just under his jaw and rolled off of him, using one of his arms as a pillow and taking his other hand to play with.  “You’re pretty hot, too.”

“‘Pretty’ hot?”

“Very hot,” Hamilton clarified.  “Like, ‘damn how did no one get to you before me’-hot.”

Laurens just smiled at the ceiling, then tugged him to him and kissed the top of his head.  “I need to get up.”

Hamilton sat, then stood.  “Change your pants.”

“Shit.”

“You got an extra pair here.  Actually, I need to do laundry and they’ll be empty now.  Want to meet up later?  I can send a group text out, round everyone up for lunch.”

Laurens felt a prick of disappointment and jealousy but he pushed it down.  “Yeah, sure.  Sounds great.”

“Excellent.”

Laurens changed as Hamilton stripped, dressed, then set about collecting laundry.  “I’ll come with you.”

“To the laundromat?”  Hamilton looked up in surprise from smelling a shirt.  He tossed it into the bag.  “You sure?  Some hot date that’ll be.”

“You’re washing some of my things,” Laurens pointed out.  “It’s only fair.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Suit yourself.  I could use the company.”


	115. Ensemble Cast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirty Laundry; Coffee Shop Chat; Bringing People Home to Meet the Family; Leaving the Nest; Arranging Boys' Night

“Right,” Hamilton said, pushing the glass door open with his back, a very full bag of laundry in his arms, “this is it, grab a machine, thanks.”

Laurens followed him in, a bottle of detergent in his hand.  The place was nearly deserted, most of the machines standing unused, except for a washer at the back and a man sitting in a chair against the wall with earbuds in and his phone out.

“Any one is fine.  You do know how to do laundry, right?”  Hamilton teased.

“Alexander?”

Hamilton looked over at the chairs.  Mulligan had pulled out one of his earbuds and was grinning at him.  “Brought yourself a friend?  This is a far cry from when you used to make me do this stuff for you.”

“Only when this one was closed,” Hamilton complained, “I told him about that already.”

“And when you ran out of quarters.”

“Okay, and when I ran out of quarters.”  Hamilton rolled his eyes as Laurens opened the lid on one of the washing machines and started to load it.  “What are you doing here?”

“Delicates,” Mulligan said, jabbing his thumb at the washer.  “The cycle on these is gentler.”

“Ah.  And you were on your phone texting but didn’t shoot me a message?”

“I wasn’t texting, kid,” Mulligan said, showing him the screen.  “I got a new chess app.  I’m tryin’ ta beat my high score.”

“Oh, nice.”  Hamilton sat down next to him.  “Watch his rook.”

Mulligan slapped his hand away.  “I see the rook.”

“I’m just saying to watch it.  Do you have a real board?  Can we play sometime?”

“I’ve got a travel set.  Little magnets.”

“That’s not really the same thing.”

“Sure it is, it’s the same game.”

“It’s lacking something.  I want one of those fancy carved sets.  Jade and shit.  Not ivory, that’s not cool.  Did you know one of the professors has ivory in his office?”

“Really?  You should report him.”

“Report him?”  Hamilton sounded skeptical.  “Where should I—I should report him,” he repeated, more enthusiastic.  “Right, that’s a great idea.  J.,  remind me to report Jefferson.”

Laurens looked up from shaking out a pair of jeans and adding them into the machine.  “Right.”

Hamilton hit his fist into his open hand.  “Yes.  A plan, I like plans.  Thanks, Herc.”

“Not a problem.”

“You should run that plan by Lafayette.”

“Why?”  Hamilton looked up at Laurens again.

“He’s friends with him.  He might not like it.”

“I refuse to believe that our Lafayette is friends with that douche.  More likely he’s just infiltrating and learning his secrets—J., remind me to ask Lafayette something—and when he’s got enough ammo he’ll open fire.  He’s smart like that.”

Laurens considered that.

“Hey, you boys got any big plans for the rest of the day?  You want to come back to my place?”

Laurens was grateful that Hamilton spoke up.

“Can’t, got a lot of work to get done.”

“That’s too bad.  You know we’ve got a vacancy now.  If either of you have a friend who’s looking for a place…”

“That asshole left?”  Laurens let the lid slam shut.

“Yeah.”  Mulligan sounded almost too controlled.  “You know how things go.  The point is, we’ve got an extra room.  You saw the place, you know of anyone, put us in contact and I’ll go over the details with them.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “I’ll ask around.”

“Cool.  We’re fine right now, but it’ll be a hike without someone else to pitch in with the rent.  I ran into one of your friends on the train and asked if they knew of anyone looking,” Mulligan went on, “but the more the word gets spread around the better.”

“Sure.”

Mulligan’s machine thudded to a halt and he stood, putting his phone in his pocket and grabbing his bag from the floor.  “Not wrecking this in the drier,” he said as he unloaded the washer.  “Don’t want to get my ass handed to me for wasting another buck-fifty just to burn holes in all of this.”  A flash of peach lace went into the bag, then black.  “Anyway, that’s just somethin’ to think about.  Let me know if you hear of anyone, give them my number.”  He hoisted the bag over his shoulder.  “See you boys later.”

 

Lafayette took a long drink from his coffee, trying not to feel betrayed as Angelica continued to talk to Adrienne in French on his phone.  His legs were stretched out under the table and when he recrossed his ankles he knocked into her foot and she shifted her body away from him without breaking the flow of conversation.  He couldn’t even concentrate on the English conversations going on around them in the coffee shop, not with French right there and Adrienne just out of sight, on the wrong side of the screen, even though he had already heard all of what she was saying before.

“ _Merde_ ,” he muttered to himself, realizing he was barely an inch from the bottom of the tall paper cup.  He shook it back and forth as if that would somehow magically make more coffee appear.  He looked across the cafe.  Maybe he could go to the restroom again and kill a few more minutes loitering at the sink.

“ _Excusez-moi_ ,” he interrupted, setting his cup down on the table.

Angelica looked up.

“Where did Eliza go?”

“I told you, she had to pick up Peggy.”

“You don’t have cars.  No one drives in this city except for people who want to be stuck in traffic and also John when he’s showing off.”

“Peggy forgot her wallet,” Angelica explained patiently.  “Eliza had to meet her so she could give her her MetroCard.  They’ll be back any minute now.”

“How did she get to wherever she was going without a card?  Why didn’t she just turn around at the station and go back to get it in the first place?”

Angelica shushed him and asked Adrienne to please go on.

Lafayette decided he needed to wash his hands.

When he came back out, Eliza and Peggy had joined the table and they were engaged in a heated conversation, his phone forgotten off to the side.

“—Why not?”

“It’s even farther from campus,” Angelica pointed out, causing Peggy to huff and cross her arms, sitting back in her chair.  “You’re already worried about being late to class.”

“I was just _saying_ ,” Peggy complained.  “ _Stop_.”

“What were you saying?”  Lafayette asked, taking his seat and picking up his phone.

“Nothing.”

“Peggy.”  Eliza put her hand on Peggy’s shoulder and she shrugged her off and turned away a little.

“Ah, nothing.  I see.  How is Adrienne?”  Lafayette asked as he unlocked his phone.

“Very well.  She was telling me about her school.”

“How fascinating,” he said a little cooly.

Eliza glanced at Angelica in confusion and she gave a brief roll of her eyes.

“Let’s drop it,” Peggy said.  “Okay?  Please?”

“Oh, Alexander texted me,” Lafayette remarked to no one in particular, reading it as he took a sip of his coffee.

“How was your…”  Angelica trailed off when Peggy shot her a look.  “Right.  Never mind, forget I asked.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be here for the French one?”

“Peggy.”

Peggy made a little frustrated noise.

“I don’t mind,” Lafayette said looking up from his phone.  “I enjoy being French.  It’s a very good country for the most part.  We have delicious food and beautiful works of art.  I suppose it would be annoying to be completely pigeonholed into my nationality, but I’m not offended.  I will let you know if that changes,” he added with some finality, turning his attention back to his phone.

 

“How’s it hanging?”

Laurens glanced at Tench.  “Really?”

“Priss.”

Laurens rolled his eyes. He turned away so he wouldn't be seen trying to bite back a laugh.

Tench slammed his locker shut, causing several of his teammates to look over at him.  “Well, I just wanted to announce that I’m going to be AFK during Thanksgiving break.  I got my tickets yesterday and I am officially going to be flying back to the motherland.”

“What’s that, like an hour to Maryland?”

Tench tossed his wet towel at Humphreys, sitting on the bench and snickering.  “That’s not what I meant, jackass.  I’m finally getting to visit my girlfriend.”

“Are you actually going to stay with her?”  McHenry asked, cleaning his glasses on his shirt.

“Uh, probably.”

“‘Probably’?”

“She didn’t ask her host family yet, okay?  But whatever, there’s like 1.3 billion people there, I’m sure someone’s got a room I can rent.”

“You should really look into that before you go.”

“I know that,” Tench snapped, getting annoyed.  “Look, stop derailing, okay?  Just be happy for me, it’s a big deal!”

Laurens watched as André shouldered his backpack and left in silence.

“I’m happy for you,” Humphreys said, “but not as happy as I am for the rest of us.  You’ll finally stop moaning on about her.”

“Lafayette’s been even worse since Adrienne left,” Laurens said, trying to get involved with the conversation again, even as he had to force himself not to look to the door or wonder if Lafayette really was still upset.  He certainly was handling himself better than André.  “Be careful what you wish for.”

“You’re headed home with Alexander and Junior, aren’t you?”  Humphreys asked.  “I’m going back, too.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lee follow André towards the door and he heard him call out to him.  His chest tightened a little, but he wasn’t sure what was causing it.  “Yeah,” he repeated, staring into his locker at nothing.  His gym bag, closed and ready to be taken out.  A textbook.  “Yeah, that’ll be, uh, good.”

“You’re pretty ballsy,” Humphreys continued.  “—Hey, second dick joke in under a minute, nice.  I don’t know that I’d want to subject any of y’all to my family.”

“If it was just the dinner, maybe,” McHenry said.  “Not for a full week.”

“It’s not a full seven days,” Laurens protested weakly.

“They’re buzzkills,” Tench complained, leaning back against the locker next to Laurens and rolling his eyes at him.  “We’re going to have a great time, wait and see.”

 

“It’s all food grade,” Peggy said happily, showing Lafayette her lipstick as they walked down the street.  “Which I thought was kind of cool because it’s so pigmented anyway.  Like, why not go for it, right?  I’m already putting it on my mouth, I don’t want to go back to the ages of getting poisoned by my makeup or whatever.”

“Mm,” Lafayette agreed, only paying half attention as he texted.  “Adrienne  looks beautiful without makeup.  I think she looks lovely with it, but she doesn't need it.”

Peggy rolled her eyes, hard, and put her lipstick away.

Lafayette glanced up.  “What?”

“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt since this isn’t your first language.”

Lafayette looked confused and went back to his phone, stepping out of the way of a lady and her dog without raising his head again.

“Hey,” Peggy said after a minute, “can I ask you something?”

“Oh, the homework assignment is due online—”

“Not that.”  She cut him off quickly.  “You ran away from home, right?”

“I didn’t run away,” Lafayette said, looking up again.

Peggy gave him a skeptical look.

“I didn’t,” he protested.  “I just…  I just didn’t tell anyone where I was going.  From home.”

“Or that you were leaving.”

Lafayette put his phone in his pocket.  “May we move on?”

“Why did you do it?  I’d feel so guilty knowing that everyone was worried not knowing where I was and about what might happen to me.”

Lafayette fiddled with the cuff of his jacket.  “I didn’t stop to think it through.  I knew that I wanted to go and that it was something that I felt I had to do.  I thought that if I stopped to talk to people about it, I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.”

Peggy thought for a moment.  “That makes sense.  It’s just…”

Lafayette wished he was still on his phone with Adrienne.

“…I really, really love my family.  I don’t ever want to hurt them.  But sometimes I just want to scream, you know?  I’m really afraid to do anything that’ll get them upset with me and I was thinking, maybe, that it might be better if I just wasn’t…  There anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Peggy was frowning, biting her lower lip.  “I never go out,” she said after they had walked past several storefronts.  “Like, ever.  I mean, I went to Halloween, but that was with my sisters and it was their party, and, I don’t know, that doesn’t really count.  Last night I actually went out.”

“ _Félicitations_.”

“And I totally screwed it up.  I forgot my wallet on my nightstand and couldn’t catch the metro so I had to _walk_ and it took _ages_ and fortunately I had my phone so I could say I was going to be late, but I couldn’t stand the thought of going back and admitting that I messed up and shouldn’t really be allowed to do things on my own, but then I had to tell them anyway because it was either that or buy another card or walk again and my feet were killing me…”  Peggy sighed and crossed her arms over her chest.  Lafayette glanced down, noticing for the first time how she was walking gingerly as if trying to keep her shoes from rubbing.

“I thought that guy whose apartment the party was at was pretty cool,” Peggy said after another long silence.

“Mulligan?”

“Was that his name?  Yeah, he was pretty cool.”

Lafayette didn’t respond.

“Do you think he thought I was weird?”

“He has a girlfriend.”

Peggy recoiled and made a face at him.  “Um, ew, no!  Besides, he’s like fifty.  Don’t be gross.”

“I think he’s thirty—”

“Whatever,” Peggy said, cutting him off.  “It was a stupid question, okay?  Forget I asked.”

“I don’t think he thought you were weird.”

“Really?”

“Especially not by comparison.”

“Yeah, true.  Do you think…”

“Yes?”

“Do you have his number?  Can I get it from you?  Do you think _that_ would be weird?”

“Maybe.”  Lafayette put his hand out for her phone and copied Mulligan’s number into it.  “But I don’t think he would mind.  Do you want mine as well?”

“I guess so, sure.”

“I’m pretty cool,” Lafayette explained, adding it.

“You don’t have a spare room.”

 

> J. Laurens:  We missed you last night.

> J. Laurens: Do you want to do something later?

> J. Laurens: I got the games from home if you wanted to play.

> J. Laurens: I think you've still got the best time on one of the tracks but I'm going to knock you off if you don't try to defend it.

> J. André: Wait, you got them already?  That was fast.

> J. Laurens: They're only coming from Columbia.

> J. André: Yeah, that's true.  I'm thinking of a longer trip, I guess.

> J. André: Sure, I could go for watching you spin out again...

> J. Laurens: Excuse me, you cheated last time and you know it.  Like I said you better put your money where your mouth is

> J. André: I did not cheat at all my dude.

> J. André: I won fair and square AND by a solid margin iirc

> J. Laurens: Yeah whatever

> J. Laurens: So you're coming over later?  Lafayette and I were going to play this afternoon.

> J. André: I've got plans--lmk though

> J. André: Good luck trying to beat my time meanwhile

 

Laurens looked up from his phone as the classroom door opened and he stepped to the side, waiting patiently.  Hamilton spotted him as he walked out and his face lit up.

“Hey.  Gonna walk with me to my next class?”

“Why else would I be here?”

“I dunno.  Thinking of taking up economics?”

“No thank you.”

“Yeah, if I had that kind of money I’d skip it too.”

“Hey…”

“Oh, come on, J.,” Hamilton said as they started down the hall.  “I’ve seen you spend dough.  You charge whatever you want and don’t even save the receipts.”

Laurens frowned but couldn’t argue.

Hamilton nudged him in the ribs.  “I’d say it was cute if it wasn’t so fiscally irresponsible.”  When Laurens still didn’t respond Hamilton lightly touched his arm with the back of his hand.  “Come on, I’m just messing with you.  I didn’t think that was a sore spot.  Sorry.  So what’s up?”

Laurens hesitated and Hamilton waited patiently.

“…I bought a TV on break,” Laurens admitted.

Hamilton laughed before he could catch himself.  “—Sorry.  You fucking did what?”

“I bought a—”  He cut himself off, flustered.  “Well, we didn’t have one!”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?  It’s supposed to come standard with the double,” Hamilton quipped, “you should have complained to the RA.  All right, so you got a TV.  How big?”

Laurens, embarrassed, gestured a size rather larger than necessary.  He was very aware of how Hamilton was biting his lip to keep from laughing.  “I had to, all right?”

“You had to.”

“There was nothing to play the games on…”

“That’s right, you asked your father to send you your X-Box or whatever.  Did he?”

“Pretty much.”

“What do you mean, he forgot the controllers?”

“Yes.  Well, and one of the systems.  He just sent some games.”

Hamilton paused.

“So you bought a television and an X-Box after practice this morning.”

“I didn’t buy an X-Box.”

“Right, whatever.  A Wii?”

“He sent the Wii.  I bought a Playstation,” Laurens mumbled.

Hamilton snickered.

“Anyway,” Laurens said, moving on deliberately, “he also sent a bunch of Martha’s games.  I need to ask her if she wants them back.”

They exited the building and Hamilton zipped up his jacket.

“Lafayette and I were going to play some tonight.  You should join us.”

“Sexy.”

“It’ll be fun.”

“No doubt.  Do you have stuff the three of us can play?”

“Yeah.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be better at driving digital cars than real ones.”

Hamilton shoved him.  “You’re on, jerk.”

 

> G. Lafayette: I think he wants to have a marathon

> G. Lafayette: I will ask if you are invited or if this is a boys’ night

> A. de Noailles: I don’t think I can participate over the phone, Gil…

 

“Perhaps,” Lafayette agreed, looking up from his phone expectantly as the door to the language center opened.  He frowned when it was not André at all, but another student.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” he said, standing and offering his hand.  “ _Je m’appelle Marie-Joseph_.”


	116. The Best-Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vidya; Making Plans (Wait for It); *Not Subtle

“Nice TV stand,” Hamilton said, pulling out Lafayette’s chair into the middle of the room next to the other one and dropping into it.  The television was on top of the box it had come in, against the wall and dominating the space between the two desks.

“I’ll find a better one later.”  Laurens was kneeling next to it as he set up the Playstation.  “Remind me, I need to take Martha’s games down to the post office.”  Laurens glanced up and nodded his head at the stack set off to the side on his desk.  “She’s already been complaining about how I ended up with them.  She needs to chill, it’s not like I asked for them to get sent to me.”

“What are we going to play first?”  Lafayette put his phone on mute, plugged it in, and took Laurens’ chair.

“Some racing game, right?”

“Nah.”  Laurens stepped away from the television and handed them controllers.  He took a seat at the edge of his bed.  “Call of Duty.  That’s the whole reason I wanted these sent in the first place.”

“Oh.”

Hamilton glanced suspiciously at Lafayette.  Was it his imagination or was he sitting up a little straighter?

“Ready?”  Laurens asked, selecting the game and then taking Hamilton’s controller from him.  “Here, let me get you set up.”

“I can figure it out,” Hamilton complained.

“It’s complicated.”

“You’re not taking Lafayette’s.”

“Lafayette knows how to play, _un petit peu_ ,” Lafayette said smoothly.  “ _Mais merci, Alexandre_.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes dramatically.  “Show off.”

“I am just speaking my native tongue.”

“You’re faking your own accent again, Lafayette.  You only do that when you’re trying to play dumb so whatever you have planned comes off as even more impressive.”

“ _Non_.”  Lafayette, finished, sat back with his controller carefully placed in his lap.

“There.”  Laurens handed Hamilton back the controller.  “I got everything rigged so you should find it pretty easy.”

“Thanks,” Hamilton said, not sure if he meant it sarcastically or not.

“Have you ever played video games?”  Lafayette asked.

“The shit kind of question is that?  It’s the twenty-first century, of course I have.”

“It just doesn’t seem like your style.”

“I played with Mulligan,” Hamilton protested.  “He’s got a TV too, you know.”

“What system does he have?”  Laurens asked.

“Uh, I don’t…  It’s black.”

“Right.  Enough talking,” Laurens said, starting the game.  “Let’s go.”

Hamilton leaned forward eagerly, taking a few seconds to work out the controls.

“Hey,” Laurens said, glancing back at him.  “Don’t—stop wasting ammo.”

Hamilton glanced over at him.  He hesitated, then he remembered laser tag.

“Hey!”  Laurens said again, louder this time.  He slammed his controller down in his lap and looked up at Hamilton.  “The hell was that for?”

“Did I do something?”  Hamilton asked innocently.  “I’m just figuring out how this works.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Hamilton winked at him as Lafayette somehow managed to gracefully pirouette past him on the screen.

“Whatever,” Laurens started as he regenerated.  “So what you’re trying to do is—Alexander!”

Hamilton, laughing, nudged Lafayette.  “That’s what she said.”

“That’s not funny,” Laurens complained.

“Shooting you again or the joke?”

“Both.”

“I disagree entirely.  Lafayette, tie-breaker.”

“It was funny.”

Hamilton put his hand up and Lafayette slapped it without looking.

“Fine,” Laurens said, setting his jaw.  “Whatever.  I’m not going to be so petty as to retaliate.”

“Oh, come on,” Hamilton said, looking over.  “It’s just a game, J.  I’m sorry.  I’m done, you can revive or whatever, I won’t hit you again.”

“I’m surprised you could figure out how to aim that quickly,” Lafayette commented.

“I don’t know, what can I say, I’ve got a real…”  Hamilton frowned, falling silent as the other two started to actually play and he found himself struggling to figure out where he was in relation to them and the AI.  Suddenly it wasn’t as fun.

 

“They had a test in English today,” Lafayette said as he deftly maneuvered his race car around the bend, “and Adrienne told me that it was much easier for her than it would have been because she had so much practice on break with me.”  He made the hairpin turn and slid over to hug the inner track.  “I told her that she will get a perfect score and she said that she thinks she will only get an eighty percent but that’s because it’s out of five points total and she was not sure about one of the questions.  The second to last one.  The last one?  No,” he corrected himself, “the second to last one.  I think she will get a hundred.”

Laurens glanced at the headphones on his desk.

“We practiced a lot over her vacation,” Lafayette went on happily.  “I’m very glad that I got to help her but the question was using some vocabulary she wasn’t sure about.  I won’t tell you what word because it’s not good to share test questions.  That’s very inappropriate.”

Hamilton, now sitting on the floor directly in front of the television, started to swear loudly as he hit a wall, tried to turn around, and got stuck going down the track the wrong way.

“She also told me that her professor had some trouble with the pipes in her summer house,” Lafayette went on, raising his voice to drown out Hamilton.  “Which is very funny because last winter another one of her teachers had his pipes freeze and he was telling them when they came back to campus that he had been concerned that they would burst and he would have to spend a lot of money to have them repaired.  Oh, that wasn’t at his actual house,” he clarified unnecessarily and then kept talking giving additional background information as Laurens groaned and looked towards the ceiling.  “I wonder if it would have been covered by the rental agreement?”  He asked as he slipped to the side and cut off Laurens’ car.  “They didn’t burst,” he added as he crossed the finish line, coming into first place by a fraction of a second.  “That was a good race.  Shall we go again once Alexander finishes?”

“This thing is fucked up,” Hamilton complained in frustration as he saw his rank drop to last.  “Seriously, it’s way too sensitive, there’s no way it was supposed to turn all the way around like that, what the fuck!”

Lafayette glanced at Laurens.  Laurens diplomatically used his power of Player One to opt to back out of the race to the main menu.

“Fuck,” Hamilton muttered, angrily putting his controller down in his lap.

“Do you want to switch back?”  Lafayette asked, offering him the controller he had just been using.

“No.  I want to bitch about how the game sucks.”  Hamilton stood up, putting the controller on Lafayette’s desk.  “Whatever, I’ve blown enough time on this and I need to get my work done.  You gonna call me when you’re finished with this?”  He asked Laurens as he picked up his jacket and bag.

“You can stay if you want,” Laurens said.  “We can turn the volume down.”

Hamilton saw in a flash the other two still playing and laughing as he tried to read and he shook his head.  “Just call me when you’re done.”

Laurens watched him sling his bag over his shoulder and stood.  Hamilton waited expectantly and made a “seriously?” gesture in the air in front of him when Laurens, instead of crossing over to him, took the other chair.

“Are you going to be on campus or are you headed back to your place?”

“I’m going to the apartment.”

“Right.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes but put his hands on the back of Laurens’ chair and kissed the top of his head.  “You better win, jerk.”  

Laurens tipped his face back to return it properly.

“No fair,” Lafayette complained as Hamilton stepped away and Laurens grinned at the screen.  “I don’t get a good luck kiss.”

Hamilton laughed and blew him one as he left the room.

 

“Miss me?”  Hamilton slid into a seat at one of the long tables in the library.

Burr looked up from his book.  “You’re late.”

“Barely.”  Hamilton drummed his hands on the table.  “So, down to business?  I’ve got a few hours before I’ll be missed.”

“Is this how it works?  You wanted me to do you a favor and all I wanted was for you to ask a simple question.  A question,” Burr went on, closing his book, “that isn’t about me and that I could likely find out the answer to myself.”

“Come off it, stop posturing.  It’s not a good look on you.”

“Nor on you, yet you just can’t stop.”

Hamilton sat still for a moment and then relented.  He leaned across the table to talk in a low voice.  “She’s still on the books for next pay cycle.  So that whole quitting thing, not official yet, or at least it’s not processed.  The only place it’s coming up is some office gossip from Jefferson who, I mean, all he told Lafayette was that she got caught in a compromising position and what with the marriage falling apart and everything decided to get a fresh start.  You want to maybe tell me sometime just what happened?  ‘Cause you weren’t twenty-one the whole time you knew her _and_ you’re a student…”

“She didn’t do anything,” Burr said, his words clipped and cutting him short.  “It might be hard to believe, but not everything is about sex.”

“So…” Hamilton sat back, confusion on his face.  He dropped his voice so he was just mouthing the word.  “Drugs?”

Burr gave him a disdainful look and the barest flick of an eyeroll.

“You gotta give me something to work off of here, Aaron.  This is a partnership, remember?  A two-way street.  If I’m gonna be poking around records and asking Lafayette leading questions then it’ll save us both a lot of time if I know what I’m looking for.”

“If you don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Burr said, “then so much the better.  It’s been an… acrimonious divorce.  I’m glad to hear that she is not being terminated at the end of the semester but you told me you would find out what the office gossip is.  So far what you’ve given me is barely even a rumor, just some bitter words from Jefferson.  If that’s all there is, then that is wonderful, but I’d appreciate if  you actually upheld your end of the bargain and looked into it.  We don't need to spread anyone’s private life around more than necessary.”  Hamilton opened his mouth to protest but shut it quickly when Burr went on.  “Excuse me, we don’t need to spread the private lives of _some_ people around more than necessary.  Let me present you with my dilemma.  Unfortunately what we need is to encourage a rumor that is actually true, or true enough that when it gets out people will both believe it and back it up with other incriminating examples.  Your friend—” even knowing that it was a turn of phrase didn’t stop Hamilton from making a disagreeing face, “—has not said much.  Oh, micro-aggressions, sure,” Burr said with a placating wave of his hand, “but it’s already November.”

“…Right.  So we need something bigger.  Something that’ll get fast action.”

“Exactly.  Now,” Burr went on, “one way to get authority to react is to present a challenge to it.”

Hamilton paused and then nodded slowly.  “The coach.”

“Yes.  I don’t think we would be overreaching if we claimed—”  Burr sighed.  “Yes, Alexander?”

Hamilton was chewing his lower lip as he looked over Burr’s shoulder at the bookshelf behind him without seeing it.  The coach, who poured time and money into helping students with nowhere else to go?  Who had taken Laurens aside on several occasions—he’d seen him do it again in the gym, he knew there had to be more that Laurens wasn’t telling him about.  Hamilton shook his head slowly.  “No.”

“No?”

“No…  Look.”  He put his hands carefully palm down on the table.  “Here’s my thought.  I think the coach is already keeping an ear out for trouble.  I think it wouldn’t take much to get him to pull the trigger.  We just need to wait for this douche to drop something small and then…”  He shrugged.  “We make it bigger.”

Burr studied him for a moment.  “Aren’t you forgetting something, Alexander?”

“What?”

“What do you think will happen when your boyfriend finds out you’ve spread something like this about him?”

“So—so we don’t pick him.  Okay?  We wait for Lee to make some comment about one of the others, one of the straight ones, and then we let a couple other people hear it, just the guys on the team anyway, and encourage them to take it to the coach.  Even if John’s not willing, I bet Lafayette can get, what, Ben Tallmadge or one of them to hand him over.  They’re just tolerating him for as long as they can.  As soon as he says something more direct and it’s clear they can get rid of him they’ll all turn on him.”

“Do you think he’d actually do that?  Say something that stupid without reason?”

“It’s already without reason.”

“You know what I mean.”

Hamilton ran a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair.  “I—I dunno.  Maybe Lafayette and I should pretend to date again, that was good, you fell for that one.”

“You’ll just make it look like you’re in a polygamous relationship.”

“Ha.  Yeah, John wouldn’t like that.”

Burr waited until it was clear that Hamilton wasn’t going to say anything else and then went on, a coaxing note in his voice.  “I still think the easiest—”

“No.”  Hamilton cut him off.  “Look, don’t—the coach is a good guy.  Okay?  Let’s just leave him to the role of cracking down on this asshole once we’ve got some dirt on him.  Let’s at least try this first.  The rest of the month.  If we can’t find shit then come December first we’ll go with Plan B.”

Burr sighed.  “This would be a lot less ridiculous if I could get someone to at least tell me what he’s actually saying about the rest of them.”

Hamilton snapped his fingers.  “Okay, now _that_ I can do.  You’re still taking French, right?  Your grade’s gonna go through the roof.”

 

“You should come back,” Laurens said, cradling his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he closed the door behind Lafayette.  “It’s not that far of a walk.”

“Why don’t you just come over here?”  Hamilton asked as Laurens set the phone down on his desk and put it on speaker.  “I was already on campus.”

“Lafayette’s gone out.”

“Uh, yeah, but he’s not staying out.”

“He’ll be gone for a while.”

“It’d be so much easier if you just come over here.”

Laurens’ eyes lingered on the television and game systems.  “It’ll be fun, come on, Alex.  I’ll order pizza or something for later.”

“‘Later’?  Is that like after sex or after you spend another couple hours shooting things?”

Laurens could hear Hamilton close his laptop and unzip his bag.  “I’ll make it worth your time,” he promised, sitting on his bed and leaning back against the wall.  He let his voice slide down low as he undid the fly of his pants and slipped his hand in.  “I guess I could go over, in like fifteen minutes…”

“…Fine.  I’m leaving now, don’t go anywhere.”

Laurens could tell that Hamilton knew exactly what was going on and he grinned at having decisively won the argument.  The line cut and Laurens closed his eyes, letting himself pretend that Hamilton was already in his room, that he was on the bed with him, half on top of him with his hand between his legs.  He touched himself lazily, letting himself slowly get physically aroused as he imagined Hamilton’s weight against him and the angles of his body.

He was still sitting there, hand still over his briefs, when he heard Hamilton’s familiar knock at the door.  He got up carefully and unlocked the door.

“See, that didn’t take you that long.”

“You know how to bribe a guy.”  Hamilton seemed a little out of breath and his hair and jacket were wet from the rain that Laurens hadn’t noticed falling outside.  “Close that.  You better have told Lafayette not to come back.”  He was pressed up against him already, just inside the room, and he cupped him a little more forcefully than he needed to.

“Bed.”  Laurens stepped around him and Hamilton tossed his jacket on the floor, sitting and then lying back on the bed.  He propped himself up on his elbows, drawing one leg up, and watched as Laurens grabbed a tie from his closet and knotted it around the doorknob.  Laurens looked down the hall—No Lafayette, but he did make eye contact with their neighbor as he walked back to his room.  Laurens couldn’t help himself.  He held his gaze for a second and smirked, then closed the door.

“What’re we doing?”  Laurens asked, pulling his shirt up over his head.

“Uh, sex,” Hamilton said.  “I didn’t run through a cloudburst just for hand stuff.”

“You would’ve.”

“Yeah, okay, but I didn’t.”

Laurens laughed and started to slide his pants down.  “Strip.”

“You gonna make me?  Btw, stuff’s in my bag.  You want to actually stock up for your place?”

“I should,” Laurens agreed.  “I’ll keep it here.”

“Hey, come on, buy your own.”

“Are you actually going to use condoms without me?”

Hamilton let his eyes wander over Laurens as he knelt on the floor to dig through his bag.  “Just hurry up.  Toss it.”  He put his hand up and caught the box and then bottle, dropping them both to the side and pulling his shirt off as Laurens came back to the bed and leaned over him, pushing him down and kissing him hungrily.

Hamilton eagerly put his arms over his shoulders, running one hand up into Laurens hair and grinning as he moaned into the kiss.  He could feel Laurens already hard on his leg and he arched a little off the bed so he could press against him.

“Alex…”

Hamilton bit Laurens’ lip as Laurens fumbled with the button on his pants, trying to get it undone with only one hand.  Hamilton decided against making it easier for him.  He continued to work his hand through his hair and raked his other down his back, biting his lip again and then the tip of his tongue.

Laurens tugged at one of his belt loops impatiently.  Hamilton slipped his hand between them and pressed it to Laurens, rocking him forward over his briefs.

“Mm…”

“Hey,” Hamilton said suddenly, leaning back and away.  Laurens made a frustrated noise and tried to kiss him again but Hamilton tipped his head to the side and tightened his fingers in his hair.  “You just booty called me, J.  You did,” he continued when Laurens didn’t agree quickly enough.  “I didn’t even set you up for this one.  I didn’t send you pics or anything.”

“Alexander,” Laurens complained.

“Just say it, J.  I want you to agree with me.  It’d be so hot to hear you admit to it.”

Laurens laughed distractedly.  “Yeah, okay.  I called you for sex.”

“In the middle of the day,” Hamilton added.

“It’s not—that early.”

“Afternoon.”

“In the afternoon.”

“You were probably all kicking ass at Call of Duty or whatever,” Hamilton went on, rewarding him by toeing his shoes off and then leaning up off the mattress again so he could slide his pants down.  “And you were all like, ‘You know what would be a good break?  Fucking my boyfriend.’”

“Assassin’s—”

Hamilton kissed him again, cutting him off.

Laurens took the hint and slid his hand up between his legs, cupping him as he spread them.  He slipped one finger past the fabric to brush up against his shaft and Hamilton gasped.

“Yes…”

“Yes?”  Laurens ran his finger alongside him and Hamilton leaned into the touch, grabbing his shoulder.

“God damn,” Hamilton breathed, putting a clear space between the two words.  “Damn.  J.,” he continued, his voice turning into a whine.  “All right, let’s go.”  He moved his hands down Laurens’ body and hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband of his underwear.

Laurens took his hand off of him—he whined again—to pull Hamilton’s briefs down.  Hamilton eagerly returned the favor and passed him the bottle.  Laurens took it and kissed him again on the side of his mouth then pulled away and pressed his finger between his legs as he took his cock in his other hand, both of them slick and wet.

Hamilton groaned and tipped his head back, draping one arm across his face and clenching his fist.  “J…”  He shifted, spreading his legs wider and tipping his hips.

Laurens felt his heart speed up at the sound of his name and he pushed his finger into him, bending it and watching as Hamilton’s lips parted soundlessly.  He moved his hand over his shaft, pulling a moan from him as his other hand gripped the sheets.

“Yes…”  Hamilton tightened his fist.  “More—”

“Of what?”

“All of it…”  Hamilton paused to bite his own lip as Laurens rocked his wrist, his finger pushing against him, even as he continued to work his shaft.  “Ah—”

“Alexander…”  Laurens heard his voice come out breathy.  He wanted to push his own cock into him but at the same time was tempted to continue to use only his hands and to get Hamilton to come that way, to let there be no question about what they were doing behind the closed door…

“Please,” Hamilton said, his heart in his throat.  “J., I came—all the way down here,” he continued, “I—It was raining, J., please…”

“Get me a condom.”

“Right.”  Hamilton reached for the box without looking, fumbled, found and opened it, held a condom out for Laurens as he sat back.

“Uh,” Laurens glanced down at his hands.  “Could you do it?”

Hamilton paused, then laughed and got up, tucking his legs under himself and starting to tear it open.  “You did get the memo on not using your teeth, right?  Shoot, do you need—hold on, sorry—”  He put the package down on his leg and grabbed the lube.  “Since we’re already hitting pause.  I don’t want you to have to do this dry.”

“‘Have to’?”

“That’s sweet of you to make it sound like you wouldn’t care but I was being diplomatic af, J.  This is more for me than you.”

Hamilton put a drop of lube in the tip of the condom and then leaned in, unrolling it down over Laurens’ shaft as he kissed him, one hand on the side of his face.

Laurens leaned into it, moaning softly as Hamilton worked his hand over him, moving it back up and then down again after he had it on him, generously coating the length of his shaft.

Hamilton slid his hand back briefly away from his face and through the short hair at the back of his head and then let it fall.  He moved back and rolled over onto his arms and knees.  Laurens’ breath caught for a moment and then he moved over him, putting his hands at his waist and pushing his hips forward so that his cockhead pressed just barely into him.

Hamilton let out a long, low breath between his teeth, his eyes closed.

“Is this—”

“I’m fine.  Please.”

Laurens nodded even though he couldn’t see him and slowly pushed further in, watching as Hamilton wrapped one arm around his pillow and pressed his forehead to it.

“J…”

Encouraged, Laurens let himself enter him fully then pulled back, feeling the tight heat around his shaft and moving one of his hands down to cup Hamilton’s sac.

Hamilton groaned, the sound hitching for a second and then turning into Laurens’ name.  “John…”

Laurens kept touching him as he thrust into him again, finding a rhythm and making Hamilton whine.

“Ah, shit, _yes_ —J…”

“Louder.”

Hamilton grinned, his face flushed, and readily obliged.  “ _John_ …”

Laurens pressed inside Hamilton and pleasure coursed through his veins.

“L-louder?”

“Yes.”

“Right—”  The word got cut off when Laurens thrust into him again.  “Yes,” Hamilton said, letting his voice raise further, “Fuck, J…  More…”

Laurens moved his hand up to wrap around his shaft and Hamilton moaned.

“Ah—Y-yeah, like that,” Hamilton said, narrating more than normal and his pulse quickening as it clicked that Laurens wasn’t just asking for audio stimulation—he knew where they were and he wanted people to hear what they were doing.  “Fuck me, J., i-into the—mattress.”  His voice was shaking and he gave a short but loud moan as Laurens took his cue and thrust harder.

“John—!”

“Say my name.”

Hamilton had to swallow to steady his voice a little.  “John…”

Laurens paused, fully inside him.  He could feel the blood pounding in his face.  “My full name.”

Hamilton grinned broadly and turned his head slightly to the side.  “John Laurens.”  He gasped as Laurens squeezed his shaft.  “N-not good enough?”  Hamilton shifted his weight to one arm, running his other hand over his face as he gave a short helpless laugh.  “Goddamn I love you, you fucking impulsive terror.  A-all right, just don’t stop.”  Laurens resumed his pace, keeping his hand tight around Hamilton’s shaft as he pumped it in time, and Hamilton lifted his voice to just below a shout.  “J.—God, _yes_ , John Laurens—!”

Laurens pressed hard into him, his eyes fluttering shut, and his mind consumed by the sound of Hamilton’s voice and a sort of stupid pride and sense of winning.  He’d managed to pull this off, hadn’t he?  In the moment he wanted everyone to know.

“Harder,” Hamilton encouraged.  “J-John, don’t stop yet—”

Laurens could feel his orgasm building and he made an effort to push it away, trying not to let the pressure against his shaft pull him over the edge.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton made an inarticulate, pleading noise.

Laurens tightened his grip at his hip, bracing himself as Hamilton groaned.

“You’re—I’m gonna lose it…”  Hamilton’s words were shaking.  “I can’t—”  He shuddered and Laurens felt his cock jerk in his hand as he came.

Laurens let himself go then, thrusting hard until he was finished as well and sat back on his heels, his hand shaking slightly when he brushed the hair from his eyes.

Hamilton winced as he rolled over onto his side, using the already soiled sheet to wipe off his front.  “Tiger.”  He gracelessly threw it half off of the bed and onto the floor.  “Laundry.”

Laurens got up, still a little unsteady with the blood pounding in his head and cock, and tossed out the condom.  “You’re monosyllabic now?”

Hamilton lay on his back and shook his head, holding two fingers up.  “Ti-ger.  Laun-dry.  That’s bisyllabic, John.” 

Laurens lay down next to him on his front, putting his arm over his chest and resting his head on it.  He closed his eyes.

Hamilton let his hand drop onto his back.

After a minute Laurens spoke up.  “You know…”

“Hm?”

He gave a little laugh.  “I, I made eye contact with the guy next door in the hall.”

“You did what?”

Laurens was grinning and he shook with silent laughter before he could explain.  “I made eye contact—Shit, I was, I don’t know, I put a tie on the doorknob.  I looked right into his fucking eyes.”

Hamilton burst out laughing as well.  “What the fuck, John!”

“I don’t know!”

“What the actual fuck.”  He put his hand over his mouth but it didn’t stop.  “Is that why the request?  Really trying to rub his face in it?”  He squeezed Laurens’ shoulder with his other hand.  “What’ve you got against the guy, apart from that he’s a damn tattletale?  Did you want to make sure he had some good dirt for their next stitch-n-bitch?”  He was still laughing and he took his hand away from his face, knocking it against the wall a little harder than it would have been on sheer accident.  “I hope this gets back to me at the next student council meeting, you ass.”  He remembered that he had just come back from talking to Burr and snorted in laughter.

Laurens was still shaking a little and breathed out hard in an attempt to calm down.  The smile was still on his face as Hamilton moved his hand from the wall to his hair.

“Hey,” Hamilton said.  “You mind if I top next time?”

Laurens’ words were a little slurred.  “Go ahead.”

“All right.”  Hamilton sounded very pleased.  “I will.”


	117. Naranj

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some People Have Jobs, Lafayette; Kirby and Bitching; Eliza Doesn't Care About the Ratio, Hamilton; Rebound

Lafayette had come back from early dinner with Laurens’ teammates to the universal sign for “don’t come in, getting lucky” on the door and not quite enough self-righteous irritation to knock anyway.  He had wavered in the hall for a moment until he realized what he was probably overhearing then made a face and turned around.  He didn’t need them, he thought indignantly to himself, he had _plenty_ of other friends.

“And that’s why I am here,” he explained to Adelaide, standing in the office door and looking in hopefully over her shoulder.  Computers and editing equipment stood in rows behind her.  A security camera in the hall was trained on them.

Adelaide closed her mouth.  Lafayette wasn’t sure quite when she had opened it to interrupt him, but now he waited patiently for her to decide to let him in.

“…Fine,” she said with slight resignation.  “But you’re not allowed to touch anything.  Did I ever even give you my work address?  How did you find me?”

“You told me the company and I looked it up and the man at the front desk was very helpful.”

“Right.”  Adelaide led the way back to her computer.  “I’m serious, Gilbert, don’t touch anything.  If you mess up what I’m working on you’re going to wish you had gone back to France with your girlfriend.”

“What if I use a computer you’re not on?”

“The internet use on them gets monitored and I don’t want to explain to my boss that I let a client of mine from my second job play around on one.”

“Can you tell him you let a good friend of yours in to charge his phone and wait for his apartment to become available again?”

“I’ll let her know.”

Lafayette took his phone and charger out of his pocket and plugged it into an outlet on her desk.  “Is it always so empty here?”

“No,” Adelaide said, a little distracted as she turned her attention back to her rendering on the screen.  “I prefer to work at odd hours, especially when I have a deadline.  I get better work done without people to distract me.”

“Ah.”  Lafayette stood in silence for a few moments, folding his arms over his chest and rocking back on his heels.  “It’s cold in here.”

“That’s for the electronics.”

“Oh.”  Pause.  “I suppose I could have gone to see someone else.  I have Aglae’s number.”

“She’s nice.”

“She is,” Lafayette agreed, happy to be having a conversation again.  “She’s very nice.  Oh, but, I think she’s hitting on me.”

Adelaide looked up sideways at Lafayette.  “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I really do think so.  I got coffee with her once and she was very flirty.  I think.”  Lafayette frowned.  “I thought she was just being polite at the time but now I wonder if she was flirting with me.  I’ve talked to more American girls since then,” he clarified.  “I didn’t have a very good sample size.”

“Gilbert, you’re the one flirting with her.”  Adelaide was looking at the screen again.  “I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend for the longest time because you were obviously interested in her.  You’re not subtle.”

Lafayette smiled nervously.  “I’m not, how do you say, subtle?”

“No.”

“Perhaps it is a cultural thing,” he said, letting his accent come across a little more strongly.

“I think it’s a you thing,” Adelaide said, cutting into French.

“Did you see me flirting with any other girls?”

Adelaide gave him an odd look and Lafayette felt his stomach drop.

“No.”  She turned, again, back to the computer.

Lafayette gave a short nervous laugh.  “Or I could have called one of the people I met through Alexander or John.”

“I don’t mind that you came,” Adelaide said, moving the mouse of the computer next to her out of the way as Lafayette leaned on the desk.  “I enjoy your company.”

Lafayette smiled, at her and at the room in general.  “Good.  I was worried.”

“You have this need to be liked, don’t you?”  Adelaide asked.

“It’s true,” Lafayette agreed.  “But I usually return the favor.”

“‘Usually’?  Who don’t you like?”

“I don’t like Aaron Burr,” Lafayette said, “on principle.”

“Who’s that?”

“Alexander’s…”  Lafayette paused, not sure what the word was in either French or English.  “…Ex-friend.”

“Ah.”

Lafayette checked the status of his phone battery and put it back down.  “That reminds me.  Adelaide, once my phone is charged I need to set up a student-teacher meeting.”

“With Aaron Burr?”

“I also don't like that man who kissed André’s girlfriend and whom John got into a fight with,” Lafayette said, acting as if he hadn’t heard her.

“You must hate him,” Adelaide was a little distracted as she worked.

“No, I hate John’s team captain.”

She looked up again, surprised.  “What did he do?”

“He’s very disrespectful, but he’s careful with what he says.  It’s hard for any of them to say anything to him because he outranks them and because his words on paper are only the truth.”  Lafayette checked his battery again.  “I think that the two of us could be good friends,” he said, “if we never talked about anything.  I don’t like him.  I know Alexander must have caught on by now, but he’s never said anything to me about him and I don’t want to make it worse by trying to fix it.  I should buy an external battery,” Lafayette said.  “Do you know of any good brands?”

“Not off hand.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t done anything.  It’s not like you to sit by.”

“I know.”  Lafayette fell silent again for a minute.  “I don’t think John would like me to fight his battles for him.”

“I can understand that.”

He checked his phone battery again.  “Maybe Alexander and I can have a little fun anyway.”

“I certainly hope you can.”

 

Lafayette paused outside the door to his room, closing his eyes and offering up a short prayer to whatever god had jurisdiction over not accidentally walking in on your two friends having sex.  The tie was still on the knob but it was late and he was resigned to his fate.  He knocked and when he didn’t get an answer he unlocked the door and opened it.

To his relief the lights were off and Hamilton was sitting fully dressed on the floor playing on one of the consoles.

“Alexander?”

“Hey, can you get the lights?”  Hamilton didn’t look up.  “Got dark in here after John left and I’m kind of busy.”

Lafayette obediently switched on the lights and tossed Laurens’ tie on his bed.  “Is that Kirby?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“Nope.  This ice planet sucks, though.  I friggin’ slid off a cliff earlier.”

“I didn’t know John had Kirby.”

“He doesn’t.  That’s—shit—”  Hamilton swore and backtracked on the screen.  “That’s why he left.  This one is Martha’s and she got pissed at him when he called to ask if she really wanted it back.”

“Oh, he left to talk to his sister?”  Lafayette sat in one of the chairs to watch.  “That’s nice.”

“Nah.  He left when his father got on the line.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said again.  And then, after a pause, “I had hoped he was talking to his sister.”

“Whatever.”  The word was a little short, the way they got when Hamilton was annoyed and trying to ignore it.  “Couldn’t hear what he was asking him exactly, but John sure got all shirty all of a sudden.  Left after that.  Are you surprised, Lafayette?  ‘Cause I’m not.”

“No,” Lafayette said, watching as Hamilton combined two powers.  “Nice.”

“Bomb and ice,” Hamilton agreed.  “I’m gonna be an exploding snowman.  Watch.”  He demonstrated.  “Wanna guess what he’s not telling his father right now?”

Lafayette made a noise of vague sympathetic agreement and Hamilton breathed out in irritation.

“Fuckin’ compulsory heterosexuality.  No offense.”

“Why would I be offended?”

“Right, right.”

“John was talking to his sister the other night,” Lafayette said as the snowman raced across the screen.  “When he was at Washington’s house.”

“After the two of you abandoned me to starve?”  The snowman hit a yellow brick and exploded.

“You called in.”

“Yeah, well.”

“I don’t know what he was talking to her about.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He was texting her but stopped when I tried to talk to him.”

“Probably boring stuff.”

“I think he misses them.”

“I guess that’s to be expected.”

“He won’t talk about them, though.”

“Yeah, he’s weird like that.  Says it’s private.  He told me a little about them after the really long boring dinner.”

“The trustee dinner?”

“That’s the one.”  Hamilton discarded his power and returned to the main menu.  “I need fire.  I’m going back to Pop Star.”  He flicked between worlds.  “He did tell me more the other day,” he conceded.  “I guess it was right after that.  Did you talk to him about it or something?”

Lafayette nodded.

“Right.  Thanks.”  Hamilton paused the game and sighed, putting the controller down.  “Tell me the truth.  Am I a little bitch for being pissed about this?  I get that it’s hard for him.  I’ve tried to be patient.”

“You’ve been very good.”

“Yeah?  I’m not good with patience, it’s hard for me to tell sometimes.  But I never—okay, I brought it up like once or twice, but I _dropped_ it right away…”

“You didn’t pressure him to tell his family or friends,” Lafayette said.  “And you even tried to come up with a clever cover story.”

“Dating you?  That one just dropped in my lap, I wouldn’t’ve been able to help myself either way.  Look.”  Hamilton leaned forward, resting his arms on his legs and tapping the controller with nervous energy against his knee.  “I get that it’s different for us.  I do.  And that’s why I’ve been trying to keep out of it, stay in my own lane.  I don’t got his family and I’ll never understand what it’s like.  I don’t have some idealized version of myself to live up to and no one’s gonna disown me if I decide I like the D as well as the V.”

“That’s fortunate, because you do.”

“Yeah, I know, right?” They both laughed.  “But like,” Hamilton went on after a beat, “Thanksgiving.  That’s weird, right?  It’s not just me.  What kind of no homo meet the folks _is_ that?  Did he think his father would somehow magically change his mind on shit without John ever having to broach the subject?  Or did he—think that we’d no longer be together and it wouldn’t be an issue?”

Lafayette put his hand sympathetically on Hamilton's shoulder.

“…I dunno.  I shouldn’t be surprised he’s got this double life shit going on, son of a politician and all, probably runs in the family.  I should probably be taking notes, thank him for the pointers for when I inevitably get into politics.”

“You would be better at politics than John.”

“Yeah, right?  Or you, for that matter.”

“I could be good,” Lafayette protested.

Hamilton didn’t sit up or stop fidgeting with the controller but he waved his free hand.  “You’re too nice.  Again, no offense.  People’d walk all over you.  I mean,” he elaborated, “John and I sexiled you earlier and I’m still here when you tried again and instead of kicking me out or ignoring me to work you’re sitting here and talking me through my own shit.  Thanks, by the way.  And that’s ‘to sexile,’ verb, combination of ‘sex’ and ‘exile.’  You can get the definition from the context.”

“Ah, thank you.”

“No prob.  You know ‘no homo’?  It’s a little dated.  Jeez, I don’t remember if I said anything else…”

“‘Shirty.’”

“Oh, right.  I dunno, you’ll be better off with the dictionary definition on that one.  I’ll get it for you later.”  Hamilton was quiet for a minute.  He unpaused the game and went back to playing.  Lafayette folded his hands in his lap and watched.

“Orange,” Hamilton said after getting the fire power he needed and returning to the ice planet.   “You know which came first, the fruit or the color?”  He didn’t even glance over to see Lafayette shake his head.  “John and I were arguing.  The English word ‘orange’ comes from the Middle English comes from the Old French comes from the Arabic via Spain _naranj_.  Knew ‘naranja,’ didn’t realize it shared a root.  Anyway,” he went on as he played, “ _Naranj_ comes from Sanskrit comes from Dravidian.  By the time it got to Europe it was being used to refer to the tree and the fruit and they think that’s what the original meaning was as well.  Compound word, ‘fragrance’ and ‘fruit.’”

“Which one of you won?”

“I thought it derived from the color.  Name the fruit after the color it turns.  Not use the fruit for comparison of things in a similar shade.”  Hamilton half-smiled.  It was fond, if still a little bitter.  “He sees things I don’t sometimes.  Like the fact that we don’t just call it yellow-red.”

 

“Hey,”  Hamilton called as he cut across the flow of students, following a blue jacket and a tied-back streak of black hair.  “Hey, Eliza!”  He dodged around another student, then caught up with her.  “…Hey.”

She smiled brightly and pulled her book a little closer to herself.  “Good morning.”

Hamilton glanced up at the gray sky.  “I guess.  As long as I don’t get caught in the rain for the second day in a row.  Where are you headed?”

“Class.”

“Does class go by the admin building?”

She nodded.  “It could.”

“Okay, great.  Walk with me?”  He set off, making space for her on the sidewalk next to him.  “How’ve you been since I last saw you?”

“Fine.  And you?”

“Weird.  No, I mean, don’t give me the joke answer, I know that’s not any different.  I mean it’s been weird.  I don’t know, maybe it’s just that everyone’s getting busy with school and shit.  I feel like it’s just been…  I don’t know.  It’s been weird.”  He paused, then added, “Not always in a bad way.  I got laid yesterday.”

Eliza looked at him in surprise then laughed, catching it behind her hand.

Hamilton grinned.  “ _That_ wasn’t the strange part, but I’ll save you the inappropriate details for some other time.  You got a good texting plan, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good.  Hey, more important, I got a message from Mulligan.  You mind giving me Peggy’s number?”

“Oh,” Eliza said, putting her hand out for his phone, “sure.  Why does he want it?”

“Dunno.  Maybe she left something at his place.  Or maybe he wants to give her some pants.  That’s why he calls me half the time.  Thanks,” he said as he took it back.  “And there’s my stop.  I gotta run, but thanks again.  I’ll text you,” he promised.  “It’ll be, like, fifty percent filthy smut and fifty percent complaining about my boss.  Maybe sixty-forty.  Forty-sixty?  I’ll text you.”

 

“Hello,” Lafayette said in a sympathetic voice as André walked into the language lab.  “How are you?”

Andre signed in and then sat across from him, taking a long drink from a Keep Calm and Carry On travel mug.  “Tired.”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette said, putting his phone away.  “Would you like to talk about it?  We all missed you over the weekend.”

“Yeah?”  André yawned.  “Did you have a good time?”

“We did.  You should join us next time.  Laurens just got some video games.”

“Right,” André said, “he mentioned that.  Shit,” he added, “I missed practice this morning.  Do you know when you’ll be doing something again?”

“We’re flexible,” Lafayette said.  “What day would be good for you?”

“Uh…”  André took out his cell.  “Let me ask.”

Lafayette paused.  “Ask whom?”

“Mina—Didn’t I mention?  We’re dating now.”

Lafayette gave him an incredulous look  “Who is this ‘Mina’?”

“My new girlfriend.”

Lafayette literally threw his arms up in the air with a disbelieving noise.

“She’s in Peggy’s sorority—”

“Isn’t there some kind of rule against that?  What’s the sorority version of bros before hoes?”

“—and she’s very pretty, and smart.  Here, I have pictures of us the other night.  We went to this fantastic French restaurant…”

“I told you about that place,” Lafayette protested as André showed him his phone.  “I went there with Alex last year!”

“Did you?”

“I did!”

“Well, it was really good.  Mina’s performing at an open-mic night later this week.  I have to check with her when it was again.  I told her I’d go to see her.”

“André,” Lafayette said suspiciously, “is Mina also a drama major?”

“Yes.”

“ _C’est pas vrai!_ ”  Lafayette put one hand to his forehead and leaned on it.

“What's so hard to believe about that?”

“I’m not talking to you, go sit over there.”  Lafayette pointed at one of the other tables.

André paused, surprised, then stood and moved over.

“Wait.  André…”

“Yes?”  He stopped, standing by the chair.

“Did you go to talk to her after I took the things over with you?”

André looked a little guilty.  “I wasn’t planning on it.  I was going to go home, but then I thought…  Maybe I’d try one more time, just in case she came back…”

“And you found Mina.”

“Yeah.”

Lafayette put his head in both his hands.  “ _Mon dieu._ ”


	118. Accusation/Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Crossing a Line

> A. Hamilton: I hate my job

> J. Laurens: I was wondering when you’d start that up again.  I hadn’t heard you complain about it for a while.

> A. Hamilton: not true

> A. Hamilton: I bitched NON STOP while i was playing absysitter

> J. Laurens: Okay, but being a babysitter wasn’t actually your real job

> A. Hamilton: Thank goodness

> A. Hamilton: if I wake up some day with 7 or 8 kids i’ll just vanish into my work and never surface

> J. Laurens: I thought you said you hate your work?

> A. Hamilton: yeah okay

> A. Hamilton: touche

> A. Hamilton: look Im headed back with the copies and need to put this away but can you come over tonight? i got another hour at leas of drafting missionstatesment and I miss you

 

“You’re so articulate,”  Laurens said, talking into his phone as he walked down the street in the dark.  “I’m just saying, Alex.  It’s really weird that you’re such a bad typist.”  He stopped outside the door to his building as Hamilton protested.  “I’m outside.  Let me in.”

The door unlocked and Laurens headed up the stairs, remembering how they had sat on the first step as the storm raged outside.

“I’m hanging up, Alex,” he said, then laughed.  “Oh, come on?  Me?  You’re the one who wanted me to come over.  You’re thrive off it. You—”  The line cut and he shook his head as he reached the third floor and saw Hamilton already waiting in his open door, backlight from the lamp in his apartment.

“You’re a sore loser.”

“It wasn’t an argument, J.”

“Then why did you hang up on me when you knew I was winning?”

“Uh, when did we agree on that?  I was definitely winning.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t an argument,” Laurens teased as Hamilton stepped aside and closed the door behind them.

“It wasn’t,” Hamilton said, “I was just right.  No way I need to be around people as much as you do.  You’re always with your teammates.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, “I like the sport.  That’s different.  I don’t seek people out as much on my free time.”

“Then I guess I should be extra flattered you agreed to come over instead of hiding out by yourself with your video games.  Give me your jacket.”

Laurens handed it over and Hamilton draped it over the back of his chair and took his hand.  “So, you got work you need to get done?”

“I should read.”

“Me too.  And write.”

“So we’re doing homework now—”

Hamilton tugged Laurens down slightly and kissed him.

“Later,” Hamilton said, his lips just brushing against Laurens’.

Laurens swallowed dryly.  “Yeah, okay.”

“Do you remember what we agreed on?”  Hamilton sounded a little cautious.

Laurens nodded.  “Yeah.  You want to…?”

“Please.”

“All right.”

“Great.”  Hamilton stepped back, obviously pleased.  “Should I cut the lights?  I tidied up in here, shouldn’t walk into a chair or step on any books this time.  And I figure it’s not that late, you’ve still got like a solid ten hours before you even have to get up for the gym, so, you know what,” he said, “I’m going to shut myself up right here before I say anything stupid and ruin it.”

Laurens laughed.  “Get the lights.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton flipped the switch, and backed across the room.  “You, strip, I’m gonna, I’ll be right back.”

“You’re making it sound like we haven’t done this before…”

“Fight me, John, I’m excited.”

Laurens got undressed and Hamilton came back a minute later to take his hand and lead him in the dark to the mattress.

“I feel like back when we first started dating.  Almost.  It’s fun.”

“Do you mean before or after France?”

Hamilton paused to consider the question, already having pushed Laurens down on his back and straddling one of his thighs.  “I don’t know.  Before, I guess.”

“Were we dating?”

“No, you’re right.  Okay, back when we were just fooling around.  Amended.”

“You don’t miss it, do you?”  Laurens was sure he knew the answer but the sudden anxiety had necessitated the question anyway.

“C’mon, J.”  Hamilton leaned down and kissed him, one hand on the side of his face.  “Of course not.”

“You could have slept with other people.”  For once the problem was that Laurens couldn’t shut up.

“No one else I’m as into as you, not a problem.”

“You could’ve slept with Eliza.”

Hamilton froze, his hand still on Laurens’ cheek.

Laurens didn’t say anything.

Hamilton sat back.  Laurens couldn’t make out his expression well in the dark.  Hamilton climbed off of him and stood.  Laurens stayed where he was.

“Apologize.”

“She likes you too.”  The words were just coming out.  “Didn’t you tell Lafayette once that you were interested in both her and Angelica?  You met them at a party last year.  You made some crass joke about how they were all over you.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there had to be a grain of truth in that, but I’ve seen the looks between you and I saw you—”

“Stop.”

“—with your arms around her—”

“What the fuck is the matter with you?”  Hamilton asked loudly, angrily.  He  crossed the room and turned the lights back on, leaving his hand on the switch and gesturing with his other one.  “Seriously, are you hormonal?  Are you having some kind of stroke?  What’s your problem?”

Laurens slowly sat up, knowing he had crossed a line and then not turned back when he still had the chance.  He couldn’t keep Hamilton’s gaze so he turned his face to the wall.

“J.?”  Hamilton still sounded angry.

“I don’t know,” Laurens muttered, subdued.  “I don’t—I’m sorry.”

“Do you not trust me?”

“No, I do.”

“Are you just trying to be an asshole?”  Hamilton had tried to force a note of humor into his question but it fell flat.

“Alex.”

“I’m serious, J.”  He dropped his hand from the wall, touching both to his chest for emphasis.  “Do you not trust me or something?”

“That’s not it, all right?  That’s…  I just,”  Laurens forced himself to look back.  “I told you that I don’t like it.”

“When I touch girls.”

“Yes.”

“Or talk to them.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re being ridiculous and controlling, do you know that?”

Laurens bit his lip sullenly.

Hamilton sighed and rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.  “I’m not—I’m not going to cheat on you, J.  I wish you’d drop it.  I’m kind of offended.  You’re being a jackass.”

Laurens didn’t say anything.

“Whatever,” Hamilton muttered, leaving the light on and going back to sit on the mattress.  He picked a book up off of the floor by the small lamp and opened it to the marked page.

Laurens hesitated, not sure where he stood, then got up and put his pants back on.  He took his own book out of his backpack and returned, sitting down exactly where he had been.

“I’m not kicking you out,” Hamilton informed him, a little distantly, as he turned the page.  “I could,” he added.  “Also I can still see the bruising where you got hit.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”  Laurens resisted the urge to get his phone out or go to look in the bathroom mirror.  He had thought it had since vanished.

“It has nothing to do with anything, just like my having slept with girls.”  Hamilton turned the page again.

Laurens held his tongue.

“Seriously,” Hamilton said, looking up.  “Would you be acting like such a jerk if I had only been with guys?”

“I’d have less to worry about.”

“Why, because you’d just plan on punching out any of my friends that you perceived as a threat?  Should I tell Lafayette to watch out and keep a respectable distance?  What about André?”

Laurens felt a little stab of guilt at having in fact told André just that.

Hamilton didn’t notice.  “Jesus, John, I’m a rational human being.  I know it’s hard to believe, but I do have control and, like, standards.  I don’t want to fuck everyone I see.”

“Eliza’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, so is Angelica.  We’ve been over this before.  Why is this still a problem?  I like people, okay?  I like being in close contact with people—you _just_ said this yourself tonight—but that doesn’t mean shit, so stop assuming things.  I’m not dating you just because I think you’re hot, and frankly I’m—”

Laurens put his hand on his arm, stopping his gesturing and his words.  “I’m sorry.”

Hamilton slowly lowered his arm, his book forgotten.  Laurens shifted a little closer.

“I’m sorry.  You’re right.  That wasn’t me speaking, that was my jealousy.”

“That was you, J.”  Hamilton shook Laurens’ hand off but then took it, holding it and resting it on his thigh.  “I like them.  They’re my friends.  I need you to accept that.”

“I do.”

“I need you to not be an ass about it.”

“I love you.”

“Thank God.”

Laurens gave a little snort of a laugh.  He was too tense to respond properly.

“I love you too.”  Hamilton lifted their intertwined hands and kissed them, then turned back to Laurens.  “I’ve been interested in other guys, you know.”

“You have?”

“Yeah.  Just nothing came of it.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “The timing wasn’t right or I got shot down or I was an impoverished teenager in Saint Croix and they were an actual celebrity…”

Laurens laughed.  It was short and still uneasy, but real this time.

“Look,” Hamilton went on, “you’re not an aberration.  You’re not the first guy I’ve thought was cute.  You’re just the first one who actually liked me back.”

Laurens nodded slowly.

“And it’s the same for you, right?  We just got real lucky.”

When Laurens didn’t immediately respond, Hamilton prompted him.  “J.?”

Laurens put his hand on the back of his neck, rolling it to the side.  “Well.”

Hamilton drew back, eye wide.  “ _Seriously?_ ”

“No,” Laurens protested.  “No, I never—I was telling the truth before, I only ever slept with Martha.”  He was very aware of how intently Hamilton was watching him.  “I only ever—This is weird, I don’t like talking about this.”

“So what, you think I do?  John, I don’t mean to sound like a complete douche, but you owe me this.  What did you do?”

“I don’t _owe_ you—”  Laurens cut himself off.  “I didn’t.  I didn’t do anything.  I just, I don’t, look,” he stumbled through the sentence, “there was a guy, okay?  I had a friend I thought, I kind of liked him.  That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Laurens nodded, not making eye contact.  Hamilton breathed out heavily.

“Sorry.”

Laurens looked at him quickly.  “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry.”  Hamilton squeezed his hand.  “I know it’s hard for you to talk about.  I think you need to work on that, but I know it’s hard.  Shit,” he breathed again, “I thought you were going to say you had a secret boyfriend in addition to the shotgun engagement.  But it was just some crush on your friend?  You mean apart from whatever that vague I-though-André-was-cute thing was?”

Laurens made an awkward noncommittal gesture that Hamilton took as an affirmative.

“To clarify,” Hamilton went on, “I wouldn’t’ve been pissed if you had banged some guy from high school.  I’d just be calling you an even bigger hypocrite.”

Laurens refrained from asking how.

“Hey.”  Hamilton scooted closer on the futon and kissed his cheek.  “I shouldn’t’ve jumped to conclusions like that.  That’s on me.”

Laurens felt his face burning.  His throat was tight.

“If you ever want to tell me about him that’s cool though.  I like hearing about stuff.”

“Not now,” Laurens said.  He put his hand on the small of Hamilton’s back.  He kissed him.  “I don’t want to think about anyone else,” he said truthfully.

The corner of Hamilton’s mouth twitched up.  “Flatterer.  Luckily for you I like attention.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens was grateful that Hamilton was letting the conversation slide back to where it had been earlier.

“Oh, yeah,” Hamilton agreed.  “In a perfect world you’d be stuck with me all the time.”

Laurens kissed him again, encouraging him on.

Hamilton didn’t need much.  He put his book aside.  “Back to the original plan?  Study later?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens was relieved.  He felt like he had just been pulled over for speeding but let go with just a warning after offering up a flimsy excuse.

“Okay.”  Hamilton already had his hands at Laurens’ waist, undoing his pants.  Laurens got to his feet and stripped, then lay down again, this time on his front.  Hamilton ran his hand down his back then laughed in surprise as Laurens twisted, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him down next to him.

“Hey,” Hamilton mock protested as Laurens turned onto his side and put his arm over him.  He kissed him once slowly, then again.  “Hey,” he repeated softer, any last traces of anger gone.

Laurens rolled Hamilton onto his back and straddled him, putting his hand behind his head and kissing him deeper, using the taste and feel of him to reassure himself.

“I forgot the light,” Hamilton said when Laurens sat back.  “I’m not sorry about that, though,” he added, talking more to himself than to Laurens.  “You’re so hot.  I love looking at you.”

Laurens looked at Hamilton stretched out beneath him, the way his lean torso was pulled tight and his loose dark hair framing his face on the pillow.  “Okay.”

“What?”

“We can do it like this.”

Hamilton propped himself up on one arm, taking a moment to study Laurens’ face and make sure he understood.  “What, really?”

Laurens nodded.  “Sure.”  He put out his hand.  “Pass me.”

Hamilton twisted and reached up over his head—Laurens watched his muscles tense and engage—and handed over the lube and a condom.  “Here.  You want me to…”

“No need.”  Laurens was already opening the bottle and when he wrapped his slick hand around Hamilton it was all he could do to bite back a groan.  He lay back, tucking one arm under the pillow so he could watch more comfortably as Laurens stroked him, urging him erect.

“J.,” Hamilton said.  He grinned when Laurens made eye contact.  “Touch yourself too.”

Laurens leaned back a little and then, somewhat awkwardly, put his other hand on his own cock, feeling the hunger in Hamilton’s eyes as he watched.  He was hardening as he moved his hand over himself, but he kept his attention focused on Hamilton, on getting and keeping him excited and at least a step ahead.

Laurens moved further down, putting his hands on the mattress and leaning in, taking Hamilton’s cockhead into his mouth.  He was rewarded with a low moan as Hamilton’s hips twitched forward.  Encouraged, he moved a little further onto him, pressing his tongue against the underside of his shaft.  He looked up and into Hamilton’s eyes and saw a slight blush spread across his cheeks.

“Ready?”  Laurens sat up and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.  Hamilton nodded mutely.

Laurens, thinking back to what Hamilton had done before, got to his knees and then paused, the realization dawning on him that it wasn’t going to work.

“C’mere.”  Hamilton had come to the same conclusion and, fortunately, wasn’t in the mood to tease him for it.  He motioned Laurens forward and then, when he was over his chest, ran his hands up his legs and back to cup his ass.  He ran his tongue over his bottom lip without meaning to.  Laurens felt the blood rush to his face.  Hamilton sat up, all tight muscle and abs, and quickly kissed the underside of Laurens’ cock, then rolled onto his side, grabbing the discarded supplies.

“Hold that angle for me, J.”

Laurens watched as Hamilton opened the bottle and then his eyes fluttered closed as he put his hand back and slowly pushed a finger into him.

“Damn, you’re hot,” Hamilton said, a little playfully, as he worked in a second one.  “Tight.  Damn.”

Laurens drew in a breath through his teeth.

“Let me…”  Hamilton trailed off for a second, carefully opening the condom with his teeth and then using his free hand to work it onto his shaft.  “Poor etiquette, I know,” he joked.  “Right.  Sorry for the distraction.”  He spread his fingers and Laurens made a low encouraging noise.  “J.,” Hamilton breathed.  And then, a minute or two later, “You good?”

Laurens nodded and Hamilton took his hand away.  Laurens moved back and—slowly, carefully—lowered himself onto Hamilton as Hamilton gripped his thighs.

Hamilton let out a sharp breath and tightened his hold on him as Laurens moved down as low as he could.  He had his eyes tightly shut, his mind spinning a little with how he couldn’t believe this was actually happening.  Laurens watched his face and realized as Hamilton gasped when he started to pull off how much control he had.

“John…”

Laurens put one hand on Hamilton’s forearm to steady himself as he raised slowly off of him again and Hamilton arched off the mattress with a low whine, pressing his fingers into his legs.

Laurens stopped just before pulling off all the way.  “Do you want me to go faster?”

“Y-yes.”

Laurens moved down onto him again, even slower than before, watching as Hamilton turned his head from one side to the other in frustration, feeling his hips tremble.

“Faster?”

Hamilton mouthed the word “yes” and Laurens didn’t pick up the pace.

“I couldn’t hear that.”

“Yes.”  Hamilton’s voice cracked in the middle of the word and he cleared his throat.

“Yes?”

“Yes.  Please…”

Laurens wanted to tease him for begging, encourage him to really plead, but he still felt a little guilty over what he had and had not said and instead he did rise up more quickly, if only halfway before he moved down onto him again.  Hamilton groaned.

“J…”  He moved one hand off of Laurens and behind his head again, tightly gripping his pillow.

Laurens watched as Hamilton bit his lip, eyes tightly shut and body tense.  He still felt a little heady with the realization that he could set the pace and make Hamilton _writhe_.

Hamilton ran his hand up over Laurens’ thigh, feeling the fine hair and hard muscle.  Laurens’ legs were planted solidly on either side of him so that even though he wasn’t being restrained he felt decidedly pinned in place.  He moved his hand up higher, back to the curve of his ass and felt Laurens twitch.  He tried to arch off the futon, to push further into him, but it was difficult with Laurens’ weight over him and he settled for sliding his hand down back to the underside of Laurens’ thigh, pressing against the softer skin.  Laurens made a little startled noise and Hamilton opened his eyes, catching his breath at the sight of Laurens on top of him.  For a moment he was struck dumb by the question—How did he end up here?  Was it really less than a year since he’d first worked up the nerve to kiss him, and then only a couple of months since he’d actually pulled his arms over him when they slept?  It seemed ridiculous somehow, both a whirlwind and far too long.

“…Alex?”  Laurens had noticed him staring and he was still, not sure what was happening.

Hamilton gave a small shake of the head, his loose hair swinging.  “I’m just—You’re good at that,” he offered, lying about his actual thoughts in an attempt to not change the mood.  “Hey.”  His tone became a little more genuine and little more grounded.  “You _tricked_ me.”

“I—What?”

“You tricked me!”  Hamilton propped himself up slightly his elbows, keeping his hips flat on the mattress.  “I wanted to top and you found a friggin’ loophole!”

“How is—You did this first,” Laurens started to protest, then stopped abruptly when Hamilton wrapped his hand around his shaft.

“Face it, J.,” Hamilton said, letting his voice drop smoothly, “I’m onto you.”

“Mm…”  Laurens suddenly found it difficult to form an argument.

“Don’t counter me with a pun,” Hamilton warned.  “Seriously, J., major mood-kill.”

Laurens gave a short jerking laugh and Hamilton, encouraged, slid his hand down to cup his balls.

“Touch yourself.”

“N-now?”

“Of course.”  Hamilton watched as Laurens hesitated a second, then put his hand on his cock.  “Good…”  Laurens moved off of him a little and Hamilton’s word trailed off into a moan.  Watching him touch himself while still inside him…

Laurens moved his hand faster and adjusted his angle to find a position where Hamilton best pressed against him.  He could feel his orgasm building, felt it grow as he stroked himself, and he let his eyes close, his breathing coming in short gasps.

“Alex—ander…”

“Please.”

The word ran a shiver down his spine.

“Finish on me,” Hamilton said, rocking his sac in his hand, teasing it between his fingers.

Laurens sped up his pace, his mind filling with images of what it would look like, of spilling up Hamilton’s bare chest and neck…  Getting his cum into his hair…

“John,” Hamilton groaned, leaning his hips off the futon and pushing further into him, his hand on his thigh and nails digging in.

Laurens came with a shaky gasp and jerk of his hand.

Hamilton, breathing hard, urged Laurens further down, putting both of his hands on his legs with a soft whine.  “Yes…”

Laurens put one of his hands on Hamilton’s abs.  It slid a little in his own cum.

Hamilton gasped, grinning a little and feeling a rush, his heart racing even faster.  He could feel Laurens breathing heavily on top of him, practically hear his heart pounding…  He came, holding tight to his legs, and arching against Laurens’ hand.

Laurens stayed where he was for several seconds, moving his hand up to Hamilton’s chest and feeling it rise and fall.  He carefully got off as Hamilton sat up slowly, and lay down on his front next to him.

Hamilton put his hand on his back, tracing a pattern.  “Do you want to wash up?”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton kept tracing, neither of them actually getting up.  “Right now?”

“I should.”

“You don’t have to, babe.”

“‘Babe’?”

Hamilton gave a short, breathy laugh.  “Can I not pull that off?”

“I like ‘J.’”

“Me too.”  Hamilton got up, pushing himself to his feet with a groan.  “I need to shower.  No offense.  You can join me if you want.”

Laurens stayed where he was until he could hear the water running, then he slowly got up, propping himself on his elbows first, then rising to his hands, then standing.  He worked a crick in his neck as he walked through the open door into the bathroom.  Steam was already gathering about the ceiling as he stepped into the stall.  Hamilton was under the water, eyes closed as he rinsed out his hair.

Laurens put his hands at his waist and kissed his temple, then his cheek, as Hamilton smiled and opened his eyes, pushing hair from his face with his hand.

“You decided to join me?”

“I needed to shower.”  Laurens kissed him again and Hamilton laughed.  He tried to step away but Laurens kept him in place.

“Come on, J., the water’s running.  Let me finish up.”

“It’s nice like this.”

“What, in the warmth?  Yeah, I agree, but unless you’re down to fool around around we’re just wasting water.  We might not be in California, but it’s still drought conditions, John.”

Laurens put his face next to his, just outside the spray of water, and nuzzled him.

“Plus, my water bill.”

“I’ll pay it.”

“They don’t do a day-by-day breakdown, you know, you’d owe me for the month.”

“I don’t care.”

“I care.”  Hamilton ducked past him and pushed Laurens gently into the water, his hand lingering on his shoulder.  “Rinse off and then come out.  I’m going to get back to work.”


	119. 11/8 Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7:00-11:30  
> Fluency; Breakfast Gossip; Head-desk pt. 2; Snack Time; Lunch Betrayal

Wednesday, November 8th

7:00 AM

 

“Do you think we do this too often now?”  Lafayette asked the laptop, stretching his arms out over his pillow until he knocked against the side of his desk.  “ _Merde_.”

“Do you think we are?”

“Mm,” he only briefly considered the question.  “No.  Adrienne,” he went on, sitting up and pausing to yawn behind his hand.  “ _Excuse-moi_.  I like waking up with you.  It makes me feel like you are back in New York with me, which is very nice.  Today I’m going to go to class,” he continued as he got up and stepped out of the frame, “and then work.  I’m still a little miffed with André.  I cannot believe he wouldn’t tell me that I didn’t need to worry about him but of course he would be wrong anyway because I do need to worry about him.  What is he thinking, Adrienne?  He’s obviously just, how do you say, rebounding with this other girl.  I understand his emotions, but it makes me anxious that he’s not thinking and is just going to get himself hurt.  What shirt should I wear?”

“Is your black one with the snake clean?”

“Ah, good idea.”  Lafayette took the shirt out of his drawer and shook it, admiring the early American emblem.  “I’m glad John stopped me from getting the other one,” he said.  “Snake in pieces, good.  Snake coiled up, bad.  I wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

“Are you meeting with John today?”

“I hope so.  I miss John.  But I’m glad he wasn't here last night,” Lafayette added as he got dressed.  “I miss Alexander, too,” he said, his voice muffed as he pulled the shirt over his head.  “Oh, and Gouverneur.  I should see how he is doing.  How do I look?”  He stepped back into view of the camera.

Adrienne, sitting at her desk, smiled at him.  “You look very handsome.”

Lafayette smiled back, pleased.  “ _Merci_.  I need to wash up, but I’ll be right back, _mon couer._ ”

“Gilbert.”  Adrienne stopped him as he was about to open the door.

“Yes?”

“Did you notice?”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side.  “Notice?”

“You’ve been speaking in English this whole time.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened.  “No,” he said in clear delight and surprise.  “I didn’t know.”

 

8:27 AM

 

> A. Hamilton: the ivory trade not only jeopardizes endangered species—species made endangered by that same trade—

> A. Hamilton: its tied to the colonization and enslavement of peoples in africa and asia 

 

8:28 AM

 

Lafayette put his phone in his pocket.  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully, setting his tray down across from McHenry.  “Guess what happened to me this morning?”

McHenry shrugged.  “What?”

“I spoke English!”

McHenry, understandably, looked confused.  “What, right now?”

“No, no.”  Lafayette picked up his breakfast burrito.  “With my dearheart.  I was already thinking in English when I woke up.  Do you know what that means?  I was dreaming in English!”

“Oh,” McHenry said.  “That’s pretty cool, actually.  Was that the first time that happened?”

“I think so,” Lafayette said.  “Except for when I dreamt about taking a test or maybe if someone else was speaking to me in it.”

“What were you dreaming about?”  McHenry waved Laurens over.  “Anything good?”

“What’s good?”  Laurens asked, sitting next to Lafayette.  “Alexander says hello.”

Lafayette nodded, noticing that Laurens was willing to imply that he had spent the night in front of one of his teammates and rolling with it accordingly.  “My dream.  I had Adrienne on vidchat overnight and when I woke up I was already thinking and speaking English.”

“You were speaking as soon as you woke?”  Laurens teased.

“Practically.”

“I’m not surprised.”  He turned to McHenry, pointing at Lafayette.  “Did I ever tell you about the time he got high?  He kept me up most of the night talking to the ceiling.”

McHenry laughed.  “Literally?”

“No,” Lafayette protested.

“How would you know?”  Laurens asked.  “Do you even remember what you said?”

“In my dream last night I was on a great field,” Lafayette said instead.  “It was a battlefield.  I was wearing my uniform—oh, do you have Facebook or Instagram?  I have pictures up from Halloween.  Anyway,” Lafayette went on, not waiting for an answer, “I was standing next to a cannon and commanding my troops against the British when I was shot in the leg.  It was very painful.  The blood filled up my boot.  They had to drag me off the field because I wanted to continue to lead.”

“Uh,” McHenry put down his fork.  “I thought you said this was a good dream?”

“Oh, it was.  I won much glory.”

“He’s got a thing,” Laurens explained to McHenry.  “You probably want to avoid getting him started.”

“Got it.”

“It’s not that weird,” Lafayette protested.  “You see,” he said, leaning eagerly across the table as McHenry glanced apprehensively at Laurens, “my great-great—”

“That’s enough of that.”  Laurens put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him back.  “Let the man eat.”

“I’ll tell André later,” Lafayette huffed.  “If he comes to work, that is.”

“You heard about Mina?”  McHenry asked.  “I have to say, I’m not surprised.”

“Of course you’re not surprised.  No one is surprised.”

Lafayette, on the contrary, looked up at Laurens—surprised.

“…It’s just that this is so typical for him,” Laurens explained.  “We were all shocked he lasted as long as he did with Peggy.”

“I don’t know, they kept breaking up.”

“Almost breaking up.”

“Mostly breaking up?”

“The point is, she was the only one for a while.  He’s very monogamous,” Laurens allowed.  “He just doesn’t leave much space between them.”

“He told me he loved Peggy,” Lafayette said.

“He loved all of them,” McHenry said.

“Did he really?  I think he’s just over-dramatic.”  Laurens waved his hand dismissively.  “Not to be a huge jerk, but, yeah, he’s always on the rebound.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but it’s a pain in the ass.”

Lafayette took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.  “That’s very interesting.”

“You haven’t even heard the details yet.”

“No, not that.  You’ve been spending so much time around Alexander that you’re starting to talk like him.”

Laurens turned red and McHenry quickly put his hand to his mouth to keep from laughing.

“I am not,” Laurens said, choosing his words carefully.  “This is how I always talk.”

“You could let the accent out,” McHenry suggested.  “That would set you apart more.”

“I can’t just—I can’t just turn it on,” Laurens protested.  “It’s not like I’m trying to talk one way or the other…”

“There,” Lafayette said, leaning on the table again and turned to watch Laurens.  “I heard it!  Try again!”

“I’m not trying,” Laurens said, trying to settle into it without laying it on too heavily in spite of that.  “Seriously, let it go.”

“I definitely hear it,” Lafayette confirmed with a nod.  “I’m so pleased,” he said to McHenry, “I can identify accents now!  I’ve come such a long way.  Can you say something for me?  Say ‘South Carolina.’”

Laurens made a face and stayed silent.

“I want to make sure I am pronouncing it right,” Lafayette tried.  “It would be very, very rude of me to say it wrong, especially over Thanksgiving.”

“You say South Carolina fine,” Laurens said in a slight drawl.

Lafayette grinned at McHenry.  What a good day.

“How’s Alexander?”  McHenry asked.

“He’s fine.”  Laurens was more self-conscious than usual, between Lafayette listening intently to his accent and having to talk about Hamilton to someone not really in his inner circle.  “Busy.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It’s of his own volition,” Laurens said.  “He tries to get all of his work done way in advance so he has time to revise it or take on more projects.  He’s basically finishing the reading for his finals right now.”

McHenry whistled.  “Dang.”

“I’m caught up to that point as well,” Lafayette said.  “Alexander owes me my book back.”

McHenry raised his brows at him and then looked over at Laurens.  Laurens rolled his eyes.

“Are you fluent in reading, then?”  McHenry asked.

“Yes,” Lafayette said, happily showing off.  “I can read at a very high level.  Near-native proficiency.”

“He confuses ‘they’re’ and ‘their,’” Laurens said.

“That’s not _reading_ ,” Lafayette protested.  “He asked about _reading_.”

“Quick,” Laurens teased, “explain to me which you use when.”

“T-h-e-r-e is for location, t-h-e-y-r is for ownership—”  Lafayette broke off when the other two started to laugh.  “What?  What did I do wrong?”

“Sorry,” Laurens said, clapping him on the shoulder.  “I’m being mean.”

“I told you that you’ve spent too much time with Alexander,” Lafayette complained, taking out his phone and moving away from Hamilton’s conversation to text Adrienne.  “McHenry, you’re very nice.”

“Thanks?”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side.  “James?  Should I call you James?  I just go with whatever I hear other people saying, but if that is something meant for your teammates only…”

“Either is fine.”

“Probably don’t go with ‘Jemmy,’” Laurens suggested as McHenry wrinkled his nose and shook his head in agreement.  “He likes nicknames and diminutives.”

“I don’t call Adrienne by a diminutive.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, “you just call her a whole laundry list of pet names.  You should hear this guy,” he said, motioning at Lafayette.  “‘My love,’ ‘my light,’ ‘my dearheart’…”

“And what does Alex call you, J.?”  Lafayette asked, taking a calm sip of his water.  Laurens reddened slightly.

“That’s cute,” McHenry said.  “But not too cute.  It suits you.”

“…Thanks.”  Laurens looked uncomfortable.

McHenry stood.  “I need to head over to class.  I’m all the way in the bio lab.  I’ll see you guys around.  Tell Alexander hi for me.  Hey, Laurens, let me know if the two of you want to get together sometime.  I feel badly about missing your birthday.”

He left and Lafayette put his phone away.  “He’s nice.”

“McHenry?  Yeah,”  Laurens shrugged.

“I didn’t know you hung out with him outside of practice.”

Laurens shook his head.  “I don’t really.  I mean, we’re in the same group, but I don’t really do stuff with him.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette put his napkin on his empty plate.  “Just André?”

“When he’s not head over heels.  We roomed together and he was my first friend here, so it’s just natural.  I guess after him I see Tallmadge the most.”  Laurens laughed.  “Don’t tell Alexander, it’s driving him a little nuts that I won’t give him a definitive answer even after he guessed correctly.  Tallmadge is the one who said he had good eyelashes.”

 

9:29 AM

 

“Good morning.  What are you doing?”

Lafayette looked up from the table and tipped his notebook towards André.  “It’s an assignment for class.  I’m supposed to keep a journal of what I am doing every hour I am awake.”

André pulled out his seat opposite from him.  “How’s it going so far?  I think I passed your client on the way in.”

Lafayette tipped to the side in his chair to look around him, then handed over the notebook.  “You can read it if you’d like.  I haven’t been able to get the entries exactly an hour apart.”  He got up and went to the door, opening it and leaning out on the doorknob into the hallway.  “ _Bonjour.  Comme ça va?_ ”  He came back over to the desk with the student.   _“Je m’appelle Yves et je suis ici pour vous aider.  D’accord?_ ”

André scooted his chair a little further away but didn’t leave the table, still reading the notebook.

“That’s a pretty cool dream.”

“ _Oui_ ,” Lafayette said happily in French, not bothering to break out of it as his client took out his homework.  “It was wonderful.  And everything was in English, even the shouting on the battlefield.”

“I’m surprised you could tell what language people were speaking in that situation,” André replied, switching into French as well.

“Oh, it was a lot of things like ‘the Redcoats have broken the line,’ ‘take a look for Cornwallis.’”

André shook his head and handed back the notebook.  “You really like the American Revolution, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Lafayette said as he looked over the student’s paper.  “I told you, didn’t I?  My direct ancestor played a famous role in it.  He was one of the leaders of—Oh, excuse me.”  He turned back to his student and flipped back into English, “Is your professor all right with you using the informal you?”

André waited until they had their response, then cut back in.  “I must have just missed you at breakfast.  I went over with a bunch of the other guys.  The Trumbull brothers and Lee and I were playing cards over french toast.  Do you know Poker?”

“No,” Lafayette shook his head.  “Will you teach me later?”

“I can’t today.  I’m meeting up with Mina after class.”

“So,” Lafayette said, drawing the word out and making a note in the margin of the paper, “how is that going?  Laurens told me that I should not have been so harsh on you the other day.”

“Did he really say that?”

Lafayette considered and then nodded.  More or less.

“Well, it’s going really well,” André said.  “I like her a lot.  She’s so smart and beautiful and she’s really talented.  She’s going to move out to LA after graduating and become a screenwriter.  Her uncle knows someone who’s friends with one of those editors, so she’s going to get him to hook her up.”

“Were you friends with her before?”

“I guess so,” André said.  “I mean, she’s Peggy’s little, so I had talked to her before, but of course I didn’t think—I mean, I didn’t let myself think anything.”

“I see.  André, what does Peggy think of all this?”

“She’s fine with it.”

Lafayette looked very skeptical.  “Really?  Don’t answer me right away.  Think it over and come back to me later.” Lafayette turned his full attention back to his client and began going over the corrections he had made.

“She’s really fine with it,” André said once Lafayette had finished his tutoring session and the other student had left.  “Honestly.  Besides, who cares what Peggy thinks?  But Mina asked her herself, she brought it up before I did, even.  When I went back to their house and met her, she told me how sorry she was to hear about us breaking up and that she had always liked me.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it a first, but she said that she had just talked to Peggy and that we had her blessing.”

Lafayette frowned slightly.  Somehow he didn’t feel like André was telling him the whole story.

“Really?”

André nodded.  “Really.  That’s what she told me.”

“And you are happy with this?  With Peggy not caring if you date her friend?”

“Lafayette,” André said, leaning forward, “I’m in love with Mina.”

Lafayette groaned.  “André, no.”

“I am,” André protested.  “I can’t believe I spent so much time with Peggy, so close to her and yet unable to really see.  She's incredible, Lafayette.  I’m, I mean, I’m actually happy that Peggy and I broke up because I wouldn’t have been able to be with her otherwise.”

“You’ve barely—What do you like about her?”  Lafayette asked.

“She’s so beautiful, Lafayette.”

Lafayette resisted the urge to put his head in his arms on the desk.

 

10:35

 

“Are you really going to move out?”  Lafayette asked, taking a handful of chips from the bag Peggy was offering him.

“I told you,” she said, taking a chip after him.  “I want to just, like, get some space.  I feel like I’m suffocating at home.”

“You’re so young,” Lafayette said without thinking.

“Hey!”  Peggy pulled the bag away as he tried to take some more.  “Don’t be such a hypocrite!  Didn’t you run away from home _across the Atlantic_?”

“Only once,” Lafayette said sheepishly.

“I’m not actually running away,” Peggy informed him with dignity, handing over the bag and leaning back in her chair, folding her hands on the small attached desk.  “I haven’t told daddy yet, but I talked to Eliza and Angelica about it and they’re on my side.  Now, at least.  It’s not even _that_ far away and it’s safe.”

“Mulligan is a very good person to know,” Lafayette agreed.  “I think he’s like Alexander’s personal attack dog.”

“See?  It’s totally fine.”

“Are you nervous about it?”

Peggy hesitated.  “Um,” she tucked a curl behind her ear.  “Yeah, um, I mean, it’s kind of a big change.  I’ve never lived away from home before.  But he said I could do like a temporary thing, just sign a contract for a month and see if I like it and if I don’t then just not renew and move back out.”  Her words got progressively faster as she spoke.  “It’s already November anyway so it’ll just be a trial run for the rest of the semester and then I’ll be going home for Christmas and even if I don’t _really_ go home, it’s not like I won’t _be_ home for the holidays since I’m still living in the same city just a couple trains away, and—”

Lafayette shushed her and put the chips under his chair as the door opened and the professor walked in.

“—and I’ll still see everyone on campus,” Peggy finished in a whisper.  “Will you help me move my things in?  I don’t think I can get it all myself.”

“I’ll ask some friends to help,” Lafayette promised.

 

11:30

 

Lafayette checked his watch as he walked down the hall and then opened the door to the waiting area in front of Washington’s office.

“Hello, Alex—Oh.”

Hamilton was not behind the front desk and the door to the office itself was closed.  Lafayette sighed and dropped down onto one of the leather seats, putting his arms on the rests and drumming his fingers impatiently.  He could faintly hear voices behind the door and he checked his watch again, wondering when it would be a good time to make his presence known.

Before he could take his phone out, the door opened and Hamilton slipped out, looking uncharacteristically sheepish.

“Alexander?”

“ _You_ ,” Hamilton said, looking at Lafayette in surprise and then narrowing his eyes accusatorially.  “God, Lafayette!”  He closed the door quietly behind him and stepped towards him.  Lafayette put his hands up.  “How could you let me do that?  You should’ve said something!”

“What did I miss?”  Lafayette asked, confused.

“You never told me that stupid tusk was bakelite!  I went in there like a moron asking Washington if he knew that his rising star professor has illegal ivory in his office and he told me off for trying to dig up dirt on the guy!”

“Oh.  Ohhh,” Lafayette said, realization dawning and wondering just how aggressively Hamilton had broached the topic to get that kind of reaction.  “I’m sorry, I never read your messages.”

“The hell you never read them, you’re glued to your phone!”

“I was having breakfast with friends,” Lafayette apologized.  “You’re welcome to join us next time.”

Hamilton made a disgusted noise and sat heavily in his chair behind the front desk, causing it to roll backwards and knock into the wall, then swivel him against it undignifiedly.

“I’m very sorry,” Lafayette apologized again, standing and heading to the closed door.  “Would you like me to bring you back something from lunch?”

“My pride.”

“I’ll buy you a pastry,” Lafayette promised.  “Good morning,” he said brightly as he entered Washington’s office and closed the door behind him.  “I’m here for lunch.  Are you ready?”

Washington was standing next to his desk, rubbing his temples with one hand.  “Lafayette.  Yes, of course.  Let me just get my coat.”

Lafayette took it down and held it out for him.  “It’s overcast but I don’t think it’s scheduled to rain until this evening.  Was there somewhere you wanted to go?  I was thinking somewhere with a patisserie.”

“Anywhere you want.  Thank you.”  Washington took the coat and put it on, adjusting his dark tie and leading the way back out into the waiting room.  “Hamilton.”

“Yessir.”  Hamilton stopped kicking his feet in irritation against the carpet and sat up straight.

“Hold down the fort while I’m out.  Get in touch with the board members and make sure everyone knows about the agenda for Friday.  And, Hamilton?”

Hamilton had pushed the chair over to the computer and he looked up.  “Yes?”

“I don’t think it will take you an hour to leave those voicemails.  Make sure you get your own work done as well.  I’d rather you keep on top of everything than watch the minutes on the clock while I’m out.”

Hamilton visibly bristled.  “Yes, sir.”

Lafayette caught his eye as they left and made a sympathetic gesture.  Sorry, buddy.

“What happened?”  Lafayette asked as he and Washington walked down the hall, feigning complete ignorance.

“Nothing,” Washington said.  “Just a little misunderstanding.”

Lafayette nodded and pushed the button for the elevator.  Washington ignored it and headed for the stairwell.  Lafayette blinked in surprise, then hurried after.

“How is Alexander doing?”

The question caught Lafayette off guard.  “You mean at work?”

“No,” Washington shook his head.  “He does excellent work.  Outside of it.  You’re his friend and I know he has a tendency to oversell how well things are going when he wants to look good.  Maybe you have a clearer idea than I do.  Am I monopolizing too much of his time?  It won’t do to have him working here if his school work and personal life are suffering.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, following Washington down the stairs.  “He’s very busy.  But I think he likes it.  I think he does his best work under pressure.  And anyway,” he added truthfully, “he’s ahead in his classes.  I know because he still owes me a book—”

“Hm.”  Washington cut him off, frowning slightly.  “That’s his regular coursework, though.  What about larger graduation requirements?”

“…Well, you know that his first thesis proposal was returned.”

“Not rejected,” Washington said, confirming that he did, in fact, know.  “And my understanding is that the requested revisions were valid.”

“They were.  I think it upset him,” Lafayette said.  “He’s not used to being wrong.”

“He’ll have to learn to deal with it gracefully.”  Washington pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs, letting them back out briefly into the main lobby, then led the way out of the building.  “And not fling mud at whoever _pisses_ him off.”

Lafayette glanced in surprise at Washington’s face.

Neither of them spoke as they walked down the front stairs leading up to the building and then got onto the sidewalk.

“This way,” Lafayette offered, motioning to the right.  “For lunch.”

“How’s John?”  Washington spoke again as they headed down the path.

“They’re doing well.”  Lafayette presumed Washington was still actually asking about Hamilton.  “I got him to talk a little more about his family, which I think helped Alexander—”

“It’s been rough for him,” Washington agreed.

Lafayette paused and then switched tracks slightly to shift the focus more to Laurens.  “Yes.  He doesn’t like to talk about it much.  I hope I didn’t put him too much on the spot.”

“You know, Lafayette, his father’s not a bad man.  He’s very strict and we don’t agree about everything, but I can certainly see where he is coming from.  I have to sympathize with him as well,” he went on, “it can’t have been easy.  I know what it’s like to feel helpless when confronted with the loss of a loved one or a sick child.”

Lafayette carefully didn’t say anything and patiently waited for him to continue.

Washington sighed.  “But John is doing well.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, not sure if he was responding to a question or a statement.  “Overall I think he’s happy.”

“Good.”

“Did his father ask you to keep an eye on him?”  The question was too pressing not to ask.

Washington nodded, slowly.  “Yes.  When he first was accepted to this school.  Henry called me up to let me know he’d be attending and requested that I…  be aware of his situation.  I didn’t tell his professors the details, of course, just that they should know to be gentle with him in his first year.  Fredrick von Steuben knows the full story.  I think that was a good decision on my part,” Washington went on.  “He’s a good man and he’s very protective of him.  He picked out his freshman roommate specially.  Fredrick had a feeling that the two of them would hit it off.  Actually, there was some debate over if he should be placed with a couple of the other boys…”

“Not Charles Lee?”

Washington looked at Lafayette.  “Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” Lafayette fidgeted with the collar of his jacket, adjusting it and making sure it was lying smooth.  “Well, _alors_ , if I am being perfectly honest, Charles Lee is a cunt.”

“ _Language_ , Lafayette!”  Washington said severely.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lafayette tried to quickly apologize.

“That’s very disrespectful,” Washington went on.  “Watch yourself.”

“Sir,” Lafayette said, “yes, I’m sorry, sir, not to detract from my larger point—”

“Charles Lee was not being considered one way or the other.  He has no tie to the family or to his specific situation.  His name never came up.”

“Sir,” Lafayette said, pressing on since he already was on dangerous ground anyway and it seemed unbecoming to turn around, “why is he team captain?  He’s grossly unfit for the position.  You should have him removed.”

“I’m not the coach,” Washington said with finality.  “I don’t meddle with athletics and it seems to me that he’s perfectly qualified, considering the record the team has enjoyed while he has held that role.  That’s important, Lafayette.  This school of course promotes academics over all, but a strong athletic record wins us donations and prominence on a national stage.  We need that attention and that financial padding, especially considering the state of higher education in this country.”

Lafayette could feel himself gaping but he could not stop himself.  “That’s ridiculous!”

“No,” Washington said sharply.  “That’s simply how it is.  We are not in a position to downplay the importance of a strong athletics program.  I hired Fredrick to turn the team around in spite of the naysayers who disapproved of him on personal grounds.  I trust his judgement and if your complaint against Lee is coming from John, I suggest you tell him to file any misgivings he has with his coach instead of undermining his team’s unity.”

But—”

“Lafayette.”

“Sir,” Lafayette tried one last time.  “Charles Lee is _un_ _sectaire_!”

“He’s a what?”

“A…”  Lafayette fumbled for the word, frustrated at his inability to express himself.  “I don’t like him,” he said finally.  “He’s not fair with his teammates.  I’m not saying this because John complained to me,” he added quickly.  “I heard him.  He’s said—ah, implied?—very prejudiced things about John.”

“Which is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did he say anything directly?”

“Well…  Yes,” Lafayette said, but then amended, “but they were all being crude.  He told them to stop talking and…”  It had been noisy in the bar and English was not his first language.  He wasn’t sure how to explain.

Washington sighed again, heavily.  “If John has a complaint,” he repeated, but not as hotly, “he needs to take it up with his coach.  I’m sure Fredrick will take any allegations seriously.”

Lafayette nodded, defeated and feeling deeply disappointed.  “I’ll let him know.  That’s it up ahead,” he added, hoping to turn the conversation away from where it had led.  “I thought we could go there for lunch.  They have good danishes and I promised Alexander a pastry.”


	120. 11/8 Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 12:48-4:28  
> Disappointment; Recommendations; Gags; Jefferson on Your Side; *Keeping Busy

12:48

 

> G. Lafayette: *pedestal

> A. de Noailles:  I’m sorry, my dearheart.

> G. Lafayette: It’s my own fault for building him up like that.  It’s not fair of me.  I should apologize for doing so but in a way that he won’t know that’s what I was doing.

> G. Lafayette: Maybe I can buy Dr. Washington fruit

> G. Lafayette: or a dog

> A. de Noailles: I don’t think you need to apologize.  You are not guilty of anything other than being a little too devoted.

> G. Lafayette: but I am, Adrienne!  I shouldn’t have overstepped my bounds and asked so much of him.  I need to realize that he is just a man and he has to deal with problems with in a practical fashion.  I’m too idealistic

> G. Lafayette: I just want him to be perfect.

> A. de Noailles: Gil…

 

Lafayette sat back, leaning against the wall next to his bed, letting his hands relax and his phone lean against his legs.  He looked up at the ceiling.

“Why does life have to be so complicated?”

 

> A. de Noailles: jtm

 

Lafayette looked down at his phone.

“ _JTM aussi, mon cher coeur._ ”

He paused, gathering the will to type that back to her instead of just leaving it spoken aloud.

 

> G. Lafayette: I miss you.  When can you return to New York?

> A. de Noailles: Won’t you be coming to Paris next?

> A. de Noailles: I’m looking forward to Christmas so much.

> G. Lafayette: It’s so far away and I’m so unhappy

> G. Lafayette: come visit me again

> G. Lafayette: I’ll let Alexander take you to the Statue of Liberty

> A. de Noailles: You know I can’t do that,

> G. Lafayette: I miss you

> G. Lafayette: also Andre is being stupid

 

1:35

 

“Have you ever tried those choose your own adventure books?  I think you’d get a kick out of them.”

Lafayette dropped the library book into the return bin and shook his head.  “No.  Do you have a recommendation for me?”

“Shit,” Gouverneur fell silent for a moment.  “I don’t know if the library carries any.  You might have to look online.”

“Amazon?”

“If you want.  I’m a fan of those sites that donate books to match your purchase.  Blanking on the name right now.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said as the two of them headed over to the tables, “that’s a very good idea.  I like that.”

“Yeah?  The prices are usually comparable anyway.  Not as good selection, but for something like this you should give it a try.  Better World Books,” Gouverneur said, snapping his fingers and taking a seat.  “That’s the one I go to first.  Do you have your laptop?  I’ll see what I can find for you.”

Lafayette sat across from him and took it out of his bag, unlocking it and handing it over.

“Cute background,” Gouverneur commented as it loaded.  “Is that Disneyworld?”

“Disneyland Paris,” Lafayette replied.  “Adrienne and I got our picture taken in front of the castle.”

“I can see that.”  Gouverneur opened a new internet tab.  “This’ll just take a minute, then you can have it back.”

“Not a problem.  I don’t need it right away anyway.”  Lafayette took out his psychology textbook and flipped to the newest chapter.  “I have a hard copy.”

“It’s better to read on actual paper,” Gouverneur said.  “They did studies on it.  You retain the information better that way.  It’s just like taking hand written notes instead of typing them.  And less eye strain,” he added.  “Oh, this is a good one.  I’m gonna stick a couple in your cart.  You can go through them later.  Hit me up if you need help weeding them down, but any of these should be good.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.  I could use someone else to talk about shitty fiction with.  Just you wait, I’m going to introduce you to the whole gauntlet. Have you read _Animorphs_?”

 

2:28

 

“I dunno,” Hamilton was saying, leaning back in his chair so only two of its legs were on the ground and bracing himself against the table with one hand to keep his balance.  “Not something I think about much, tbh.”

“You’re lying.  He’s lying,” Lafayette informed Gouverneur.  “He’s very preoccupied with meeting John’s family.”

“Hey, shut up.”  Hamilton put his chair down a little harder than he meant to.  “You make it sound like I’ve got anxiety over it.”

“We talked to him about it a little the other day,” Lafayette said.

“You and John talked to Alexander?”

“No, Alexander and I talked to John.”

“Yeah, that part’s true,” Hamilton agreed.  “But, like, can you blame me?  We’re going to be staying at his father’s place, his kid siblings are going to be around, yeah, sure, I want to know what I’m getting into.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Gouverneur declared, opening a bag of beef jerky and offering it to the other two.  “Couldn’t do it.  I’d go down over break and just rent a motel in the area.”

“Pretty sure anything in a thirty-mile radius will be way out of my budget.  Thanks.”  Hamilton took a piece and bit into it, talking as he chewed.  “‘Sides, correct me if I’m wrong, but what _you’d_ do would be t’ go to the girl’s house and get chased off th’ property after they caught on that you’re not as perfect a gentleman as you pretended.”

Gouverneur smirked.  “I dunno.  I’m not big on pretending.”

“I want John’s family to like me.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “Of course you do, Lafayette.  You want everyone to like you.”

“Guilty,” he said lightly.  “And on that note I need to finish this composition in order to remain the favorite student.”  He shushed the other two and turned his attention back to his laptop.

“I just don’t want Father Laurens to find out that his golden boy’s gay over turkey dinner,” Hamilton said, his voice lower as he leaned over the table to continue talking to Gouverneur.  “I think that’s reasonable.”

“I agree,” Gouverneur said.  “That sort of thing you want to do on the phone or in an email, at a distance.”

“Exactly.  And, you know, actually from John himself.  Not from me needing to be gagged.”

“Kinky.”

“John’s into that kind of stuff,” Hamilton said as Lafayette glanced up from his laptop, unable to help from getting distracted.  “Dirty talk and shit.  But then also trying to make me be quiet.  I never got him a birthday present,” he went on.  “I guess I could find a decent ball gag or something.”

“You serious?”

Hamilton made a non-committal gesture, both his elbows on the table and leaning his head in one hand.  “I could be.  We’ve been improvising, although one of his teammates did get him some sex toy shit.  Nothing like Lafayette’s collection, though, and I think he feels a little weird about using it.”

“Because it’s too dirty for him or because it’s coming from his friend?”

“Not sure.  I bet he’d be down if I got him something, though.”

“We should go,” Gouverneur said.  “I haven’t been in that kind of place for a while but it’s always good for a laugh.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton sat up straighter.  “You mean it?”

“Sure.  Are you free after dinner?  It just feels wrong to go during daylight hours.”

“You’re on,” Hamilton said, holding out his hand and shaking Gouverneur’s.

“I want to come,” Lafayette protested.

“That’s what she said.”  Gouverneur and Hamilton both snickered.

“I want to buy things for Adrienne,” Lafayette said, choosing his words more carefully.  “I want to surprise her.”

“Tell her not to open that package in front of her parents,” Hamilton advised.  “We don’t need two family fiascos this month.”

“I will,” Lafayette promised.  “Please take me with you.”

“Of course you’re invited,” Gouverneur said.  “Alexander, I assume you want to keep John out?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “How about…  You think seven’s too early?  I figure it’ll take a couple hours.”

“Seven’s good.”  Gouverneur took out a planner and made a note in it.  “Where do you want to meet?”

“Library?”

“Back here?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Alexander means that he will still be here at seven,” Lafayette translated.  “He’s going to avoid dinner with his boyfriend by working through it.”

“Hey,” Hamilton started to protest.

“Aren’t you?”

“Yeah, okay.”  He slid down in his seat a little.  “It’s just that if I get dinner with him then it’ll be harder to make an excuse about having to split immediately after.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Lafayette assured him as he turned his attention back to his laptop.  “Now please be quiet or I’ll have to insist that you bring the gag you buy to all future study groups.”

 

3:30

 

Lafayette knocked at Jefferson’s office door.

“Come in.”

He stepped inside.  Jefferson was behind his desk, leaning back in his chair and reading over a student’s paper.  He set it down.  “Lafayette.   To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I wanted to apologize.”  He was drawing the French accent out a little more than usual.

Jefferson raised his brows.  “For what?”

“I misspoke earlier and told Alexander that your elephant tooth is ivory instead of saying that it is fake.  “I used the wrong word,” he confessed, in what he hoped was a properly convincing tone.  “You know how it is.  Once you make one mistake your whole day is thrown off and it’s hard to, how do you say, get your footing back.”

“Uh-huh.”  Jefferson looked over Lafayette’s head at the bakelite tusk over the door.  “All right, but why are you telling me this?”

“It’s a very silly story.  He mentioned it to Washington and of course Washington knows that it’s a misunderstanding and corrected him.  I just did not want you to get some, oh,” he gestured vaguely, “blown out of proportion tale of what happened.  I feel very badly,” he added.  “It is all my fault.”

“Well, Washington didn’t speak to me about any of this,” Jefferson said.

Lafayette nodded enthusiastically.

“It sounds like it was a simple mistake,” he went on.  “Don’t worry about it.  I’m not upset with you, Lafayette.  I know how difficult languages can be.”

“Oh, good,” Lafayette said.  “I knew you would understand.  I just wanted to clear the water.  Air?  What is the phrase?”

“Clear the air.”

Lafayette smiled winningly at him.  “Clear the air.  You’ve reassured me so much.  Actually,” he took the chair in front of the desk, “that part isn’t very important.  I wanted to know if I could ask you to be my academic advisor.”

Jefferson’s brows raised again.  “You’re not in my department.”

“I _know_ ,” Lafayette began, injecting a bargaining tone into his voice, “but you’ve given me good suggestions so far and I thought maybe I’d be able to get an exemption since I’m not a French major anyway but French is my, oh, my _lingua franca_ —” 

“Bastard Spanish.”  Jefferson seemed unable to keep from dropping the joke-cum-showboating.

“—and it’s helpful to have someone who actually speaks it.  And we do get along,” he added.  “Unless you are already too busy?”

“You’ll have to do the footwork to get an exemption,” Jefferson warned, “and it may be that you need to make political science at least a minor.”

“I can do that,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.

“Well, I have no problem with it.”  Jefferson adjusted one of the Native American artifacts on his desk with two slender fingers.  “Bring me the papers to sign once you’ve got permission.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Lafayette assured him.  “But, while I am here, can we talk about courses for next semester?”

“It’s a little early.”

“I like to be prepared.  Besides,” he added, “I think you are right and I should at least sign up for something in your department.”

“Mm.”  Jefferson was already pulling up the course information on his desktop.  “You never took anything for political science credit, correct?”

“Not at all.”

“All right, I’ll scroll back to the one hundred level.  Let’s not count on you talking your way into every exception.  Besides, there are some decent introductory classes next semester.  I’m teaching one on the politics of the French Revolution, that one’s a three hundred but it’s cross-listed with history so it’s less theory than I’d like it.  You know what, I’m going to mark you down for that one, there aren’t any departmental restrictions on it.”

Lafayette nodded agreeably, his hands folded politely in his lap.

“Now, straight poli-sci, let me see… I know it’s dull but you’re going to need to get the basic intro survey out of the way if they do want you to take up that minor.  You’ve got two options for time, you prefer in the morning or the afternoon?”

“I usually get up early.”

“Right.  So that’s the survey—Monday, Wednesday, Friday at eight—and my class—Tuesday, Thursday at eleven.”  Jefferson looked up and Lafayette belatedly realized he should be writing that all down and scrambled to get out pen and paper.

“That sound good to you?”

“Yes,” Lafayette nodded after hastily writing it down.  “Ah, I’m still thinking of an English literature major, though.”  Jefferson sighed and nodded.  “I know you said that she might be leaving,” he prompted, “but what I saw of Alexander’s syllabus when he was in Dr. Bartow's class looked like exactly what I’d like to be reading.  Is she still going to be here next semester?  Can I enroll in her course?”

“She’s listed,” Jefferson said, clicking over to the English classes.  “It’s just that between the husband and all, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a little more—hands off now.”

 Lafayette gave him a blank look.

Jefferson sighed again and leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk.  “Look,” he said, “and I’m not your advisor yet so this is one hundred percent off the record, it’s been a real messy divorce.  Her husband, God bless, is a real piece of work and he’s been trying everything possible to drag her and the process down.  The _scandal_ was that he accused her of havin’ an affair—this isn’t exactly private information,” he went on, “it was all over campus year before last if you were in high enough circles.  I don’t think it ever got out to the masses, but you’re Washington’s golden boy and it was a load of bull crap.”  Jefferson gestured dismissively, raising his arm to his elbow.  “They actually launched an investigation into her ‘cause the bastard said the other party was a student.  And that’s why I don’t think she’ll be taking on any advisees and why I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been affecting her teaching.  It’s too bad.  She was real open before, used to invite her advanced students to her place for dinner a couple times a semester, helped set them up with interviews, things like that.  Really took an interest in their well-being.  I got pulled to be on the committee reviewing things,” he added, leaning back in his chair again.  “Did my part to make sure it fell dead in the water.”

Lafayette nodded, taking that all in.  He stood.  “I see.  Thank you very much for your help.  I have to go, I’m having dinner with Adrienne soon.  Please send my best to your wife.”

“You’re a good student and a good friend,” Jefferson said as Lafayette took a step back towards the door.  “And I mean that.”

Lafayette smiled.  “Thank you.”

“Get me the paperwork to sign,” he reminded him.  “I’ll be happy to work with you more.”

 

4:28

 

“Keeping busy—helps,” Lafayette said, lying on his back, one hand down his pants, bluetooth headphones on and his phone on the mattress next to him.

“What was that?”

He swallowed and steadied his voice.  “Keeping busy helps.  With missing you, that is.  I miss you so much, my dearheart.”

“I miss you too, Gil.”

“Mm…  What are you doing?”  He adjusted his headphones with his free hand, frowning slightly as he tried to get a better fit.  “I miss your face.”

“You already said that.”

“No, I said that I miss you in general before.  I’m being more specific now.”

Adrienne laughed quietly and Lafayette smiled.

“I’m cleaning.”

“That’s so boring.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Is that why I can’t see you?”

“I’m using wireless headphones,” Adrienne explained.  “My phone is across the room from me.”

“Just like me,” Lafayette sighed.  “It’s a metaphor.  I’m across the room.  Of the world.  From you.”

“You’re very far,” Adrienne agreed.  “I wish I could see you.”

“You’re the one who’s too far away,” Lafayette argued.  “You just said it your—yourself.”

“Mm?”

“Nothing.”

“You could take me a picture,” Adrienne said lightly.  “Of your face.  Then I’d have it waiting when I’m done.”

“My hair is a mess.”

“I don’t care.”

“All right,” Lafayette said.  “Hold on a moment.  I’m sorry if I accidentally hang up…”  Done fiddling with his headphones he picked up his phone and unlocked it with one hand.  He held it up above him, trying to find the best angle.  “My arm isn’t long enough.”

“I like your arms.”

He smiled and took the picture while he was still smiling.  “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“No, you’re just helping me.”  He took a second picture, then continued to hold the phone as he closed his eyes and moved his hand over his cock.  He toyed with his head over the cotton of his briefs and let his hips tip towards his hand, rocking them as he thought about thrusting into her touch.

“How am I helping you?”

“Mm…”  Lafayette took a moment before answering.  “You made me smile, my dearheart.  Therefore my picture for you will be better.”

“I made you smile?”

“Yes,” he said, “when you complimented me.  I like it when you say such,” he paused for a moment, trying to decide if he wanted to get up and get a toy.  “…Nice things about me.”

“I was just telling you the truth.”

“I know,” Lafayette sighed, deciding against standing.  Some other time.  “You’re so thoughtful and honest, that’s—how I know that you really meant it.”

“Tell me something nice, Gil.”

“Call me Lancelot.  Or something else nice.”

“Are you asking me to bribe you?”

Lafayette had his hand inside his briefs.  “Yes.  Just a—little.”

“Please tell me something, my Lancelot.  Talk to me.  I was sad that we weren't able to have a proper conversation earlier.”

“I’m sorry, my love.”

“It’s all right.  We were both in a bit of a rush.”

Lafayette kept himself from admitting that he was in more of a rush now.  “Mm.”

“So?”

“I talked to my friends,” Lafayette said, not going into any kind of distracting detail about it or them.  “And I was at the library.  I like the library a lot,” he went on, focusing on the safer topic.  “There are many, many books in English.  I like English.”

“Is it still your favorite subject?”

“I—don’t know,” he said, biting his lip to keep from whining a little.  He almost wanted to hang up the call and abandon himself to the feeling, even though talking to her like this was his game.  “I like it a lot,” he said.  “Was it ever my favorite?”

“I thought it was.  You told me it was before.”

“I just like America,” Lafayette said decisively.  “I’ll send you another letter from here soon.  I like mailing you postcards, they are very pretty.”  He was moving his hand faster, torn between paying attention to the conversation and what he was doing.  “Some of them.  Are pretty.”

“Some of them are pretty?”  Adrienne teased.

“Not as pretty as you are, my dearheart,” Lafayette said, his phone forgotten on the mattress next to him again.  “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”  He could almost hear her smile on the line.  “You are,” he went on, “I love you.  You’re—the most—”  He raised his hips off the bed so he could pull his jeans and underwear down enough to more comfortably take himself out and move his hand over his shaft without rubbing his wrist on his fly.  “—The most lovely,” he finished finally.  “You have gorgeous hands.”

There was a slight pause.  “Hands?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, picturing them in the place of his own.  “Soft and—and soft, and warm and…”  He tipped his head back, biting back a moan.  His cock was hard in his hand and he focused on what it would be like if she was there with him, if she was lying next to him, curled into him, with her hand on his shaft…

He pressed the back of his free hand to his mouth, trying to silence the way his breath was threatening to come as gasps, and then quickly had to take it away to fumble for something to catch himself with as he came.

“Gil?  Gilbert?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, as quickly as he was able to, feeling his heart beat heavily.

“Are you there?”

“Yes,” he repeated, and cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice back to normal, and he tapped his headphones with one hand.  “Maybe the bluetooth cut out?”

“I thought maybe I went out of range,” Adrienne confessed.  “I had to put in a load of laundry.”

Lafayette laughed nervously, forgetting for a moment that he hadn’t really been taken, exposed, throughout her house.  “Ah, I see.”  He balled up the shirt he had grabbed and toss it into his laundry basket.  “You remind me that I should wash my things too, Adrienne.  I don't know how I would stay on track without you.”


	121. 11/8 Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5:30-11:27  
> Video Games; Dinner; Shopping; Bothering People; Foodie; Bothering People Pt. 2; Fin

5:30

 

“Do you want to get dinner?”

“Is Alexander coming?”

“No.  Shit.”  Laurens swore at the screen as he maneuvered his player out of the line of fire.  “He texted and said he’s busy.”

“That’s too bad.”

Laurens shrugged.  “He said he’d see me later.”

“Do you miss him?”

Laurens glanced over at Lafayette, the both of them sitting on the floor in front of the television.  “I just saw him this morning.  I stayed over last night, Lafayette.”

“I know, but you haven’t seen him since then.”

“I still talked to him.”

“I saw him a couple hours ago.  Oh, and earlier today as well.”

Laurens didn’t say anything, quickly shuffling through his arsenal in the menu.

“It must be about twelve hours now,” Lafayette added.  “That’s half of an entire day.  And you were supposed to see him in thirty minutes or so.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, equipping the wrong weapon and having to go back into the menu to change it.  “I guess.”

Lafayette, his avatar lying in wait with a sniper rifle, looked at Laurens with blatantly false innocence.

“Yeah, I guess,” Laurens repeated in a mutter.  “I guess I miss him.”

“You’re so cute,” Lafayette said lightly, taking out one of their in-game opponents.  “You weren’t trying for him, were you?”

“Alex—Oh,” Laurens caught up with the topic switch and he scowled.  “Fuckin’ snipers.”

“I love you too, John.”  Lafayette said cheerfully.  “But not quite like how Alexander does.”

Laurens shoved him.  “Shut up and stop trying to distract me.  We’re playing on the same team!  I know what I just said, don’t make the joke or I’m kicking you from the game.”

“I would never.”

“Smart choice.”

“I miss Adrienne,” Lafayette said as they continued to play.  “She is busy right now.  I talked to her exactly one hour ago.  I’m logging my day for homework,” he explained.

“I hope you’re leaving out the details.”

“A gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

“You’re hardly a gentleman, but your professor doesn’t need to know that.”

“I wrote that Adrienne called me and we did laundry together.”

“You’re a gross couple,” Laurens said, pausing to get within striking distance of his opponent.  “You know that?  Sickeningly sweet.”

“Thank you.”

Laurens laughed.  “I knew you’d take that as a compliment.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Yeah, all right.  Good for you guys.  So are you still planning the wedding or did that fall by the wayside after she visited?”

“I’m still adding to the board.  But you’re right, John, it’s a fun thing to fantasize about but she should be more involved and for some reason I don’t think she’s willing to really throw herself into it until after we’re engaged.”

“She probably doesn’t want to encourage you.  Or she doesn’t want to dedicate all of that time and energy to something that’s years out.  What if your tastes change?”

“Hmm…”  Lafayette trailed off, distracted by the screen.  “You said I should talk to your youngest sister about it?”

“What?”  Laurens actually looked over at that and swore when he got hit.  “Oh, yeah, sure.  Mary.  She’d probably get a kick out of it.  Besides, don’t they say that you should run your plans past a five year old before you implement them to make sure that they’re understandable?”

“I was a very precocious five year old,” Lafayette said.  “Did I tell you about the hyena?  There was one loose in the neighborhood so—”

“You didn’t tell me,” Laurens cut him off.  “André did.  He wanted to know if I’d heard a different version and we both agree that it’s just weird enough to have been something to have happened to you.”

“I never did catch it,” Lafayette sighed.  He put down the controller as the screen lit up with their scores.  “Oh, look at that.  I beat you.”

“We’re on the same team,” Laurens repeated, just a little annoyed.

Lafayette was frowning.  “John, isn’t Mary seven?”

A startled and then embarrassed look passed over Laurens’ face.  

Lafayette patted him on the knee.

 

6:30

 

Lafayette looked at the table across the way, to where Lee was talking casually with Humphreys and a girl who had stopped by briefly to say hello.  He strained his ears, trying to make out their conversation, but the few snatches he heard were completely benign—“I took a class with him, too.  He’s a good lecturer, isn’t he?”  “Yeah, I was surprised.  It’s actually really interesting.”—and he was forced to give it up.

“Earth to the marquis.”  Angelica snapped her fingers in front of his face.  “We were asking you a question.”

“Hm?  Oh.”  He sat up straighter and made an effort to rejoin the present.  “Yes?”

“Why was there a hyena in your neighborhood in the first place?”  Eliza asked.  “Are they popular as exotic pets in France?”

Lafayette answered with a shrug and the most honesty he could.  “I really don’t know.  It was a very wealthy area.  _Ills avon l’air_ … Ah.”  He leaned forward excitedly, clasping his hands on the table in front of him and pushing his plate to the side.  “I learned a new phrase the other day.  Ask me the question again so I may use it.”

Eliza glanced at Peggy in amusement and then repeated herself.  “Why was there  a hyena in your neighborhood?”

“My neighbors were trying to keep up with the Joneses.”

A flash of surprise passed over Eliza’s face and then she and her sisters began to laugh.

“What?”  Lafayette looked disappointed and confused but he continued to lean forward.  “That’s the correct use.  I looked it up and I conjugated it correctly.”

“No, that’s not it,” Angelica explained, getting a hold of herself.  “It’s just the idea that your neighbors were so outlandishly wealthy that they had to compete with one another by buying exotic animals instead of new cars or stereo equipment.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette brightened up.  “Oh, I made it into a joke.”

“You did.”  Angelia patted his hand.

“To tell the truth,” Lafayette went on, properly reassured, “that phrase would hold a little better at other places I stayed at.  Maybe when I visited Adrienne outside Paris and their friends came over. Yes,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “yes, definitely then.  Yes.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Everyone is so showy,” Lafayette complained dramatically, touching his hand to his forehead.  “It becomes so tiresome.”

“I’m sure,” Angelica said dryly.

“You know,” Lafayette said to Peggy.  “I told you this in class before.  I think.  Perhaps not,” he said as she just looked at him blankly.  “They’re my dear friends,” he explained to them, “I love them very much.  I—oh, I should text Louis back, _un moment, s’il vous plaît_.”  He took his phone out and quickly began to type.  “They are my friends,” he went on as he finished his message and put his phone down on the table.  “But they are all so materialistic and self-oriented.”

“Mmhmm,” Angelica said, not hiding the flick of her eyes over his designer label shirt and jacket and smart watch.

“Adrienne isn’t like them at all,” Lafayette said, either not noticing or ignoring her.  “I met them through her but, to tell the truth, they’re much easier for me to connect with.  They overwhelm her sometimes, they’re all very extroverted.  Which I like,” he conceded.  “I’m very extroverted as well.”

“We had to take that personality test to talk about why it’s flawed,” Peggy jumped in, anticipating where Lafayette was going.

“Personality test?”

“I’m an ENFP,” Lafayette announced, neither of them apparently caring about the official takeaway of the class.  “It explains a lot.  I think Adrienne is an INFP.  We’re the same, except that I’m much more outgoing than she is.”  He sighed a little, picking up his phone and checking his messages.  “I think she went to bed.”

“And your friends?”  Angelica prompted.

“Oh, yes.”  He put his phone down.  “They’re good people.  I just…  I feel, sometimes, like they don’t understand me.  I feel like they are not even trying to understand me.  They like me,” he said, “and they like Adrienne, so that is all that matters.”

“But that sounds very frustrating,” Eliza said sympathetically.  “Everyone deserves to be understood.”

“It’s not their fault.  They try.”

“You just said that they don’t,” Angelica pointed out.

“I’m taking it back.  I don’t like speaking ill of them.  They try, they are just not very good at it.”

Angelica smiled, a little wryly.  “All right.  Understood.”

“You’re very deep,” Eliza teased, leaning forward and patting him on the arm.  “It takes a special intellect to truly connect with you.”

“Like Adrienne,” Lafayette said.  “She and I have had a special bond since the moment we met.  When I first saw her, we were only children, but I knew she was the love of my life.  I got tunnel vision,” he confessed, Eliza’s hand still on his arm.  “I could only see her.  I would gladly spend the rest of my life in her company alone.”

“I don’t think you could do that,” Angelica said.  “You’re such a social creature, Lafayette.”

“Fortunately she would never ask me to try,” he said.  “See?  She understands me.”  He sighed again, fondly.  “I love her so much.  She is my light.  My greatest fear coming to America was not that I would anger my family or that the plane would go down in a ball of fire over the Atlantic,  killing everyone on board—” Eliza glanced uncertainly at Angelia.  “—but that Adrienne would be upset with me.  Which she was,” he admitted lightly, “but we’ve worked past it and our relationship is even stronger for it.  So on the one hand,” he perked up noticeably, “you might say that it was a good thing that I moved unannounced to a foreign country.”

“You probably shouldn’t say that.”

“No,” Lafayette agreed, nodding at Peggy, “I probably shouldn’t.”

 

7:39

 

“Oooh,” Hamilton said, leaning on Lafayette as he sorted through a garment rack of plastic-sealed costumes.  “Ooh, get her that one.”

“This one?”  Lafayette pulled out a short black dress with a crinoline and white apron.  “She’s not a maid.”

“Yeah, but it’s _French_.”

“Adrienne doesn’t need clothes to make her French.  She’s already French.”

“It’s sexy French.”

Lafayette put it back and returned to his search.

“Hey, Alexander,” Gouverneur called from across the store.  “You see these plugs and shit?”  He held one up to demonstrate.

“Put that back,” Hamilton said, waving his hand at him.  “I’m not dropping money on something I’d have to use on my own.  I can’t afford to treat myself _that_ much.”

“I’d buy it for you.”

“Thanks but no thanks.”

Gouverneur rolled his eyes and put it back on the shelf.

“Oh, I like this.”  Lafayette pulled out a short dress in the colors of the American flag.

Hamilton cocked his head to the side.  “Are those star cutouts over the nips?”

“I think so.”

“Nice.  Classy.  Definitely get it for her.”

“Do you think so?”  Lafayette took it off the rack entirely and stepped back, holding it out in front of Hamilton as if using him as a model.

“Please buy it,” Hamilton said.  “But let me be on the line when she unwraps it because I could use a good laugh.”

“I thought you said it was classy.”

“Come on, Lafayette, we both know that thing is garbage.  You’re just desperate to get her something with an americana theme.”

“They’ve got some red and white striped glass dildos,” Gouverneur said, coming up to them.  “In the case at the front counter.

“Won’t those just look more like a candy cane?  Kind of festive, but not very patriotic.”

Lafayette sighed and put the outfit back.  “Maybe we should go to a lingerie store instead.”

Hamilton checked the time on his phone.  “We’re already here.  I’m sure there’s something you can get.  I’m gonna go check out those gags and et cetera.  You can always ask one of the employees if you need help picking something out.”

Lafayette turned his attention back to the rack as Hamilton walked off.

“Maybe you can mix and match,” Gouverneur suggested.  “See if you can find a navy top and some red bottoms.”

“I don’t want it to look like the French flag,” Lafayette complained.  “Or the Russian or the Dutch.”

“Got it.  We need stars.”

“New Zealand,” Hamiton called out.  “Chile.”

“That one’s only got a star singular,” Gouverneur argued.  “At least I didn’t tell him to focus on stripes.”

“Yeah, you might accidentally purchase some dirty Norwegian panties.  Sorry,” Hamilton added quickly in a proper indoor voice to the unaffected-looking woman behind the register.  “Ooh, Gouvs, did you see this?  They’ve got all kinds of fancy rope for Japanese bondage.”

“Kinbaku?  I dated a girl who was into that once, but it took forever to do.”  Hamilton looked disappointed and put it back.

“Does it have to be an outfit?”  Gouverneur asked.  “We can take a tour and you can look at the toys instead.”

“I wanted it to be something she could wear,” Lafayette said.  “Then I can see her in it.”

“Fair enough.  What about stockings or a garter or something?”

Lafayette didn’t look convinced but Gouverneur pressed on.

“You know, something she can wear under her normal clothes.”

Lafayette raised his brows slowly, staring off into middle distance.

“Something that only the two of you would know about, even though she’s got it on all day, all throughout her interactions with everyone else,” Gouverneur continued, slinging his arm over Lafayette’s shoulders and drawing his other hand out in front of them.  “She’s going to school, you’re in class.  No one else knows that she’s got a little secret between the two of you pressed up against her skin.”

“Excuse me,” Lafayette said abruptly to the cashier.  “Where are your garters, please?”

“Body chain,” Gouverneur cut in.  “They’ve got a local supplier, she makes them herself.  Trust me,” he said to Lafayette, tracing the theoretical outline of one over his chest and waist.  “Way hot.  And she can show it to her parents because it just looks like a piece of jewelry.  Hell, it is a piece of jewelry, she can put it over her shirt.  But when it’s underneath, it’s just a little metal chain draped over her bare—”

“I would like to see your selection of what he said,” Lafayette quickly corrected himself to the employee.  “I—oh.”  He dropped into a crouch to look at the items on display in the glass case directly in front of the register.  “Thank you.”  He looked back up at her, then at Gouverneur.  “Were these the ones you were talking about?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”  He bent down next to him, putting one hand on the case for balance.  “Yeah, ‘Made in NYC.’”  He indicated the card in front of the selection.  “I know the people who make the glass stuff too,” he said with a nod towards the collection of handmade glass dildos next to it.  “Did you see the snake?  The snake’s pretty cool.”

“Snake?”  Hamilton popped back up.  “I want to see—ooh, _nice_.”

Lafayette tried to hide his smile at how enthusiastic Hamilton was still sounding over nearly every new item.  “These are not all for the body.”

“Those ones are thigh chains,” Gouverneur said, pointing to the smaller items closer to the front of the display case.  “See, that’s the garter and then they hang down.”

“I like that one,” Hamilton said, indicating one in gold with strung pearls.  “That one looks like you’re going to go have really expensive sex.  Break out the _good_ champagne.”

“That one is nice,” Lafayette agreed.

“Are you disappointed none of them have little US flags dangling on them?”

“They’re made in the city.  That is good enough.”  He frowned, trying to decide, then stood to talk over the counter properly.  “Excuse me.  Do these come with boxes?  May I get the one with the little heart on a chain?”

 

8:34

 

“It’s so nice to have the place to ourselves,” Lafayette said, Adrienne on his laptop screen on the floor next to him.  He was leaning back against his bed and texting.  “I think we’d make excellent roommates, even in close quarters.  We already know that we do well in the same household.  I’d make you breakfast in bed,” he added, looking up.  “Pancakes, however you want them.”

Adrienne smiled at him.  “You don’t have to do that.”

“I enjoy it.  Have you seen those videos of people making them into art?  I’d like to try that.  I need a squeeze bottle,” he said, imitating the process in the space between them.  “I could make a beautiful…”

“A beautiful…?”

“I don’t know,” Lafayette admitted.  “I’m not the artist.  I could write my name.  I should ask John to make me something.  Maybe I could convince him to do it over Thanksgiving.  Are pancakes part of a traditional American Thanksgiving breakfast?”

Adrienne shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

“He could draw me a cornucopia,” Lafayette declared, mimicking the action again.  “With all kinds of autumnal fruits and vegetables pouring out of it.  Pumpkins, squash, apples…  I’m going to tell him right now,” he declared, typing on his phone.  “I bet he and Alexander are busy, so I’ll just interrupt them.”

Adrienne laughed and he grinned at her.  “I’m very mean, _non_?”

“I thought you said you were a good roommate?”

“No, I said that you and I would be good roommates.  I never said anything at all about John.  Although I do like that he brought me this gift,” Lafayette said, putting his phone down and turning the laptop so Adrienne could see the television and game systems.  “He even brought some of my favorite games!  It’s quite a lucky break for me.”

“He didn’t ask for those for you, Gilbert.”

Lafayette made a vaguely shushing noise as he set it up.  “Would you like to play with me?”

Adrienne smiled and turned off her bedside light.  “No, that’s all right.  You go ahead, Gil.”

Lafayette settled back, one of the controllers in his hands.  “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”

“Your homework?  Reading?”

Lafayette frowned and shook his head.  “No.  Oh.”  He glanced at his shopping bag from the store, placed out of site of the laptop.  “Adrienne, remind me, I need to go to the post office tomorrow.  Maybe I can get someone to go with me.  It’s always more fun that way, it’s such a dull errand otherwise.”

Lafayette’s phone lit up and he clicked up tongue, putting the controller aside and reading the message.

“John is so crude.”

“You’re bothering him.”

“No,” Lafayette lied, “I’m just asking him to make me a holiday snack.”  He sent off a series of texts.

“Let him have his privacy, Gilbert.”

“All right,” Lafayette said, upbeat, putting his phone back down.  “You don’t need to remind me anymore, Adrienne.  John graciously volunteered to go to the post office with me tomorrow.  I’m going to meet him after he is done at the gym, which is perfect because I’ll just head over after lunch with you.  It’s funny how things work out so nicely,” Lafayette said, picking up Laurens’ controller again.

 

9:29

 

“So do you always make a convenience store run this late at night?”

“Only when I have nothing else to do and my roommate is busy and you tell me that you’re heading over anyway.”

“I told you that because you asked,” Adelaide pointed out, “and I don’t think this is the most convenient branch for you.”

“It’s not too bad,” Lafayette said.  “And it’s a nice, brisk night.  I enjoy hearing the sounds of the city.”

“Yeah,” Adelaide said dryly and without much feeling as they walked past a group of men who stopped their conversation to watch.  “It’s like Beethoven.”

“I like the sounds of the cars,” Lafayette said.  “I grew up in a much smaller town and even when I was living with Adrienne, her house is outside of the city.  This is much more exciting.”

“You’re spoiled,” Adelaide told him.  “But I’m glad for you.  We should all be able to enjoy it so much.  How is Adrienne?”

“She’s doing well,” Lafayette said cheerfully.  “I’m going to send her something tomorrow.”

“Her birthday just passed, didn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, this isn’t for any real reason.  It’s just because.”

Adelaide smiled.  “You’re very sweet.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you getting things here to send?”

“I hadn’t decided.”  Lafayette stopped and lingered in the candy aisle.  “I wanted to buy new things for myself to try.  Adrienne said I didn’t need to send her every single thing, just the ones that were good or special.  What are gobstoppers?”

“Hard candy.  Are there many things here that you don’t have in France?”

“Sometimes it’s just that the name or packaging that is different,” Lafayette admitted, picking up the box.  “I didn’t explore many of these things back home.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, that’s my line.”  Lafayette picked a couple other items off the shelf.  “I don’t know, I just never thought about it.  Alexander was the one who piqued my interest, back when I had just come here.  He told me to ‘eat shit’ and ‘get hooked on the land of the free.’  It’s very good advice.”

Adelaide laughed.  “Did he really say that?”

Lafayette nodded.  “Food is very important to understanding a culture.  I wouldn’t expect you to go to France and not eat any of the food there, either.”

“Well, that’s different.  If I visited France I would go to the cafes and upscale restaurants, get some good bread and wine…”

“Food on the street or in the market is just as important,” Lafayette insisted.  “Maybe even more so, because it speaks to the lived experience of the ordinary people.  When I visit a place, I want to learn about it as the locals see it, not as the Michelin Guide says it is.”

Adelaide shook her head, but she was smiling fondly.  “And is that how you toured Belgium when you went back to Europe?  That was after you had this life lesson, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, just a little defiantly.  “Chez McDonald’s has good chocolademuffins.  I ordered eight of them and we shared them with the pigeons.”

Adelaide shook her head again, slower.  “You really are someone special, Gilbert.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette said, taking his items up to the register.  “I know.”

 

 

10:30

 

> G. Lafayette: I think I will include a nice card

> G. Lafayette: Maybe chocolates

> G. Lafayette: Do you think I should include chocolates?

> A. Hamilton: cool cool

> A. Hamilton: Get some and then

> A. Hamilton: Come back to fifty thousand text messages from you, no bigs

> G. Lafayette: I just want her to enjoy it, Alexander.  I had such a good time while she was visiting.  I feel like we are on our second honeymoon

> G. Lafayette: I want her to be my roommate instead of John

> G. Lafayette: I would put my head in her lap and smell her perfume

> A. Hamilton: yeah I’m not taking you off mute

 

11:27

 

> G. Lafayette: Good night, my dearheart.

> G. Lafayette: I love you


	122. Feel Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caught You; Bragging Rights; Class; Sleep on It

“I dunno, it just feels different.”  Hamilton was lying next to Laurens, the covers pulled all the way up over their heads.  He was toying with Laurens’ hand and he watched his fingers as he interlaced them with his own.  “I told you before, J., if you don’t already know it then I can’t explain it.  I’m not trying to be obtuse.  It’s just a part of me, whether I want it to be or not.  There’s salt water in my blood.  I hear the accent and the different call of the traffic signals when I walk through the city.  It’s like I’m being haunted and I—I don’t know, do I want to get an exorcism?  Plunge myself in holy water, wash it all away?  It’s not as simple as ‘it’s my culture and I want to celebrate it.’  It’s not a _celebration_ , J.  It just is.”

Laurens was quiet.  He let Hamilton play with his fingers and waited for him to continue.

“‘I hear the accent.’  There it is.”  Hamilton blew a strand of hair, curled with sweat, from his face.  “Listen to me.  There is no accent if I’m speaking from a position of power.  I should be saying that I came to the city and everyone was talking funny, how unusual, how _regional_.  I shouldn’t say ‘the city,’” he continued, a note of frustration in his voice.  “I’m _from_ the city, one of the twin cities.  Size is part of it, demographics, global connections, but _geographically_ —geographically it doesn’t matter,” he admitted, his voice dropping back down.  “We’re not bound by how far we can walk anymore.”

“I don’t make the same kinds of comparisons to South Carolina,” Laurens said.  Hamilton sighed.  “I was just excited to get away.”

“I was too,” Hamilton said quickly.  “I was.”

“A city like this has a certain draw to it.”

“It does.”

“I think size is important.”

“I guess.”

“And geography.  Look at it this way, neither of us ended up in Hong Kong or Singapore.”

“I’m sick of islands,” Hamilton declared defiantly.  “On a peninsula you’ve got at least one road out.”

Laurens squeezed his hand.

Hamilton brushed the hair that had fallen back into his eyes away with his free hand.  “It’s okay,” he said, more to himself than to Laurens.  “I caught a plane.”

Laurens smiled.  “I’m glad.”

“Of course you’re glad,” Hamilton said, rolling his eyes but grinning.  “I ended up catching you, too.”

 

“How was your night?”  Lafayette asked once Laurens met him outside the gym.  “Was it good?”

“Alexander told me you went with him to the store.”

“So?”  Lafayette asked again.  “How was it?”

“It was good.”  Laurens was doing up his coat against the weather and he frowned at the sky.  “Is it starting to rain again?”

“It’ll ice over soon,” Lafayette said.  “Should I get those metal teeth for my shoes?”

“What?”

“They go on the bottom.  For the ice.”

“Oh.  If you’re worried about it.”

“I’d rather get new gloves,” Lafayette said, flexing his free hand as he held the box for Adrienne under his other arm.  “See?  The fabric is different at the thumb and forefinger for texting and it’s starting to fray.”

“I bet it’s going to rain,” Laurens grumbled, pulling his hood up over his head.  “I already showered twice today.  My hair’s never going to dry.”

“At least you wear it short,” Lafayette pointed out.  “You shouldn’t complain so much.”

“It doesn’t sit right.”

“It’s cute when it curls.”

“It looks dumb.  Maybe if it was longer.”

“Alexander would like it if you grew it out.”

“Alexander would like it if we could hold off on it getting icy out for a few more weeks.  At least it’s not that bad during the day, but he’s real pissed about how cold it gets once the sun goes down.”

“Ah,” Lafayette said, raising his eyebrows suggestively, “but you are there to keep him warm, _non_?”

“We filmed it,” Laurens said abruptly.  “Did he tell you that?”

“Really?  You filmed yourselves last night?”

Laurens broke out into a grin in spite of himself.  “Hah, I actually beat him to you for once!  Yeah, we filmed it.  It’s pretty shitty quality, even with the lights on.  We used his phone, and it died when he was trying to get it to play back, so I thought maybe he hadn’t gotten around to messaging you.  I told André, he said that he never had much luck with that, so between the two of you today’s a pretty good day.  Even if I have to run your stupid errand,” he added.

Lafayette laughed, surprised but pleased.  “Good for you, John.  I’ll rub Alexander’s slow reporting time in his face when I see him later.”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Laurens said.  “He really is frustrated about the weather.”

They kept walking and Lafayette went back to inspecting his glove.  “I think I will get purple next time.”

“Not red or blue?”

“It’s a combination.  It’ll go with both.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I’m French,” Lafayette said with mock hauteur.  “I’m very fashionable.”

“Right,” Laurens teased, looking him over.  Black jeans, one leg embossed with stars and one with stripes, and a purple puffer jacket.  “ _Très_ fashionable.  Is that a girl’s jacket?”

“Fashion has no innate gender.”  Lafayette put his hand in his pocket and pretended to turn his nose up at Laurens’ remark.  “You, sir, are too essentialist.”

“Is it warm?”

“Quite warm,” Lafayette said agreeably.  “I like it almost as much as the coat from Adrienne.”

“That’s not the same thing.  What size is that?”

“Why?”

“If it’s warm and comes small enough I wanted to get Alex one.  I’ll find him a different color, of course, I don’t want to step on your toes and I don’t think that would be his first pick.”

“I’ll link you the online store.”

“Thanks.”

 

“It’s cold,” Hamilton complained, sniffing and rubbing his nose with the back of his hand as he dropping into his seat next to Angelica.  “All this temperature change in and out of the buildings is messing me up.  Can’t it just be warm everywhere?  Or pleasantly cool,” he continued, loosening his scarf but not taking off his coat.  “I can’t dress for anything.”

“Layers,” Angelica suggested, her own coat hanging neatly over the back of her chair.

“Yeah, you say that, but then I’m either frickin’ freezing outside anyway or I’m treating everyone to a strip show once I get into the room.”  He sniffed again.

“I didn’t say that,” Angelica pointed out.  “You did.  Do you remember?  I told you that you were overdressed and you said—”

“I hate this,” Hamilton bitched, cutting her off.  “I’m not even sick—knock on wood, Angelica, I got the stupid shot and I can’t afford to take a week off until the semester ends and I’m going to South Carolina over Thanksgiving—and my nose is running just from the cold.  I’m glad the water heater broke last year, so it should be working properly all this winter.  Last Christmas _sucked_ ,” he said emphatically, unzipping his bag and taking his things out.  “The water heater broke, like I said, so it maxed out at, like, _tepid_ , which is less than pointless when it’s so cold out.  You’ve seen my place, Angelica, it’s a hole, so I just used one of those little space heaters instead of central, save some money.  Not like it matters if I’m confined to a small space since it’s not like the apartment itself is some luxury suite.  Meanwhile, no one’s around anymore, everyone’s gone home or off on vacation…  Or they’re just not people I hang out with,” he admitted.  “And, again, not like it matters since of course I spend the first week of break trying not to be sick and the second week wishing I could just be dead already.”  He crossed his arms on top of his pile of school supplies and leaned on them sulkily.  “I hate winter,” he muttered.  “And the carols drive me up the wall.”

“You should come upstate with us this year,” Angelica said.  “Unless you end up with plans to go back south.  But if you do come with us, I can promise that you will actually get along with my father.”

“Ha, yeah.  Friggin’ Congressman Laurens.”  He turned his head in his arms to look at her and she smiled at how his hair was falling into his face.  “I don’t know what to do with that part of break.  You’re a girl, Angelica.  You’re magic, right?  Can you curse him with a massive amount of work so he’s busy at the office the whole time?”

“I’ll check my spell book,” Angelica promised, reaching forward and ruffling his hair.   He made a despairing noise and buried his head in his arms.  “Somehow I get the feeling that he’s not much of a family man.”

“I bet I’d have liked John’s mom,” Hamilton said, his voice muffled.  “She sounds nice.  John said she was a good cook.”

“You could use a little fattening up.”

“I could use a lot of things.”

“Oh, don’t make it so easy for me to pick on you, Alexander,” Angelica said, shaking her head.  “It takes all the fun out of it.”

“Yeah, okay.  Hold on, let me collect my dignity.”  He took a deep breath and then sat up.  “Right.”  He undid his coat.  “None of you saw that,” he announced to the rest of the room, “I’m totally suave and awesome.”

“I think it negates it if you have to announce it like that.”

“No,” Hamilton informed her.  “That’s a common misconception.  Jeez, Angelica.  Get it right.”

Angelica laughed.  “There you go.  Now you sound more like yourself.”

“A pain in the ass?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you stick around after you graduate,” Hamilton said.  “I’d miss your bite.”

Angelica smiled and took out a pen, neatly dating the blank page in her notebook as the door opened again and Jefferson strode in.  “I’ll miss you, too.”

 

“Adrienne,” Lafayette said, lying on his front on his bed and holding his phone out before him.  “I miss you.”

Adrienne smiled at him, looking up from carefully taking out the earrings from him.  “I miss you too.”

“Then why are you taking those off?”  He complained.

“I don’t want to sleep in them, Gil.”

“Maybe I should pierce my ears,” Lafayette said, going off on a tangent.  He let the phone stand against the head of his bed and toyed with one of his earlobes.  “What do you think?  Would it look good?”

“Pierced ears…?”

“Or a tattoo,” Lafayette said, more enthusiastically.  He sat up.  “I could get your name on my arm.”

“Oh,” Adrienne said, obviously hesitant, “you don’t have to do that…”

“I could, though,” Lafayette said.  “Or… or a heart?  An infinity symbol and our names.”

“I think you’re so handsome just the way you are,” Adrienne said.

“And I think you are beautiful,” Lafayette responded, “but I’m not afraid to get a tattoo to prove my love.”

“You really don’t have to do that, Gilbert…”

“I wonder if Alex would go with me,” Lafayette mused.  “I’d ask John but I’m sure his father would disapprove.”

Adrienne chewed on her lower lip nervously.

“I’ll talk to them in the morning,” Lafayette decided, lying back down.  “I could get my family crest.  Or a portrait.”

“Mm…”

Lafayette yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.  “Or the American flag.”

“You shouldn’t get anything if you’re not set on it,” Adrienne said.  “I think decisions like that should be made very carefully.  And over a long period of time.  To make sure you get what you really want.”

“You’re right, my love,” Lafayette agreed.  “I should sleep on it.”


	123. Follow the Money and See Where It Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Free with Purchase; *Video; Information for Lafayette; Betting Pool; Bromance Back; Number One Secretary

“Why,” Hamilton whined, wrapping his arms around Laurens’ waist as he tried to climb off the futon.  “J…”

“I have to get ready,” Laurens said, carefully freeing himself.  “Come on, Alex.”

Hamilton made a disgruntled noise and let go fully, then pushed Laurens unceremoniously away so he could yank the covers back over himself and burrow into them.  “Bring me my contacts,” he said as Laurens shivered and started to dress.  “And my laptop.”

“Yes, your highness.”  Laurens finished dressing and gathered his things, depositing them at the head of the mattress.  “Do you want me to turn up the heat in here?”

Hamilton was silent, debating with himself.  “No,” he finally said, sitting up with the blankets over his shoulders.  “I’ll get dressed and go down to the office.  I can get some work done there and siphon heat off of the school.  I wish you didn’t have to go,” he went on.  “It’s still dark out.”

“You’ll like Columbia,” Laurens said.  “The weather will be more to your tastes.”

“It better be.”  Hamilton got up and started sorting through his clothes for something to wear.  “This shirt match these pants?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”  Hamilton quickly took off the shirt and sweater he had slept in with a shiver, holding his arms close to himself, his whole body tense as he started to dress.  A flash of gold along his waist caught Laurens’ eye.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”  Hamilton paused, his arms in the sleeves but the undershirt not over his head yet, and followed his gaze down.  “Oh.  Fuck, it’s cold.”  He quickly pulled the shirt on and then picked up the button up he had asked advice on.  “Forgot.  Lafayette couldn't decide what body chain to get Adrienne so he picked out his three favorites and it cost so much they gave him a free gift with purchase.  Shit, you think he wants it back?  Probably not since I forgot to take it off last night and we broke it in real nice.”

“You were _not_ wearing that last night.”

Hamilton laughed.  “Yeah, I was.  Put it on as a joke when Lafayette asked if I wanted it yesterday.  He didn’t think it was quality enough for Adrienne.  I think this is just painted nickel.  Feels pretty cheap.  Not much shine to it.  The lighting was shitty, remember, and I didn’t actually get naked, kept my shirt on.”

“I _blew_ you!”

“I dunno, I was on my back, I think it probably rode up a little.  I was a little distracted, J.”  Hamilton changed his pants out, not noticing how Laurens kept watching it.  “Do you think I even need to ask if he wants it back?  I kind of like it, especially now that we christened it.  Makes me feel slutty in an expensive way.”  He looked up over his shoulder and caught sight of Laurens still staring.  He grinned.  “Jesus, J., you need a minute to pick your jaw off the floor?  I didn’t think I was gonna be giving you a show just getting changed.”  It was only a couple of steps to get right up to Laurens and he put his hands at his waist and rotated his hips in a slow circle.  “I was gonna take it off but I can leave it if it gets you this hot and bothered.”

Laurens made a wordlessly affirmative noise and Hamilton laughed and stepped away.  “Sounds like a plan.  Maybe I’ll let you help me take it off later.”  He went back to packing up for the day and Laurens cleared his throat.

What’s your favorite color?”

“Uh, I don’t know.  Green?”

“Green?”

Hamilton shrugged and made a gesture like he was rubbing a coin between his fingers.  “Why do you ask?”

“Lafayette likes purple.”

“Red plus blue, of course he does.”

“I like blue.”

“Navy,” Hamilton clarified to Laurens’ surprise.  “Oh, come on, J.,” Hamilton said, when he saw his face.  “You pitched a fit about the royal blue of that sling, remember?”

“It kind of grew on me,” Laurens admitted.

“Good,” Hamilton said, a hair-tie in his mouth as he pulled his hair back.  “Or it’d be a waste of those shoes.  You need something else to go with them, though,” he went on as he finished packing up.  “I told you from the start, John, you should get a watch.”

Laurens put his hand on his waist as soon as he was standing with his bag and kissed him.  “Stay at the dorm tonight.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Lafayette will love that.”

“You said you’d stay over all the time once it got cold out.”

“When did I—”  Hamilton remembered suddenly, remembered lying in bed next to Laurens with his arm over his shoulders and Lafayette’s sheets in the laundry.  He felt a little giddy smile play on his face without his permission.  “You remember that?”

“Of course I remember.”

Hamilton put his hand at the side of his face, pulling him back down and into a deeper kiss.  “Okay.”  He still couldn’t help the smile.  “Let me grab a change of clothes so I won’t have to come back after class.  I’ll stop by your dorm first, if that’s all right, then I won’t be carrying them around all day.”

 

“Hello,” Lafayette said, surprised to see Hamilton standing outside the door to his room when he opened it, just about to dig the key out of his pocket.  “May I help you?”

“I’m dropping some stuff off,” Hamilton said.  “John told me to stay over tonight.”

“Without even consulting me first,” Lafayette sighed.

“You can take my apartment if you want.”

“Mm…”  Lafayette glanced at his watch and then at his closet.  “I don’t want to pack a bag.  Will you make me wish I had taken you up on that offer?”

“You can always take my keys later.”

“True.  All right.”  Lafayette stepped past him into the hall.  “Adelaide is teaching the early morning yoga class today and I’m already late.  I’ll see you later, Alexander.”

“Later.”

Hamilton let the door close and sat on Laurens’ bed, unpacking his bag.  He made a pile at the foot of it, then got up again to adjust the thermostat, cranking it up to just below eighty.  Pleased, he sat back down and took off his coat and shoes, kicking his legs up on the bed and lying down.  He felt above his head for the pillow and pulled it to his face, breathing in Laurens’ scent deeply.

“Screw the office,” Hamilton yawned, taking his phone out of his pocket and setting an alarm.  “Washington can have my soul after lunch.”

He was about to put the phone on the desk behind him, when he paused and unlocked the screen again instead.  He sat up, reaching for the tissue box and bringing it into easy reach next to him on the mattress.  Humming a little pleased tune to himself, he opened up his photos and hit play on the latest video, turning the volume up in time to hear himself on the recording apologize for the noise as he got the phone propped up against the leg of his desk, facing his bed.

Hamilton lay back down, undoing his pants and lazily slipping his hand in, cupping himself as he leaned the phone against the wall.

“You’re about to have a real good night,” he informed himself, watching as he straddled Laurens’ lap and kissed him, his arms lazily draped over his shoulders.

Hamilton continued to touch himself as the video showed both him and Laurens undressing and then pausing to work out how to put on the gag.  On the screen Hamilton pulled his loose hair out of the way and bit on the leather strap as Laurens fastened it.  In the dorm room, Hamilton felt a rush at being able to relive it and he bit his lower lip.

He kept his hand over his briefs, feeling the chain against his skin, until the video showed him on all fours with Laurens behind him and he was fully hard in real life as well as in the recording.  Then he took himself out, giving a short moan as he wrapped his hand around his cock.

He watched himself have sex on the screen, shifting uncomfortably on the bed for a moment as he remembered it, and moved his hand to the same pace.  He struggled with whether he should try to finish at the same time or not bother making it last that long, enjoying the show—Laurens was biting at his shoulder and the visual made his cock twitch in his hand—but also on a short schedule.

“Screw it,” he muttered.  “No pun intended,” he added to the empty room.   He tightened his grip a little, letting his desire grow as he watched.  He let the video continue to play while he touched himself, no longer trying to pace it, and after a couple minutes he took a tissue, tipping his head back so he could no longer see the screen as he finished himself, arching slightly off the bed and feeling his elevated heart rate beating in his chest.

He relaxed, balling up the tissue and pausing the video.  A smile playing on his lips, he tossed the tissue in the direction of the trash can and wrapped his arm around the pillow again, pulling it back down and letting himself fall asleep.

 

“Pink only became associated with femininity in the twentieth century.”

“Exactly,” Lafayette said, nodding vigorously.  “That’s exactly what I am saying, thank you, Aglae.”

“And, besides, purple is the color of nobility.”

“So you agree with me,” he said, zipping his coat up as they left the studio together, “this is a very fitting color on me.”

“You’re noble, aren’t you?”

“Ah, not quite,” he demurred.  “Not literally.  But if you mean nobility of spirit, then, yes, I am.  That’s better anyway, don’t you think?”

“In America, definitely.”

“John is being so silly,” Lafayette said.  “I’ll tell him later that you agree with me.  And I’ll buy something else in purple just to prove the point.”

“Gloves?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, enthusiastic again.  “How did you know?  That’s what started all of this in the first place!”

“Oh, wow,” Aglae laughed, her breath fogging in front of her face.  “I guess I’m just psychic.  That’s one good thing for this week.”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side.  “What happened?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just,” she rolled her eyes heavily, “my ex-boyfriend.”

Lafayette was surprised.  “You broke up?  When?”

“Oh, yeah, right after the party you invited me to.  I guess I never told you that, huh?”

“That was a very unlucky party,” Lafayette commented, half to himself.

Agale gave a little secret smile and shrugged under her own thick coat.  “I don’t know about that.”

“ _Pardon_?”

“I mean, I broke up with him and me, I’m totally fine with it.”

“I thought you liked him?”

Agale scrunched her face.  “I dunno.  He was—okay.  But _anyway_ , all I was saying was that I broke up with him and he’s having a hard time letting it go.  I think he called me a dozen times yesterday.” 

Lafayette nodded and put his hands in his pockets, keeping a polite distance, and then carefully asked, “Are you all right?”

“Oh, I can handle him, he’s not like some creepy stalker from SVU.”

Lafayette nodded, uncertain about how to press for further information.

“He just thinks he can get me to change my mind and I don’t know how to tell him I’m seeing—You didn’t ever get the wrong idea, did you?”  Aglae asked abruptly.  “Like, before.  Boys take it the wrong way sometimes.”

“I’m like you,” Lafayette said without thinking, blindsided and a little confused.  “We both like to be liked.  I like being your friend.”

“Okay,” Aglae said, “thanks.  Hey.”  She smiled up at him and looped her arm through his, leaning into him.  “What are you doing all the way over there?  Don’t you want to walk with me and keep me warm?  I thought you said you were noble!”

“My apologies.  May I buy you a coffee to make up for my rudeness?  You can tell me more about your obnoxious ex and this new mystery person in your life.”

“Not so much of a mystery,” Aglae confided with a smile.  “In fact, you should tell her hi for me when you’re in class.”

 

“Want to see something neat?”

“Sure.”  Laurens stopped walking and let McHenry hand him his phone.

“Tallmadge showed me this.  Check out that pool.”

Laurens scrolled through the online betting site and gave a low whistle.  “Damn.”

“Right?”  McHenry waited patiently for Laurens to finish looking and hand his phone back.  “They’ve got it broken down pretty good, too, if you really want to click around.  I fell down the rabbit hole last night,” he admitted.  “I was supposed to be studying but he linked me this and I lost track of time.”

“So we’re favored to win?”  Laurens scrolled back up to the top of the page.  “Championships.  Well, in the top four.  That’s good to hear.”

“Looks like it.  I’d say we should put money on ourselves,” McHenry joked.

“I’m pretty sure we’d have to go through a third party.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s called money laundering,” Tallmadge said, joining them.  “But, hey, what do I know, I’m just a sociology major, you’re the one with the ties to a finances guy.”

Laurens gave McHenry his phone back.  “Did you forget about Humphreys?”

“I showed him yesterday.  He pointed out that we’re actually doing too well.  The real money would be in a long-shot win.”

“Too bad,” Laurens said.  “I could use a little cash.”

“Whatever,” Tallmadge laughed.  “You’re loaded.”

Laurens had to laugh at that as well.  “Yeah, and like you’d turn free money down.”

“I’d go on a vacation,” Tallmadge said, “if someone showed up at my door with a check.  Somewhere I’ve never been before.”

“Somewhere tropical,” McHenry added as they stepped out into the cold air.

“California,” Tallmadge agreed.  “Trade this for a beach.”

“The Caribbean.”

“Another good option,” Tallmadge said, nodding at Laurens.  “I’m not picky.  One beach is just as good as another.”

 

“What are your plans for the weekend?  I’m going to take Mina out after the game.”

Lafayette looked up at the ceiling as he held the door to the language center open for André and got control of his tongue.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I have work to get done.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”  They were early, the previous tutors were still in the room, and they signed in and stood off to the side, lowering their voices as they kept talking.  “I really need to get working on my art project.  I’ve just been bs-ing some sketches,” André admitted, “but I don’t really have anything to show for it.  I had wanted to see if I could talk Peggy into sitting for me, but obviously that’s not going to happen, and now I’m really behind.”

“How are you doing?”  Lafayette asked, jumping onto the opening to talk about that relationship instead.  “I know you are putting up a brave face but it must be very painful for you still.  I know that if Adrienne and I had broken up I might have done some silly things, but I’d still be very upset about it for a long time.”

“I’m just glad I found Mina,” André said.  “I mean, yeah, I guess it’d be pretty rough, but—”

“But now you have someone to distract you from being alone?”  Lafayette jumped in.

“That’s not what I meant.”  André sounded a little annoyed.

“It’s what you said,” Lafayette insisted.  “André, you were with Peggy for a long time and even if it wasn’t perfect—”

“Why are you criticizing my relationship?”

“I’m not,” Lafayette tried again.  “Ah, I just, it seems to me like you jumped into this thing with Mina awfully quickly,” he said, making an effort to keep his voice level.  “It looks like you just wanted a distraction from your heartbreak.”

“Can’t you acknowledge that maybe I actually have feelings for her?”  André asked.  “You never even met Mina, you don’t know how great she is.”

“You said the exact same things about Peggy,” Lafayette protested.

“Well, I liked her too.”

“You used to say that you loved her.”  Lafayette sounded a little hurt.  He could hear it in his own voice.

“Why does it matter so much to you, Lafayette?  Just be happy for me.”

“I thought that you were like me,” Lafayette admitted.  “I thought we were both true romantics.”

André let out an angry breath of air and shot him a glance.  “That’s pretty arrogant.”

“I’m just surprised that you are so, so flighty.  I didn’t know that you were destined to be with Peggy but I thought you cared about her more deeply.”

“You’re being hypocritical.”

“Me?”  Lafayette touched his chest in surprise.  “I’ve been with Adrienne since we were children.”

“You went looking for other girls almost as soon as you came to New York,” André argued, his voice raising slightly.  They both noticed the other people in the room looking over at them and André quieted again.  “I just think it’s pretty rich of you to try to lord this over me.  I told you my opinion when you asked but I let it be and I didn’t judge _you_ for being lonely.”

Lafayette looked down, guilty.

“I’m not…  Like, I don’t want to make this some big deal,” André said.  “Can you just drop it?”

“No,” Lafayette said.  “I can’t.  Let me apologize first.  You’re right.  I hadn’t thought of it that way.  All that matters is that you are happy,” he declared, putting his hand on André’s arm.  “You are my friend,” he said, tightening his grip, “and I want you to be happy.”

André smiled and Lafayette mirrored him.  “Thanks.”

“Good.”  He didn’t let go.

André glanced at his hand.  “Uh.”

“…I don’t know,” Lafayette admitted, releasing him and turning back to face the room.

 

“What do you think?”

Hamilton laughed and handed Laurens his phone back across the front desk.  “I think I’ve gotta step up my game.  I only had two idiots betting on me, not several thousand.”

Laurens spun his phone on the smooth surface, still leaning over the desk to be closer as he talked to Hamilton.  “Hey, don’t denigrate our fans.”

“You’re right, they’re not idiots to put money on you.  Smart bet, easy win,” Hamilton teased, rolling back and then forward again in his chair.  “Sign me up.  Or does that count as cheating because I know—for a _fact_ —that you guys will go all the way?”

“You’re pretty sure of that.”

“Of course I am, John.  You know I’ll kick your ass if you get injured or thrown off the field again, so that’s practically a guarantee that you’ll be there to drag everyone else to victory.”

“You’re such a fucking flatterer.”

“André’s pretty good too.”

“André’s kind of a mess when he’s single,” Laurens said.  “It throws him all off.  Every time he hit a rough patch with Peggy he’d start missing throws.”

Hamilton shook his head.  “All right, so keep tabs on his relationship and toss in your second string if it looks like it’s on the rocks.”

“Actually, we’ve got Lee to thank for setting him up again.”

“Hm?”  Hamilton tipped his head to the side.

“With that new girl.  He told me the other day.  It’s not as smooth a story as his just deciding to go for it so I guess he never told Lafayette, but he was getting a pep talk from Lee ever since he and Peggy split.  Telling him that the best way to get over her would be to get back in the game.”  Laurens couldn’t hide the bitter note in his words.

“Hey,” Hamilton said, changing the subject before it could get too serious, “You want me to link this page around to the guys at the student council?  Get you a few more backers?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Laurens said.  “We’re not seeing the profits anyway.”

“Yeah, but maybe you’ll get some more publicity.  Not that you need it.”

“Show them if you want,” Laurens said.  “I just wanted to let you know since you’re into numbers.”

“Liar,” he said.  “You wanted to show off.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Laurens grinned.  “That too, just a little.”

“You can cop to it,” Hamilton said, rising up in his chair as if he was going to kiss him but stopping a little too far away.  “Just own it, J.”

Washington cleared his throat from the doorway to his private office.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton didn’t move but Laurens quickly straightened up, putting his hand to his mouth in embarrassment.

“I’ve got accounts,” Hamilton said brightly, “from _everyone_.  Full responses.  I even got the bonus unsolicited argument from Dr. Adams that frankly does a better job of summing stuff up than half of the other ones.  I printed everything—” he pushed his chair back and went sliding quickly across the floor to the other end of the front desk, “—and organized them and got little dividing tabs to mark them.”  He picked up a black D-ring binder from his work space and held it up above his head.  “I even called everyone back to thank them for their assistance and let them know the anticipated schedule for the next meeting and that I’ve taken their feedback into consideration and there will be decaf in addition to regular available.  Picky,” he added as an aside to Laurens, then slid himself across to the other end of the desk and stood, stepping out and offering the binder to Washington.  “There’re a few pages in the back with my summary of their commentaries.  Who likes what, general themes in feedback, state of the in-fighting.”

Washington turned the pages.

“And I got the powerpoint put together.”

Washington smiled at him.  “Thank you, Alexander.”

Hamilton grinned.

“I appreciate this.  Carry on with your work,” he said, going back into his office and closing the door.

Hamilton turned his grin to Laurens and raised his hand.  “Ten points to me.”

Laurens laughed and gave him a high-five.  “Congratulations.”

“I’ve been working on that stupid thing for ages, J.,” Hamilton said, dropping back into his chair and moving behind the computer.  “Like herding cats, I swear.  Usually it’s not too bad, but try to get a bunch of crotchety old guys to actually read and offer a well-reasoned response to each other’s work and coordinate them all to get it in by a deadline everyone agrees is too early.  I’m just glad it didn’t drag out over break.”

“Me too,” Laurens said.  “Speaking of which, did Lafayette talk to you about transportation?  He’s really set on taking the train.”

“More American,” Hamilton shrugged.  “And less airsickness.  I’m down.”

“It’ll take a lot longer.”

“Come on,” Hamilton said, completely avoiding the fact that he was very much not looking forward to spending time at the Laurens estate, “it’ll make him more comfortable.”

“Yeah,” Laurens admitted.  “All right.  I’ve got some time after class, so I’ll check out tickets.”


	124. Make It Right for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very Clever Exchanges of Information at the Game; *Cure

“Your boy looks handsome,” Mulligan said, sitting next to Hamilton in the stadium the following morning.  “Those are some good pants.”

“Think you can tailor his normal ones to fit like that?”  Hamilton asked, slouched down casually in his seat and taking a slow sip of coffee from a disposable cup.  “Seriously.  I’d pay.”

“I can’t hear you,” Lafayette complained, leaning forward and putting his hands on the backs of their chairs.  “It’s too loud, speak up.”

“It’s your fault,” Hamilton informed him.  “You came late.”

“You left without me!”

“Nah.” Hamilton shook his head.  “I told you I had to go meet Herc first.  It’s not my fault that we beat you, we were coming from even farther away.”

“That’s the problem with living close to the destination,” Lafayette sighed, leaning onto their seats and making Mulligan twist to get his neck out of his elbow.  “It makes it more likely for you to arrive late.  Did you know?  It’s true.  You think that you can leave later than you really can because you don’t need to plan for as much travel time.”

“Still not my fault,” Hamilton pointed out.  “That’s Charles Lee,” Hamilton said to Mulligan, nudging him and pointing to Lee as they formed the line of scrimmage again.

Mulligan booed.

Lafayette tipped his head to the side, looking at him and resting it on his arm.  “Did Alexander tell you about him?”  He couldn’t keep the clear interest out of his voice.

“Of course I did,” Hamilton said.  “John doesn’t like him and I believe him, even if no one else seems to.”

“Ben Tallmadge does,” Lafayette pointed out.  “He told Lee off when I went out to the bar with them.  I told John,” Lafayette reminded him.  “He did not take it very well.”

“Right.”  Hamilton looked forward again, taking a long drink and staring moodily at the field.

“Washington didn’t believe me,” Lafayette admitted after a silence.

“What?”

“No,” Lafayette back peddled at the sound of rage in Hamilton’s voice.  “It was that I didn’t give him enough to do anything with.  What I heard—Tallmadge took it as something more, but it could easily have just been a spat between teammates.  It may have been nothing.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Hamilton said angrily.  “Lafayette, John’s always being told that it’s nothing.  Not only over this, he’s so used to being fuckin’ gaslit that he doesn’t even believe his own memories.  He’ll be angry for a little while then you turn your back and he’s justified it all away so that he’s the one to blame instead.  You know how often I have to listen to him make excuses for people?  No, hold that thought, you’re his roommate, _you_ hear him all the time.  ‘His father’s not a manipulative asshole,’ come _on_!”  He took another, longer, drink and burned his tongue.  “I know about Lee and Tallmadge.  I remember when it happened because he was so upset about what he found out when he confronted Tallmadge.  It fucking crushed him, Lafayette.  He was supposed to be captain—I assume Washington knows that too?—and I don’t care what he says, I’m sure some part of him knew he was in the running, but at least the disappointment is bearable if Lee’s an acceptable substitute!  They don’t have to get along, he bitches about his attitude and his demeanor, but that’s just personal shit.  It’s a whole ‘nother story if he knows what should have been his has been given to that—”

Hamilton cut himself off as Laurens caught the ball on the field and ran with it.

“Cool it,” Mulligan said.

“Don’t you fucking tell me to cool it.”

“Not forever.”  Mulligan nudged Lafayette out of the way and draped his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders.  “But don’t ruin your boy’s victory after he gets off the field.”

Hamilton muttered something that was probably an affirmative, then pointed out, “He’s not off the field yet.”

“And you’re gonna get so worked up he’ll take one look at you and ask what’s wrong.”

“‘Course I’m gonna get worked up!”

Mulligan tightened his grip on him a little and Hamilton fell quiet again.

“The problem is,” said Lafayette after a minute.  Hamilton cut him off.

“The problem _is_ that I don’t have any proof yet of him running his mouth off.”

“He’s better about that than you are,” Lafayette agreed.

“What did he say?”  Hamilton asked, turning in his seat to look at Lafayette.

“The others were asking me about the two of you.  And about me and Adrienne,” Lafayette said.  “And then talking about themselves, it wasn’t all about John.”

“Lafayette.”

“At first I thought that Lee didn’t like to hear any of it,” he said, repeating what he had told Laurens earlier, “but he made it…  It was difficult to follow them, it was so noisy in there, but I thought that he made it quite clear that he only didn’t want to hear about the two of you.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything.  His jaw was set.

“John knows about all of this?”

Lafayette nodded at Mulligan.  “Yes.  Like I said, I told him.  Alex.”  He looked back at Hamilton.  “I know you are planning something and you are being very very sneaky about it,” he said, slipping into a reassuring tone and putting his hand on his shoulder.  Mulligan snorted and then tried to hide it and look serious.  “It was very clever not to tell me why you want me to find things out that are clearly for Aaron Burr and then send him to study with André, who is friends with both John and Lee.  Let me be clear.  I don’t like this Lee either.  I wouldn’t even if he had not behaved the way he did that night.  He is not a nice person.  But John knows everything we do—almost everything,” Lafayette corrected himself, “—and John has the right to decide what to do with that information.”

“Like hell he does.”  The words slipped out.

“Alexander.”

“I’m not _doing_ anything, Lafayette.”

“He’s probably waiting out the season,” Mulligan said, after taking a moment to think it through and meaning Laurens.  “The team’s doing well.  It’s already mid-November.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just pushing it down and waiting it out.  This is gonna be his last year here, anyway.  I bet knowing he’s almost outta this joint makes it a lot easier for him to deal with.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said as Lafayette made himself comfortable on the backs of their chairs again.  “I guess.”  He took another, more careful, sip of his coffee.  “I should start my own betting pool,” he said after a beat.  “Put my money on Lee getting his ass kicked by the time the season’s over.  These odds for him getting sacked, these for him getting his helmet snapped…”

“Here.”  Mulligan leaned forward and pulled a crumpled twenty out of his back pocket.  “Five to one he gets knocked out.”

Hamilton laughed, but it was dark.  He took the money.  “You’re on.”

 

Hamilton felt the air almost knock out of his lungs as Laurens pushed him up against the wall.  His heart was racing and he moaned into the kiss, digging his hands tight into his shoulders and lifting himself with Laurens’ help off the floor and locking his legs around his waist.  Laurens had moved just slightly away and put his hands on his lower back and hips, and now he leaned him against the wall again, hungrily kissing him and letting his weight keep him in place.

“Mm,” Hamilton managed, pulling back and biting Laurens’ lower lip, teasing it between his teeth.  “J.,” he said, his lips just brushing over Laurens’ mouth.  “Harder.”

Laurens didn’t need to be told twice.  He pushed Hamilton harder against the wall, pressing their bodies together and kissing him forcefully.  Adrenaline was still in his veins and it didn’t take much to get it pulsing through him again, the images in his mind quickly switching between shouldering his way past the opposition and holding Hamilton naked underneath him.

Hamilton moaned encouragingly and moved one of his hands up into Laurens’ hair, still wet from the shower, and pulled it lightly.  Laurens growled into the kiss and Hamilton grinned.  That’s right, get the reaction he wanted.  Push everything else away.

Laurens leaned his hips forward, forcing Hamilton to rub up against him, and he slid one hand down to grab his ass, pressing his fingers against the denim.

“Let me down.”  Hamilton punctuated the command with another kiss, sucking on Laurens’ lip and forcing his tongue into his mouth.  “Now.  Strip.”

Laurens put him down roughly then moved back to pull his shirt up over his head.  He shook his hair out of his face.  It fell damp and tousled over itself and Hamilton felt his chest tighten.  He took a step forward and gently ran his hand through it, pushing it out of his face and then tracing his hand lightly over his cheek.

“Alex?”  Laurens had his hands at the top of his pants.  He had been about to undo his fly but was stopped by the look in his eyes.  Maybe it was the poor lighting—the overhead light was off and they only had the small lamp by the bed on—, but Hamilton looked almost sad.  “What’s up?”

“It’s nothing, trust me.”  Hamilton started to undo his own shirt and when Laurens didn’t seem to believe him he played his trump card.  “You wanna embarrass me, J.?  Come on, don’t kill the mood just because I got distracted and then called out on it.”  He successfully flashed him a grin.  “All the stuff’s still by the mattress.  You get whatever you want.”

“Right.”  Laurens finished stripping and crouched by the futon, opening the bottle of lube.  “Lie on your back.”

“Ooh, take charge,” Hamilton teased, tossing his clothes to the side.  “I like it.”  He lay down.  “You wanna keep giving me commands, tiger, or am I supposed to just guess what you want?”

Laurens knelt in front of him.  “Put your legs over my shoulders.”

“Whatever you say.”  Hamilton leaned to the side, kicking one leg up and over and then the other.  He lay back down, looking up at the ceiling and toying with his own fingers, not sure what to do with his hands.  “Okay, so—”  His sentence broke off suddenly when Laurens leaned down, lightly holding his thighs in place and licking his cock.  Hamilton gave a strangled moan, pressing one fist to his mouth and grabbing the sheets with his other.  What to do with his hands was no longer a problem.

“Are you all right?”  Laurens ran his tongue over him again.  Hamilton was quickly hardening.

“Y-you surprised me.”  Hamilton wondered if Laurens could hear how hard his heart was pounding.  “You—ahn…”

Laurens dropped one arm, his shoulder slanting so that Hamilton had to bite down on it a little with his leg to keep in place, and was running his hand over his ass, pushing two fingers against him and encouraging his hips to raise a little higher so he could better reach him with his mouth.  Hamilton shifted uncomfortably, eyes tightly closed, and whimpered.

“J…”

“More.”

“Not—gagging me this time?”  Hamilton grinned and his hips jerked when Laurens pushed just one joint inside him.  “I, ah, all right.  What’re you gonna—do to me?”

Laurens slowly slid his mouth down onto Hamilton’s shaft, then pulled off, repeating the motion a few times while Hamilton’s breath came faster and he moaned softly.

“I’m going to wait until you’re begging me, or maybe until you’re about to come,” Laurens said, tightening his grip on Hamilton’s leg.  “Then I’m going to fuck you.”

“Yeah you are.”  Hamilton sounded all too pleased with this prospect and he took his hand away from his mouth, putting it down at his side and grabbing the sheet.

Laurens pushed further into him and he gave an encouraging groan.

“Yes… J…”

Hamilton was fully hard and Laurens took him back into his mouth, sucking and pressing his tongue against him, relishing how it made him tremble and urge him on.

“J., more…”

Laurens moved his hand in time with his mouth and Hamilton clenched his hands tighter in the bedding, his lips slightly parted even as he was silent for the moment.  Laurens cocked his finger and Hamilton moaned.

Laurens slid his mouth further down, managing to take more of his cock than usual, even if not for very long, and then pulled off, taking just the head of his shaft into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue.  He traced along its rim, then repeated it with less pressure before sucking gently against him and running his tongue over his slit.  He felt Hamilton lean into him and he supported his weight a little more, holding his leg firmly in place.

Hamilton groaned and bit his lip.  “J.,” he managed, the syllable coming out as a gasp.  “I, I want you…”

Laurens’ breath caught, his mouth still on his cock.  He added a second finger and Hamilton whined uncomfortably.

“C’mon…”

Laurens pushed down onto him again and then pulled off, sitting back and sliding Hamilton’s leg back onto his shoulder from where it had started to fall.  He took both his hands off of him and Hamilton waited as patiently as he could while he prepared.

After almost too many long seconds, Laurens put his hands back on his thighs, leaning forward and coaxing him into the angle he wanted, then pushed slowly into him.  Hamilton bit his lip, feeling sweat bead on his brow.  Laurens let out a low hiss of a breath as he entered, then held steady, letting both of them adjust to the position.

Hamilton signaled him with a brief nod of his head and a curt motion with one hand, curling his fingers and beckoning him.

Laurens pulled out carefully, then moved back in, closing his eyes and losing himself to the sensation.  He could hear both of them betraying what they were doing, soft noises that moved from uncomfortable to needy and the desire in his own voice when he said his name.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton gasped loudly.  “Yes.”

Laurens sped up, his heart racing, feeling how tight Hamilton’s thighs were, his muscled tensed under his grip.  He could tell he was close by the way his breathing was turning into little whines, the way that his hips were twitching and pressing towards him.

“John—!”  Hamilton felt desire tipping him over the precipice, felt it rush through him in waves and shake him as Laurens continued to thrust into him, pushing harder than he had been and pressing him back into the mattress.

Hamilton felt Laurens’ hands tighten on his legs and the sudden need in his movements as he thrust again and pulled him closer, pushing as far into him as he could.

Laurens came, his eyes shut tight.  He stayed in position for several seconds, feeling his chest rise and fall and his body tremble.  He rocked his hips away and slowly pulled out and let Hamilton down before stumbling to his feet, tipping to the side and putting his hand out to brace himself agains the wall as he made his way to the bathroom.  Hamilton joined him after a minute, putting his arms around his bare waist as he stood at the sink and leaning against him, resting the side of his face on his back.  Laurens could feel his own pulse beating in his body and he wondered if Hamilton could hear it.  He put his hand over one of Hamilton’s.

“I’m gonna,” he started, and found that he needed a moment to finish the sentence, “lie down.”

“Sure.”  Hamilton stepped away and let him pass, splashing water on his face.  “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Laurens nodded wordlessly, already out of sight, and collapsed on the mattress.  He was only mostly awake when Hamilton joined him and turned off the lamp, lying on his back next to him.  Laurens rolled onto his side and put his arm over him, burying his face in the curve of his neck.  Hamilton slid his arm under him and put his hand in his hair.

“I love you.”

Hamilton smiled, looking up at the dark ceiling.  “You too, J.”

“I didn’t think I would.”

Hamilton laughed, not offended.  “Such a romantic thing to say.”  He felt Laurens’ mouth curve up against his skin.  “But what a nice thing to be surprised by, right?”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “I didn’t think that I… could,” he said.  The words were coming easier now that he had tipped past some physiological breaking point and the exertion of the earlier day was hitting him.  “I spent a long time just,” he trailed off, feeling for the word.  “Just not.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton ran his fingers through his hair, trying to carefully coax the information from him.  “Because of your father?”

“Because of everyone,” Laurens admitted.  “Him.  I don’t want to disappoint him.”  Hamilton noted the present tense.  “I didn’t want to hurt my mother.  I loved her.”

“Of course.”

“And then my, my siblings.  I was embarrassed.”

“Ashamed?”

“Ashamed,” Laurens agreed, not moving his face away from where he had it hidden.

“I understand.”

“You’re not ashamed of anything.  You don’t mind it when people know things about you that others would want to hide away.”

“That’s not really true,” Hamilton said, still looking up at the ceiling.  “I just figure that if I tell them first then they can’t hurt me with it.  I’ve already laid bare the wound, the worst they can do is throw salt in it.”  He paused.  “You know, they say that the cure for anything is salt water.  Sweat, tears, or the sea.  I read that somewhere.”

Laurens was silent, thinking about that.

Hamilton turned and kissed his temple, guessing from how heavy his weight was that he was on the verge of sleep.  “Night, J.”

Laurens mumbled the word.  “Night.”


	125. The Greatest City in the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heading Out

“It’s so nice out,” Hamilton said, sitting lazily on Lafayette’s bed with his legs kicked up on it and in Lafayette’s lap.  “Look at that.  Look at the sun.”

“Do you want to go outside?”

“Hell no.”  Hamilton crumpled up the sheet of instructions he had been following and threw it at his head.  Lafayette batted it away in mid-air.  He turned his attention back to his laptop, clicking as he talked.  “Save and submit.  I hope I can get the draft back before Thanksgiving.  All I meant, Lafayette, was that it’s a nice day to sit inside and enjoy the vitamin D without having to freeze your ass off.”

“I think the glass cuts that,” Laurens, at his desk, said.

“Aw.”

Lafayette patted Hamilton’s leg and turned the page in his book.  “You really are like a cat.  Speaking of which, did I show you the video Adrienne took for me?”

“No.”  Hamilton put his laptop to the side and scooted closer.  “Let me see.”

Lafayette played the video and Hamilton watched with mild interest.  “Why are cats so into destroying paper?  It’s weird.”

Lafayette glanced at the balled up instructions on the ground.  “No idea.”

Laurens didn’t have to look up to see the joke and he snorted, then tried to hide his amusement by taking a long drink from his thermos.

Hamilton glanced up, suspicious.  “What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing.  Did you ever consider getting a sun lamp?”

“Like a tanning booth?”

“No.” Laurens pushed his chair back and turned in it to face the other two.  “One of those medical ones.  If you’re so concerned about vitamin D.  People use them in the winter.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton lay down on the mattress, leaving his legs over Lafayette.  “Too expensive.  I can’t justify a fancy lamp just because I’d like it brighter out.”

“They’re a legitimate medical device.”

Hamilton just waved his hand at him.

“I’ve heard about those,” Lafayette said, genuinely interested.  “Should I buy one?”

“Do you get fucked up without the actual sun?”

Lafayette looked down at Hamilton to answer him.  “No, but I like inventions.”

“That’s a dumb reason to drop that kind of cash.”

“I bought you a porcelain cat on a whim and had to pay extra to have it shipped safely back to New York,” Lafayette pointed out.

“Hm.  True.  All right,” Hamilton, still lying down, shrugged.  “Let there be light, I guess.”

“I’ll give it to him,” Lafayette mouthed at Laurens, pointing at Hamilton just out of his line of vision.

“I want to go do something,” Hamilton said, putting his hand up above his head and making like he was firing his finger like a pistol at the ceiling.  “I’m bored.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to go out.”

“I don’t.  I’m just bored.”

“Do you want to play something?”  Laurens asked.  “We have the tv.”

“Nah.”

“Watch a movie?”

“I said I want to _do_ something, John.”

“You’re not kicking me out of my own room,” Lafayette said.  “I’m still working.”

“Bull, you make him leave all the time.”

“I schedule that in advance.”

“Whatever,” Hamilton said in a complaint, looking over at Laurens.  “J.”

Laurens made a helpless gesture and Hamilton sighed and turned his face to the wall.

“Are you actually out of work to do?”  Lafayette asked.

“No,” Hamilton answered, a little sullen.  “Just out of non-stupid work to do.”

“Do some of it,” Lafayette advised.

Hamilton sighed again and sat up, kicking his legs off of him a little roughly.  “Yeah, okay.  Killjoy.”  He opened his laptop again.  “Hey, Lafayette, you want to put your pal Thomas in a good mood for me?”

“Why?”

“Joking.  Mostly.  John,” Hamilton said, calling across the room to Laurens again.  “I meant to tell you.  Second draft went over better than the first, I just need to go collect signatures on it.”

“That’s great,” Laurens said.

“Yeah.  Did you do that already?  Why am I asking, of course you did, I’m the one behind.”  He made a face like the word left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

“I’ll go with you if you’d like.”

“It’s fine,” Hamilton said.  “I don’t need to have my _hand_ held.”

Laurens glanced at Lafayette.  Lafayette tipped his head to one side, raising his eyebrows in a sympathetic expression.

“Alex,” Lafayette started.

“Yeah, okay.  Sorry, J., I didn’t mean that.  I don’t need you to go with me, though.”

“I know.  I was just offering.”

“Thanks.”

Lafayette looked up brightly at Laurens.  That was easy.

“Well, I’m not going to hunt them all down today.  That’s Monday’s job.”  Hamilton clicked around on his laptop.  “You know what, I do want to blow this joint.  You boys down?  Any ideas?  Something cheap or free, thanks in advance.”

“We could just walk around,” Laurens said, closing his book.  “See what we find.”

“Great,” Hamilton said, suddenly enthusiastic.  He stood and offered his hand to Lafayette.  “You in?”

Lafayette took it and got to his feet, a grin spreading across his face.  “ _Bien sûr_.”

Hamilton raised their clasped hands in a kind of promise and then let go and put his coat on.  “C’mon, J.”  He tossed him his jacket.  “Let’s head out before I change my mind.”

“You’re not that flighty,” Laurens said, getting dressed and slipping his wallet into his back pocket.  “But where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know.  Brooklyn?  I never head out there.  Jersey?”

“It’ll cost money to take a ferry,” Lafayette pointed out.

“Right, thanks.  Brooklyn it is.  Think we can find the most hipster coffee shop in the world?”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to spend money?”  Laurens teased.

“I said ‘find,’ John.  Looking’s still free, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.  If they’re real elite maybe they charge by the photo.”

“Shoot, you’re right.  Well, good thing Lafayette’s loaded anyway.”

“Selfies probably aren’t an accepted form of currency.  He’ll need a pinhole camera.”

“Gotcha.  First stop, mid-nineteenth century.  My spare change will go a lot farther there, too, so that’s a bonus.  You ready?”  Hamilton was standing by the door, his backpack on and rocking back onto his heels as he waited impatiently for the other two.  “Keys, wallet, phone?  Come on, let’s go.  So I did make one big change in my proposal,” Hamilton announced as they set off, walking backwards down the hall to look at the other two while he talked to them.  “I mean, yeah, one change.  I think it’ll be fine, though,” he added when they glanced uneasily at one another.  “No big deal if I want to take on more work, right?  It’s only a problem if I’m tryin’ to dodge it.”

“I suppose so,” Laurens nodded.

“Are you concerned that they won’t like it anyway?  Is that why you are mentioning this?”  Lafayette asked.

Hamilton waved him off.  “Nah, I—‘scuse me—” he veered to the side after almost backing up into another student, “—figure they’ll just like me more.  If they can like me at all,” he added, “you’d think I’d be more popular.”

Lafayette laughed.  “Is that a plea for help?”

“No.  But, hey, get a couple good pictures of me tonight and I’ll owe you one.  I’d like something g-rated but stunning to send to this cute guy I know,” Hamilton said with a sly wink at Laurens.

Laurens coughed, embarrassed, behind his hand, as he adjusted the collar of his jacket.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Lafayette promised, slinging his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders as he turned around and fell into step next to him.  “Fortunately, you are very photogenic.  Not as much as I am,” Lafayette went on, putting his hand to his chest, “but we cannot all be so lucky.”

“Or have such a big head.”

Lafayette leaned on him a little harder, emphasizing their height difference as they waited for the elevator.  “Doesn’t that just mean that I’m smart?”

“It’s lost in translation,” Laurens said, standing on Lafayette’s other side.  “So much for intelligence.”

Hamilton laughed and threw off Lafayette’s arm.  He put it back.  “You’re so full of it.”

“Ah, yes, full of brains.”

“It’s November, Lafayette, all that zombie stuff’s old news.”  Hamilton leaned forward and pressed the button again.

“I like vampires,” Lafayette said.  “Bats are very cute.”

“You’d get bored,” Laurens said.  “Mirrors and cameras wouldn’t work.”

“You’d draw my portrait for me.”

“What’s up with this thing?”  Hamilton asked impatiently, pressing the button a third time.  “Whatever.  Come on, let’s just take the stairs.”

“John can be a wolf,” Lafayette said as he followed Hamilton to the stairwell.  “ _Un loup-garou_.”

“Werewolf,” Hamilton translated for him, then looked back at Laurens.  “Yeah, I can see that.  You got the blood rage thing going for you and you’re not a cat person.”

“Cats are fine,” Laurens protested.

“Uh-huh, sure,” Hamilton said, getting the door at the end of the hallway and waiting for the other two to pass through before following them down the stairs.  “You know, J., we stayed in a house full of them last summer and I don’t think I saw you pet a single one.”

“That’s not true.  Lafayette,” Laurens started, “tell him I don’t hate cats.”

Lafayette frowned.  “… _Did_ you ever touch one?”

“Lafayette!”

“Are you allergic?”

“That’s besides the point,” Laurens complained.  “Why are we talking about this again?”

“It’s a waning moon,” Hamilton said.  “Too bad.  We should do this again in a couple of weeks, go out when it’s full.”

“It’s still sunny out,” Laurens said, jumping on the change of topic.

“I know, but it’s already three.  It’ll get dark soon enough.”

“Are we staying out that long?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Do you need to call home or something?”

“No.”

“He doesn’t call very often,” Lafayette said.  “I call France every day.”

“You call your girlfriend every day, Lafayette,” Laurens said.  “That’s different.”

“I talk to my grandmother, too,” Lafayette said.  “And my aunts.  At least once a week.”

“I talk to my father.”

“Not the rest of them.”

“So?”  Laurens asked.  “What, you think I should call Mary?  What would I even say to her?  It’s not like I could talk to her about my classes.”

“You’re being difficult on purpose,” Lafayette told him.  “You have siblings who are older than her.”

“This is weird, okay?  Get off my case.”

“I talk to my grandmother about my courses,” Lafayette informed the other two.  “We go over what I have learned.  She is very insightful.”

“God,” Hamilton complained, “how are you so fucking precious?”  He took the last couple steps of the flight in a jump.  “I bet you could get by in the city without your wallet or cards or anything, just say shit like that to people and they’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Isn’t that what you did?”  Laurens pointed out.  “When you first got here.”

“Hey, that’s—well, okay, I guess that’s the same.”  Hamilton swung his bag off of one shoulder and unzipped it, digging through it for his scarf.  “I meant that he’d be able to do it with more ease, less dumb luck.”

“I think the marquis operates off a lot of dumb luck.”

“ _Excusez-moi_!”

“More grace?  I dunno.”  Hamilton closed his bag and slung it back, looping a thick-knit scarf over his neck.  “I gotta say—and I’m saying this from a place of love because I like me—that whole thing could have gone smoother.  Mulligan only took pity on me after I’d been stuck at lost luggage for three hours and it was clear that I was planning on camping out for however long it took for them to track down the rest of my stuff.  Couldn’t’ve gone anywhere,” he explained as they headed out the side door and he pulled a face against the cold air.  “Even doing ride share or something, I didn’t have the cash.  I literally had ten dollars in my wallet.  I thought it would be a better bet to not throw it away on the subway trying to get back and forth from wherever I ended up finding to crash, and instead just sleeping on the airport bench for a couple days.  Of course,” he added with a shrug, “I didn’t realize that wouldn’t have worked anyway.  Don’t know what I was thinking.  JFK security wouldn’t let me actually set up residence long term.  I’m sure I’d have gotten someone asking to see my ticket and then kicking me out sooner rather than later.  Mulligan was helpful,” he went on.  “Actually stopped and asked me what the problem was once he was on break. He’d walked by a couple times before.  Went and yelled at the airline for not offering to put me up in a hotel free of charge since it was their fault that I was effectively stranded.  Didn’t know that was even an option,” he added, sounding a couple years younger as he retold the story, as if he was awestruck stepping foot into the city again for the first time.  “But he knows people, of course, and got them to put him in contact with a buddy of his in the company, got some strings pulled and a blind eye turned and they gave me a check for the cost of a cab and the room for the night instead of a receipt for them.  He said that way I could cash it and have some seed money, as long as I didn’t mind waiting until he was done with his shift and going home with him.  He bought me my metrocard,” Hamilton added fondly.  “Dropped the money for a full year.  Said I’d need to pay him back if I ever lost it or decided I wasn’t going to be staying, but that if I was moving to the city I’d need to be able to get around like a real New Yorker.  I told him I hadn’t worked this hard just to turn tail and he said he knew.”  Hamilton paused.  The other two were walking beside him in silence, watching him.  “I don’t know how.”  He was silent for another beat.  “…I don’t know how I got on that.  Sorry.”

“I didn't even set him off this time,” Lafayette commented to Laurens.

“Okay, someone else go.  We all moved here, what was your first experience of the city?”

“Well,” Lafayette said, breathing out hard and frowning in disappointment when it didn’t form a cloud.  “I had effectively run away from France.”

“Right.”

“And when I turned my phone back on I had a dozen missed messages from three different people back in Europe, none of them Adrienne, and one from the university informing me that they were going to have a driver waiting for me at baggage claim to pick me up.  Which was for the best,” he went on.  “Because none of your signage is in French and I was very tired and it was very confusing.”

“Time difference,” Hamilton agreed.  “What time was it for you?”

“Oh, it was still the middle of the day back in France,” Lafayette said.  “But I hadn’t slept the night before and I didn’t sleep on the plane and I was just _exhausted_ ,” he emphasized.  “I could not wait to get back on solid ground but I was also dreading it because then I would have to see if I was being, how do you say, intercepted and forced to turn right back around.”

“That would have sucked.”

“ _Oui_.”  Lafayette nodded.  “I would not have been happy.  But,” he continued, “I left the plane and went down the…” he motioned vaguely down the sidewalk, at a loss for words.

“Walkway?”  Hamilton offered.  “Hall?”

“I don’t know.   There was an open room after the plane but before that.”

“The jetway,” Laurens interjected.

“Yes, thank you.”  Lafayette nodded.  “I was walking down that with my bag and I was very aware that I was breathing _American_ air for the first time.  Well, recycled, temperature controlled, American air,” he amended, his accent coming out more strongly.  “But it still counts.  And my heart, it was going so fast.  I was shaking.  I was so excited to be on an entirely new continent, to have this whole—” he swung his arms out and Hamilton jerked back to avoid being hit in the face, “— _world_ open to me!  Do you know?”  He turned towards the other two with a broad, uncontrollable smile.  “Literally, I was free.  I had slipped away from authority and this life, this wonderful, spoiled, indulgent life that I did not want.  I walked down the jetway and I almost thought I would step right out into the middle of the city.  It was almost a disappointment when the interior of the building looked so similar to what I had left behind.”

“Was the driver waiting for you?”

“At baggage claim,” Lafayette said with a nod, looking past Hamilton at Laurens.  “He had a sign with my name on it.”

Hamilton snorted with laughter.  “Of course he did.”

“From one figure of authority to the next,” Lafayette said, his mood not dampened.  “But this was one that I chose.”

“You didn’t really want to leave it all behind.”

“No, of course not,” Lafayette said quickly.  “I never wanted to leave Adrienne and I was very, very upset about how angry her family was.  I just wanted to stretch my legs a little.  See things from a different point of view.”

“Hell of a way to do it.”

“I have always been dramatic.”

“Yeah, no one’s arguing with that,” Hamilton agreed.  “All right, and you, John?”

There was no traffic so Laurens answered as they cut across the street.

“It’s a little different for me.  New York wasn’t that far away from home and I’d been here before.”  He took his card out of his pocket as they headed down into the subway.  “My father came up with me.”  He swiped through the turnstile and headed down another short flight of stairs to the platform.  “I don’t know.  It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“You told me you were excited,” Hamilton pushed.

“Well, yeah, I mean, New York’s a pretty great city.  It’s exciting.  More exciting than anywhere in South Carolina, anyway.”

“Or the Virgin Islands.  Maybe not France, though.”

Laurens put his hands in the pockets of his jacket as they waited for the train.  “I would’ve been excited to go to any big city far enough from home,” he said.  “San Francisco, Houston.  Like I said, I just wanted to get out.”

“We can relate to that,” Hamilton said, motioning between him and Lafayette and then loosening his scarf.  “Right?”

“ _Oui_ ,” Lafayette agreed readily.  “That is something we all have in common.”

“I don’t think it’s that unusual.  A lot of people want to run away a little.  Of course,” Laurens said, “not many actually do.  Looking at you, Lafayette.”

“I went back,” he protested.  “And I made up with them before that.  Washington smoothed it over.  Alexander’s the one who really ran away.”

Laurens glanced quickly at Hamilton.  Had he tensed?  It was hard to tell under the winter coat and scarf, but his face was neutral as he checked the time on his phone.

“Mm?”  Hamilton looked up at Lafayette.  “I guess, but it’s cheat to say anything when it’s so expensive to go back and no one’s going to pay for my ticket.”

“He got a scholarship,” Laurens pointed out.  “Everyone actually knew he was going.”

“I had a party,” Hamilton clarified suddenly.  “Not a big one.  But, yeah, I didn’t just skip town like some kind of weirdo,” he teased.

Laurens relaxed.

“Is that it?”  Hamilton tipped his head to the side, watching as a train approached in the tunnel.  “I think that’s it.  And let’s try to get a good car this time.  The last time I caught this line it just reeked of piss.  Lafayette, you’re lucky, you pick the door.”

Lafayette led them into a car once the train stopped and Hamilton, apparently pleased enough with his choice, sat down on a vacant two-person bench, putting his bag in his lap and motioning for one of the other two to join him.

“Please.”  Lafayette took the pole and let Laurens step past.

“Right,” Hamilton said, subtly slipping his arm through Laurens’ once he was seated next to him, “new topic.  Lafayette, how’d your paper go?”

The train started to move.  “Which one?”

“The 395 one I caught you doing in the hall.  Duh.”

“Oh,” Lafayette shrugged smoothly.  “It could have gone better.  I got a ninety-four.”

“Out of a hundred?”

Hamilton squeezed Laurens’ arm lightly.

“ _Oui_.  But I can drop the lowest grade, so it does not matter.”

“You did it in the hall before class and you still got an A-?”  Laurens sounded almost offended.  “English isn’t even—I need stupider friends.”

“You have some,” Lafayette told him.  “And yet you choose to hang out with Alex and me instead.”

“I wonder why I do this to myself.”

Hamilton made a pleased noise and held him a little closer.  Laurens stopped protesting.

“I’m glad you choose to spend time with us,” Lafayette assured him.  “You are my favorite mainland American.”

“What about Washington?”  Hamilton asked.

“Hm.  You are my favorite—”

“Okay, I get it, I’m not going to ask you to get all Sophie’s Choice.”

“Sophie’s Choice?”

“Movie reference,” Hamilton explained.  “Famous one.”

“Ah.”  Lafayette took his notebook out of his back pocket and scribbled it down.  “Do I need to watch it or is it like it sounds?”

“Trying to make the difficult choice between two options,” Hamilton said.  “You can probably just throw it around.”

“ _Merci_.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Laurens admitted.

“What?”  Hamilton drew back, looking shocked.  “John, it’s a classic.”

“It’s not—I don’t know,” he fumbled, “I never really thought—Do you want to watch it?”

“Nah.”  Hamilton shoved him lightly and settled back in.  “I’m just messing with you, J.  I’ve never seen it, either.”

“Maybe you should spend more time with your other friends,” Lafayette said sympathetically as he put his notebook away.  “This one is very mean to you.”


	126. Paint the Town Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventure! Varying Shades of Life Choices!

“Look,” Hamilton said as they left the station at their final stop, “it’s not that difficult—or, rather, it shouldn’t be.  I’m naturalized, yeah?  Been so for years, something my mother took care of way back when I was a kid.  The stupid part is that it never happened in one of the actual fifty states, but in that weird gray area of the colonial territories we all like to pretend this grand nation doesn’t have, at least not anymore.  What else are you supposed to call it, though?  Like, fight me, there’s a difference between citizenship and subjecthood, you want me to quote _Wretched of the Earth_ at you because I will.”

“Please don’t.”

“Right, _Les Damnés de la Terre_ , sorry, Lafayette, I don’t have the French version memorized, I know the English loses something in translation.  I’ll put it on my list.”

“Was that actually what you meant?”  Laurens asked.  Lafayette shrugged.

Hamilton was still talking.  “So you get why it’s so frustrating, especially when everyone’s climbing all over themselves to make a quick buck out of some kind of innate ahistorical beauty of the place.  Fuck that,” he said in a quick burst of anger.  “Throw out pedestals and paintings and symbolism.  No one deserves to live outside of history, and I mean that at both ends of the spectrum.  It’s a cheap trick to make things easier to grasp when we don’t want to confront the idea that we’re all fundamentally the same.  He’s not the devil,” Hamilton said, pointing at a random vendor who—Laurens noted gratefully—didn’t even bother looking up from restocking his shelves, “and you’re not a hero.  That’s what pisses me off about all of this.  When you tie me to some outdated laws, it’s still making these stagnant assumptions about my—about the lack of _possibility_ , the inability for one to learn and adapt to changing mores and opportunities—it’s not fair, okay?  It’s an accident of birth and to reify as something seemingly natural it is to play God.”

“Five minutes,” Lafayette commented quietly to Laurens.

“I mean,” Hamilton went on, “it’s fixed now, technically.  Easy enough, I officially changed my place of residence after my first semester here.  I’ve got a permanent mailing address and tax forms, they know I’m a New Yorker,” he said with an unhidden note of pride.  “Greatest city in the world.  San Francisco,” he half scoffed, nudging Laurens.  “Seriously, J.?”

“You’ve never even been to California,” Laurens pointed out.

“Why would I?  It’s far.”

“I’d like to go,” Lafayette said, accepting that Hamilton was winding down his rant.  “I want to visit all the states.”

“Good luck getting to Hawaii.”

“I’d like to visit the territories and special administrative zones as well,” Lafayette said soothingly.

Hamilton seemed placated.  “If Brooklyn is a bust, let’s try to get back in time for dinner.  I could go for some oxtail.  I know, I said I don’t want to spend the money and I could find something cheaper.”

“They’re very reasonably priced.”

“They are,” Hamilton agreed.  “I almost want him to raise his prices, but it’s not exactly a trendy niche and keeping them low can help to entice customers and repeat business,” he said, pointing at himself.  “Plus, let’s be real, it’s not like the people who are actively seeking it out have that much to blow.”  He stepped over a stagnant puddle as they exited the station and then looked down the street.  “Gotta say, brownstones are cute.”

“Do you want one after your lease is up?”

“Nah,” Hamilton said, setting off in a random direction.  “I want to live _in_ the city, John.”  He looked back at him and offered his hand.  Laurens took it, feeling a little embarrassed and self-conscious.  “I don’t want to do the commute.  I want to be able to just run out the door and catch one train max.  Hear the traffic all night long—actual traffic, not this residential noise.  I don’t want to be the implant in a community where some of my neighbors have owned their houses for generations.  I’m not saying this is some PTA backyard block party shit,” he said as they stepped to the side for a conservatively dressed woman with her hair covered and trailed by a flock of children.  “Excuse me.”

“But?”  Laurens prompted after she passed.

“Hm?  Oh.  But that’s not what I want right now.  Maybe later.”

“I’d love to live in a place like this,” Lafayette said, looking around with great interest at the houses as they walked.

“Of course you would.  Is there anywhere you wouldn’t want to live?”

“I don’t know if I could live somewhere too rural,” Lafayette said.  “I am too much of a social creature.”

Hamilton laughed and Laurens cracked a grin.  “Yeah, you are.  That’s true, glad you aren’t in denial.”

“Why would I be?  It’s very obvious.”

Hamilton looked over his shoulder at Lafayette, walking down the sidewalk just behind them.  “Hey, if John and I split off at some point you’re welcome to call up one of your millions of followers to keep you company instead.”

“Do you think I should get a Tumblr?”  Lafayette asked.  “I’ve been considering it.”

“I guess?  You’ve got practically everything else, might as well go for Bingo.”

“Bingo?”

“God,” Hamilton said, facing forward again and drawing a little closer to Laurens.  “I love when I still trip you up with lingo sometimes.  That’s twice already today, Lafayette.  You’re slipping.  Yeah, get on Tumblr, get the kids to teach you the slang that’s falling through the cracks.”

“Where are we going?”  Laurens asked.

“There’s a park up ahead,” Lafayette interjected.  “We can go there.”

“Sounds good to me.  I don’t have any real agenda.”  Hamilton looked up at Laurens mischievously.  “You ever made out in a park before?”

“I have,” Lafayette said.  To Laurens’ great relief it saved him from having to answer.  “Many times.  Parks are wonderful.”

Hamilton laughed again, squeezing Laurens’ hand.  “Of course you have.  Adrienne in carefully cultivated nature, that’s like your aesthetic.  No, scratch that, stick crossed American and French flags in the background.  _That’s_ your aesthetic.”

“She needs to be in a period dress,” Laurens added.

“And with a musket.”

“I think just the tricorner hat would be enough.”

“Mm, maybe,” Hamilton agreed.

“You’re both very funny,” Lafayette said loftily as they approached the park.  “But take a break from your little game to look and see what is there ahead of you.”  He shouldered his way past the other two to walk in front, pointing at the open entryway to the park and the large metal relief on display.

Hamilton squinted, more out of suspicion than to improve his vision.  “Is that…”

“That’s your relative,” Laurens said bluntly.  “Of course.  That’s why you knew this park was here.”

“Look who he is with,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, grabbing Hamilton by the arm and pulling both of them ahead with him.  “On the other side of his horse.  That’s the man that he helped to obtain his freedom.”

They crossed the last street before the park and made their way through a small group of children playing in the open area, running back and forth over the path.

“Look,” Lafayette said again, dragging them up to the front of the statue so they could read the words engraved below it.  “There.”

“It only lists one name,” Laurens pointed out.  “Not two.  How do you know who he is?”

“It’s—history, of course,” Lafayette said, rather unsatisfactorily.  “Who else would it be?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Frankly, standing next to him and holding the reins of his horse like that—”

“Why are you doing this?”  Lafayette asked, turning to him and putting his hands on his own chest.  “Why are you taking this away from me?  He petitioned Congress on his behalf.  My great, great—”

“John,” Hamilton said, “let him have it.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette sniffed.

“Besides,” Hamilton went on, “the more important part is how we choose to remember.  Which,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head as he looked at the plaque again, “isn’t always very well.  What we’ve got here without the name isn’t a proper story.  Or, rather, it’s just using him for someone else’s story.  How many monuments does the marquis have?”  He asked.  “You’d think he could at least share his name on this one.”

“He didn’t commission it,” Lafayette complained, a little defensive.

“That’s true.”  Hamilton crossed his arms over himself as he looked back up at the statue, craning his neck to see their faces.  “Obviously Diggs is the center of attention here, names aside, as if you can put that aside, and he's the one the most in the foreground.  He's practically stepping out of the frame.  Look,” he said, nudging Laurens.  “You can see where people’ve been touching him for luck.”

“Luck for what?”

“It’s an assumption.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “Luck, connection, something.  They relate to him.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”  Lafayette leaned forward, rubbing the toe of his boot.

“No,” Hamilton agreed.  “It’s not.”

The group of children broke and reformed around them and Lafayette took a couple steps back and to the side as one of the boys shouted back at his friends and raised his toy dart gun.  He took aim.  Lafayette’s eyes widened in shock as he fired the foam dart at his ancestor’s crotch.

“ _Je ne_ —”

Hamilton was biting his lip to keep from laughing as he bodily dragged Lafayette away to sit on a nearby bench.  Laurens didn’t have the same self-restraint, watching Lafayette’s face as he continued to stare at the children, who were now boisterously passing around the toy and taking turns at their new game.

“That’s _inappropriate_ ,” Lafayette exclaimed as Hamilton sat him down on the bench.  “Where are their guardians?”

As if on cue an adult came up and exasperatedly and fruitlessly tried to get them to stop.

“Relax,” Hamilton said, standing and looking over at a nearby food truck.  “Hey, you want something to eat?  Let’s have something to eat.  You’ll feel better.”

Lafayette pushed his wallet at him, not any happier.

“I’ll stay here and make sure he doesn’t say anything stupid,” Laurens said, watching the children continue to play and still snickering.

“You’re supposed to be the mature one, John,” Lafayette complained.  “Where is your sense of dignity?”

“I’m sorry,” Laurens said, “but you gotta admit this is pretty funny.  Comedic timing and all.”

Lafayette huffed.

“It’d be less funny if you weren’t here,” Laurens said in a reassuring tone that Lafayette did not appreciate.  He clapped him on the shoulder.  “So thank you for coming out with us.”

“My pleasure,” Lafayette muttered darkly, slouching down on the bench.  “I hope some little brats disrespect your family’s heroes.”

“Whatever,” Laurens said, crossing his legs and draping his arms over the back of the bench.  “You know,” he commented after another minute watching the children, “they’re only shooting at your guy.  They’re leaving everyone else alone.”

“Joy,” Lafayette said without meaning it as Hamilton came back and handed him a cup of frozen yogurt, sitting down on Laurens’ other side.  “What is this?”

“Plain.  I didn’t know if you’d want vanilla.”  Hamilton offered Laurens another cup.  “We’re sharing.  I didn’t know this was all they had.”

Lafayette took a bite, thoughtfully watching the scene continue to unfold with his spoon in his mouth.  “Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe it is actually a sign of respect.”

“That?”  Hamilton asked as one of the kids raced away from the adult trying to shepherd them away, got a direct hit and ran off again, whooping.  “Yeah, sure.  Why not?  Bringing him down from his pedestal.”

“That’s a funny way to show respect,” Laurens commented.

“No,” Lafayette said, “Alexander is right.  They are engaging with him and making him more human.  They’re fond of him.”

“For target practice,” Laurens joked.

“ _Peut-être_.”

“Not ‘maybe,’ Lafayette.  ‘Definitely.’  Shit,” Hamilton shivered, pushing the cup that Laurens was holding away and dropping his spoon into it.  “This was a bad idea.  I’m frickin’ freezing.”

“Warm him up,” Lafayette instructed Laurens.  “I want to keep sitting here for a little longer.”

Hamilton leaned into Laurens, who slipped his arm from the bench over his shoulders.  “Quick,” Hamilton said to Lafayette, “strangest thing you've learned since coming to America, go.”

“Koalas’ brains atrophy from birth,” Lafayette said immediately.

“How is that about America?”

“You didn’t say it had to be about America,” Lafayette said.  “You just said the strangest thing I learned.  It came up in class.”

“You didn’t say it,” Laurens pointed out to Hamilton before he could protest further.

“Yeah, okay.  Seriously?”  Hamilton asked.  “That’s frickin’ weird.”

“I know,” Lafayette said.  “Their brains are smooth.”

Hamilton made a face.  “Gross.  Don’t they all have some STI?”  He shivered again and Laurens rubbed his arm to warm him up.

“I don’t know.”  Lafayette took another bite.  “Oh.  I should have taken a picture for Adrienne.”

“Next time,” Hamilton said, tipping his head to the side to lean against Laurens.

“Please remind me.”  Lafayette looked out across the entryway to the park.  “I know what I want to do tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Mm.”  Lafayette tugged at his earlobe with one hand.  “It shouldn’t take long.”

“All right.”  Hamilton handed him back his wallet.  “Thanks for buying, by the way.”

“You’re welcome.”  Lafayette put it in his pocket again.  “Alexander, did you ever think about getting your ears pierced?”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve thought about getting a lot of things pierced,” Hamilton said with a grin, taking Laurens’ hand and squeezing it.

“Seriously?”

Hamilton laughed.  “Don’t be so stuck up, Lafayette.”

“No,” Lafayette tried again.  “I mean, have you seriously considered it?”

“Uh,” Hamilton fumbled a little.  “I don’t know.  Half?  What do you think, J.?”  He asked, distancing himself from the question.  “You think I’d look hotter with a rod at the end of my dick?”

“You wouldn’t be able to do anything while it healed,” Lafayette pointed out, sparing Laurens from having to respond.

“Shoot, you’re right.  Oh well.  You’re out of luck, John, I’m not making that sacrifice if you’re actually putting out this semester.”

“You could get something else pierced,” Lafayette said.

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, “I dunno.  Nipple piercings are hotter on chicks.  Plus I’d be scared it would snag on my clothes.”

“You’re worried about _that_ one snagging but not the other…”

“Those,” Hamilton corrected Laurens, shrugging his other arm free and gesturing at his chest.  “I’m not getting a single.  If I’m doing it, I’m doing it all the way.”

“Why would you do it at all?”

“It’s just a hypothetical.  It’s not actually serious,” Hamilton said.

“Of course not,” Lafayette reassured Laurens.  “I don’t want to ruin Alexander for you.”

“It wouldn’t ruin—”

“That’s sweet of you, J.,” Hamilton laughed.  “I’m not offended, it’s just a joke.”

“What about you?”  Lafayette asked.  “Would you consider anything?”

“No,” Laurens said firmly.

“Not even an earring?”

“Nothing visible.”

“So,” Hamilton started, “does that mean…?”

“No,” Laurens repeated, more strongly.  “Nothing at all.”

“What about a tattoo?”  Hamilton asked teasingly.  “You could get something manly.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re no fun,” Hamilton said lightly.  He looked at Lafayette around Laurens.  “You should get Adrienne’s name.”

Lafayette sighed.  “I thought about it, but it seems so trite.”

“Only if you put it in a heart on your arm.”

“I don’t think she would appreciate it.”  He avoided saying the part where he had already run the idea by her.

“Probably not,” Hamilton agreed.  “That would kind of ruin it.”  He laughed.  “John, it’s probably for the best that you aren’t into the idea.  I don't know if I could take you seriously with a barbed wire bicep tat.”

“Actually,” Laurens said quite seriously, “if I were to do it, I’d get a full sleeve.”

Hamilton stared, leaning away.  “Oh my God,” he finally said.  “That would be so hot.”

“You could work it,” Lafayette said, giving Hamilton a moment to collect his thoughts.  “It would look good.”

“My father would kill me,” Laurens admitted with a laugh.

“Screw professionalism, J.,” Hamilton said with enthusiasm.  “Think about what a babe magnet something like that would be.”

“‘Babe magnet’?”

“Sex magnet,” Hamilton corrected himself quickly.  “Sex magnet.  For me.  Obviously.”

“We could start with something smaller,” Lafayette said.

“Wait a minute.  ‘We’?”’

“Well…  _Cur non?_ ”  Lafayette looked between the other two.  “It could be something we could do together.  Like a, a friendship pact.”

“Isn’t the normal thing to do to get matching lanyards?”  Hamilton asked.  “And, you know, to be eight years old?”

“I think it would be a nice thing to do together,” Lafayette insisted, putting down his empty cup on the bench.  “We could get something small.  And tasteful.”

“I think I’m too sober to consider this.”

“We can fix that,” Hamilton said, sounding more genuinely intrigued by the proposal than he had been a minute ago.  “Like, come on, J., you’re the legal one.”

“Wait,” Laurens started.  “Are you serious?”

“I don’t know.”  Hamilton stood.  “But I know I’m bored and restless and I wanted to go do something today, so let’s find a liquor store and see where this goes.  And coffee,” he added after a moment’s thought and as the other two got up after him.  “I’m still frozen.”

“Excellent,” Lafayette said, clapping Hamilton on the back.  “This is why you are my favorite.  No offense, John.”

“Just a little taken.”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette said, walking out of the park arm in arm with Hamilton, tossing his trash into a garbage can without looking.  “If you just relaxed a little, you’d be more fun.”

“I’m plenty of fun,” Laurens protested.  “I got us the Xbox and everything!”

“I said more fun,” Lafayette said placatingly.  “If you weren’t so worried about your father all the time then you would enjoy yourself more.”

“I’m not afraid of my father.”

“I said worried about him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not that either.”  An angry spark was coming to life in Laurens’ voice.  “I’m not him.  I can make my own decisions one way or the other.”

“John,” Hamilton said, breaking away from Lafayette and putting his hand on Laurens’ arm.  “It’s fine.  Lafayette, chill, okay?”

“It’s not fine,” Laurens argued.  “You don’t think this too, do you?  I’m not cowed by my father.”

Hamilton glanced at Lafayette, torn between concern and annoyance.  “No one thinks that, he was just messing with you.”

“Because I’m not.”

“I—Look,” Hamilton said against his better judgement.  “You do talk a lot about not wanting to disappoint him, and we all know that he can be a little—”

“You don’t know him.”  Laurens cut him off.  “He’s _my_ father, Alex, not yours.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, a little incredulous.  “And I’ve had to listen to you bitch for almost a year now about what a pain in your ass he is.  I’m not—we’re not calling you a coward or anything, _I’m_ kinda freaked out about spending a week with him, too—”

Laurens grabbed his arm and pulled him forward into a rough kiss.

“I’m not afraid of him,” Laurens said defiantly, letting him go.  Hamilton hadn’t closed his eyes and was still staring in shock.  “Just because I don’t want him up in my personal life all of the time doesn’t mean I’m afraid.  He’s a pain and I’m glad I don’t live in the same state as him anymore where he can try to control me and act like I’m cut to his form.  But just because I don't want to deal with him every day doesn’t make me a coward.”  Laurens was slowly becoming aware that he had leapt several steps ahead in the conversation and that the other two were rightfully surprised by his overreaction.  “…It’s just stupid,” he muttered, letting Hamilton go and hoping he could get away with that as a non-apology.  “I don’t see anyone else having to deal with this kind of interrogation.”

“Well then,” Lafayette said, gently and after a beat.  “That’s good to have cleared up.  Alexander, did you still want coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

Lafayette put his hand on his upper back and led him down the street, leaving Laurens in an increasingly dark cloud to follow.

“Is he all right?”  Lafayette asked quietly in French once Laurens had lagged far enough behind that they couldn’t be overheard.

Hamilton resisted the urge to glance back and didn't answer.

“He’ll be all right.” Lafayette answered his own question.  “He can be very moody.  I haven’t seen him do this in a while, so I wasn’t expecting it.  It’s my fault,” he went on, “not yours.  I’ll apologize to him once he cools down a little more.  I wouldn’t have needled him like that last year.”

“It’s the weather,” Hamilton said after a moment, responding in French.  “The weather’s bad.”

Lafayette glanced up at the clear sky.  “I don’t think that bothers him.”

“Well _I_ don’t like it,” Hamilton said, in English now.  He stopped walking and waited for Laurens to catch up.  “Hey, J.,” he said, nudging him in a friendly fashion.  “What do you think of this plan?  We drop into a Starbucks in lieu of hunting down the most Brooklyn coffee shop possible, then go get ourselves massively inked,” he joked.  “I’m talking like face tats, screw us all out of proper office jobs.”

“I think I’ll get mine in UV ink,” Lafayette said, following the lighthearted tone of the conversation and walking a pace in front of them.  “And put a black light in the dorm.  You don’t mind, do you, John?”

“And have you light it up like some kind of freaky alien?”  Laurens found he could laugh again, if a little forced.  “Sure, whatever floats your boat.”

“A boat,” Lafayette said, looking back at Laurens with bright eyes.  “That’s an excellent idea.  What a good metaphor for the distance between me and my love.”

“You hate boats,” Hamilton pointed out, walking closer to Laurens than he had to for them to both fit on the sidewalk.  “You refused to get on the fake one with me at Disneyland.”

“It’s not the same,” Lafayette said with an air of fake dismissiveness.  “A drawing of one gives me all of the control.”

“Why don’t I just buy you a teacup or something with a boat on it instead.  Then you won’t be stuck with one on your forehead.”

“I don’t know that I will go along with you and your placement,” Lafayette said.  “I have a very attractive face.”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, sounding a little indignant in spite of himself.  “Are you saying that I don’t?  Rude,” he added, looking up at Laurens and was relieved to see him nod in agreement.

“Don’t get anything on your face,” Laurens said to Hamilton.  “I like your face.”

“Thank you,” Hamilton said.  “See,” he told Lafayette.  “That’s how you do manners.  I knew I was dating a southern boy for a reason.”  He moved Laurens’ arm over his shoulders as if for warmth.  Laurens didn’t take it away and Hamilton felt as though he could breathe just a little easier.  “All right, J., so where do you think instead?  You’ve got the sleeve, Lafayette’s got, I don't know, a boat tramp stamp—”

“It would still look good on me,” Lafayette commented lightly as he escorted them across the street to a coffee shop.

“—What should I have?  Across the collar?”  He drew his hand over his chest, encouraging Laurens to picture it.

“Wrist would be hot,” Laurens said, just casually enough to give the lie to the idea that he had never thought about it before.

Hamilton grinned.  “Yeah?”

“What would you get?”

“Mm,” Hamilton said, “I don’t know.  Honestly, I never thought much about it before.  Unlike you, you sneak.”  He bumped intentionally into Laurens.  “I never considered it seriously,” Laurens protested.  “That doesn’t mean that I _never_ thought about it.”

“Where else do you think would be hot on me?”  Hamilton asked, his voice almost a purr as Lafayette held the door for them.  He stepped away from Laurens as they entered the coffee shop and he no longer had he excuse that he needed to be close to him for his body heat.

“Forearm,” Laurens replied, getting in line with the other two.  “Or inner arm.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton was still smiling.  “You like my arms?  I’m getting a double shot,” he added, looking up at the menu.  “Do you know what you want?  I’m paying for yours, I owe you.”

“No you don’t.”

Hamilton waved him off as he got out his wallet.  “I do, you just forgot.  Right, hello.”  He placed his order and stepped to the side to let Laurens give his.

“If I had it done in UV ink then it might not distress Adrienne as much,” Lafayette mused as he waited to the side.  “I’d still tell her about it, of course, but it would be less visible.”

“Not in our raver bedroom,” Laurens said.

“Oh, you were serious about letting me get that light?”

“Get the sleeve,” Hamilton said to Laurens.  “Seriously, J.”

“It would look good,” Laurens said slowly, like he couldn’t believe he was actually considering it.

“It would,” Lafayette agreed.  “And it’s not as though you would be the only one to ever have one.”  He tipped his head at the barista’s visible tattoo under his rolled up shirt sleeve.

“That’s true,” Laurens said.  He studied the other man.

“It’d be hot,” Hamilton said quietly, leaning back against the shelves of bagged coffee and mugs with his arms folded.  “I’m just saying.”

Something in his tone made the defiance rise within Laurens again.  He could do this, prove everyone wrong, do something impulsively just for himself…

“Thank you.”  Lafayette took his drink from the counter.  “Well?  Do you want to sit in here or keep walking?”

“Let’s look for a parlor,” Laurens said, making Hamilton whip his head around to look at him, his ponytail flying over his shoulder but the rest of his body staying perfectly still.

“Are you for real?”  Hamilton asked.

“Yes,” Laurens said with determination, feeling his heart start to race.  “I bet it won’t take long to find one.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton stood up straight and took their drinks, handing Laurens his.  “But let’s find a good one.  I don’t want you to get stuck with something shitty.”

“This is exciting,” Lafayette said as they stepped back out into the cool air.  He took a tentative sip of his drink and smiled brightly down the street at the trees, still covered with fading leaves.  “Do you know what you want in any more detail?”

“I’m not sure,” Laurens said, feeling a grin break onto his face.  “I’ll look at what designs they offer.”

“You’re an artist,” Hamilton teased him.  “Shouldn’t you make something up yourself?”

“That’ll take too long.  I thought the point was to get something done today.”

“Reckless,” Hamilton said, flashing his teeth in a smile.  “I like that.”

Laurens took his hand.  “Yeah?”

“Mm.”  Hamilton leaned into him, looking up at him though half-lidded eyes.  “Yeah.”

“Stay with me,” Lafayette instructed them.  “We’re on a grand mission and you’re not allowed to split off from me now.”

“Sorry,” Hamilton laughed, moving away from Laurens but keeping his hand.  “Where to, General?”

“General?”  Lafayette mused.  “I like that.”

“You really don’t have any ideas?”  Hamilton asked Laurens.  “I can’t believe that.”

“Well,” Laurens began, “nothing fully formed.”

“But you’ve got a sense of what you want?”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “You could put it that way.”  He held Hamilton’s hand a little tighter.

“Look at you lovebirds,” Lafayette said.  “You need a name, too.”

“A name?”

“Like how Adrienne and I are Dearheart.”

“Oh, right,” Hamilton said.  “I forgot I did that.”

“You don’t have any cute names for each other, though,” Lafayette said.  “Only J.  I can’t call the two of you J.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed.  “That’d be weird.  Combine our names, maybe.”

“Jalexander.  Alexon.”

“Wow,” Hamilton commented.  “Those are completely awful.  Congrats.”

“This is not my strong suit,” Lafayette agreed.  “I should ask for help.”  He took his phone out of his pocket and began to type.  “How long do you think it will take for us to get done?  Ah, I’ll just tell them to meet us wherever we end up.  I’ll drop a pin.”

“Who are you texting?”

“Backup,” Lafayette said lightly.  “They’ll straighten things out.”

“Whatever.”  Hamilton took a sip of his drink, letting the steam waft out in front of his face as he held it before him and noting distractedly that he was glad not to be wearing his glasses.  “Is it an abstract pattern or are there certain images you want?  Color or all black?”

“Black,” Laurens said.  “Definitely.”

“Good call.  It’ll last longer.  Less touching up.”

“What about you?”

Hamilton laughed, lowering his coffee.  “Wait a minute, I’m getting one too now?”

“I thought this was supposed to be a group event.”

“Yeah, you and the marquis.”

“Why am I not the general anymore?”

“Lafayette said that all three of us should go,” Laurens argued, ignoring Lafayette even as he invoked him to make his point.  “It was supposed to be a bonding experience.”

“I’m still going,” Hamilton said.  “I just don’t have an idea of what I want.  Words,” he mused, taking another drink.  “Text.  But what font?  Typeface or script?”

“You’re a fast thinker,” Laurens encouraged.  “Quick, what’s your favorite phrase?”

“That’s a hard one,” Hamilton complained.  “I got a lot of favorites.  You’re going to have to give me a category, J.  Besides, I said from the start that I didn't want to spend a lot of money today.”

“I’ll cover it.”

“Don’t, that’s weird.  I don’t want to owe you for something that expensive.”

“We could go to a cheap place,” Lafayette said, not really serious.

“Yeah, and we could all get hepatitis and I could end up out even more money.  Great plan, Lafayette.”

“I liked being the general.”

“I’m calling you the marquis and that’s it.  You’re too cocky as is, you don’t need any more encouragement.”

Lafayette huffed.

“I hadn’t thought about medical concerns,” Laurens said slowly.

“I’m just talking, John.  I’m sure we can find a reputable place.  But,” Hamilton added, hearing himself talk without thinking and hoping it didn’t come off as nervous, “you know, half of all places don’t properly clean their autoclaves, so you’ve got that to keep in mind.  You wouldn’t even know until you’re in the chair, _if_ then.”

“How long does it take to heal?”  Laurens asked.

Hamilton frowned.  “The tattoo itself?  I’m not sure.  I mean even assuming it’s not infected, I guess it varies…  A few weeks, maybe.”  He looked up.  Laurens’ brow was furrowed as he took a long drink.

“Oh.”  Lafayette stopped walking and pointed across the street.  “ _Voilà_.”  A tattoo parlor with a tasteful sign was standing at the corner.  “Well?”  He asked, turning back to the other two.  “What are we waiting for?”

Laurens shook his head slowly.  “I don’t know about this.”

“John,” Lafayette said, a pleading note in his voice, “don’t back out now.  We’ve come all this way!”

“All the way to Brooklyn,” Hamilton half-joked.

“I’m serious, Lafayette.”  Laurens sounded more determined.

“J.,” Hamilton began, putting his hand on his arm.  “If this is about—I’m just saying about the cleanliess, I mean, we can always take a look around and I’ll drag you out if it looks—Look, you’re right, you’re your own man, you don’t have to—”

“It’s not about my father.”  Laurens cut him off.  “It’s still the first half of November.  I’m still playing for another month.  I’m not getting anything done now.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened.  He hadn’t thought of that.

“You’re right,” he sighed, turning back to look despondently across the street.  “I’m sorry, Alexander,” he said.  “I wanted this to be a memorable excursion for you.  To make up for the weather,” he added as a breeze swirled a handful of leaves up into the slowly dimming blue sky.

“You can still get something done,” Hamilton said.  “What about your UV boat?  HMS Adrienne?”

“British,” Laurens reminded Hamilton when Lafayette gave him an offended look.

“Sorry.  Lafayette, we’ll still go with you if you want.”

Lafayette bit his lip, staring across the street.  “To tell you the truth,” he said after a minute.  “I would rather get something else done.”

“Yeah?”

Lafayette tugged on his earlobe again.  “I want to get my ears pierced.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton looked across the street with Lafayette.  They both watched as a car drove by and then left it open and free to cross once more.  “…There’s a Claire’s a couple blocks from my apartment,” Hamilton offered.  “If you want.  I mean, that’s what I’d do.  Probably cheaper.  More specialized,” he continued to bullshit.  “Funnier story,” he added.

“That’s true,” Lafayette said after another moment’s consideration.  “It does make for a better story.  All right.”  He turned around and clapped his hands in front of himself, his tone brightening again.  “I am sold.  Lead the way, Alexander.”


	127. Hijacked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pierced; Art Project

“You boys didn’t want to go to a more upscale establishment?”

“Come on,” Hamilton said, his arms folded across his chest and watching Angelica stare critically up at the store sign.  “We though this’d be fun.”

“I’m disappointed that he’s not going with the cartoon options.”

“You’d give him a hard time.”

“I’d gently tease him.”

“You’d call him out on his compromised masculinity.”

“I think it would be only strengthened by daring to buck convention,” Angelica said, turning her attention to the glass storefront to watch as Lafayette sat in the small chair up front, letting the sales attendant mark his lobes with a ballpoint pen.

“You’re a liar,” Hamilton said.  “You wanted him to get the pink rhinestone hearts so you could make fun of him.”

“I’m surprised you’re not in there with him,” Angelica said.  “It seemed like something you’d be interested in.”

“With a punch-gun?  No, thank you.”

“I can pierce them for you with a needle and a slice of apple,” Angelica offered.  “Eliza and I did Peggy’s like that.”

“Great,” Hamilton said, unenthusiastically.  “Do you do jailhouse tattoos as well?  Don’t tell me Eliza has a dolphin on her ankle that you gave her with a jellyroll in tenth grade.”

“Her zodiac sign,” Angelica said.

Hamilton looked at her quickly but she was keeping a straight face and he couldn’t tell if she was lying.

“Whatever, better you than some rando.  At least I can trust that you'd run the needle through the blue part of a flame first.  Did you know that half of all autoclaves are improperly sanitized?”

Angelia looked over at him, brow raised skeptically.  “Cite your sources.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed, looking forward again.  “That sounded like something I was just making up to me, too.”

“Are you guys sure you don’t want to come in?”  Eliza asked, opening the door and leaning out.  “She’s about to pierce them.”

“We can see fine from here,” Angelica informed her.  “It’s too crowded in there.”

Eliza ducked back into the store, going back to stand with Peggy next to the chair.

“So,” Angelica started, “not a fan of needles?”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, gesturing over his shoulder at Laurens, pacing back and forth while he talked on the phone.  “Someone had to stay out here with John.  It’d be rude to leave him.”

“I thought you’d want to get inside where it’s warmer.”

Hamilton glanced away, unable to stop the slight flinch as the first earring was set.  “What?  Come on, Angelica, it’s positively balmy out here.  Besides,” he added, “it’s not like I’ve got a phobia or anything.  Hell, I let the school jab me just earlier this semester, remember?  I ran into you on the way.”

“That’s right,” Angelica said, watching calmly as Lafayette had the second piercing done.  “I take it back.”

“ _Thank_ you, jeez.”  Hamilton turned around as Laurens walked closer, but he was still on the phone and not paying any attention.  His voice was light but his brow was furrowed and his hand his free hand over his other ear, trying to block out the sounds of the street.

“I don’t know,” Laurens was saying.  “I’m out with some friends but I think we’re heading back soon.  Uh, we just went to Brooklyn.  Yeah.”

“I forgot that his father calls him on Sundays,” Hamilton explained, watching him and then facing forward again.  “Well, sometimes.  I think his father forgets that as well.”

Lafayette got off the chair inside the store and turned around, beaming, to rap on the glass and tip his face to the side, gesturing with a snap of his hand at the cubic zirconia in his ear.

“Nice,” Hamilton said, louder than he would normally and enunciating in order to get his message across through the glass.  He gave him two thumbs up and Angelica smiled and nodded at his side.  “I didn't know they’d offer anything that big,” he said to her. "You’d think something like that would just be too much for a tween.”

“Guess they’re expanding their market.”  Angelica watched as Eliza and Peggy moved around inside the store, taking things from where they hung, laughing and talking silently.

“You guys are really close, huh?”

“Mm.”  Angelica smiled.  “Aren’t all siblings?”

“I don’t know about that.”  Hamilton kept himself from looking back at Laurens again, but Angelica turned around anyway after a beat.  Laurens was tapping his foot impatiently on the ground as he argued with his sister now—they could hear her name, it sounded like he was almost overusing it to make a point, and something about Thanksgiving.

“You’re an only child?”  Angelica asked, still watching Laurens.

“Me?”  Hamilton tipped his hand from side to side.  “Officially.  Guess I had some foster siblings, though.  Does that count?”

“Do you want them to count?”

“I didn’t live with them very long.”  Hamilton shivered.  “John,” he said, taking a step forward, “d’you mind if we pop inside?  I want to see Lafayette’s new bling.”

Laurens motioned for them to go without breaking the flow of his conversation.

“Alex,” Eliza said as soon as they opened the door.  “Come over here.  Angelica, you too, but we need Alex to be the model.”

“What’s up?”  Hamilton crossed the store and then froze mid-step when Eliza, laughing, leaned up and delicately put a pink and red flower crown on his head.  “Angelica,” she said, taking her sister’s arm, “what do you think?  Should I buy it?”

“For him?”

“Maybe.”

Hamilton looked from one of them to the other without moving.  Angelica and Eliza arm in arm, Peggy standing a foot behind them with three more styles in her hands, ready to swoop in and trade it out.

“I think it’s dashing,” Angelica declared.  “Alexander,” she instructed, “relax your shoulders.  You look like a deer in the headlights.”

He frowned and tried to do as she said, instead slouching with his hands in his pockets.  “It’s not really my style.”

“Alexander,” Lafayette said, coming up behind him and leaning on his shoulder.  “I like that.”

Hamilton shrugged him off.  “Stop that.”  He took the crown off and handed it back to Eliza.  “Lafayette, let me see.”

Lafayette turned, showing him first one side and then the other.  “Six millimeters,” he said.  “Gold plated.”

Peggy put another crown on Hamilton’s head and he refrained from snatching it off.

“I thought about stainless steel,” Lafayette went on, adjusting the crown, “but gold has a certain class to it.  Where’s John?”

“He’s still on the phone.”  Hamilton motioned to the door and caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror.  “Seriously?”  He turned to Peggy.  “Frickin’ blue daisies?”

“I like yellow better,” Peggy said, “but Eliza wanted to see the blue.”

“Why’m I your model?”

“You’re the cutest,” Eliza said, taking a half step forward and kissing him on the cheek.

Hamilton felt his face immediately burn.  “Fine, whatever,” he muttered, rubbing his mouth and cheek.  “Glad to be of service.”

Angelia put her arm around Eliza’s waist and pulled her to her.  “What’s the big hold up with the crowns?  I vote that we get several.  Isn’t there a sale or something?  I feel like there’s always a sale.”

“We’re trying to settle on three,” Eliza said.  “I was helping Peggy choose.”

“Why are you getting them in the first place?”  Hamilton asked, walking over to stand in front of the mirror and adjusting the crown on his head.  “Sisterly bonding?”

“They’re props,” Peggy said, coming up behind him but not helping.  “I’m in a photography class.”

“Like a more sophisticated version of that snapchat filter,” Hamilton commented, tipping his head to the side so he could see himself from another angle.  “I’m not sure about this one.”  He put out his hand for the next one and switched them out.  “See, this is better.  I’m a gold and glitter kind of guy,” he joked.

“Lafayette,” Eliza said, “pick one out for yourself and help Alex pick one for John.”

“Are you not getting any?”  Lafayette asked as he studied the options hanging on the wall.

Eliza shook her head.  “These are for Peggy’s project.”

“Wait,” Hamilton said, turning around.  “When you said ‘model’ were you being serious?”

“Of course she was,” Angelica said.  Eliza leaned her head against her shoulder.  “You dragged us out here so we thought you could help Peggy with her assignment.”

Hamilton shrugged and went back to inspecting himself in the mirror.  “All right.  You think this matches my coat okay?  I can take it off,” he said, answering his own question.  “If I have to go with the options in here, this is my favorite.”

“That one’s too plain,” Angelica told him, watching as Lafayette tried on one with large cool toned flowers.  “You’ll be dwarfed by whatever Lafayette picks for John and himself.”

Hamilton frowned and turned to look.  “…Yeah,” he agreed.  “Okay, you’re right.  Margarita,” he held his hand out for Peggy.  “Crown me.”

 

Laurens was just getting off the phone when the others exited the store.  “Hey,” he began with a faked smile.  “Lafayette, let me see.  Did it hurt?”

“No, but we have more important things to do,” Lafayette informed him.  “John,” he went on, standing at an angle so Laurens could admire his new piercings, “you are a supporter of the arts, correct?”

“Uh, yeah.  Of course.”

“We’re on a mission,” Lafayette told him, putting his hand on his upper back and turning him around, walking him down the street while the others followed.  “We’re going to help Peggy with her photography project.”

“All right,” Laurens nodded.  “Sounds good to me.  Where does she want to shoot?”

“Times Square,” Lafayette said.  “I thought we could get dinner down there.  What do you think?”

“It’s already dark out.”  Laurens glanced back at the others.  “Do they not mind?”

“Alexander signed off on it,” Lafayette assured him.  “We just needed somewhere with lights.”

“Well, you’ll have that there,” Laurens agreed.  “And a ton of people.  Won’t it be too crowded?”

“Peggy isn’t using a very complicated set up,” Lafayette said, motioning the size of a small digital camera.  “She’s going to edit them later.”

“So much for the pinhole camera we started off with,” Laurens laughed.  “I thought we were supposed to go full hipster.”

“We might still do that.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure.  Are flower crowns hipster?”

“Fake hipster, maybe.”

“Does it matter?”

“Nah.  Wait,” Laurens said.  “Did you guys actually buy those?”

“I picked out a nice one for you,” Lafayette assured him.

“I don’t want to wear that.”

“That’s what Alexander thought at first, but he came around.  Besides,” Lafayette went on, “it’s for _art_.  Don’t you want to support her vision?”

“What is her vision?  Because it sounds like this is just some dumb cutesy pop culture bit.”

“I’m working on a series about toxic masculinity,” Peggy said, pushing past Lafayette to stand next to Laurens.  He jumped, not expecting her to be at his side all of a sudden.  “I want to explore how masculinity is a social construct,” she went on, undeterred, “and how trappings that are assigned specific gender roles are irrelevant to one’s core identity.  That’s why I’m trying to contrast stereotypically feminine accessories with blatantly male bodies.”

“See?”  Lafayette said, his hand on Laurens’ shoulder as he leaned forward to talk to him on his other side.  “You are ‘blatantly male.’”

“I guess,” Laurens said after a pause.  “Yeah, okay.  But what is Times Square supposed to signify?”

Lafayette fell back, letting Laurens and Peggy talk.  “I told you I could get him on board,” he said.

“Good work.”  Angelica took his arm, leaving Eliza and Hamilton to bring up the rear of the group.  “That was faster than we thought you’d be able to get it done.”

“I bet he’ll be busy staging things with her the entire time we’re on the subway,” Lafayette said.  “He likes things like this.”

“—the human body as both an object and commodity as well as victim to the whims of societal trends and materialism,” Peggy was saying up ahead.

“Now that’s some pretentious sh—stuff,” Hamilton said, forgetting for a moment that he was talking to Eliza.  “I mean.  I guess I can’t talk,” he added as a partial apology.  He laughed as he could hear Laurens enthusiastically agree and carry her idea forward.  “I really can’t talk.  Your sister’s an artist and I’m dating another one.”

“They should be friends,” Eliza said, taking her gloves out of her purse and pulling them on.  “I don’t know about John, but Peggy could use more friends.”

“John’s got plenty,” Hamilton said with an envious look at her gloves.  “But no girls.  I don’t think he knows what to do with you.”

“He seems to be holding his own with Peggy.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed, looking past Angelica and Lafayette at where Laurens and Peggy were still talking, now moved on to arguing over whether or not the juxtaposition of nature and technology was played out. “I’m surprised.”

“They have a common interest.”

“I guess so.”  Hamilton kept walking in silence for a few moments.  “I’m not much of an artist,” he finally said.  “I suck at drawing.  Never got the hang of it.  Poetry’s hit or miss but that’s not a visual art anyway.  Think I should take something up?”

“So that you have something to share with him?”

“Yeah.  Damn,” he breathed out and thought he saw it just beginning to fog in front of him.  “It sounds stupid when you put it that way.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid.”

Hamilton looked at Eliza to see that she was watching his face attentively.

“We look like three couples like this,” he said, facing forward again.  “You know that?  Especially with your sister and the Frenchman arm in arm.”

“It’s called courtesy,” Lafayette said, twisting and looking back over his shoulder.

“It’s called mind your own frickin’ private conversation,” Hamilton said.

“I think you and John look very good together,” Eliza said after another half block.  “You suit each other very well.”

“You think?”  Hamilton glanced at her again, but she was just smiling to herself as she checked the time on her phone.  “I mean, it’s not like we’ve got nothing in common.  We’re the same major, after all.  We’re going to go into the same field.”

“There you go,” Eliza said encouragingly.  She put her phone away.  “If you want, I’m sure Peggy can take some photos of just the two of you.  Is that the entrance?”  She asked, tapping Angelica on the back of her fall coat.  Hamilton caught himself looking at the contrast of her lilac gloves against the deep maroon of the wool coat.

“Yes.”  Angelica broke away from Lafayette to take her sister’s hand.  “Peggy,” she called ahead, beckoning to the other two to retrace their steps.  “Honestly.”

Hamilton watched as the three of them descended the stairs, hand in hand, and then took his metrocard out and followed.


	128. Something Spectacular

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art and Cities and Trying Your Best

“Are they going to ask us to leave?”

“Peggy,” Angelica said soothingly, “it’s fine.  We’re on public property.”  She motioned around them at the street performers crowded into the already overfull street.  “Look, there are people working here all day.  You’re not even taking money from anyone.”

“Yet,” Hamilton commented as he checked his crown—gold leaves and red flowers—in his phone’s camera.  “Wait ’til Lafayette gets into this and takes his shirt off, you’ll be able to make a small fortune with tourists who want their picture taken with him.”

Lafayette was already undoing his jacket and he looked over at Hamilton, mildly confused.  He took it off and folded it, setting it neatly on the ground at his feet, then pulled his shirt up over his head.

“What did I tell you?”  Hamilton laughed.  “The guy’s stripping already.”

“That’s part of it,” Angelica said.  “Were you not listening in the store?”

Hamilton looked at her in surprise.  “What, really?”

“It’s for emphasis,” she said.  “To better showcase the distinction—”

“It’s for some quick fanservice,” Hamilton replied.  “Don’t slap a holier than thou label on it.”

“It sends a stronger message,” Laurens said.  Hamilton turned to him, ready to argue, then stopped short.  Laurens was already shirtless and was looking at him, realistic white flowers in his hair and dark eyes serious.  He had one hand at his waist and gestured with his other.  “Peggy’s project is on the commercialization of the male body,” he said, “while simultaneously exploring the narrow confines of acceptable masculine expression.”

Hamilton looked wordlessly over at Peggy.  She nodded, her compact digital SLR in hand.

“I…  All right.”  Hamilton started to undo his coat.  “I can tell when I’m out voted.  Damn,” he said, looking back at Laurens.  “You guys got a vision and I’m here to help.”

“I’ll start with John while you get ready,” Peggy said, moving Laurens a step back so the bright fluorescent light from the nearest fast fashion store highlighted his dark hair.

“Will one of you watch this?”  Hamilton handed Eliza his coat and, after a pause, his shirt.  He shivered involuntarily as he exposed himself to the cold air, and crossed his arms over his chest, watching a little more distractedly than normal as Laurens drew his right arm across his chest and pulled it back with his left, stretching it out slowly as Peggy searched for the best angle.  “It’s a shame he didn’t get the tattoo.  We doing this?”

“Wait a second.”  Angelica took an eyeliner pencil from her purse.  “You’ve got such lovely lashes, Alexander, I’m just going to emphasize the area.”

“You couldn’t’ve done this while I still had my shirt on?”  Hamilton complained.

She shushed him and took his chin in her hand to steady his face.

“Should we put highlighter on him?”  Eliza asked.  Hamilton whined.  “We’ll get Lafayette too, don’t worry.”

“And John,” Angelica said, “if he’ll let us.”

“Peer pressure,” Lafayette suggested.

“Is he susceptible to that?”

“Tell him it’s art,” Hamilton said as best he could without moving his lips.  Angelica still had his face in her hand.

“Stop that,” she scolded.  “You’re going to make the line shaky and I don’t have remover with me.”

“Great,” Hamilton said once she released him.  “Now I’m just stuck wearing this?”

“You liked the nail polish.”

“Yeah, true.  I’m thinking about buying a buffer?”

“What do you think, Eliza?”  Angelica asked.  “Is that enough?  I think you’re right, we should contour him a little.  Not too much,” she said soothingly as she motioned for Hamilton to give her his face again.  “You have lovely cheekbones already.”

Hamilton made a quick face as the small brush one of them produced accidentally rubbed up against his nose.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Laurens put his hand behind his head, tangling his fingers in his hair as he posed.  He rolled out his neck, the artificial lighting and stark shadows giving a heavy contrast to his strong jaw.  “Mm.  Yeah, I grew them myself.”

“Are you practicing your dad jokes already?”  Eliza teased.  “I can see you with a whole brood.”

“Nah,” Hamilton said, his eyes closed now, “I’m too much of a workaholic.  No one would trust me with kids.”

“What about you, Lafayette?”  Angelica asked.  “Are you planning on settling down?”

“He’s got the whole wedding planned,” Hamilton interjected.  Angelica held him more firmly in place.

“I suppose I would like children someday,” Lafayette said.  “But it’s not something I think much about.  They’re so little,” he added, gesturing size with his hands a foot apart.  “What do you do with them?  You can’t talk to them.  Do you have any glitter?  I want to put some on my face.”

“You talk enough for more than one person anyway,” Angelica said.  “I’m sure your children would be incredibly articulate.”  She released Hamilton and took a step back to admire her work.

“Or cowed into silence.”

“I don’t want that,” Lafayette protested to Hamilton.  “That’s not good.”

“Bend down for me,” Angelica said.  “Let me do your eyeliner.  I wish we’d picked up something a little bit extra,” she told Eliza.  “A little color to off-set his crown.  Nothing to be done for it now,” she went on, “unless one of us pops off into one of these stores to look for something.”

Lafayette looked around them with interest.

“I’d rather just get it over with,” Hamilton said, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Laurens stand still, his thumbs hooked into the belt loops on his pants.  “Shit,” he said, taking a step back and nudging Lafayette to a sound of protest from Angelica.  “He’s hot, isn’t he?  Look at that.  Angelica,” he continued, “look at him.  I told you you should see him with his shirt off.  Damn,” he said to himself with a whistle.  Laurens glanced over at that and Peggy snapped a picture, capturing the side of his face and jaw.  Hamilton grinned and waved.  Laurens gave him a bemused expression but then smiled and lifted one hand in return.  “Damn,” Hamilton repeated, leaning lightly on Angelica as she tried to finish up.  “You think he’ll get scouted while we’re out here?”

“Oh, I hope so.  That would fit in nicely with Peggy’s project.”

“If I’m not going yet, can I get my coat back at least?  I won’t ask for my shirt, don’t want to pull it over my head.  Thanks.”  He took it from Eliza, shifting his weight from side to side.  “Hey, Lafayette, you want me to take your picture as you get made up?  Send it off to France.”  He took his phone out of the pocket of the coat without waiting for a response, fumbling it a little.  “Smile.  Do you know Blue Steel?”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side in confusion and Hamilton laughed.

“Sorry, those were contradictory commands.  I have a movie to watch with you later, though, I’m surprised you never saw it.  Did it not make it to France?  Whatever, the reference is kind of dated.”

“Alexander.”  Eliza tapped him on the shoulder.  “Peggy’s ready for you.”

“I just got my coat back,” he complained, taking it off and handing it back.  “All right,” he said, walking over.  “Where do you want me?  Different background, mix it up?”

“Stand by John,” Peggy instructed.  “I want one with the two of you first.”

“No problem.  Hey, sexy,” Hamilton joked as he stood next to him.  “Can I lean in a little?  Body heat, that’s all, I swear.”

Laurens laughed awkwardly and put his arm over his shoulders.

“Yo, Lafayette,” Hamilton called, gesturing with two fingers between their eyes.  “Blue Steel.  Are you paying attention?”  He asked Peggy.  “you’ll want this.”

Peggy raised the camera again, then lowered it with an exasperated noise.  “Why are you making duckface?”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested, dropping it.  “I was pouting!  John,” he turned to him, putting his hand on his bare stomach.

“I—”  Laurens was cut off by Lafayette, cupping his hands to his mouth as if he needed to really shout across the yard or so between them.  

“Get behind the planter!”

Hamilton gave him a confused look.  “What?”

Lafayette pointed patiently to a nearby planter holding a somewhat put upon shrubbery and various pieces of refuse.  “It’ll be more natural.”

Hamilton laughed.  “Right, for the ducks.  Nature.  Something.  Got it.  I’m not climbing in that shit,” he added, even as he went to stand beside it and then after a pause leaned against it, blowing hair and leaves out of his face without any great dignity when he got caught in a branch.

Laurens snorted in laughter and Peggy made a sound of protest that he wasn’t taking it seriously enough.

“Get the pictures,” Angelica advised her.  “Even if they don’t work for your project they’ll work for blackmail.”

“Jesus, ow, okay.”  Hamilton untangled himself, temporarily losing his flower crown to the forces of nature and needing to retrieve it from the bush.  “Lafayette, your stupid plant has thorns.”

“I didn’t know that,” Lafayette told Eliza.  “How could I have known that?”

Hamilton, hair smoothed down again and crown back on, motioned for Laurens to join him a step away from the plant.  “She wanted us together, right?”

A few people were watching with distanced curiosity as they walked by, but most were completely ignoring them, streaming past without a second glance.  Hamilton had his head cocked just so and one hand still extended.

Laurens felt lost in the crowd and strangely comforted by it, hidden behind the antics of his friends.  Even more than that, hidden behind the ebb and flow of the city. 

There was a certain affinity between New York City and Paris, he thought as he walked over.  Geography mattered, scale…  He took Hamilton’s hand and saw him grin in pleased response.  There was a draw to a city this size, he thought, a kind of frenetic, self-perpetuating power—maybe that was what Hamilton meant when he compared it to the sea.  It was the way the tide pulled at your ankles.  It was the solidarity of the anonymous gaze.  You were just one more drop in an incomprehensible spectacle.

Laurens leaned down.  He kissed him.

Hamilton was caught completely off-guard, not even closing his eyes and feeling his face radiate heat as Laurens pulled away.

“What…”

“I love you,” Laurens said, too softly for the others to hear.  The side of his mouth curved up in a half-grin as he was unable to resist.  “Until the end of time.”

Hamilton gave him a baffled look.

“He’s a hell of a model,” Lafayette commented whoever cared to listen.  “Now _that_ is working the camera.”

“…Did you take a picture of that?”  Laurens asked, the spell broken as he turned quickly back to Peggy.

“John,” Hamilton said, putting his hand on his arm.  “Let her be.  She’s a profes—well, she’s not a moron, anyway, I’m sure we’ll get the chance to approve any pictures she takes before they go public.”

“I’ve got a picture of a pigeon eating vomit on here,” Peggy informed them bluntly.  Hamilton screwed up his face.  “There’s no way I’m showing ninety-nine percent of this to anyone.  Outside of us, I guess, since you’re helping me.”

“Can I see the pigeon?”

Peggy took a step back to show Lafayette her camera.

Laurens could feel a growing mess of anxiety tightening his chest and he made his hands into fists without thinking about it.

“Hey.”  Hamilton still had his hand on his arm and he could feel it tense.  “J.”

Laurens glanced down at him.  Hamilton felt a stab of pity at the fear hiding just behind his eyes.

“It’s okay.”

Laurens nodded and looked back at the others and then took a deep breath.

“I need to go for a walk.  I’m sorry.  I can’t…”

“It’s cool,” Hamilton said quickly, giving his arm a squeeze and then taking his hand off of him.  “Don’t worry about it, J.  I,” he was starting to talk more rapidly but caught himself and stopped.  “Thanks.  For the kiss but also for not just storming off unannounced.”

“I’m not—”  Laurens looked back and saw Hamilton tense.  The gold and red flower crown was starting to slip from its position, his dark hair falling a little messy underneath.  Laurens hesitated, knowing what he wanted to say but feeling like he was about to step out into thin air.  “…Do you want to come with me?”

Hamilton gave him a startled look.

“You can come,” Laurens repeated, his pulse rapid.  “If you want.”

Hamilton nodded, slowly at first and then more enthusiastically.  “Yeah.  Yeah, sure, if I’m not just gonna be a pain.  I don’t mind waiting,” he said, and then almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth he had Laurens’ hand and was calling to the others.  “We’re gonna go stretch our legs.  Get your footage of the general while we’re gone.”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  Hamilton waved cheerily at them and leaned into Laurens as he steered him away.

“They’ll have fun,” he said.  “Lafayette’s got plenty of practice hamming it up for the camera.  Bet he’d be on billboards by now  if he had the right visa.”  He looked up at Laurens.  “You okay?”

“I just don’t want pictures of that floating around.”

“It won’t be,” Hamilton promised.  He took the crown from his head, turning it over and then slipped it up onto his wrist and put his hand out.  “Give me yours.  We look like we’re from some raver retelling of a Greek tragedy.”

Laurens obediently handed it over and Hamilton inspected it.  “Long day, huh?  Your family doing okay?  You work out the ride stuff?”

“Yeah.  We won’t be stranded at the train station.”

“Good.  How far did you want to go?  We can go down and around the block or something.”

Laurens nodded.  “That sounds good.”

Hamilton lifted the crowns, one on top of the other, in front of his face.  He squinted, seeing what they would look like on the head of the woman in front of him.  “You think we’re keeping these?  I didn’t pay for them.  You want me to shut up,” Hamilton added, looking at Laurens again and trying to study his face for instructions, “just tell me.  I won’t be offended.  I’m just talking to fill the space, that’s what I do, you gotta tell me if you need to hear yourself think, J., or I’m going to keep going so it doesn't get awkward.”  Laurens tightened his grip for a moment on his hand and Hamilton fell silent for a couple of mintues, turning at the first intersection.  “Lotta shows down here.  I’ve never seen one.  I should do that sometime.”

The crowd thinned out and Laurens let go of his hand to rub his face with both of his own.  The wave of aggressive fear was abating.

“You know,” Hamilton said, looking at Laurens and then down at himself.  “We do this in summer, I bet we’re almost as popular as the naked cowboy.  We could hit up all the tourists.”

Laurens half-laughed.

“Should we charge for pictures or just ask for tips?”

“Pictures,” Laurens said.  “We might as well.”

“Hah.  Yeah.  You know Peggy’s moving into Mulligan’s spare room?  Did I tell you that?”

Laurens shook his head and Hamilton kept talking.

“Yeah, I’m not sure how she heard he needed a roommate, but maybe it was obvious from how the party went down.  Whatever happened to that guy, anyway?  Asshole.”

“Nothing.”

“‘Course.  Typical.  Well, not ‘nothing,’ right, J.?  He got knocked for one by a first string runningback, that’s gotta count for something.”

Laurens didn’t respond.  Hamilton chewed his lip, thinking, then continued.

“I’m not hearing a lot of anything either.  You hear anything?  That’s too vague.  How’s…  You know what, never mind, I’m not enough of a moron to pull at that thread.  Can you do me a favor?  Don’t even ask, I don’t want to think about it tonight.  Hey,” Hamilton said, “I know I said that I didn’t need you to come with me when I turn things in…”

“I need to drop in on one of my professors anyway.  I don’t mind going down with you.”

“Yeah?  Okay, great.  It should be no big deal, but you never know.”

Laurens shrugged.  “If you made all the changes they suggested.  I’m sure it will go quickly.”

Hamilton didn’t respond.

“…Alex?”

“Right.”

“You did make the changes, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did, J.  …And then some.”

Laurens looked at him suspiciously.  That was the second time he had said something to that effect.  “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m tired of office work,” Hamilton said as they rounded the next corner.  “I’m—Every day there’s something else.  Papers to file, letters to mail, proposals to draft.  I’m good at it, sure, but it’s killing me.  Like, what’s the point of it all anyway?  I’ve been doing this kind of work for years, I know how to do it, I’m not getting anything else out of it.”

Diplomacy, Laurens thought in a flash, that was where that skill—what little of it Hamilton had—had come from.

“I just want to get my hands dirty, you know?  So,” Hamilton said with an uncharacteristically long drawing out of the word, “I decided to, you know, dig a little deeper.”

“What are you doing?”

Something in Laurens’ tone caught Hamilton’s breath, stole it, stopped him in his tracks.  He looked up and into his face, Laurens’ head tipped slightly to the side and his eyes intent.

“I wanted,” Hamilton said and then started over.  “There are a lot of good ideas out there.  Ones that don’t get funded, because the people thinking them don’t have a platform or don’t know how to maneuver the system.  I’m their guy.”  A driver going past them leaned on the horn and Hamilton waited until he was gone.  “I can’t do shit on a larger scale yet—that’s coming one day, just you wait—but I see the kinds of proposals that come through and I see how some make it and some don’t—both at the office and at the—the fake office,” he laughed.  “They’re the same process, really, once you get the hang of it.  I’m supposed to be doing a research project anyway, right?”  He asked.  Laurens nodded.  “So I thought, why not, I’ll research with some live subjects.  How they interact with systems of power.  How systems of power interact with them,” Hamilton amended.  “Get some stuff taken care of at the same time.  Win-win.”

“That sounds great,” Laurens said.  Hamilton felt his spirits leap at how genuine he seemed.  “Why are you nervous?”

“It’s just…  a little outside of the box,” Hamilton admitted.  They had drifted apart as they walked and he closed the distance again.  “I’m already behind schedule, I don’t want to hit a wall again.”

“I thought you were good at breaking through those.”

“I am,” Hamilton agreed quickly.  “I’m going to get my way, even if they don’t agree that I will.  But it’d be easier to just not have to—you know?  The nature of what I’m trying to do,” he said, “I mean, it’d be easier to not ruffle feathers for once.”

“That’s true.”

“I should bring Lafayette.  He’s the real smooth talker.”

“I can play nice.”

“No you can’t, not really.”  Hamilton leaned against him.  “But I like that about you.  When you really get worked up that leash comes off.  Never change, J.”  Hamilton led them back towards Broadway, the neon billboards ahead of them making it clear they were headed in the right direction again.  “I’m not bringing Lafayette,” he said, “but I did tell him already.”

“Oh.”  Laurens was mildly surprised.  “You guys do talk a lot.”

“You’re not offended I told him first, right?”

“No.”

“It was kind of a favor,” Hamilton admitted.  “Not that I want to frame it like that.”

Laurens nodded.  “I understand.  I agree with you.  He's a smooth talker.”

“It’s not just that,” Hamilton said, “he’s got this lucky streak that I want to ride.  It’s like everyone just falls head over heels for him somehow.  I don’t need to explain it to you, we’re both friends with him.  Obviously it worked on us, too.”

“Obviously,” Laurens joked, “that’s why I’m dating him on the side.”

Hamilton gave a surprised laugh, relieved he had calmed down in time for their return.  “Are not.  You wouldn’t be able to put up with him.”

“I do okay with you.”

“Hah,” Hamilton said, making his hands into fists and running his fingers over his thumbs, trying to chase away the numbness.  “You do more than okay.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Laurens said, not sure if he deserved the compliment.

“You do.  Here.”  Hamilton handed him back his crown.  “I don’t know if they’ll want any more pictures of you, but I’ll look dumb wearing two.”  They rounded the final corner and Hamilton raised his hand in response to Lafayette (now with green and purple incandescent glitter on his cheekbones) spotting them, tapping Eliza on the shoulder, and waving.  “Jerk’s already dressed again.  I told you he’s lucky, J.  Come on,” he picked up the pace.  “Let’s get this over with.  Hey, ladies—and Lafayette—, what did we miss?”

“Lafayette got scouted,” Eliza said.  Lafayette held up an embossed business card.

“What?”  Hamilton snatched it from him.  “No way!  And I _missed_ it?”

“We have a picture of him with it.”

“That’s not the same,” Hamilton complained.  “I can see him with it for myself, I wanted to see the look on all of your faces when when it happened!”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Angelica assured him.  “We’ll even reenact it.  Let’s finish up out here, it’s getting cold.”

“ _You’re_ cold,” Hamilton muttered, handing it back as Peggy took him by the arm and dragged him away and leaving it unclear if he meant it as a jab or a pointed comparison.  “All right, all right!  Let’s get this over with.”


	129. Caffeine High and Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitching to Lafayette; Bitching at Burr; Patricide and Fraternity; Earrings; *Long Day

“I’m shooting my voice,” Hamilton complained to Lafayette as he cleared his throat.  “Last night plus all the yelling today, I can feel it going.”

“Yelling?”

“Student council meeting.”

“Ah.”

Hamilton cleared it again.  “Not anything important, just your typical charter rewrite.  Burr wanted to just send it through the way it already stands.  Can you believe that guy?”

“What a jerk,” Lafayette said without really paying attention as he searched for the start of the chapter he needed in his book.  “What was wrong with it?”

“I dunno,” Hamilton said, walking back and forth across the small dorm room.  “Stuff.  It was okay,” he admitted.  “Guess I didn’t really need to fight him on it.”

Lafayette found his place and looked up.

Hamilton caught his gaze and gave a little guilty shrug.  “I wanted the practice.  Burr’s good, I gotta admit.”

“At stopping you?”

“From getting what I want, yeah.  He’s good with logic, finds good arguments.”  For a moment it was clear why they had initially been friends.  “I only got, like half of what I wanted today.  That’s pretty unusual.”

“That is,” Lafayette said, lying down on his back and holding the book up above him.  “Most people just give in right away.”

“I know, right?  You think it’s how I sound?  Is it that annoying?”

“No,” Lafayette said, “you’re just very yippy.  Like a small dog.”

“Hey…”  Hamilton opened Lafayette’s closet and looked at himself in the mirror on the inside of the door.  “So I only got half,” he went on after a minute.  Lafayette sighed and resigned himself to not getting his work done.  “I got people to agree to meet again on Wednesday to go over the part about the distribution of funds.  I think that’s the most important part of it anyway,” Hamilton said.  “That’s the part that’ll make my life easier next semester if I can get the kinks smoothed out now.  Lay the pavement.”  He picked at a spot on his skin.  “Set the groundwork.  I should tell Angelica,” he said after another brief pause.  “I think she’ll be excited to hear it.  Well, if it gets resolved in my favor, otherwise the next time I can realistically expect anyone to do anything with this is when budget proposals are due, but that’s closer to the end of the semester.  You took your coat to get dry-cleaned?”

“Hm?”  Lafayette sat up, putting his book down on the mattress next to him.  “ _Oui_.  It is dry-clean only.”

Hamilton pulled out the long coat, hanging in a plastic bag with the name of the cleaner on the top.  “Rip off.  Wasn't this thing stupidly expensive?  Like, conversion rates aside.”

“It’s a nice coat.  Adrienne bought it for me.”

“I know.”  Hamilton put it back.  “I’m just saying.”  He closed the door and then crossed the room, sitting at the foot of Laurens’ bed and taking a thermos from his bag.  “Cold coffee.”  He took a long drink.  “Maybe I should splurge and get myself one of those vacuum insulated flasks for Christmas.”

“Do you really need more caffeine?  You seem so wired already.”

“Yeah, well, we got back late last night and I needed to be on top of shit today.”

“You need to, how do you say, take it down a notch.  Where’s John?”

“Hah.  I wish.  He’s in class, though.”

Lafayette eyed his book.  “Is he getting back soon?”

“Don’t you know his schedule?  He’s done at the hour.”  Hamilton took another drink.

“You should invite him back to your place.  I’m meeting Adrienne for lunch tomorrow morning.”

“ _Bon appétit_.”  Hamilton got back to his feet.  “What are you doing?”

“Homework.”

“Oh.”  He looked up at the ceiling, quiet for a moment.  “…Should I stop talking?”

“Do you have work to do?”

“Always.  You’re right, I should get on it sooner rather than later.  More free time this evening.”

“That’s the spirit,” Lafayette said encouragingly and picked up his book again.  “I want to finish this chapter while Adrienne is busy.”

“Right, right, sorry to mess up your schedule.  You guys will be one of those old couples who’ve practically choreographed their movements to fit around one another, won’t you?”

“I hope so,” Lafayette said, turning the page.

“You’ll be cute.”  Hamilton took his laptop out of his bag and settled down on the floor with it, using Laurens’ bed as a backrest.  “I expect you to send me yearly Christmas cards.  You and the missus and all your children and cats.”

Lafayette just smiled at the page in front of him.

“…Giant tree in the background covered with ornaments equal to the GDP of Poland,” Hamilton added, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand and then starting to type.  “I’ll be real disappointed if you don’t at least let me live vicariously.”

 

> A. Hamilton: Hey

> A. Hamilton: can  i meet you on campus?  I need to swing by and get signatures

> A. Hamilton: we can go back to my place after

> A. Hamilton: “we can,” I really mean that “we have to” because I told your roommate that you wouldn’t be around in the morning.

> A. Hamilton: I figured that’s okay?

> A. Hamilton: you wanna reply tons ome of this J you’re making me anxious

> J. Laurens: Sorry.  Of course it’s fine

> J. Laurens: Where do you want to meet?

> A. Hamilton: library

 

> A. Hamilton: knock knock

> A. Hamilton: Concerning our joint venture, in which we agreed upon mutually beneficial terms to advance our separate yet non-conflicting interests, I am afraid that I have yet to see you make good on your side of the bargain.

> A. Hamilton:  An adequate length of time has passed given the exchange of services we agreed upon—even after we agreed your initial “plan” was stupid—, to the extent that it would be widely and generally understood that I could expect to have the beginnings of a return on my investment.

> A. Hamilton: put up or get out

> A. Burr:  Does this mean that you have information for me?

> A. Hamilton: of course I do, and I’m here to dangle it over your head until you give me what I want

 

Burr, across campus, put a single space in the text window to show that he was typing and locked and put his phone back in his pocket.

 

Hamilton was already at the library by the time Laurens showed up, standing outside with his coat fastened all the way and debating if he should continue either of his text conversations or go back inside and buy a third coffee.

“John.”  He stepped forward, holding his paperwork in both hands, his face slightly flushed from the cold.

“Sorry.  Were you waiting long?”

“Nah.  Well, kind of.  I went in to print and came back out.  Didn’t want to miss you.”

Laurens gave him a surprised glance at that.  “Are you nervous about talking to them?”

“No,” Hamilton said, resisting the urge to toy with the papers.  “Come on.  I want to get this over with so I can move on with things and also so we can move on back to my place.”

They set off, Hamilton talking to fill the space between them and the office.  “Do you want to hear something interesting?”  Between his nerves and the caffiene, Hamilton didn’t wait for Laurens to answer.  “So French Revolution, you see this pushback against the idea of paternal monarchy, depictions of the king-as-father move away from the standard—well, standard to our imagination when we try to depict it to ourselves—image of the king as patriarch of the country.  Parallel to father as patriarch of the household, God as patriarch over all.  That’s pretty standard Western monarchical construction, you know, set up that chain of being,” he drew his hands out, one moving up and the other moving down, forefinger and thumb together as if he was pinching a string between them, “with God at the top and then down from there.  But what happens when you overthrow the king?  Not saying that the French were the first to do that in this set up, you take a look across the channel at England, for example, ‘course that didn’t end well from an enlightened republic point of view, but—”  He slashed his hands the air.  “Moving on.”

The breeze picked up and blew a few loose strands of hair into Hamilton’s face.

“So what happens when you get rid of the father?  Not just rejecting an individual king, John, but the whole _symbolism_ of the thing.  And there’s the rub.  You can’t get a queen mother because the revolt’s not coming from the daughters, bread riots a—well, okay, not _aside_ , but my point is you got sons up in arms as well and they’re the ones _with_ the arms largely anyway.  That’s the clue,” he added, glancing up at Laurens.  “The sons.  Fraternity’s born from patricide, at least in this imagined family.  Kill the father, kill the mother, push _forward_ ,” he motioned the direction with both his hands flat, palms facing each other and a few inches apart, “this _liberté, égalité, fraternité_ , but you’re doing so on the back of a gendered system.  It’s not _sororité_ ,” he said, “it’s just a generational inheritance and redistribution of the estate.  A forced reading of the will.  No more primogeniture, no elevation of the eldest or favorite son to the position of father.  Sitting down and saying, ‘okay, the old man’s dead and we killed him, let’s divide the house up amongst ourselves.’  That’s the fraternal aspect, John, drawing up a new final testament and keeping your sisters sidelined so you can inherit a larger share.  You might be giving up your one in twenty million shot at waking up one day a patriarch, but at least you’ve still got _loco parentis_ over someone, and that can’t change like class theoretically can.”

“You need a new language.”

“Yeah.  I mean, speaking of class, this account assumes it died with the king.  Race doesn’t feature.  Ability.  The model’s description is fundamentally Freudian,” Hamilton shrugged, “nuance isn’t it’s strong suit.”

“No,” Laurens corrected him, “I mean _you_ need one.  To express what you’re trying to do.  With your project and,” he motioned vaguely ahead of them, “all of this.”

“I guess.  Can’t encompass it properly otherwise.  Language is a tricky thing, J.  Do we ask people to conform to the idea of brother or do we add in a new category all together?  The former is easier, but,” he slipped his hand into Laurens’, “it sucks to have to wear a role that was never designed for you.”

“If you add too many categories it loses its power.”

“The model breaks down,” Hamilton agreed readily.  “We like our imagined symbols simple.”

“Paternity is simpler than fraternity,” Laurens pointed out.

“The transition still involved murder, literal as well as figurative.  But,” Hamilton went on, “you run with the metaphor we set up and no one needs to die.  We’re not debating children who are waiting for an inheritance, but siblings who deserve their fair share.”

Laurens nodded slowly, trying to make sure he had unpacked Hamilton’s tangent to get at what he was actually trying to talk about.  “You’re right,” he said.  “And the French Revolution is a classic in the department.”

“God, it is.”  Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “Imagine a world where we get our ears talked off about Haiti instead of the Bastille.  Buy me a ticket to that one instead.  But what do you think?”

“I think you’re going to confuse any professor of yours whose signature you need,” Laurens told him.  “You’re better off giving them just the straight-forward answer unless they say they want an example after hearing it.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton sighed.  “You’re right.  Where’s the style in that, though?”

“I don’t think anyone in a position of authority would like to be likened to Louis XVI.”

“I’m not talking about them,” Hamilton said, “I’m talking about the student council.  If they want to broaden the metaphor that’s on them.”

“You’re baiting them.”

“I’m baiting Jefferson,” Hamilton corrected him.  “We all know he likes to rip me to shreds.  I probably shouldn’t give him the opportunity,” he said as if he was just coming to that conclusion for the first time and not really caring anyway.  “Oh well.”  He glanced up and say Laurens’ expression.  “…I’ll play nice, I swear.  Just give him the thing to sign.  Let him flip through it.  Assure him that the rest will just be a _footnote_ to demonstrate applicability of my findings, give a neat little example and walk through of how to open up the lines of communication and how much easier that makes it for the unwashed masses to launch a bloodthirsty revolution.  How does that sound?”

“Less sarcasm,” Laurens suggested.

“Right.  Right, uh.  Something about how I am going to be researching, in actual books, about how people at more of a remove from positions of power interact with the systems that said power flows through?  And various attempts that have historically been made to encourage or enable access.  I will be using that as my framework to go into my actual argument that improving access to a platform correlates with measures being passed that are more beneficial to disenfranchised peoples.  It’s kind of juvenile,” Hamilton admitted.  “But then I guess,” he shrugged, “undergrad thesis.  No one is going to be giving out any medals of honor for this.”

“And the student council?”  Laurens prompted.

“I am going to be conducting a case study,” Hamilton went on, speaking more formally again, “on a small scale.  I will be making it easier for students to bring measures they are interested in before the student council on campus and seeing how that affects the kinds of things that get passed this coming spring semester.”  Hamilton looked up at Laurens.  “That good?”

“If you had said that on your proposal the first time you wouldn't have run into any issues.”

“I know, I’m a wordy and unclear pain in the ass.”  Hamilton cracked his knuckles as they entered the building.  “Okay, meet me back at the door?  Here goes.”

 

“Gilbert,” Adrienne said carefully, “it’s not that I don’t want to hear your voice, but I thought we were going to video chat.”

Lafayette laughed nervously and just a little too loud.  “Oh, yes, I almost forgot.  Hold on.”  He was pacing the room just like Hamilton had been a little while before and he rolled his eyes at himself as he propped his phone up at his desk and switched to video.  “Hello?”

“There, now I can—”  Adrienne gasped and clasped her hands to her mouth.  “Gil!”  The name was muffled.

“Yes…?”  He smiled sheepishly at her.

“ _Did_ you?”

“Maybe,” Lafayette nodded, delicately touching one of his earrings.  “Yes, definitely.”

“Oh…”

“Do you not like it?”  He asked, pleading a little.

“Are you cleaning them?  You don’t want them to get infected.”

Lafayette let out a relieved breath.  “Yes.  Don’t worry, my life, I’m being careful.”

“Good.  Are those diamonds?”

“Cubic zirconia.”

“When you come home over Christmas I have a pair you can try,” Adrienne said shyly.  “They’re smaller than those, but I think they would look good on you.”

“All right,” Lafayette nodded enthusiastically.  “Adrienne,” he went on, “I wasn't expecting it, but they hurt me when I sleep.  I can’t lie on my side.”

She gave a little laugh.  “It’s because those are the starters.  Normally the posts aren’t as pointed.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette felt his earrings again, paying careful attention to the backs.  “I see.  You're so smart.  How did you know that?”

“You just learn things,” Adrienne said, smiling fondly.

“You’ll have to teach me,” Lafayette said.  “I don’t know anything and you’re so good at things like this.  You’re very patient.”

Adrienne leaned forward at her desk, resting her arms on the space before her computer.  “I love you.”

Lafayette’s smile broadened.  “I love you too.  What brought that on?”

She shook her head slowly, still smiling.  “I just do.”

“Good,” Lafayette said, “I’m glad.”

 

“Mm,” Hamilton said, pleased, eyes closed, head tipped back, Laurens’ mouth on his neck and his hand inside his briefs.  They were lying on the hard floor, never having made it to the still-folded mattress, and Laurens moaned against his skin as Hamilton ran his hand through his hair.

“Yeah, J.,” Hamilton rocked his hips forward, moving into his hand and feeling his pulse quicken.  He wondered if Laurens could feel it under his lips.  “But, ah,” he swallowed, momentarily losing the words.  “Sex.”

Laurens gave a brief laugh and moved away, letting Hamilton sit up.  “Yeah?”  He leaned forward, undoing the buttons on Hamilton’s shirt for him.

“Please.”

“Right.”  Laurens moved closer, putting one hand on his lower back as he slid the shirt off his shoulders.  It fell to the floor and he gently pushed him down, turning his attention to removing his already open pants.  Hamilton swore, then coughed, covering his mouth automatically with his arm.

“Sorry,” he apologized.  “Allergies.  Too many jackasses in one day.  Did I tell you about how the—ah—”  His words were cut short by Laurens’ mouth on his bare cock and he groaned, arching towards him and putting one hand on his arm as Laurens held his legs apart.  “J…”

Laurens felt the blood rush to his face at the sound of his name.  Hamilton was already pleading with him and he had to force himself not to keep going.  He sat back—Hamilton gave a short whimper—and pulled his shirt off over his head.  “Ready?”

“God, yes.”  In spite of that, Hamilton was still lying on the floor and it took him a second before he ran his tongue over his lower lip and got up, watching as Laurens finished stripping.  “How should I…?”  He shook his head and cleared his throat, then braced himself over the mattress, leaning his arms on it and looking down.  “Right.”  His cheek was warm where it brushed his arm.

Laurens came up behind him and Hamilton shivered involuntarily as he ran his hands down the sides of his body and set them at his hips.  He bent down and kissed his back lightly, his cock rubbing up between Hamilton’s thighs.  “Do you have a condom out here?”

“Bathroom.  Or my backpack,” Hamilton amended quickly.  “That’s faster.”

Laurens got up and knelt by Hamilton’s bag, digging through it.  “Where is it?”

“Second zip pocket.  It’s right there.”

“Hang on.  I’m not seeing it.”

“John,” Hamilton complained.

“Wait a second.”  Laurens was still rummaging around.  Hamilton gave a little noise of impatience.  “Got it.”

He was back behind him and Hamilton exhaled deeply, spreading his legs a little farther in anticipation.

“J.”  He heard the snap of the bottle opening.

“Yeah?”  Laurens cupped him between his legs and Hamilton made a startled sound.  He gently rolled his sac in his hand as he pressed a finger into him.  Hamilton swore again and Laurens grinned.  “Is it just me or are you more hard-up than normal?  You’re usually not this vocal this quickly.”

Hamilton answered him with a whine, sliding forward so he could rest his face on his fist.  “Long day.  Hurry up.”

“Were you waiting all day?”

“Y-yes.”

“ _All_ day?”

“John, _please_ …”

Laurens added a second finger, slowly spreading them as Hamilton moaned.  It was so easy to get a reaction from him and it was making him burn with desire.

“Tell me about it.  Tell me how you were waiting.”

“J.,” Hamilton pleaded.  “Come on.  You know I think about y-you.”

“Not always like this.”

“Every day.”

“Not this much.”

“I don’t—”  Hamilton became momentarily inarticulate as Laurens curled and pressed his fingers against him.  He slurred something that Laurens couldn’t make out as words.

“What was that?”

“I just really wanted to do this with you.”  The sentence was still hard to hear at the angle and with his head in his arms, but Laurens could understand him this time.

“This exactly?”  It was so hard not to just take his hand away and replace it with his cock.

“A-anything.  Anything.  J.”  Hamilton sniffed.  “Y-you know me.  I get worked up this—calms me down, I just—long day,” he gave a bare and embarrassed laugh.  “Fucking long day.  Just—give it to me.”

“Whatever you say, Alexander.”  Laurens kissed his back again, feeling the heat from his skin and moved his hand back to his hip, pushing into him as Hamilton slipped a little further down onto the mattress and groaned loudly.

“God,” Laurens said, shaking his head slightly and stopping once he was all the way in.  He stayed there, still, taking a minute to regulate his breathing and looking down at Hamilton in front of him—his back broadening to his shoulders, their muscles arched as he leaned forward onto his arms.  His dark hair was falling to one side, exposing the curve of his neck and the ridges along his spine.  Laurens exhaled slowly and pulled out, letting his eyes close as he set a steady pace.

Hamilton gasped and tightened his fists, letting his nails bite into his palms.  Every thrust was a flood of heat and pleasure and he moaned encouragingly, urging Laurens on.

Laurens pushed into him harder, giving himself over to the sensation, and heard Hamilton call out his name.

“John—!”

He couldn’t help himself.  He moved faster, more forcefully, feeling Hamilton’s knees buckle for a second before he caught himself, and hearing his breathing coming as short pants.  “Alex—”  His breath hitched.  “—ander.”

Hamilton came with a jerk and ran one hand up into his hair, pushing it out of his face while he braced himself on the mattress as Laurens continued to thrust behind him.  He finished as well after another minute, his grip on Hamilton’s hips tight and sweat falling from his brow to Hamilton’s back.

“Alexander.”  He sat back on his heels, then fully onto the floor, supporting himself with one hand as his heart continued to race.

Hamilton slowly pushed himself to his feet.  “Shit,” he muttered.  “The mattress.  J., can you…?”  He rubbed his eyes.  “I’m taking these out.”

Laurens continued to sit where he was for a minute, a little dazed, and came back to himself when Hamilton came out of the bathroom with his glasses on.

“John, the mattress.”  He sounded irritated.

“Sorry.”  Laurens got up and brushed past him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it as he went.  “Wet paper towel okay?”  He ran water from the sink over his face and hands and cock, then dampened a paper towel and came back out.  “Hold on.  Why don't we ever just put a towel down?  We should just put a towel down.”

Hamilton was standing, holding half the bedding in his arms, the other half trailing onto the floor.  Once Laurens had cleaned off the mattress and unfolded it he set about making the bed.  He sat and then lay down on it, pulling his pillow to and the blankets over him.

Laurens sat next to him.  “Are we going to bed already?”

“Read if you want.”  Hamilton slipped his arms around his waist, holding him loosely.  “I’m crashing.  All the caffeine.”  He tightened his grip slightly.  “Just like an hour.  Power nap.”

Laurens took his hand and moved away, out of his arms but still holding onto him.  “Right.  You need a better sleep schedule.”  He managed to reach the strap of his bag and he pulled it to him, taking his laptop out and opening it.  “Do you mind?”

“Headphones.”

“Right.”

Laurens lay on his front under the covers with his laptop off the futon in front of him.  He shifted his weight as he got his headphones out and on, then settled in.

“Do you want me to set an alarm?”

“Mm.”  Hamilton hooked his leg over Laurens’ and wrapped his arm around one of his as well, curling towards him.  “If I’m not up.”

Laurens cradled his head in his own arms, still looking at the text he had pulled up on the screen but feeling sleep threaten to overtake him now that he was in bed and had Hamilton next to him.  He yawned and made a promise he didn’t really intend to keep.  “Sure thing.”


	130. Rough Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> De Ségur Forgot the Time Difference and/or Didn't Care to Check; Stubborn AF; Sending/Receiving Messages; Drawing a Blank

Lafayette woke up with a start about twenty minutes before his alarm for his lunch date with Adrienne.  His phone was going off and he scrambled out of bed to get it from his desk with a spike of anxiety.

“ _Allô_?”

“ _Salut_!”

Lafayette drew his hand over his face and sat down heavily at his desk.  “De Ségur?  Do you know what time it is?”

“Ten in the morning,” de Ségur replied and Lafayette wanted to throw his phone against the wall in response to how awake and cheerful he sounded.  “Oh, you mean in America.  How many hours back are you?”

“I’m going to murder you,” Lafayette mumbled behind his hand.  “I’m going to go back to Paris _just_ to murder you.”

“I’m honored.  Hey, you’re up now though, aren't you?  Are you free?”

“Am I—”  Lafayette closed his eyes tightly while he processed the inanity of that question.  “I have twenty minutes,” he finally said.  “But then I need to get ready to meet Adrienne.”

“All right, I’ll be fast.”  It sounded like he was in public somewhere.  Lafayette could dimly hear the sound of traffic in the background.  “Actually, I’m glad I’m catching you before she does.”

Lafayette perked up a little.

“I just left her grandparents’.  Elizabeth was introducing me to them properly.”

“Adrienne’s grandparents, Elizabeth’s parents?”  It was too early in the morning for this genealogy.

“Yeah.”

“How did it go?”

There was a slight pause and the click of a lighter.  De Ségur’s response was mumbled at first, obscured by the cigarette in his mouth.  “Better than we were afraid of.  There weren’t any tears or threats, so that’s good.  They aren’t trying to insist that we break it off.”

“Good,” Lafayette said, relieved.  “Adrienne will be happy.”

“Yeah,” de Ségur said sarcastically, “that’s the important part.  Anyway,” he went on, “like I said, it could have gone worse.  They did ask her if she was going to convert.”

Lafayette, sitting, in the dark an ocean away, winced.

De Ségur obviously knew he had, and he laughed.  “I know, right?  It was like they couldn’t help themselves.  ‘Elizabeth,’” he mimicked the voice, “‘you’re not going to become a _Muslim_ , are you?’  Like they forgot for a second that I was sitting right there next to her.  I think they half expected her to take a veil out of her bag.”

“They’ll come around,” Lafayette said as if he was trying to convince both of them.  “They all like me now.”

“Yeah, you’re the golden boy.”

“Louis is probably the golden boy.”

“Okay,” de Ségur agreed, “but he’s their actual blood relative.  You’re still closer to kin than I am.  I don’t know, Lafayette, I appreciate your being supportive, but I don’t think they’ll ever really come around.”  His voice was still casual but Lafayette could see his shoulders slouch a little and his hand raise his cigarette.  “Can you imagine if I was actually religious like they are?  It’s bad enough as it is.  They liked me before,” he complained, “that much is like with you.  Good enough to be a friend, not good enough to be anything else.  Anyway,” de Ségur said again, “I’ll let you go.  I thought you’d like to know how it went.”

“Call me again sometime,” Lafayette said.  “Or text me.  Then you won’t give me a heart attack at five in the morning.”

 

Laurens, like Lafayette, woke before his alarm.  He had gotten up late that night to take his headphones off and close his laptop, and then alternated between dozing and playing on his phone for a few hours, not willing to wake Hamilton if he was so soundly asleep.  It wasn’t until he heard the second coughing fit that he got up and pulled on a pair of pants.

“Alex?”  He knocked on the bathroom door.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”  He sounded a little strangled.

“Are you sick?”

Hamilton started coughing again.  “I’m fine,” he repeated after a minute.

“Alex, come back to bed.  Do you need something to drink?”

“I have water.”  Laurens could hear him put the mug down on the side of the sink for emphasis.  “And my laptop.  I’m fine.  Go back to sleep.  I don’t want to keep you up.”

“I’m awake now.”  Laurens tried the handle but it was locked.

“I don’t want to make you—”  Hamilton cut himself off, clearing his throat and taking a drink.

“I thought you said you weren’t sick.”

“Said I was fine.”

Laurens sighed.  “Look, if I’m going to get sick the damage is already done.  I have to go in an hour.  Just come back out.  I feel weird talking to you through a door.”

There was a pause, then Hamilton opened the door and stepped out, all false-casualness in sweatpants and a pullover, taking a sip from a university mug.  “Hey, J.  You’re up, I’m up.  What’re the odds.  Wanna fuck?”

Laurens gave him an incredulous look.  “No.”

“Too bad.”  Hamilton leaned against his desk, subtly keeping several feet between them.  “What’s going on?”

“You woke me up.”

“Yeah, sorry.”  Hamilton took another, longer, drink.  “My throat’s shot.  I was complaining about that to Lafayette yesterday.”  He saw Laurens’ skeptical look and relented, sounding a little more genuine.  “Look, I don’t have anything on me.  I’ll buy something on my way to campus.  Riccola, something.  Okay?”

“You’re still going to campus?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”  Hamilton cleared his throat and shook his head, his loose hair falling across his shoulders.  He looked at the water in irritation for not helping more.  “I feel fine,” he clarified.  “People’ll be overjoyed that I can’t talk as much.”

“All right.”  Laurens stepped towards him and Hamilton moved away, sliding further down the desk.  Laurens gave him a suspicious look.  “Hey.”

Hamilton intentionally turned away, picking a book up off the desk and stacking it on top of two others, letting the action and sound cover a sniff.

“Kiss me.”

“What?”  Hamilton looked back quickly.  “No.”

“Why not?”

“I—You didn’t want to fuck,” Hamilton said, lurching from something near panic to haughty indignation.  “So, no.”

“You’re sick.”

“I am not.”  He took another drink and then put the mug down, moving a step away again to compensate for Laurens taking one more towards him.  “I just hate you a little.”

“Yeah…?”  Laurens closed the space between them quickly, pinning Hamilton to the desk with one hand on either side of him and leaning over him.  It was the sort of thing that should have made Hamilton melt or yank him closer but instead the panicked look in his eyes came back and he shoved him away.  Laurens let himself be moved and Hamilton almost bolted to stand in the middle of the room by his backpack, hands in front of himself in protest or for distance.

“Fine!  Let it go before you wreck yourself, John, Jesus!”

“You’re sick,” Laurens said flatly.  “Go back to bed.”

“At least I bothered to put clothes on,” Hamilton muttered, crossing his arms.  “I don’t want to get you sick, okay?  Especially if you’re playing the away game this weekend.”

Laurens felt both touched and guilty.  “Oh.  I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I knew you wouldn’t.  Did you ever even get the freakin’ flu shot?”

“Not like it helped you much.”

Hamilton laughed, then immediately started coughing, covering his mouth with his arm and turning away.  It sounded deeper than before and Laurens took a step towards him then backed away when he waved him off with his free hand.

“‘m okay,” Hamilton managed then started up again.  He finally got control of himself and cleared his throat.  “Water.”  He took it from the desk and went back to standing at a distance.  “That’s better,” he said after a long drink, then looked up and met Laurens’ very unsure gaze.  “Look,” he said placatingly, “it’s just my throat.  I’m telling the truth, I feel fine, my head’s fine.  I can still think, so there’s no point in my calling out.  I got contacts in already and everything.  I’ll probably be even more productive than usual since I can’t really talk to people.”  His voice was starting to sound more strained.  “Everyone’ll be happy.  It’s a win-win.”

Laurens shook his head, knowing he wasn’t going to win the argument.  “Fine.  Then I’m getting dressed.”

Hamilton smirked over the lip of the mug.  “Aw.”

 

“I don’t think she’s happy about it,” Adrienne said, putting down her drink.  “But,” she smiled a little, “it sounds like Elizabeth is.”

“That’s great,” Lafayette enthused, wiping his hands on his napkin and adjusting the angle of the screen.  “No one yelled?  No one threatened to move out and get a divorce?”

Adrienne gave a little uncomfortable laugh.  “Not this time.”

“It was just a very strange threat from such a Catholic woman,” Lafayette said, more to himself than to Adrienne.  “Ah, but I am not complaining,” he went on quickly, “it is also strange that they let me live with them and that was very, very nice of them.  Did I tell you that my grandmother says hello and asks how they are doing?”

Adrienne smiled at him.  “I hope we can all get together over Christmas break.”

“You and me and Alex and John?”

“No, Elizabeth and your friend.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said with a nod.  “Yes, that makes much more sense.  I don't think the other two will be coming back to France for the holidays.”

“They’re welcome to stay again.  But I’m sure John wants to be with his family.”

Lafayette nodded.  “It’s not as long of a break.  Maybe next summer, after they graduate…?”

“Will they have time?  Or will they be busy with work?”

“I don’t know,” Lafayette admitted.  “I’m not sure if even they know what their immediate plans are.”

“Please let them know that the offer is always extended.”

“I will,” Lafayette promised.  “This news aside, how has your day been?”

Adrienne began to tell him about her classes and the upcoming work she had to do while he settled down to eat his lunch.  He had only gotten a few bites in when message alerts started coming through on his laptop and he had to put down his fork.

 

> A. Hamilton: John’s stayign with you tonight

> A. Hamilton: all right?  Don’t let him tell you otherwise

> A. Hamilton: tomorrow too probably, ill let you know when I can take him off your hands again

 

“Excuse me,” Lafayette told Adrienne.  “I think Alexander is doing something stupid again.”

“Again?”

“I know,” he sighed, copy-pasting her the messages.  “I should respond to him,” he apologized.

 

> G. Lafayette: What did you do now?

> A. Hamilton: wow

> A. Hamilton: judgey much?

> A. Hamilton: It’s not a big deal, okay? we’re nt fighting or anything

> A. Hamilton: chill

 

Lafayette looked at the messages and then at the clock.  He only had ten more minutes with Adrienne.  Did he really want to spend them troubleshooting Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship?

 

> G. Lafayette: All right.  I’ll let him know that he’s staying here.

> A. Hamilton: awesome, thanks

 

“Now then,” Lafayette said, turning his attention back to Adrienne.  “Forgive me.  Please, continue.”

 

“Hey.”

Angelica looked up from her phone in surprise as Hamilton took his seat next to her, not bothering to take his coat off.  “You sound awful.”

“Thanks,” he complained, loosening his scarf and pausing to put his fist to his face.  Don’t cough, not the time.  He took his thermos from his bag and unscrewed the lid.

“Seriously.”  Angelica put her phone away.  “Are you losing your voice?”

“Don’t jinx it.”  Hamilton cleared his throat, sounding more normal once he started speaking again.  “If I get laryngitis I’m blaming you.  God, I hate winter.”

“You said that before.”

“Well, it’s true.  Every freaking year since I got here, Angelica.  You’d think just once we could skip it.”

“I have something that might make you feel better.”

“A vacation?  The sweet release of death?”

“A picture from Peggy.”

Hamilton perked up, his tone completely changing.  “Oh yeah?  Uh, do you want to email it to me?  Or is text better?  Which do you think would be more secure?”

“I’ll email it to you.  I might as well make use of that address since you put it on your card.”

“Those cards were a good idea.”  Hamilton took his scarf off the rest of the way and took another drink.  “I enjoy carrying them around.”

“You would.”  She fell quiet as Jefferson came in and took his place behind the podium at the front of the room.

“All right, y’all, let’s get started.  I’m going to have you all take out the reading you did on Smith and the nation.  Who wants to define for us what Smith means by primordial nationalism?  Yes, go.”  Jefferson called on a student in the back while Hamilton, suddenly drawing a blank, flipped through the chapter he had printed out in front of him, trying to find the proper quote and the proper response and then, after noting with a jab of frustration that the question had already been answered and the discussion was moving on, a question or insight that would get just a little under Jefferson’s skin.

“Yes?”  Jefferson said with a little more resignation than normal as Hamilton’s hand shot up.  “Do you have something to add?”

“I’ve just got a question that I thought we could discuss,” Hamilton said, holding the printout in both hands now and looking at the bottom of one of the pages.  “Smith talks about this primordial nationalism, right, so he’s positing it existing prior to what’s typically discussed, but there’s a major flaw with the way he goes about proving it.”

Jefferson leaned one arm on the podium.  “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Hamilton said, clearing his throat, “I’m not surprised he sticks mostly with Europe, kind of par for the ethnocentric course, but his one parry into Africa and it’s just to talk about how African states took their founding myths from Europeans and turned those imported pre-modern forms of nationalism to their own use.  Why couldn’t he have used something that already organically existed in the area?”

Jefferson gave him a quizzical look and for a moment Hamilton felt a smug rush, then he noticed Angelica was also looking at him in mild confusion.

“If I recall,” Jefferson said, turning the pages in his book, “that section was talking about colonialism drawing arbitrary borders in Africa and creating an analogy to that happening in other parts of the world.”

Hamilton felt himself turn red.  Angelica looked away to spare him his pride.

“What page are you looking at?”

“Uh…”  Hamilton fumbled the papers, trying to find the number.

“I found it.  Yes,” Jefferson said, agreeing with himself, “Smith’s talking about the act of border-drawing.  Does anyone have anything they’d like to say about that?”

Hamilton slouched down an inch in his seat, taking a long drink from his thermos, and was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of class.


	131. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Social Life; Self-Quarintine; I Regret All of my Choices

“Did Alexander tell you that you’re staying at the dorm tonight?”

Laurens jerked his head up from his pizza, embarrassed.  He wiped his mouth off with his hand quickly and responded with his mouth still full while his teammates snickered.  “What?”

“Alexander told me to tell you that you’re staying at the dorm,” Lafayette said again, taking a seat at the table with a slice of chocolate cake.

“What did you do?”  Tallmadge asked, barely keeping himself from laughing as he nudged Laurens.  “Piss him off?”

“I didn’t—”  Laurens sputtered.  “He—They never said that I did anything.”

“Yeah, but you got yourself kicked out of bed,” Tench said, sitting next to Lafayette and grinning.  “Seriously, Laurens, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Laurens protested, blushing.  “Lafayette, what are you doing?  Don’t just waltz in here and stir the pot!”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, I understood both of those.”

“What did he do?”  Tench asked Lafayette this time.  “Laurens is right, you shouldn't leave us all hanging like this.”

Lafayette shrugged.  “He didn’t say.”  He took a bite of the cake.

“I didn’t do anything,” Laurens repeated.  “It’s not like I stay over there all the time.  I usually sleep at the dorm.  Tell them, Lafayette.”

Lafayette hesitated a moment, doing the math.

“Oh my God,” Laurens moaned, hiding his face behind his hand.  “You _suck_.”

“He lives off campus, doesn’t he?”  Tallmadge asked.  “What’s the commute like?”

“It’s not bad,” Laurens muttered.  He sighed and put his pizza down, taking out his phone and typing on it.

“Are you asking why you’re in the doghouse?”

“I’m not in trouble,” Laurens complained.  “ _He_ is for dragging the rest of you into this.”

“Drama,” Tench mouthed at Lafayette, turning his attention back to his food.

“I don’t mind if you make him take it back,” Lafayette said.  “You can sleep at his place more often.”

“You should get a single next year,” Tallmadge said.  “Shared doubles suck.”

“Oh, come on,” Tench said, actually sounding a little offended.  “I’m not a bad roommate!”

“Are we getting into this again?”

“I think I’d get lonely in a single,” Lafayette said.  “I like having people around.”

“Big family?”

“No.”

“Did you ever think of joining a frat?  Is he allowed to join?”  Tench followed up his own question, looking back at Tallmadge.  “I mean, I’d vouch for him, but I’m not sure if it’s kosher.”

“It probably depends on his status with the school.  You’re not still an exchange student, are you?”

Lafayette shook his head.  “No.”

“It’s late for rushing,” Tallmadge said.  “What year are you?”

“This is my second year here, but my third total.  Ah, but not all of my credits transferred…”

“It’s complicated,” Tench answered for him.  “Hey, we’ll put someone in touch with you next fall if you’re interested.  It’s a good way to meet people.  Once you get seniority the rooms are nicer, too.”

“I’m not in trouble,” Laurens announced.  The other three looked at him, momentarily not remembering where the conversation had been going previously.  “He’s just not feeling well.  I told him he was sick,” he added, triumphant, then realizing how he looked and how much he was giving away between the lines.  He put his phone down, quietly going back to his lunch.  Tallmadge patted him on the shoulder.

“What’s up?”

Tallmadge looked up as Humphreys joined them.  “Laurens embarrassed himself.”

“A couple times,” Tench added.

“Aw.  And I missed it?”

“Shut up,” Laurens complained.  “They’re exaggerating.”

“Are you in a frat, too?”  Lafayette asked, taking pity on Laurens and changing the subject.

“Me?”  Humphreys asked.  “No.  Why, are these two trying to get you to sign up?”

“We weren’t pressuring him,” Tench said.  “We were just telling him that if he’s interested we’d let people know for next year.”

“Don’t let them twist your arm,” Humphreys said.  “Did they talk you into those, too?”  He gestured to his ears.

Lafayette mirrored the gesture, then touched his new piercings.  “Oh!  No, I did this myself.  Well, the store did.  But it was my idea.”

“That's true,” Laurens confirmed.  “That was all him.”

“Looks good,” Humphreys said.

Lafayette beamed.  “Thank you.  Adrienne likes them, too.”

“Really?”  Laurens asked.  “I thought it might be too much for her.”

“She said she has a pair she wants me to borrow.”

Laurens laughed.  “Seriously?  You’re borrowing your girlfriend’s jewelry now?  That’s kind of…”  He trailed off.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Lafayette said.  “Gender is a construct.”

“It’s just weird, that’s all,” Laurens muttered, embarrassed again, but for a different reason.

“Don’t listen to him,” Humphreys told Lafayette.  “You’re good.”

“I know,” Lafayette said.  “You’re jealous that you can’t borrow anything of Alexander’s,” he informed Laurens.  Tench, sitting next to him, nodded along.

“That’s not true.”

“What have you ever borrowed of his?”

“I…”  Laurens had to stop and think.  “I’m not jealous,” he finally said, unable to think of anything.

Lafayette leaned across the table and patted his hand, knowing that he had won.  “It’s all right.”

Laurens took his hand away.  “I’m staying with you tonight, remember.  Don’t make me think about locking you out.”

“Don’t worry,” Tench told Lafayette.  “Are you free after this?  Tallmadge and I will walk you past the house so you’ll know where to go for help if you ever need a better place to stay.”

“You should come by the next time we’re having a thing,” Tallmadge added.  “What’s your number?  Are you on Facebook?  I’ll send you an invite.”

Humphreys groaned.  “You’re going to end up on a mailing list,” he warned Lafayette.  “Laurens,” he said, turning to him, “tell your friend not to just hand over his personal information like this.”

“Hm?”  Laurens looked up from his phone.  “Oh.  Yeah,” he said, trying to feel his way back into the conversation, “Lafayette, listen to the guys.  They know what’s up.”

Humphreys sighed and shook his head as Laurens turned his attention back to the screen.  “Nice try.”

 

> J. Laurens: Are you still going to work?  When do you get done?

> J. Laurens: I’ll walk you to where we’d split off at least.

> A. Hamilton: you don’t have to do that, j

> J. Laurens: Come on, I’m going to keep bothering you until you tell me.

> A. Hamilton: …yeha, okay

 

“I left my laptop at the apartment,” Hamilton complained, going back behind the front desk to grab his notebook.  He came back out and put it in his bag.  “I can’t believe it.”  He coughed into his shoulder.

“Did you need it?”  Laurens was dutifully sitting in one of the chairs where Hamilton had directed him to stay, his own bag in his lap.

“No.  It’s just annoying.  I wanted it.”  Hamilton pulled his bag on, then realized he had forgotten his phone and went behind the desk again to pocket it.

“Do you have everything?”  Laurens had been watching.  “Wallet, keys?”

“Of course.”  Hamilton patted the pocket of his coat.  His keys jangled.  “Learned that lesson already.  Had a spare made, gave it to Mulligan.”

Laurens stood and offered him his hand.  Hamilton looked at him pointedly.  Laurens sighed and put them both in his pockets.  “It’s not like I was going to lick it.”

“You don’t have to walk with me, either,” Hamilton said, walking out into the hall and letting the door lock behind them.

“I want to.”

“You’re being stupid.”

Laurens glanced at him but didn’t say anything.  Hamilton was adjusting his scarf up over his nose and mouth as they headed down the stairs; the elevators had stopped running at the hour.

“…I’m sorry,” Hamilton said when they came out onto the ground floor.  “You’re not stupid.  I’m just being a jerk.”

“You are.  But that’s okay.”

“You really don’t need to walk with me.”  He sniffed.

“I’d come over.”

“John.”

“Well,” Laurens shrugged.  “I’d kind of like to come over.”

“Not really,” Hamilton said, “or you wouldn’t be giving in this easy.”

“I want to play on Friday,” Laurens admitted.

“I knew it.  That’s fine, John.  I want you to play, too.”

“I just wish you weren’t sick.”

Yeah, well.”  Hamilton cleared his throat and sniffed again.  His nose had started to run properly halfway through work.  Keys aside, Laurens didn’t need to know that his pockets were filled with tissues.  “I told you I hate this weather.  I get fucked up every time it starts to get colder like this.  God, sometimes I miss the Caribbean.  Two seasons, wet and dry.  That's the way to do it.”

“And trade winds,” Laurens said, remembering a conversation from earlier that semester that somehow seemed a world away.

“Those too,” Hamilton agreed.

“Can I call you tonight or are you busy?”  Laurens decided against phrasing it as “are you going to be resting.”

“I guess you can call.  I can get work done while you're on the line if you have homework as well.”

Laurens nodded.  “I do.”

“All right.  Ring me up, then.”  Hamilton's voice was sounding strained again.  “I don't mind multitasking as long as you don’t.”

 

“John,” Lafayette turned around at his desk, annoyed.  “I’m trying to write a paper.”

Laurens looked up from the bed, one hand under his head and the other holding his phone up above him.  Somehow both his biceps were on display and Lafayette fought the urge to accuse him of doing that on purpose for the camera.  “Are you serious?  You’re on the phone all the fucking time, Lafayette.”

“I have a deadline!”

“Put on headphones,” Laurens said.  “You owe me.  This is the least you could do.”

“I owe you,” Lafayette muttered as he got out a pair of headphones.  “I’m the one who hooked you two up.”

“Yeah, and you’re also the one who kicks me out of my own room at five in the morning a couple times a week.  Relax, it’s not like I’m planning on doing this all semester.”

“I’m going to take your friends up on their offer,” Lafayette complained.  “I’m going to rush to be in a fraternity and it’s all your fault.”

Laurens laughed lightly.  “Not how you use the word.”

“Come to France and then tell me how to use my words,” Lafayette said, switching abruptly into French.  “I’m far more fluent in English than you are in anything else!”

“Yikes,” Hamilton said over the video chat, “you pissed him off.”

“Yeah.  Should I apologize?”

“I dunno, do you feel like you’re in the wrong?”

“Not really.”

“Then stand your ground, don’t give in just for the sake of peace in the dorm.”  Hamilton coughed and leaned out of the screen, hitting the mute button while he blew his nose.  He noted that the ends of his words were getting blunted and he wondered if it was audible over the computer.

“Good point,” Laurens said, not noticing any of that and leaning against the side of his desk, his notebook propped up against one knee and tapping the eraser of a pencil against his mouth.  “I need to stick to my principles.  Hey, you don’t mind if I get Lafayette to be my full-body model too, do you?  I’m falling behind on this assignment and as much as I’d like it to be you, he’s less distracting.”

“No problem—shit.”  Hamilton unmuted himself and settled back down in front of the camera.  “No problem, J.  You live with him anyway, you might as well take advantage.”

“He already does,” Lafayette complained.

“Your volume’s not high enough,” Laurens said without looking over.  Lafayette made a mildly obscene gesture at him.  “What are you working on?”

“Huh?”

“You said you had work to do.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton looked down at the unopened book in front of him and started to search for the correct chapter.  “Yeah.  Reading for Jefferson’s class.”  He hesitated, not sure if he wanted to say how the last period had gone.  He decided against it.  “I was going off of the scans he put up online, but they suck, so I checked out the hard copy from the library.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed, making a few careful strokes on the page, “that’s better.”

Hamilton pushed his chair back, standing up from his desk without having found the start of the chapter.

“Hey.”

Hamilton turned back to the computer.

“Where are you going?”

Hamilton raised his empty mug.  “I’m just getting a drink, J.  Calm down.”

“Don’t do coffee.  I’m not around to keep you from being up all night.”

Hamilton laughed at that as he filled the mug with water from the bathroom sink, taking the opportunity to grab a sweater from the floor on the way out.  “Relax.”  He put the mug on the desk, his voice muffled as he pulled the sweater on.  “‘m running low anyway.  Remind me, J., I need to go to the store.  Grocery shopping sucks, I don’t even like cooking so it’s just like I’m throwing away money.”  He looked over at the screen to see Laurens distracted by his own homework and not really listening to him.  Suddenly his apartment felt very empty.  He thought about calling Laurens out on ignoring him, pestering him until he got attention, but the book was still unread and hadn’t he been the one who had insisted that they could only talk if they also got work done?  Hamilton quietly sat back down and turned to the correct page.

A few minutes passed before Laurens looked up with a start.  “Shit.  Sorry, Alex, I need to call you back.  My dad’s calling me.”

“Oh, not a problem.”  Hamilton watched as Laurens sat up properly, moving his laptop down onto the mattress, already mostly out of frame.  “I’ll be around.”

“Right.”  Laurens sounded distracted.  “See you later.”  He hung up.

Hamilton sat at his desk, staring down at his book.  “Shit,” he muttered, mirroring Laurens’ language, and pressing the base of his palms to his eyes.  His face was feverish to the touch.  “Feel like crap,” he elaborated to the room.  He took out his contacts and dropped them into the trash, then got up, leaving his laptop open and taking the book with him to his bed.  He slipped under the covers and propped his book open on his pillow.  Hamilton grabbed the pillow Laurens had left and pulled it to his chest, resting his head on it with a surge of self-pity.  The book was a little too far away to easily read without lenses and he sighed heavily since no one was around to hear, closing his eyes and curling into himself, pretending he was holding Laurens’ arm instead.  When he breathed in he was surrounded by the scent of Laurens’ sweat and cologne and he felt something inside him threaten to break.  He was being stupid, he scolded himself, feeling his eyes hot and dry, he was the one who arranged this and wasn’t it better?  Besides, this was a step up over last year, or the year before, he had more people he could complain to if he wanted and he didn’t need to have Laurens around.  He could pick up something in the morning to clear his head and busy himself with his work and not embarrass himself by making a scene.

It really was better, Hamilton reassured himself, pulling the pillow a little closer, and he’d just stay like this a little longer before returning to his reading and waiting for the call back.


	132. Lovesick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dad Friend with a Key; Delivery; Second

“He never got back to me,” Laurens said, checking his phone again even though he had unlocked it to do so immediately before saying anything.

“Huh?”  André looked up from where he was kneeling on the floor and packing his bag, confused.

“Alexander.”

“Oh.  Were you waiting for him to?”

“I tried calling him back last night.”

“It’s still early.”  André stood, pulling his bag over his shoulder.  “Maybe he’s not up yet.”

“It’s not that early.”

“Dude.  It’s seven.  For a lot of people, that’s early.”

“True.”  Laurens followed André out of the locker room.  “Hey, I’ll see you in class later.”

“What?”  André looked back at him.  “You’re not coming to breakfast?”

“I need to take care of something,” Laurens apologized.  “I’ll catch you later.”

He split off, heading off campus and towards the nearest subway station.

 

> J. Laurens: Hey

> J. Laurens: I’m probably going to lose connection but let me know when you’re up.

> J. Laurens: Are you hungry?

 

> J. Laurens: Lafayette, do you have Hercules Mulligan’s number?  I can’t get in touch with Alex and he’s got a key.

 

“He’s sick?”  Mulligan laughed as he led the way from the nearest station down to Hamilton’s apartment, Laurens following a step after him, carefully balancing two plastic bags of tupperware in his arms, not wanting to tip them and risk spilling their contents.  “Don’t worry about it, he just really knocks out.  You know how little he sleeps normally?”  He made a slicing movement in the air in front of them.  “Like the friggin’ dead.  Not surprised he didn’t get back to you, he probably hasn’t heard his alarm, either.  Do you know if he’s free today or should I plan on calling him in?”

“Uh…”  Laurens tried to think, made more difficult by how awkward having this conversation (with Mulligan, in public) was.  “He’s got a student council meeting.”

“That hardly counts.  Nothing where they’re actually tracking his hours for money or scholarships?”

“Class.  But he can just email them.”

“I’ll do it,” Mulligan repeated, taking out his phone and casually logging himself into Hamilton’s school email account.  “Trust me, it’s better to just tell him it’s already done than to let him go back and forth on if it’s worth doing.  Left to his own devices he’ll force himself to go in and that’s how you end up having to pick him up on campus when it’s below freezing out and he can’t remember where in the library he left his good coat.”

“That sounds like a story.”

“Nah, that’s about it.”  Mulligan let them into the building and then continued to lead the way up the stairs.  “You busy today?  I’ve got to get back to work but if you’re real concerned I can check in later.”

“It’s okay.  I’ve got some time now.”

“Uh-huh.”  They reached the third floor and Mulligan stopped Laurens at the top of the landing.  “You wanna do me a favor?  Wait right here, I’ll go make sure you get the proper introduction.”  He let himself into the apartment without Laurens, closing the door behind him.

 

Hamilton woke to a hand on his shoulder and Mulligan’s voice repeating his name.

“Mmph.  J.—Herc?”

“Second guess.”  Mulligan stood.  “So, little under the weather?”

“‘m fine.”  Hamilton pulled the blanket up over his head.

“Yeah, ‘course you are.”  Mulligan found Hamilton’s phone under a notebook on his desk and turned off the ringing alarm, then tapped the keyboard of his laptop.  The screen stayed black and he closed it, picking the charger off the floor and plugging it in.  “Hope you saved everything, moron.”

“What’re you doing here?”  Hamilton gave in and sat up slowly, pulling Laurens’ pillow into his lap, his hair half out of his ponytail and falling in a mess into his face.  He had to keep his mouth open slightly so he could breathe and it was obvious in his pronunciation.

“Blow your nose.”  Mulligan tossed the tissue box underhanded onto the bed.  “You sound like hell warmed over and your beau’s outside with brunch.”

“John’s here?”  Hamilton froze, halfway through reaching for the box.  He couldn’t hide the rush of anxiety in his voice.  “What’s John doing here, I told him not to come over.”

“What did I just say?  Do you want me to tell him to just give me the food and call you later?”

“No, I…”  Hamilton got up, almost tripping over the blankets.  “Shit, just, can you just ask him to wait a minute?  Let me…”

“Go doll yourself up.”  Mulligan motioned to the bathroom, tidying up Hamilton’s desk and floor.  “I’ll make the bed.”

“Thanks,” Hamilton said a little breathlessly, closing the door quickly behind him.

“Kids need to learn to chill,” Mulligan said not-quite-under-his-breath as he cleaned.  “You’re all so high-drama.”  He stood up with a groan after finishing putting the sheets properly on the futon.  “You need a proper bed, Hamilton.  I’m coming back tonight with cough syrup unless you take me a picture of a bottle and receipt,” he scolded as Hamilton tried to respond and dissolved into a coughing fit.  “You’re a fuckin’ poor excuse for an adult sometimes.  I told you to replace it after you ran out last January.  There you go,” he said when Hamilton stepped back out, contacts in and face washed, if red.  “Much better.”  He opened the front door and leaned out.  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said in the smooth voice he normally reserved for clients at work.  “Right this way, please.”

Hamilton’s pulse was racing in spite of himself when Laurens walked in and he hoped he sounded casual and and pleasantly surprised and not like all he wanted to do was to lie down with a blanket and his head in his lap.

“Hey.”

“I, uh, I picked up food.”  Laurens awkwardly set it down on the space Mulligan had cleared off on the desk.  “Since you said you were homesick.”

Hamilton gave him a puzzled look, then remembered their earlier conversation and felt his heart melt.  “Oh,” he said, recognizing that his voice sounded high and odd, “yeah, thanks.”

“Right,” Mulligan said, helping Laurens unpack the Caribbean food, taking out the newly store-bought tupperware and disposable plates and utensils that Laurens had, Hamilton realized with another blush, picked up specifically for this purpose.  “Normally I’d excuse myself at this point but I’m gonna play chaperone here for a bit.  I’ve got about half an hour to kill before I need to get going and also I’m claiming a food tax for coming out here in the first place and keying you in.”

Laurens nodded and turned back to Hamilton, who hadn’t moved since he came in.  “I can put it away if you’re not hungry.  Do you want me to make you a plate?”

He wasn’t, but he also couldn’t say no.  “Sure.”

“Right.”

Laurens and Mulligan started talking to one another as Hamilton looked around the room, not sure where to sit.  He eventually settled for the edge of his bed.  “I need to go in half an hour, too.”

“No you don’t.”  Mulligan looked up from his own plate to pass Hamilton a filled one.  “You already told people you couldn’t make it.  Don’t make yourself into a liar.”

Hamilton put it without interest on the ground at his feet.  “I have a meeting.”

“Student council crap, no offense.  Your boy told me already.”

“No,” Hamilton insisted, a little stronger, “I need to go.”  He looked at Laurens.  “I told you, I got them to agree to meet with me again.”

Laurens gave him a blank look.

“Yes,” Hamilton insisted,  considerably more difficult to understand than usual between his throat and his nose, even though it was also making him talk slower, “I’m not that sick, I just wrecked my voice arguing with Burr about the charter and the _one thing_ I got out of it was an agreement to go over the way funding works.  That’s why I’m going back down even though we just met, it’s a— a special—”  He stopped short, obviously teetering on the brink for several long seconds before he quickly grabbed a tissue and sneezed hard into it.  The force triggered a coughing fit and when he started talking again his face was redder and his voice was more choked sounding.  “—A special meeting, about how funding is distributed for next year, so that,” he cleared his throat but it didn’t help, “so that you can be an organization if you’re anyone who fills out a few lines on a piece of paper—”  He ducked to the side, coughing heavily into his arm.

“Too bad,” Mulligan told him with a little more force.  “You’re not freakin’ going.  Listen to yourself, Hamilton, there’s no way you’re going to win your case when you can’t get through your argument.  We’ll just tell them you’re rescheduling.”

“I can still think,” Hamilton protested after getting a hold of himself.  “John, tell him—”  He stopped abruptly, his eyes widening.  He put his fist to his mouth.  “…I told Lafayette,” he said behind it, sounding small and pitiful with the dawning realization.  “Not you.”

“Jesus,” Mulligan muttered, putting his fork down.  “I’m finishing my plate and then I’m clearing out of here with John.  You’re sleeping it off and I’ll come back tonight after my shift to make sure you stayed put.”

Hamilton couldn’t keep himself from looking at Laurens with pleading eyes.

“I’ll go to your meeting,” Laurens said, the words coming out before he had fully realized what he was saying.  “Do you have notes?  You told me what you want to do next year so if you just give me the notes on what you want passed specifically, I’ll take care of it.”

Hamilton felt his temperature spike and he ran his hand over his damp brow.  “Really?”  His voice sounded distant to his own ears.

Laurens nodded, urged on by the tone.  “Yeah, of course.  It’s not a big deal.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton got up, pushing himself off the floor, and hastily wrote him a letter on a page in his notebook, then ripped it out.  “In case they ask.  Written permission.  You’re my second.”  He handed the paper to him, looking deep into his eyes, his own a little glassy and a little starstruck.

“Sit down before you hurt yourself,” Mulligan said, gently pushing him back towards the mattress.  “I didn’t notice if you were when you first got up, but you’re running a fever, kid, I can see it in your face.”

Laurens folded up the note and stuck it in his pocket.  “I’ll let you know how it goes,” he promised.

“‘Kay.”  Hamilton picked up his plate but didn’t eat.

“Do you want me to stay over?”  Mulligan asked.  “I can stop by my own place after work and then crash here.”

“No.”  Hamilton couldn't stop himself from looking at Laurens, who, embarrassed by the uninhibited adoration, blushed and looked away.  “It’s all right.”

“You should get this on tape,” Mulligan suggested to Laurens.  “He’s going to be denying the shit out of it later.”

“Don’t be mean,” Laurens muttered.  Mulligan laughed.

 

Laurens pushed the door to the conference room the student council reserved for its purposes more forcefully than he had meant to.  It opened with a bang and the three other students sitting dwarfed at one end of the rows of seats looked up in surprise.

Laurens bit back the urge to apologize and instead strode over with a confident swagger, letting his muscled bulk make the opposite statement.  “Are we all here?”  He asked, pulling out a chair and the paper from Hamilton, slapping it down on the table and sitting.

“We’re waiting for Alexander,” Burr said.  “And you are…  John Laurens, correct?”

Laurens slid the paper towards the others.

“You’re his…  second?”  Burr had picked up the paper and he squinted at the messy scrawl, then handed it to Gouverneur.

“He couldn’t make it,” Laurens said.  “I’m taking his place.”

“Do we allow people to do that?”  Burr asked.  “He’s not sending you in to vote for him the next time he realizes he’s double-booked himself, is he?”

Gouverneur shrugged.  “I’ll allow it.  Jay?”

“Even if it is just the one time, it sets a precedent.”

“Damn you, John Jay, I don’t want to reschedule,” Gouverneur said to him under his breath.  “Besides, I’ve met this guy before, he’s a lot quieter than Alexander.  I’ve got shit to do, Jay.”

“It’s inappropriate,” Jay argued, just as softly.  “We should just agree to another time.”

“Or not to meet again at all,” Burr said, taking the paper from Gouverneur and handing it back to Laurens.  “Alexander was supposed to be here today.  This, as my colleague points out, is an inappropriate way to handle it.”

“Look,” Jay said to Laurens, trying to adopt a placating tone, “thank you for coming down here, but he’s right.  It’s not standard procedure to let a non-member sit in on the board without permission being granted at the previous session, much less for you to actually replace him.  We’re not stonewalling him.  He can make his case at the end of the semester, during our scheduled session, as was the original arrangement.”

“I have some notes from Alexander,” Laurens said, ignoring him completely and taking his laptop out of his bag.  He turned it around to face them, a document from Hamilton already open on the screen.  “I’m going to talk to you about the changes that we’re here today to go over.  There’re only a few things and I understand that you’ve already heard the short version on Monday.”

“For the love of God,” Gouverneur complained, “here, I’ve got a pen, let’s just sign off on the damn thing.  Jay, I know you were going to agree with him anyway.  They're moderate changes, let’s finish up and get out of here.”

“That’s not the point,” Jay argued.  “If Alexander had come down himself it would be one thing, but there’s nothing in the charter about a surrogate.”

“There’s nothing against it,” Laurens replied, his voice getting a little stronger.  “He’s not breaking any rules by sending me and I’ve got written permission to act on his behalf.”

“He misspelled ‘behalf,’” Burr pointed out wryly.

“You misspelled ‘coconut,’” Gouverneur said.  “I’m with him.  The intent is clear.”

“You just want to leave.”  Burr sounded exasperated.

“Of course I want to leave, this should be a non-issue.  Look.”  He turned to Jay.  “Say Alexander is here.  Say he spends an hour going over his points and then we have a vote.  Would we not be at least three to one?”

“But he’s not here,” Burr argued.  “And he’s not allowed to send someone in his place.  John Laurens never ran for Alexander’s position and he was never voted in.  He cannot make changes to a document on the running of a student body organization when the _student body_ never selected him as their representative!”

“There’s nothing against it,” Laurens repeated again, even louder this time.  The other three looked up at him as if they had forgotten he was still there.  “I’ve seen your stupid charter and there’s nothing against it.  You don’t get to argue that letting me _sit_ here and show you a goddamn word document with the exact same points you’ve already heard is against your stupid fake constitution when, first of all, nothing is said on it one way or the other and, secondly, the measure you’re supposed to be discussing would actually allow for greater representation, which is the basis for your bullshit argument against letting me be here in the first place!”

Burr scoffed but before he could say anything, Jay spoke up.

“Actually,” he said slowly as Burr turned to him incredulously, “that is a good point.  The intent is there.”

“The intent is _there_?”  Burr asked.  “No, there is nothing in the charter that intends to allow just anyone to come in and make changes.  Which is effectively what is happening.  Yes,” he agreed, “we might look at this and see that it mirrors with what Alexander was saying, but there’s no guarantee that it will be that way in all future cases.  Of which,” he said, turning to Gouverneur, “there will likely be many.”

“But there’s nothing saying that Alexander can’t ask a friend to come in for him, especially when all he is doing is presenting us with the same petition we already went over.”

“What will stop people from sending in others to fill their places repeatedly?”  Burr asked.  “What if Alexander, for example, decides he is not satisfied with this result and keeps sending new people in to wear the rest of us down until he gets whatever he wants?”

“Then that’s something we will have to work out the details on,” Jay said.  “But I agree with him.  There’s no rule against what Alexander did—and I think the potential misuse of this loophole is a problem that should be addressed in the future.  But the spirit of the text is clear.  Aaron.”  He shrugged, motioning towards Laurens.  “It’s a document for the welfare of the student body, intended to reflect the desires of said body.  This proposal would make it easier for people to have their voices heard and it’s fitting that it’s being presented in a  way that highlights one method of doing so.  Preventing John from filling in would actually work against the spirit of the document as well as the measure that is being presented in a technically legitimate if atypical fashion.  Furthermore, I think that our denying him would amount to rewriting the charter in private and without bringing the issue of representation to an open discussion and vote.  You’re right, as it is written, John wouldn't be allowed to bring a new petition before us, but he’s not.  If Alexander and he can’t circumvent the rules to change the charter then neither can we.”

Laurens felt hope rise within him as Jay took the laptop and read over the document.

“It’s the same,” he finally said after comparing it to his own printed copy.  “It’s the same paragraph from his rant on Monday that we agreed to think over and vote on.  I say that it is acceptable to vote on.”

“I agree,” Gouverneur said quickly.  “Aaron, even if you say no, you’re still out numbered.  Either we assume Alexander’d be voting with us or it’s two to one.”

Burr sighed.  “Fine.  And I presume you vote the same way on the measure itself?”

“Yes.”

“Same here,” Gouverneur agreed.

“Great,” Laurens said, grinning uncontrollably.  “I’ll let him know that Aaron Burr was the only hold out.”

“Actually,” Burr said, “my misgivings about how it was presented aside, the measure has my vote.  You can congratulate your boyfriend on his clean sweep.”

Laurens took his laptop back and put it away.  “No problem,” he said, bracing himself against the words and refusing to let them spoil his mood.  “I’ll let him know to send you a note of thanks.”

 

> J. Laurens: Got it.  Three for three.

> A. Hamilton: i love you


	133. What Are Friends For?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invitation; Invitation #2; Medicina; Walk Into the Club Like What Up I've Got Major Internalized Issues and This Is Bringing Them Screaming to the Surface

“Did you find Alexander?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens moved off the sidewalk onto the grass to make way for the students passing by.  “He was at the apartment still.”

“Great,” André said, obviously not paying full attention.  “Hey, listen, are you free tonight?”

Laurens hesitated.  “Why?”

“Mina just told me about this gig of hers tonight.  Do you want to come with me?”

“Uh…”  Laurens stalled.  “How long is it?”

“I’m not sure.  I don’t think it’s going to go that late.  It should be really good though,” André said, looking at him a little imploringly.

“Yeah, okay.”  Laurens gave in, feeling a little guilty but knowing that he would either way.  André’s face lit up and he smiled.  “Should be fun, right?”

“Totally,” André agreed.  “I already got Tallmadge and Tench to agree to come and I think I can get Grayson, too.”  Laurens opened his mouth, trying to formulate a protest that would get him out of going but André kept talking.  “It’ll be great, we haven’t all gone out in a while.  Man!”  He clenched his fist in front of himself, suddenly getting more enthusiastic.  “I missed this!”

Laurens forced the smile back onto his face and nodded.  “Yeah.  Me too.”

 

“Do you have plans this weekend?  Do you want to go out with me?”

“Are you hitting on me or is this a language barrier thing?”

“Language barrier,” Lafayette said as he followed Angelica to the library printer.  “I want to go to John’s away game.”

“Oh, that.”  Angelica punched in her student ID and password, then stepped back while the machine whirred to life.  “I don’t know, Lafayette.  It’s out of state.”

“It would be fun,” he tried.  “We could ride the train.”

“We would have to since neither of us have a car and I’m not about to walk to Boston.”

“I’ve never been to Boston and I’ve only a little bit been to Massachusetts,” Lafayette said.  “I want to go but it would be more fun to go with someone else.  I’ll make the reservations for the train and somewhere to stay and I’ll pay my half.”

 “Will you come with me to Eliza’s game on Thursday first?”

“Of course,” Lafayette agreed quickly.  “…Is that supposed to be a penalty?  Am I not supposed to want to do that?”

It was Angelica’s turn to look surprised.  “People usually don’t want to go.”

“I like soccer,” Lafayette assured her, emphasizing the American name.  “May I have a copy of their schedule?”

“Sure.  The season’s already mostly over…”  Angelica shrugged her purse up higher on her shoulder and then bent down, taking a stack of fliers advertising crisis centers and hotlines off of the printer tray.  “I’ll send you a copy tonight,” she assured him with a smile.  “I go to all her games.”

“Wonderful!  Then I will have someone to sit with.”

Properly appeased, Angelica headed out of the library with Lafayette.  “When is John’s game?”

“Friday evening.  I thought we could go over that day and then stay the day and look around.”

“And skip class?”

Lafayette gave a guilty little shrug.

Angelica grinned.  “I’ll ask Eliza and Peggy if they’d like to come.”

“The more the merrier,” Lafayette said happily.  He took the fliers from Angelica.  She pulled a tape dispenser out of her purse and stuck one of the fliers to the front of the library doors.  “Very visible,” he commented.

“Good.”

“Am I helping you put up the rest of these?”

“If you’d like.”

“May I take one for the language center?  Or do they all have homes already?”

Angelica smiled and put her hand on his arm.  “Take however many you'd like.  I can always print more.”

“I can put some in my dorm as well,” Lafayette said as they headed away from the library and towards the nearest bulletin board.  “And I’ll give one to Alexander for the student council.”

“That’s a good idea.  I don’t suppose you’re friends with any professors, are you?”

“The president.  Oh,” Lafayette said, “and Thomas Jefferson.  We can put one up on his office door, I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“He’d look like a jerk if he took it down,” Angelica said, “so hopefully not.”

“He’s not bad,” Lafayette said.  “Ah, but don’t tell Alexander that I said that.”

“Alexander has a temper, a strong sense of pride, and deeply-held convictions,” Angelica said.  “I only applaud him for one of those and I think he butts heads the most with people who are just like him but see the world a little differently.  It’s not that he’s wrong, but he doesn’t always know when to use better tactics than yelling.”

“He does struggle with that,” Lafayette agreed.  “I’m quite fond of him anyway.”

“So am I,” Angelica said, stopping next to a vending machine and putting her hand out for flier.  “He’s very smart.”  She saw the skeptical look Lafayette was giving her and she laughed and amended.  “Sometimes, about some things.  He can be brilliant, you know that.  It’s not his fault that  he can also be a complete moron.  We’ve both had to listen to him, Lafayette.”

“He didn’t know he was in a relationship even when I took him to France with me,” Lafayette told her.  “He thought that he and John were just—oh, I can use the word again.”  He paused.  “Which one do I want to use?  It’s been so long.”

“Friends with benefits?”

“Or fuckbuddies.  I’m not sure if they were really friends.”

“I’m surprised John let himself be set up like that.”  They started walking again.

“It took some convincing,” Lafayette said.  “I think… he was very lonely.  I didn’t know him that well,” he admitted.  “You will have to ask him yourself.”

“He won’t tell me.”  Angelica steered them towards the nearest building, the campus already darkening around them.  “But that’s all right.  Everyone needs a few secrets, after all.”

 

“You got food, _medicino_ , I’m turning your thermostat up.  You can pay the extra couple bucks this month, Hamilton, and I don’t trust you not to toss a blanket over the space heater and start a fire.”  Mulligan adjusted the knob on the thermostat while Hamilton coughed in the background.  “Don’t turn it back down,” he warned, “I’ve got superhero senses.  I’m gonna come back over and kick your butt.”

“Did _John_ have to come over today?”  Hamilton asked, leaning on the sink as he got his breath back and looking at himself critically in the mirror, a wad of toilet paper in his hand.  “This is gross.”  He blew his nose loudly and then looked at the paper.  “Also it’s feminine,” he said, dropping it into the wastebasket and messily unspooling a dozen more squares.  “ _Medicina_.”  He blew his nose for longer this time.

“Glad to hear that your nap helped,” Mulligan said.  “You were practically tripping over yourself this morning to be in his presence.”

“Please don’t remind me.”  Hamilton started coughing again.

“I bought you shit for that, don’t make it a waste of money.”

“I already took it,” Hamilton snapped once he could speak again.  “This is bullshit.”

“Ah, yes,” Mulligan said to himself, picking up and disposing of Hamilton’s plate from earlier as well as a dozen balled up tissues.  “Out of denial and into anger.  I can’t wait for you to hit the part where you’re just lying around feeling sorry for yourself and missing your boy.”

That hit a little too close to home and Hamilton covered the shame and embarrassment with another grasp at anger.  “Stop being a prick.  You didn’t have to come back.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”  Mulligan bagged up the trash and put it by the door for him to take down when he left.  He took a little bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket and washed his hands as he talked.  “The offer still stands, Hamilton.  If you want company I don’t mind crashing here.  I’ve got some shows to marathon that I’ve been meaning to get you into anyway.”

“Thanks, but I have work to do, especially since _someone_ went into my email again and told people I wasn’t making it today.  Jerk,” he added in a mutter through the toilet paper, holding it to his face like a surgical mask.

“That’d be a lot more threatening if it wasn’t obvious that your nose is runnin’ like a facet.”  Mulligan checked that he had his wallet and keys and stood in the bathroom door.  “Hey.  I’m going to head back then, Alexander.  Bring it in.”  He pulled Hamilton into a hug before he could protest, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly.  “Call me if you need anything.  If it’s just a ‘want’ and not a ‘need’ I’ll bitch you out for waking me up at three in the morning.  Got it?”

“G’off me.”

“Nah.”  Mulligan was larger than him but Hamilton also didn’t make any attempt to move away.  After a few more seconds he let him go.  “Right, I’m heading home.  Don’t be surprised if I swing by at some point tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton followed him to the door, still covering his face.  “…Thanks.”

“No problem, kid.  Don’t stay up all night mooning over your boyfriend.”

 

> A. Hamilton: Sorry about that.  Mulligan just left

> A. Hamilton: Ive got some reading to do but do you wantto video chat ors omething?

> A. Hamilton: it’s pretty chill

> A. Hamilton: J?

 

“Don’t you have a test tomorrow?”  Laurens half-shouted to be heard over the music in the club.  “Benjamin Tallmadge, you moron, I’m talking to you!  Don’t you have a test?”

“What?”  The bass was too low and Tallmadge was standing a little too far away, people crowded around them and making it even more difficult to hear.  “I can’t hear you!”  He called, motioning towards his ear.

“ _Test_ ,” Laurens repeated, mimicking writing something with one hand, his other as the piece of paper.

“You’re hungry?”

“You know what?”  Laurens actually was yelling now.  “Lee’s right, you’d be an awful spy!  Hold on,” he added, more for his own benefit than anything else as he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket.  “Who’s—Hello?  Alexander?”  He covered his ear with his free hand and turned away from Tallmadge as if that would give him any privacy.  “Alexander?  Hello?  I can’t hear you, can you text me?”  He thought he heard some kind of question and he took a shot in the dark.  “I ran into André on campus and he asked me to come see his girlfriend perform with some of the other guys but I don’t know if we ended up at the wrong bar or if she’s coming on later tonight, André’s trying to look up the information!  Or he was, I think I lost him,” he added, all in a shout.  “It’s noisy as shit in here, I’ll call you back as soon as I can get out, okay?”  He hung up, unable to hear if there had been a reply.

“You’re overdressed,” Tench said in his ear.  Laurens jumped.

“ _Jesus_ , where did you—”

“At least pop a button or something,” Tench went on, motioning at his own t-shirt.  “You look like a friggin’ narc.”

Laurens nodded and undid the top button on his shirt and then, after a pause, the next two.  He raised a questioning thumbs up.

Tench returned it.  “Yeah, better!”

“Where’s André?”  Since he had someone who he could at least mostly communicate with, Laurens figured he had better make the most of it.

“In the back,” Tench said, motioning towards the stage.  “He found Mina!”

“And Grayson?”

“What?”

Laurens shook his head in mild irritation and repeated himself.  “Grayson!”

Tench just shrugged.

“You think we should get a—whoa—”  Laurens jerked away as someone started to dance against him from behind.  He wasn’t sure if it was an accident or not in the crowded room.

“Come on,” Tench said, taking his arm to rescue him and motioning above his head for Tallmadge to follow them.  “Table!”

Laurens let himself be pulled through the people to a handful of chairs around a low table, someone’s empty plastic cup still sitting on it.  It was moderately quieter and they sat down.

“I know we want to get back out there,” Tench said and Laurens wondered who he was speaking for.  “But Laurens is right, I figure _André’s_ enjoying himself but I dunno where Grayson ended up.  Are we staying here through Mina’s set?”

“I thought she did slam poetry or something,” Laurens said, looking back at the band on the stage, lights flashing purple and red over them.

Tench shrugged.  “Maybe that too.”

Laurens hesitated, then tilted recklessly towards the pull of the noise and the energy, thinking not of unseen islands but humid summer nights back home.  “Clubs suck if you’re sober,” he announced as he stood.  “I’m getting shots, you both in?”

Tench and Tallmadge high fived across the table.

Laurens grinned and headed over to the bar.  He had to admit that it had been a while since he had gone out with his friends and it was fun to do something spontaneous.  A rebellious spark flickered to life.  “Excuse me,” he said to the man behind the counter, taking his wallet out of his pocket.  “Can we get a round?”  He motioned back towards the others.  “Tequila.”

“Salt and lemon?”

He turned and saw two girls about his age standing next to him.  “That’s our order,” the same one continued, leaning forward on the counter and angling to face him.  “Is that your usual?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I guess so.  I like it.”

“Yeah?”

The bartender presented him a tray with the drinks and slices of lemon around a small plate of salt.

“Thanks,” Laurens told him, taking it and walking back to the seats.  Tench and Tallmadge were watching him and grinning.  “…What?”

“She thinks you’re cute,” Tench informed him.

“What?”  Laurens blushed a little in spite of himself and he glanced back over his shoulder, accidentally making eye contact.  “Oh, shit—”

“It’s all right,” Tallmadge laughed.  He moved closer to Laurens and raised his left hand, pointing at his ring finger with his right.  “He’s taken!”  He called across the way while Laurens sunk down a little in embarrassment.  He looked back again in time to see the two girls nod before waving to him and Tallmadge as they left.

“Dude.”  Tench slugged him on the shoulder.  “Good for you.”

“Why’re you complimenting me?”  Laurens hated how uncomfortable he felt.  “I didn’t do anything.”

“Just take it,” Tallmadge said.  “I assume you wanted me to let her down gently for you.”

“I could’ve done it myself.”

“Not what I said.”

“It’s not like I haven’t turned people down before.  I’m not a child.”

Tallmadge laughed.  “Obviously.  We know that, Laurens.”

“Well, I’m just saying.”  Laurens resisted the urge to take his phone out and motioned towards the tray.  The other two licked their hands and reached for the salt while Laurens just grabbed his shot and knocked it back, putting it down before they had finished taking theirs.  One motion, obvious practice and building up a tolerance to the taste.

“Show off,” Tench said muffled around his slice of lemon.

Laurens shook his head, letting the heat spread through his body.  “Another round, boys?”  He stood and grabbed the three glasses.  “I’ll leave the rest of this here.”

“I want to go mingle,” Tench called after him, only half-protesting.  “And find Grayson!”

 

> A. Hamilton:  Do you know where john is?

> A. Hamilton: it sounded like hes at a club

> A. Hamilton: he hung up on me!

> G. Lafayette: No, I don’t know, but I’m with Angelica!

 

Hamilton sat back, still holding his phone but trying to turn his attention back to his book as a selfie of Lafayette and Angelica standing in front of one of the buildings on campus came through.

“You’re not _helping_ ,” Hamilton muttered, blowing his nose again.

 

> A. Hamilton: What are you two doing?

> G. Lafayette: I’m helping her advertise resources for abuse victims and she is going to come with me to Boston this weekend :)

> A. Hamilton: …wait what?? You’re leaving me here??

> A. Hamilton: come ON

> G. Lafayette: Angelica says that she knew you would feel left out and that I should invite you too.  If you’re feeling better and not too busy you should join us

> G. Lafayette: let us know tonight though because we’re buying tickets

> A. Hamilton: ugh

 

Laurens was laughing, familiarly warm and feeling his spirits artificially elevated.  “No, I’m telling you.  They were so _crap_ that I’m surprised we ever got let into the club in the first place.”

“Maybe security’s just more lax down in South Carolina.”

“Maybe,” Laurens agreed good-humoredly, clapping Tallmadge on the shoulder.  “But, anyway, it was, I don’t know,” he went on, stumbling a little over his words, “ _cheaper_ or some shit to just drink at someone’s house instead so we usually did that.  One of my friends,” he continued, “we’d go over to his place.  His parents were gone a lot.”

“We all had a friend like that.”  They had found Grayson by that point and he was taking up much more than his fair share of the couch by the table, leaning against Tench with his legs kicked up and over the armrest.  “Actually,” he amended, “I was that friend.  You guys should all go back in time and come to my place instead.”

Laurens laughed and then with liquid courage elaborated, “Well, I was dating his sister so this worked better for me.”

“Oh yeah…”  Grayson looked up at the ceiling.  “Forgot about that.”

Laurens wasn’t sure how to take that—innocent, provocative?—and resorted to defensive.  “What do you mean you forgot about that?  I’ve told you that before.”

“ _Barely_.  I’ve never even met her, how do I know she’s real?”

Tench laughed at that and pushed the back of his head.  “Of course you never met her, dumbass.  She’s like seven hundred miles away!”

“I’m just saying,” Grayson protested.  “I never met the girl!”

“She was hot,” Laurens said and the words were jarring and foreign on his tongue.  “We went to prom together.”

“I remember this.”  Grayson nodded, sitting up a little more so he could look at Laurens better.  “And then you,” he made an obscene hand gesture, “y’know.”

“Right.”  So foreign.

“Shit.”  Grayson slid back down.  “Just th’ one time, though.  Poor guy.”

“Come off it.”  Tench shoved him again, harder.  “You want to tell us again about all the tail you’re not getting these days?”

Tallmadge laughed and leaned forward on the other side of the table, picking up the thread and joining Tench in the roast.  The attention was off Laurens and he felt grateful, but only for a second before he was overcome with a wave of profound loneliness.  He heard himself laugh at one particularly well-directed barb as he stood, declaring that the next round was on him.


	134. Friendzone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distributing Information; Drinks and Dirty Dancing; Romantic

“We can go to the aquarium.  Can we go to the aquarium?”

“In Boston?”

Lafayette nodded.

“I suppose so.”

“I’ve never been to an American aquarium before,” he explained as they walked down the hall to Jefferson’s office.  “I’m very interested in seeing one.”

“Are French aquariums different?”  Angelica asked.

“Probably not, the signage aside.”

“All right, fair enough.”  They stopped outside his door and Angelica taped a flier to the front, being careful not to cover his name or office hours.  “We should leave him a note.  I have a pen in my bag.  Do you have anything to write on?”

“I have a receipt.”  Lafayette took it out of his pocket.  “Oh, or five dollars.”

“…Let’s use the receipt.”  Angelica took it from him and held it up against the door, quickly scribbling a short message.  “Do you want to add anything or sign it?”

“I’ll sign.”

She let him take it and the pen from her and waited while he added to it.  “Slide it under the door.”

“Did you know that he has a Pinterest?”

“Really?”  They started walking again.  “Did you see it?”

“He told me about it.”

“I always thought he was more of a Twitter sort of guy.”

“I didn’t ask him about Twitter.”

“I’ll do it later.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, “are you friends with him, too?  Alexander hates him.”

“I know,” Angelica laughed.  “It’s a little funny.  He really can’t stand him.”

“I don’t think he’s that bad.”

“He can be obnoxious, but so can all men.  No offense, of course.”

“Oh!  Not at all.”

“We’re not friends,” Angelica said, returning to the question, “but I do find him interesting.  He’s my professor.  It would be odd if we were closer.”

“He’s a good conversationalist,” Lafayette said.  “I had coffee with him.  It was mostly very nice.”

Angelica laughed again and observed dryly, “That’s a stellar recommendation.”

“I’ll introduce you to him properly if you'd like.  After you are no longer in his class.”

“I think I can manage on my own,” Angelica assured him, patting him on his arm.  “But thank you.”

 

> A. Hamilton: so i thnk my rent’s onlygoing up by 20-50 next year but the laundromat’s been upping their prices too

> A. Hamilton: I mean I could switch to a new place, but that would mean lugging my stuff farther

> A. Hamilton: i guess i m lucky that its only across the street.

> A. Hamilton: but factoring in price of living, yeah, I’m thinking about asking around after graduation.

> A. Hamilton: honestly I’m not sure if you cant hear this or if you’re just ignoring me and I'm so fucking boring that I cant even blame you, j.

 

“Hey, I’ve been looking all over for you guys.”

Laurens looked André up and down.  “You’ve got lipstick on your collar.”

André started to explain himself as Laurens grinned and the other three laughed.

“So you found Mina?”

“Yeah,” André said.  “She’s in the back.  Her set is starting soon, we should head up to the stage.”

“I’m confused,” Tallmadge said.  “What does she do, exactly?  She’s in the performing arts but we thought she did poetry readings or something…”

“Yes,” André explained enthusiastically, “but she’s also in this band.  They’re really good, I listened to them practice before, and they’ve been doing things at clubs for a few months now.  They do covers but they’re also going to be performing some of their own songs…”

Grayson kicked his legs off the side of the couch and got up.  “Do they have a demo tape?  André, we saved you shots.  Hey, André—”  He was already impatiently trying to herd them back towards the mass of people, a yard or two away, and Grayson gave up.  “Whatever.  Anybody want it?”  He picked them up and held them out.

Laurens had his phone out and wasn’t listening, trying to quickly skim and reply to Hamilton’s messages.

Grayson frowned and put his hand, still holding a shot glass, on top of the screen to get his attention.  “Laurens, come on.  Put that away, we’re supposed to be having a good time.”

“I was just checking my messages,” Laurens protested.

“You’re talking to Alexander, aren't you?”

Laurens slunk down slightly in his chair.

“Come on,” Grayson repeated.  “He’s a guy, right?  He’ll understand if you’re out blowing off some steam with your friends.  It’s not like you have to worry about explaining it to your _girlfriend_ , so fuckin’ relax.”

Tench started to laugh.  “Neither do you, Grayson.  How many girls here hit on you so far?  Laurens’ could’ve walked away with two different numbers.”

“What, seriously?”  Grayson looked between Tench and Laurens.  “That’s not fair!”

“They were cute, too,” Tench said, obviously getting enjoyment out of seeing Grayson in indignant disbelief.  “Right?”

Tallmadge nodded.  “Yeah.  And we had to practically beat them off of him in order to preserve his honor.”

“ _Seriously_?”  Grayson asked again.  “Are they still here?  Laurens, could you introduce me to them?”

Tench laughed.  “You’re so pathetic, Will.  It’s not like he's friends with them.”

“You said he was talking to them!  Were you?”  He turned to Laurens.

“I—Yeah, a bit.”

“Damnit,” Grayson complained.  “Well, what did they look like?  Were they cute?”

Laurens shifted in his seat awkwardly but tried to hide it.  “Yeah, they were really hot.  You know,” he went on, “long hair.  Dark.”

Grayson seemed unsatisfied by that and turned to Tallmadge.  “What did they look like?”

“They were all the way over by the bar,” Tallmadge said with a wave of his hand towards it.  “I’ll point them out to you if I see them.  Even if they’re not interested in you, it’ll help you to picture the scene when we tell you about how John Laurens was completely _oblivious_ to social cues.”

Laurens laughed, but it was to cover his embarrassment, both at having slipped up before and at how uncomfortable he was about what he should have taken as no more than good-natured ribbing.  Hadn’t he said things of the exact same caliber before?  Shouldn’t he have thicker skin? 

“ _John_.”

Laurens jumped.  He hadn’t heard André come back and he was now leaning on the back of his chair.

“We’ve only got a few minutes before they start up.  I want you to see the show with me.”

Laurens was caught off guard by having been singled out and the plaintive tone to his voice and he shook his head, smiling with fond exasperation.  “All right, all right.  Hey.”  He took the shots from Grayson and offered one to André.  “Bottoms up, yeah?”

André smiled brightly and nodded as Tench cupped his hand to his mouth and started up a chant of _shots shots shots shots!_   They linked arms and—a little awkwardly with Laurens still sitting, André had to stoop down—tossed the tequila back.

André immediately started coughing and untangled himself from Laurens while the others laughed and Grayson slapped him on the back.  “That’s _strong_!”

“I thought you knew what we had ordered,” Tallmadge apologized, offering him one of the less-chewed on slices of lemon.  André sucked on it, still making complaining noises and then slouching down, hands on his knees,  and looking pitifully at Laurens.

Laurens laughed as well and put his hand on his shoulder.  “You came back here just for me?”  He teased, leaving his hand there.

“Mmph.”  André shifted the lemon to the side of his mouth, then took it out.  “I told you I wanted you to come with me.  It’s been a long time since we hung out.  Like,” he ran his tongue over his teeth and made a face at the lingering taste, “even earlier this semester.  You know?  We had this conversation already and—”  He put his own hand on Laurens’ arm, up by the wrist.  “—I miss you, man.”

Behind him Tench snorted and tried to stifle his laughter behind his fist.

There was a jumbled disoriented moment in Laurens’ brain where he wondered just what kissing André would taste like.  If the club was a liminal space where girls hit on him then wasn’t he owed something more to his liking?  He noticed again the sharp bow of his mouth and the way his chin tipped forward just a little and he could understand in a sort of detached and rational way why he had been attracted to him when they first met and why Hamilton seemed to agree.

That brought him back to himself in confusion and he quickly took his hand away.

André looked at him first in surprise and then in slightly wounded embarrassment.  He straightened up and ran his hand over the back of his head.

“I mean—you know what I mean.”

Laurens did and hadn’t needed it clarified and he just nodded, a little more enthusiastically than normal to make up for it.  “Isn’t Mina going to be on stage soon?”

“Oh!”  André looked back at the stage, successfully distracted.  “Yeah, you’re right.  Let’s go.”  He took the shot glass from Laurens and put them both down on the tray.  “I told her we’d be up at the front.”

Laurens followed him as one of the others collected the rest of the shot glasses and took them back to the bar.

“You’ll like them,” André assured Laurens, who wasn’t sure if he believed him at all.  “It’s actually really cool.  Mina’s Persian, and she writes all their stuff herself, so she brought some of that into it, linguistically.”  It was louder closer to the front and André was having to shout to be understood.  They shouldered their way through the crowd, André offering apologies as they went and Laurens hyper-aware of every girl whose bare shoulder or arm he had to touch.  Had there been so many of them in the first place?

“Have you met Mina yet?”  André asked as they found a space at the front, right up before the stage.  “She’s so cool,” he enthused.  “I had seen her around before and I always thought she was really pretty, but I wasn’t…  Anyway, I wasn’t single when I met her the first time or I would have asked her out then.”

“Through Peggy?”

“What?”  André leaned in a little closer.  It was hard to hear over the pre-recorded music they had playing in the interlude between sets.

“Did you meet her through Peggy?”

“Oh, no.”  André looked a little sheepish.  “Uh, actually the first time I met her was with Lee.”

Laurens gave him a startled look.  André just nodded, obviously aware of the ground he was on.

“Yeah, he went out with her really briefly.  Well,” he back peddled, “that’s too strong a word.  It’s more that they hooked up once, or something.  I, uh, I was at the same party.  Sorority,” he explained.

Laurens nodded, not sure what his feelings about any of this were.  “Got it.”

A woman came on stage and started carrying out equipment.  By André’s lack of interest Laurens assumed she was not Mina.

“She’s Mar—She’s Peggy’s friend.”

Laurens nodded again.  “Yeah.”

“…I really want you to like her,” André said as the volume in the club dropped.  “I… know you didn’t get along with Peggy.”

Laurens looked away in lieu of trying to politely demur.

“And that’s okay,” André said quickly, “I don’t think any of my friends did, so it's not just you.”

“Alex liked her,” Laurens admitted, maybe a little more readily than usual after the drinks, feeling compelled to toss out something instead of letting the conversation drift on as he himself drifted away.

André looked surprised.  “Really?”

“Yes.”

André considered that, then slung his arm briefly over Laurens’ shoulders.  “Cool.  Thanks.”

“It’s Alex,” Laurens began, confused.

“You didn’t need to tell me, though.  Thanks,” André repeated, taking his arm away.

Laurens nodded, feeling a surge of oddly lonely hope and clinging to it.  “And it doesn’t matter anyway.  You like Mina more, don't you?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.”  André was smiling as he launched into his description of her.  “She’s just so _cool_.  You’ll see,” he assured him.  “Her parents are from Iran and she’s also teaching herself Juhuri, because she said they have some connections up in the Caucuses—it’s so cool,” he went on with enthusiasm, repeating some of his word choice, “there’re actually people right here in the city who speak it even though it’s an endangered language, and I guess she knows someone so they were—I mean, she’s already pretty fluent in Iranian Persian, so it’s not like she's starting from _nothing_ —”

Laurens laughed, not unkindly.  Five years was enough to recognize André’s fawning tone when he talked about the latest girl he liked.  The real truth of her abilities was probably about half of what André wholeheartedly believed.  Still, he had to admit, it was endearing.  The alcohol in his system blurred out some of the noise around them and slowed down time as André smiled with a self-conscious crush, and ducked his face down, blushing slightly as he continued to enumerate all of her skills.

“You guys ditched us,” Grayson complained, turning sideways for a moment to reach them through the crowd.  He stood on André’s other side.  “Is that her?”  He asked as the same woman came back out, this time adjusting the mic directly in front of them and doing a brief sound check.

“No,” Laurens answered before André could.  “She hasn’t come on stage yet.”

André gave him a little startled look but before he could say anything the woman began to introduce the next act and he grabbed Laurens’ arm in excitement.  Three other women came on stage as she retreated back to a keyboard and André tightened his grip, unnecessarily pointing out Mina, closest to them at the main mic, in a black camisole and jeans that matched her long braid.

“That’s her,” André said, looking to Laurens in eager anticipation, wanting him to agree with everything he had made her out to be on sight alone.  His uncontrollable enthusiasm made Laurens a little flustered and he gave some kind of affirmative statement back that seemed to satisfy André, at least while he was distracted by the music and how close she was.  They were opening with a cover of another song, something upbeat and energetic and the crowd pulsed with it.

“That’s Mina?”  Grayson asked in a shout from André’s other side.  André turned to him and Grayson laughed and nudged him teasingly.  “She’s way out of your league.”

“Hey, Mina thinks he’s pretty enough.”  Laurens ruffled André’s hair to an inaudible noise of protest and for a moment slipped his hands down to his hips, letting his own move to the beat.

André jerked in surprise and Laurens pulled away with a start like a splash of cold water.  He now recognized the feeling—shallow, fun—that had sparked in him with André’s hand on his arm as what he should have have experienced at the bar.

“—I’m going to,” Laurens started, too panicked to read the expression on André’s face as nothing more dangerous than confusion, and then stopped abruptly when André laughed, not able to hear him over the noise, and grabbed both of his wrists.  He pulled him closer, dancing with him to the beat.  He shouted something playfully that might have been “loosen your hips.” Before Laurens really knew what was happening, André was right up against him, clearly enjoying himself and letting go of his wrists to put one hand on his shoulder.  Someone let out a whoop and Laurens put his hands back at his waist, feeling himself smiling in something like excitement and nerve-wracking disbelief.

 

“Where’s John?”

“He and Alexander abandoned me,” Lafayette said lightly, picking up his laptop and turning it in a slow pan of his room.  “It looks like John never even came back today.  They must be busy,” he went on, “because Alexander never texted me to complain that I didn’t do my duty of restraining him.  Oh,” he said after a pause, putting her back down on his desk, “but that’s not right.  He was texting me earlier.  I don’t know where John is.”  He sat down in his chair.  “Do you think I should call around?”

Adrienne frowned.  “If you’re worried about him.”

“I’ll wait another hour.”  Lafayette sent Laurens a text.  “Adrienne, I’m going to Boston, Massachusetts.”

“Again?”

“We didn’t go to _Boston_ before,” Lafayette explained, “just the roads going through the state and a gas station.  It was a nice gas station.  I bought you a postcard from there, do you remember?”

“Yes,” Adrienne said, “it said ‘Hello from Boston.’”

“I liked the picture.”

Adrienne smiled.  “So did I.  The city looked very nice.”

“Lots of brick,” Lafayette said, remembering, “it’s older.  And it’s right on the coast.  We’re going to go see John play this weekend.”

“You and Alexander?”

“Mm, I hope so.  Angelica said she would ask her sisters if they would like to come.  Don’t worry,” he assured her, “I’ll sleep on the floor if it comes to that.  I remember our agreement.  Oh, and I don’t think she’s interested anyway, which is only mildly offensive, because I am quite the catch,” he joked.

“You’re very handsome,” Adrienne assured him.

“I’m better looking in America I think,” Lafayette confessed.  “I have a certain exotic appeal here that I cannot rely upon in France, at least not in real life and without filters.  Our friends are too good looking, Adrienne.  De Ségur has better teeth than me.”  He ran his tongue over them.

“I think you’re very handsome,” Adrienne repeated.  “And physical beauty isn't the most important thing in the world.”

“Oh, thank God,” Lafayette laughed in relief.  “You never would have dated me.”

“I would have,” Adrienne protested.

“No, no, it’s all right, I grew into my… everything.  You, on the other hand,” he went on, keeping her from interjecting even though she looked like she was about to.  “you were always so beautiful.  I remember when I first met you,” he said, “when we were very young.  I knew that I had never seen a girl like you before.”

Adrienne’s expression softened and she shook her head.  “Gil, there was nothing special about me.  You didn’t treat me any differently from anyone else you met.”

“No, I remember.”  He crossed his arms on the desk in front of the laptop.  “I think about it often.  Maybe I didn’t express or even realize that you were special at the time, but looking back on it now I can see that meeting you was the most fortunate thing that the universe ever had the grace to allow to befall me.”

“You are such a romantic.”

“With both a capital and a lower-case ‘R,’” Lafayette agreed.  “But I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

“No,” Adrienne smiled, “I don’t either.”


	135. Nostophobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raise a Glass; Home Delivery

Laurens was sitting next to André on the couch and laughing hard over a meager excuse of a joke.  Tallmadge was across from them and Laurens flipped him off and then raised the same hand as he called out a noisy greeting to the other two.  More glasses littered the table and he draped his arm over André’s shoulders and leaned against him.

“Mina’s pretty,” he agreed, slipping back into their previous conversation, “but you’ve got nothing t’ worry about.”

André laughed in response as Laurens patted him on the chest with his other hand and tightened his grip on his shoulder.

“‘m serious.  You’re way hotter than she is.  It’s a John thing,” he explained to the others in a confidential tone.  “No offense.”

Tallmadge was shaking with silent laughter, his head in his hands and his elbows on his legs.

“A John thing?”  Tench asked.  “How drunk are you guys?  What did we miss out on?”

“No, no,” André said, his face flushed red even if his voice was more stable than Laurens’.  “He’s got a point.”  He put out his hand and Laurens hit it.

Tallmadge gave a little helpless squeak and buried his face with more force into his hands.  Tench, sitting next to him, patted him on the back.

“Y’ know who’d agree,” Laurens said, letting André go and fumbling to get his phone out of his pocket, “is Alexander.  He’d definitely—he’ll tell you,” he informed André.  “He thinks you’re pretty cute.”

“Of course he does,” Tench said, leaning forward over the table and picking up empty glasses, looking for one that still had something in it.  “André’s a frickin’ male model.”

“Not anymore,” André protested.

“Yeah, when _that’s_ your argument…”

“You should find his pictures,” Grayson suggested with a grin.  “They’re all online, aren’t they?  You look like you’re in a 90’s boy band.”

“I don’t,” André protested a little harder as Laurens switched over to his web browser, his text to Hamilton half-written and unsent.  “It’s just regular clothes.”

“Mom jeans.”

“Look,” Laurens said in what he intended to be a placating tone to André.  “It doesn’t matter.  You can work it.”

“Hey,” Tench said, tipping back the last few drops of one of the shot glasses.  “Ask Alexander what he’d rank André.  Like out of ten.”

“What?  Why?”

“If you’re so concerned that you’re not in your girlfriend’s league,” Tench reasoned, “then wouldn’t it help to get an outside opinion?  It’s not like he's seriously interested or anything, so it doesn’t matter.”

“But…”  André furrowed his brow.  “But he’s never met Mina.”

“ _God_.”  Tallmadge straightened back up, trying hard to keep himself under control.  “Okay.  I’m okay.”

“You sure?  You were losing your shit over nothing, just like when—”

Tallmadge pushed Tench to shut him up.  “Don’t _ruin_ it.”

“I thought we were supposed to be the funny ones.”

“We’re the comedy duo,” Tallmadge agreed, “but then you have John, John, and a shit-ton of liquor…  We’re out-numbered.”

“Gotcha.”

“John-squared,” André said with a perfectly straight face.  “That would be the name of our band.”

Tallmadge made a fist and pressed it hard to his mouth.  “Mmhmm.”

“Lafayette’d make that our couple name,” Laurens said, his phone forgotten on the cushion next to him.  “Alex calls him and Adrienne ‘dearheart.’”

“That’s what they call each other,” André explained, not entirely necessarily.  “Him and Adrienne.  They…”  He trailed off, looking puzzled.  “…But it’s an…”  He gestured with one finger in front of him like he was doing a mathematical equation in his head.  “But it’s an English translation of a French term of endearment,” he finally said, prompting another round of laughter.  “Why doesn’t he just use the French phrase?”

“Because this is America,” Laurens said loudly in a terrible French accent.  “And the marquis is free from France here!”

“I mean.”  Grayson made eye contact with Tallmadge and Tench and nodded seriously.  “He’s got a point.”

“Lafayette was so mad about having to switch between Washington’s and the dorm when Adrienne was visiting,” Laurens said.

“He stayed with the president?”

“He thinks of him like,” Laurens gestured in front of himself, “like his father.  But he told him that she was visiting and, uh, technically you can’t have a guest at th’ dorms that many days in a row, so…  Should’ve just gotten a hotel, if you ask me.”

“Oh.”  André sat up straighter, his eyes widening in belated realization.  “Oh, I’ve got a spare bedroom at my place.  They should have just stayed with me.”

Laurens laughed and pounded him on the back, prompting André to grin sheepishly as well.

“Dude,” Tench said with a shake of his head, “why the fuck do you have two bedrooms at your apartment again?  That’s gotta be costing you a fortune a month!”

“Alexander’s got a single…”  Laurens frowned, unable to find the word he wanted as André got up and gathered up the empty glasses.  “He’s got a no-bedroom.  It’s just the one room and a bathroom.”

“A studio.”

“Right.”  He nodded at Tallmadge.  “Thank you.  They’re raising his rent though so he wants t’ find a new place next year.”

“Yeah?”  Tench grinned at him from across the table.  “You thinking of moving in with him?  Who cares if it’s a studio as long as the bed’s nice, am I right?”

“Between the two of them maybe they can upgrade to a single,” Tallmadge pointed out.

“His bed _sucks_ ,” Laurens said with sudden vehemence.  “It’s not even a _bed_.”  Grayson laughed and he turned to him, a little more aggressively.  “Fuck off, I’m serious.  It’s just a fuckin’ foldable mattress on the floor.  It’s barely big enough for a kid, I feel like I’m gonna wake up on the ground every morning!”

“Every morning?”  Tallmadge barely managed to keep a straight face.

Laurens missed the implication that he was always over there and nodded vigorously, a lock of hair falling loose and into his face.  “ _Fuck_ , every morning.  I don’t know why he got it in the first place, it’s only like…”  He held his fingers about four inches apart.  “I already told him, I feel like I’m camping when I spend the night.”

“Oh, I don't know where to take that,” Tench commented to Tallmadge.  “Wood?  Tenting?  Needing to retain body heat?  There are so many options.”

Grayson overheard him and snorted.

“It’s a good thing he’s so cute,” Laurens said with the air of someone onto a winning argument, “otherwise I’d never put up with that shit.”

“God.”  Tallmadge stood up and reached across the table to not-entirely-soberly pat Laurens on the side of the face.  “You’re so adorable.”  He straightened up before Laurens could protest and grabbing one of the full shots from the tray that André had just reappeared with. “This one’s for John Laurens,” he announced, indicating with a grand gesture that André was to distribute the rest of them.  Grayson had been propping his feet up on the table and he put them squarely on the ground to take one and he and Tench raised theirs to match.  “This’s for John Laurens,” Tallmadge repeated as André put the tray down and handed one to Laurens, taking the last for himself.  “Because,” he shook his finger at Laurens with a grin, “I’m glad to see that you’re growing up.  It warms my heart.”

“You’re younger than him, dumbass,” Tench reminded him from the couch.

“Shh.”  Tallmadge put his hand on Tench’s head and pushed it away.  “I remember when we first met,” he went on, “and I’m not going to lie, I thought you were pretty cool.”

Laurens, a little slow to process everything that was going on, laughed.

“And then I realized after a while that you were just as much of a loser as the rest of us, and the thing you bitched about the most was this,” he made a rolling gesture with his hand, “ _cynical_ idea about relationships.  Everything was fake, everyone was just tryin’ to get something for themselves, the only smart thing to do was get in and get out and,” he added as his grin broadened, “you were too jaded to even bother doing _that_.  And it was the weirdest thing,” he said, turning to the others for support, “because that’s not who you are!  You're not this dried up old bastard, you’re generous and loyal and too _smart_ to actually believe that we’re all on this planet to just fuck and kill one another and that cutting yourself off would somehow save you.”

Laurens’ eyes widened and he felt the blood rush to his face.  He looked down, embarrassed and ashamed about how little he felt he deserved the praise.  Tallmadge’s voice was ringing clear in his head even as his vision blurred.

“Maybe you did believe it,” Tallmadge said, “but I don’t think—here’s why I don’t think you did.”  He put his foot up on the low table, causing it to shake for a moment.  “Because that’s not what you fought for, for everyone else.”  He leaned forward and put his hand on Laurens’ shoulder.  “I’ve heard you try to explain away your father, seen you work with people who don’t deserve to have you on their side.  You’re a good man.”  His words were earnest and just a little slurred around the edges.  “That boy’s lucky to have you.”

Laurens didn’t move as André put his arm across his shoulders, mirroring what he had done to him earlier, and tugged him a little closer, the sides of their heads brushing.  He heard Tench call out “cheers!” and André repeat it back, loud in his ear, and then release him to take the shot.  Laurens took his as well, enough drinks in that it didn’t burn his mouth or throat.  He put the glass down hard on the table and leaned into André, the world holding itself together thickly around him.

“Come on,” he heard one of them say and registered that they were standing and André was helping him up.  There was chatter about leaving and the dorms and André’s arm was around him again.  Something about Lafayette and how they liked him and André laughing and saying that he owed him one so, yeah, they were probably right, they shouldn’t head back to the dorms.

Once outside Tallmadge was in front of him, asking for Hamilton’s address.  Laurens recited it and closed his eyes in the cold night air, letting it bring him slowly back to himself.

“That’s pretty close,” Tench was saying.  “We could just make a detour.”

Laurens opened his eyes.  Tench’s face was lit up by his phone as he studied the map.  “To Alexander’s apartment?”

Tench grinned at him.  “We figured you’d rather get dropped off there.  Shitty bed aside.”

Laurens almost remembered something about why that wasn’t supposed to happen, but he lost it and nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Great.”  Grayson folded his arms and Laurens noticed first that he was wearing a coat and then that they all were dressed for the weather again, including himself.  “Let’s get going.  I’m starving,” he complained as they set off, “let’s stop somewhere after we hand off Laurens.”

He and Tench started discussing possibilities, sharing the phone between them to scroll around on the map, as Laurens and André brought up the rear of the group.

“André,” Laurens said after a couple of blocks.  His voice was subdued and more steady than it had been earlier, even though his thoughts were still chasing each other in uneven circles.

“Mm?”

“Some girl tonight was hitting on me.”

André sounded amused when he responded.  “Yeah, that’s what I heard.”

“She thought I wasn’t gay.”

André didn’t say anything but the air got more serious.

It’s like—everybody except for my family knows and—”  Laurens stopped talking abruptly.  The words were turning themselves over in his throat.  He rubbed his face, numbed from the temperature and the drinks, with his hand.  He repeated the gesture, as if he could break the words apart and force them down.  He finally added, barely audible, “It would’ve killed my mother.”

“Hey.”  André tightened his hold on him for a moment, speaking low in turn so as to not draw attention from the other three, now several car-lengths in front of them.  “That’s not true.  You know that’s not true.”

Laurens didn’t respond.

“It wouldn't have mattered to her.  And your father, he’ll come around.  Even if he doesn’t, it’s his loss.  All right?”

“I have to go _home_ in a week and see everyone.”  Laurens’ voice was small.  He untangled himself from André and stepped or lurched away, running his hands over his face and leaving them in his hairline.

“That’s not that bad.”

“I’m bringing Alex with me.”  The world around him seemed less like it was in a fog, but all the more overwhelming.  “I didn’t even have to, I’m just an idiot.”

“You could ask him not to come,” André suggested.

“I don’t want him to not come.  I miss him.  I’m hardly _seeing_ him this week already.”  Laurens shook his head, trying to clear it the rest of the way and to keep himself from stumbling over his words.  He dropped his hands, staring down at the ground a few paces ahead of him.  He spoke up again after another block.  “I just don’t want to go.”

The conversation from up ahead of them filtered back in bits and pieces, something enthusiastically shouted about fast food, a chant of ro-sham-bo, and then Grayson swearing.

“They keep calling me,” Laurens said.  “I’m on the phone thirty, forty minutes at a time, and they don’t know.”  He gave a hollow laugh.  “The other night I was out and my father called and, and I had to pick it up and he wanted me to—to talk about what I’ve been up to.”  He looked up at André desperately.  “I don’t know what to tell him.  I’m gonna be there for a _week_.”

“Well,” André said after a pause, “I guess now you can tell him that practice got cancelled one day so you and a bunch of your friends went out to a club and you made an embarrassment out of yourself but hooked up with some girl.”

“We didn’t,” Laurens protested.

“I dunno, he’s old, does he know what ‘hooked up’ even means?”

“Did you know that I could’ve been team captain?”  Laurens asked abruptly as they passed out of the light of a streetlamp.

“…Yeah,” André said.  “I know.”

“Fuck.”  Laurens wanted the word to sound angry but it just came off frustrated and sad.  “If I had just kept it _together_ I could’ve gotten it.”

Tallmadge had stopped walking and let Tench and Grayson pass him.  He had turned and waited for André and Laurens to reach him and was only a yard or so ahead of them. He looked between them.

“How’re you guys doing?”  They were alongside him now.  “André, the others wanted to know if you wanted to come back to campus and crash with one of us.  You might have more room at Grayson’s.”

“Oh, yeah.”  André nodded.  “I should…”  He glanced at Laurens, then patted him on the shoulder.  “I’m going to go thank him.”

André left and Tallmadge fell into step next to him.

“You want to talk about it?”  He asked after André had caught up to the other two.

Laurens shook his head.  “It’s just fucked up.”

“Yeah?”

“My father’s going to be so pissed.”  He laughed shakily.

“Do you think he’ll find out?”  Tallmadge was looking ahead as they walked, a half-step in front of Laurens.

“He doesn’t know.  I don’t know how I could tell him.”

“Yeah.  You don’t have to.  Nobody needs to know, right?  Don’t put that kind of thing down on your resumé.  You know that,”  Tallmadge went on, “it’ll just make it look like you don’t have your shit together.”

Some barely audible noise caught Tallmadge’s attention and he turned around.  “…John?”

Laurens had sunk down into a crouch on the sidewalk.  He buried his face in his hands, his body shaking.

“Hey, hey,” Tallmadge said, stepping quickly over to him and running back through what had been said.  “Shit, Laurens, that wasn’t what I meant.  That’s not what I meant at all.  I’m so sorry, I wasn’t talking about that.”  He knelt in front of him, putting his hands on his shoulders.  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

Laurens nodded without uncovering his face.

“John?”  A pause.  “You need to get up.”

Laurens nodded again.

“Come on, big guy.”  Tallmadge hauled him unsteadily to his feet.  “We’re almost there.”  He put his hand on his back and pointed.  “See?  It’s one of those, isn’t it?  Just across the street.  Which one is it?  We couldn’t tell from the map.”

“Third one.”

“Third one?  Okay, let’s go.  You’re going to sleep it off with Alexander and we’ll all see you Friday if not before.  Got it?”

 

Hamilton had been reading in his bed when his buzzer suddenly went off and he jumped.

“What the fuck,” he complained, his heart still racing as he tossed the blankets aside and got to his feet.  The buzzer stopped for a moment and then continued.  “Fucking drunk asshole leaning on the button,” he muttered, hitting his end of the line.  “Hey, piss off!”

“Alex.”

It took Hamilton a second to respond.

“…John?”

“Hey.”

“What the fuck, John, are you wasted?”

“Let me in.”

Hamilton grabbed his keys from his desk and headed out, no jacket and bare feet.

“John, _seriously_ …”  He could see him through the front door once he went down the stairs, leaning on one hand right against it, his hair a mess and his shirt partially undone.  Hamilton got the door and held it open for him.  “John, what are you doing here?  Why aren’t you at the dorm?”  He wished he could have gotten through that without his nose starting to drip and he wiped it on the sleeve of his sweater.

“Can I stay here?”

“What?”  Hamilton looked past him and noticed with a nervous start his friends standing a little ways away.  “I told you, no.  Are you pushing him off on me?”  He asked them, confused rather than irritated.

“Hey,” André called, raising his hand in greeting and not moving away from the phone they had all been huddled around.  “Sorry to drop by unannounced but—he said he missed you.”

“And the shitty bed!”  Tench shouted.

Hamilton felt himself starting to blush.

Laurens whined sadly and tilted slightly towards him.

“Ugh, whatever, yeah, come on.  Thanks for dropping him off.”  Hamilton waved goodbye to the others, then opened the door wider and stepped to the side, bitching without any real bite.  “I can’t believe they just got you drunk and left you here for me to deal with.  Assholes,” he choked out, starting to cough again as they headed up the stairs.  “F’ck me.”  He unlocked his door, coughing harder into his fist.

“If you say so.”  Laurens put his hand on his shoulder, kissing the back of his neck clumsily.

“I bet you can’t even get it up.”  Hamilton shrugged him off and stood to the side.  “In.”

Laurens took off his coat and draped it over the back of Hamilton’s chair.

“You’re not sleeping in my bed.”  Hamilton cleared his throat.  “Damnit.”  He closed the door.

“How’re you?”  Laurens stared at his bed for a long second, then sat on the floor next to it.

“Fucking fantastic.”  Hamilton went into the bathroom.  “He couldn’t spring for the twelve hour shit?”  He took another shot of cough syrup. “Are you gonna sleep here?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton washed his hands and came back out and glanced at Laurens.  He had pulled his knees up and had his head in his arms on top of them.  Hamilton took a bottle of water out of his fridge and put it down next to him.  “Courtesy of Hercules Mulligan, hero of the hour.”  His tone was more sympathetic.

“I love you.”  The words were muffled.

“You’re drunk.”  Hamilton sat on his mattress, pulling the blankets back over his lap but not picking up his work again.  “You’re gonna die in practice tomorrow.”

“It got cancelled.  Coach had a vet emergency.  Alex.”

“Yes?”

He didn't look up.  “Kiss me.”

Hamilton felt his face heat a little.  “No.  You're not supposed to be here at all.  Again.”

Laurens gave another whine, softer than it had been at the front door.

“I—Come on, J.”

Laurens relaxed slightly with the name.

“I'm not going to do that.  You don't actually want that.”

“It’s just a cold.”

“Could be the flu.  I think I’m running a fever.”

“Mulligan said that earlier.  You can have a fever with a cold.  And you had the shot.”

Hamilton smiled a little in spite of himself.  “I guess I shouldn’t argue with the med student.”

“I’m not studying medicine.”

“You know more than I do.  But then you should also know I’m gonna pass whatever it to you if you’re not careful and it’ll throw you off your game.  Breathing’s important.”

“I miss you.”

“I'm right here, J.”

Laurens didn’t respond and after a moment Hamilton moved forward, sitting just behind him and running his hand up through his hair.  “You should get this cut before Thanksgiving.  You’ve been putting it off.  It’s really growing out.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“What, to the barber?”  Hamilton imitated Laurens and him kissed low on the back of his neck, although much more gently.  He couldn’t help himself and gave into the temptation, leaning the side of his face against him.  His head felt heavy and Laurens was a comforting support for it.

“Home.  Your face is hot.”

“I told you so.”

“Go to bed.”

“Well, yeah, then you came over.”  Hamilton stayed where he was.  He closed his eyes.  “You don’t want to see your father?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to go.  We don’t have to go.”

“Yes, I do.”

Hamilton sighed, too tired to fight him on it.  “Whatever.  I don’t get it.  What would make it better?”

“I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll be…”  Hamilton trailed off.  Sure, he would be there, but it wouldn’t be the same.  “Yeah,” he agreed, leaning against him a little more.  He slipped his arms around his waist.  “Okay.  You want to spend more time together leading up to it?  Get completely tired of me, you’ll be relishing the break.”

Laurens laughed hollowly.  “Yes.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton sniffed hard and sat up.  “God, I’ve got awful timing.  Anyway.  I was going to go to bed soon.  Why don’t you just make yourself comfortable and, I don’t know, I won’t try to kick you out in the morning.  You’ll probably be thanking me for that,” he added as Laurens just curled up on the floor.  “Hey, you comfortable enough there?”

“Can I have my pillow?”

“Uh…”  Hamilton glanced at it, tucked half under the covers near where he had been lying before.  “I lost it.  Sorry.  You want your coat?  You can roll that up and pretend you’re camping.”

“It’s okay.”  Laurens lay there for a moment, his eyes already closed.  “…How do you lose a pillow?”

Hamilton resisted the urge to swear.  He had hoped Laurens was drunk enough to let that one slip by.  “I don’t know, J., how do you sprain your ankle before the season even starts?”

“I tripped on a tire.”

Hamilton snorted and then hastily grabbed a tissue from the box by the side of the bed, holding it to his face.  “Oh my God.  Really?”

“We were running through them and I got my foot caught in one and fell.”

Hamilton blew his nose.  He laughed thickly.  “Why did I never hear this story?”

“I was embarrassed.”

“Why are you telling me now?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m gonna rub it in your face tomorrow.”

“Aw.”

Hamilton smiled fondly and reached out, petting the back of his head.  “Hey.  I’m glad you came over.  I missed you, too.”

“Did you?”

“Of course.  You’re pretty likable.  I’m a pretty lucky guy, to get you so attached to me that you just show up after a night out with your friends instead of going back to your own place.  I figured—”  Hamilton stopped to clear his throat and he got up, turning off the overhead light.  “I figured I could maybe get you for a lay,” he said, taking off his glasses and sitting back down in the dark, then lying down with his head at the opposite end of the futon from Laurens.  He pulled the covers up but scooted close enough to the edge of the mattress that his leg was against his back.  “But I thought that’d be about it.”

“Mm.”  Laurens turned over, sliding his arm under the blankets and wrapping it securely around his leg.

“God.”  Hamilton said, staring up at the ceiling.  “You know what, J.?  This is some domestic bullshit right here.”  He cleared his throat again.  “I’d be embarrassed for you to be here except you’re just as much of a mess as I am.”  He started to cough again and had to sit up until it passed, his leg still in Laurens’ grip.  “Shit.”  His voice was strained.  “Okay, I can’t talk anymore.  I’m going t’ sleep, J.  Love you.”  He lay back down and heard Laurens’ breathing deepen as sleep overtook him.


	136. Sleep It Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good Morning, Beautiful; Long Distance Domestic; *Washing Off

Laurens woke in the morning with his head pounding and his mouth dry.  His neck was sore and he rubbed at it as he sat up slowly, panicking for a sick second that he was going to be late to practice before he remembered that he didn’t need to go.  He slowly turned and looked back at Hamilton—he assumed that one or the other of them had decided that he wasn’t allowed on the mattress, why else would he have woken up in a ball on the hard floor—and didn’t exactly have to fight the urge to crawl into bed with him like he had the previous night.  His hair was a tangled mess and his jaw was slack, dried saliva at the corner of his mouth and on the shoulder of his sweater.

“G’morning, beautiful,” Laurens yawned, talking quietly to the room.  He scratched the back of his head, getting heavily to his feet with a low moan and heading to the bathroom, still trying to work the crick out of his neck.  “I see you didn’t set an alarm to get up before me and maintain the illusion.”

Laurens washed his face slowly in the bathroom sink and then dug through the drawers until he found a bottle of painkillers.  He took two, drinking tap water out of the palm of his hand until he was satiated.  Going back out into the main room, he turned the desk lamp on and started the coffee machine, sitting down in the chair and rubbing his eyes, walking himself murkily back through the previous night.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, resting his head face-down in his hands.  How embarrassing.

Hamilton snored and rolled over, his breathing getting stuck in his throat a couple of times before he woke up with a jerk, coughing hard into his elbow as he half sat up and held his shoulder.  Laurens was on the floor next to him in a flash, opening the bottle of water and offering it to him.  Hamilton took it, his face flushed and eyes watering.

“Thanks,” he managed after a minute, then set himself off again.  “ _Fuck_.”

“Do you want something for that?”

Hamilton nodded wordlessly and tried to get control of himself before Laurens came back from the bathroom.

“Here.”  He offered him the plastic medicine cup, filled to the line with thick red liquid.

“Wash your—”  It was a few more seconds before Hamilton was able to take it.  He handed the empty cup back to Laurens and collapsed—only a little dramatically—back onto the mattress, his heart pounding.

“I’ll wash them.”  Laurens leaned over him, resting his weight on his arm next to his head and curling his hand in his hair against his neck.  He kissed him slowly on the forehead, feeling Hamilton’s already elevated temperature suddenly jump.  He sat back.  Hamilton, face red, was watching him with wide eyes.

“…What?”

“You kissed me.”

Laurens looked uncomfortable.  “Was that not okay?  I know you said not to, but I figured your forehead…”

Hamilton shook his head.

“…Okay.”  Laurens got up.  “I’m putting this back.”

Hamilton watched as he walked out of sight and heard the water run for close to a minute.  Laurens came back and rummaged in the fridge, finally sitting down again at the foot of the bed where he had slept with another bottle of water and half a bag of sliced bread.  Hamilton turned around, half-tangling himself in the covers, and curled up around him like a cat.  He wrapped his arm around Laurens’ pillow, crushing it into a comfortable position, and closed his eyes.

Laurens was surprised into staying quiet and still and he didn’t move until Hamilton let out a contented sigh and leaned in a little closer.  He smiled and put his hand on his head, stroking the back of his neck.  He could almost imagine that he heard him purr.

“Hey.”

“Mm.”

Laurens frowned.  “Is that my pillow?  I thought you said you lost it?”

“Tell me how you sprained your ankle,” Hamilton said shamelessly, eyes still closed and body still relaxed.

Laurens kept petting his neck but he looked up at the ceiling.  “Uh.  Sports.  Super… human…  sports.”

“Mm,” Hamilton repeated, pleased.

Laurens managed to reach his phone.  “Do you mind if I read?  I think I can access the book I need as a pdf.”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you going to class?”

“Not if you stay here with me.”  Hamilton’s body jerked as he stifled a cough.

“You’re blackmailing me,” Laurens complained, petting his hair.  “First you didn’t want me to come over at all and now you’re not letting me leave.”

“Shh.  I’m sleeping.”

Laurens mock rolled his eyes, forgetting for a moment that Hamilton wouldn’t be able to see it.

“I love you,” Hamilton said after Laurens was already a few pages into his reading and halfway through his first slice of bread, his hand still moving soothingly through his hair.  He sounded obviously congested but much more relaxed about the whole situation than he had previously.  “If you’re on your phone then text Mulligan and tell him I don’t need him to come by.”

“Was he going to?”

“He said he might.  He always does, though, no matter what he says.  You gotta tell him you’re keeping me company or he’ll show up and ruin it.”

Laurens laughed.  “I can’t believe how spoiled you are.”

“Mm, you want to remind me of that when we’re in South Carolina and I see your gold-plated bedroom?”

“I thought you said you were sleeping.”

Hamilton smiled, feeling heat prick his cheeks like pins and not minding.  “Thanks for coming back, J.”

“Yeah, well.”  Laurens finished sending the text and went back to the pdf.  “I wouldn't have left in the first place if you hadn’t been so insistent.”

“I was making the smart choice.  One of us had to be the rational one.”

“And now?”

“Turns out that I don’t like rationality.  Who knew?”  He pressed a little closer to him for a second.  “I like you.”

Laurens smiled at his phone, feeling the painkillers start to kick in.  “Go back to sleep while it’s still dark out.”

“Mmkay.”  Hamilton breathed out slowly, relaxing into a deep and comfortable sleep.

 

“He abandoned me again,” Lafayette told Adrienne as he got dressed.  “I’m practically an orphan in America.”

“I thought he was going to be around this week?”

“So did I!  It’s not that he’s not allowed to have a life outside of me,” Lafayette said, “but I get lonely sometimes.  It’s a very empty room with no one else in it.”  He sat down in his chair, finishing doing up the buttons on his shirt.  “Maybe John’s friends were right.  Maybe I should join their fraternity.  It’s a very American thing to do.”

Adrienne frowned.  “I don’t know, Gil.  I’ve heard some things.”

He sighed.  “As have I.  I don’t think I’ll really do it.  Maybe I’ll just join another club.  I could be in theater.  I was in a play that one time.  That went well, didn’t it?”

“You were in a play,” Adrienne agreed without answering the question.  “You could try out for something.”

“I’ll look around.  I’m not much for dancing, but I suppose singing would be all right.”

“You could take dance lessons.”

“I’m too gangly,” Lafayette said with a somewhat dismissive wave of his hand.  “It just doesn’t work for me.  You’re daintier and more elegant than I am.  It’s just the truth, we don’t need to be offended on my behalf.”

“Maybe you should take voice lessons as well.”

“Adrienne,” Lafayette protested.  She giggled.  “All right, I will look into it.”

“It would be something to do.”

“That’s true,” he conceded.  “I would like more friends.  I should text Alexander and find out if he is taking back his order or if I should go and collect John.  Maybe I bring him home anyway.  He’s supposed to go to Boston this weekend.  Would that be responsible?”

“Don’t bother them if they don’t want to be disturbed.  Besides,” Adrienne said, “I like spending time with you in private.”

Lafayette smiled and looked back over his shoulder at Laurens’ empty side of the room.  “That’s true.”  He checked the time on his laptop.  “Oh.  I do have to go.  But,” he perked up, “I can come back in an hour.  I think John will be busy then anyway.”

“Gil,” Adrienne said, “I have class then.”

Lafayette deflated a little.  Right, school.  “Tonight?”

“If John isn’t around.”

“I’ll get all my work done early,” he started to promise, “then we can—Tch.”  The connection suddenly failed and the window with her picture cut to black with the word “reconnecting” in small font on it.  He clicked on it a couple times in the equivalent of hitting the television monitor and hoping it would start working again.  Nothing happened and he quit the program and leaned back.  “All alone.”

His laptop dinged and a new message appeared.

 

> A. de Noailles: Have a good day in class <3 Jtm <3

 

Lafayette smiled and typed back before standing.

 

> G. Lafayette: I love you too

> G. Lafayette: I’ll text you in a minute, let me just gather my things and head out the door <3

> G. Lafayette: brb

 

It was almost noon when Laurens got an incoming call.  He saw the number—he recognized it even without the name attached with just a glance at the 202 area code—and felt his heart leap with panic into his throat.

Laurens tried to keep his voice both casual and low when he answered the phone.  Hamilton was still curled around him, his lips slightly parted and body pressed to him.

“Hello?”

“Jack, how are you?”

“I’m good, thank you.”  Laurens carefully made sure he didn’t sound as anxious and guilty as he felt.  He put his hand lightly on Hamilton’s shoulder.  He didn’t want to wake him and he took it off again, balling it into a fist and putting it in his lap.  “How are you, Dad?”

“I’m doing well.  I enjoyed getting to talk to you the other day.”

“Yes, me too.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“I’m… in the library,” Laurens lied, landing on the first appropriate excuse he could think of.  At least he had been reading earlier.  “I’m sorry.  What is it?”

“I wanted to tell you that I have some time off this weekend and I’m going to come up to watch your game.”

“To Boston?”  Laurens felt a wash of relief that it was an away game.  “That’s great,” he said, actually meaning it.  “How long are going to be there?  We’re driving up real early on Friday.”

“I’ll be there to watch you play, but I have to head back down later that night.”

Laurens leaned a little away from Hamilton and fought the urge to get up.

“I’d like to take you out after the game.  How does dinner sound?”  Laurens could hear his father open and close a drawer at his desk.  “Will your friend be joining us?”

“I’ll ask André if he’s free but it should be fine.”

“Good.”  Henry Laurens sounded distracted.  “I have to go, Jack.  I’ll expect you for dinner after the game.”

“Yessir.  See you then.”

Laurens waited until his father had hung up before he put his phone down.  Hamilton stirred and Laurens bent down, bracing himself against the ground with one hand and lightly kissing him on the temple.  His fever seemed to be gone, he noted with relief.

“Sorry.  Did I wake you?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” Laurens repeated.  Hamilton made a soft complaining noise and took his hand, making Laurens shift and readjust his weight.  He smiled as Hamilton stroked his arm.  “My father called.”

Hamilton made the same noise as before but louder.

“He just wanted to meet up with me in Boston.”

Hamilton pressed his face to Laurens’ arm, indicating that he didn’t want to hear more.

“Hey, come on.  At least you don't have to have dinner with him.”

“No one wants that.  Least of all him.”

Laurens laughed and took his arm away, nudging Hamilton onto his back as he turned and lay down over him.  He supported his weight on his arms and ducked his face to the top of Hamilton’s head, burying it in his hair, breathing in deeply.

“Hey, hey.”  Hamilton pushed lightly at his shoulder.  “Get off of me, you big lug.  You don’t want to do that, I need to shower.”

“I miss you already.”

Hamilton felt his heart tighten.  “I miss you, too.”

Laurens started to move away but stopped when Hamilton slipped his arms up under his, gripping the back of his shirt lightly and keeping him in place.

“…You should get off of me.”

Laurens half-laughed again.  “You’re holding me down.”

“Yeah.  Not hard, though.” Hamilton took his arms away.  Laurens sat up and then got to his feet, offering him a hand when Hamilton moved to stand.  Hamilton shook his head and coughed once, twice into his arm, before getting up on his own.  “Between you and Mulligan I haven’t had this much bedrest since I was a kid.”  His voice sounded clearer than it had before.  “You guys sure are determined to reset my sleep schedule.”  He headed towards the bathroom, his words getting temporarily muffled as he pulled his sweater off over his head.  His shirt got stuck and came up with it and he dropped them both to the floor just outside the door.  “Shit.”  He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself.  “You coming, J.?”

Laurens blinked in surprise.  “Uh, do you want me to?”

“Good idea, right?  Wash off the gross.  Seriously, if you get sick right before you’re playing I’m not gonna forgive you.”

“You’re feeling better,” Laurens commented, following him in and taking off his shirt as Hamilton finished stripping and blew his nose in the sink.

“Mostly,” Hamilton agreed.  “I only really felt like shit yesterday morning.”  He thought about that, came up with other examples from outside that bounded period, decided not to share them.  “I need to shower,” he repeated instead, getting in and turning the water on.  “If you join me I’ll thank you properly for the food and company.”

Laurens wolf whistled teasingly.  He stepped out of his pants and got into the shower.  “Do you—ah—”

Hamilton had his hand between his legs already and was looking up at him through long dark lashes, water running down his naked body.  Laurens automatically put one hand on the wall to brace himself.

“Trade me places,” Hamilton instructed, taking his hand away so Laurens could slip past him and stand under the water.  “…And pass me that—yeah, thanks.”  Hamilton took the bottle of shampoo and Laurens watched, his heart pounding, as he began to wash his hair as if nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

Hamilton looked up and got a teasing glint to his eye.  “What?”

Laurens turned a little red and looked away.  “Nothing.  You done with that?”  He took the bottle back.  “You sure you don’t want to—ahn—”  Hamilton had moved forward again under the pretext of wanting to rinse out his hair and had his hand back on him, gently cupping his balls.

“…Soap?”

Laurens handed him the bar mutely.  Hamilton took it and looked at it with a flash of disappointment as he realized he would need two hands.

“J.”  He looked up imploringly.  “I’ve got a wash cloth hanging up on the bar.  Can you grab it for me.  I actually do really want to wash off,” he admitted, a little embarrassed.

Laurens carefully switched positions with Hamilton in the stall again, having to move very gingerly, and pulled the curtain open just far enough to him to reach out and grab the towel.  “Here.”  He took the soap from him and worked it into a lather.

“Water.”  Hamilton released and nudged him back under the spray and took the towel.  Laurens worked the soap in his own hands and wiped himself down, distracted by the cloth being passed over Hamilton’s chest and collar and the way he tipped his head back and let his eyes close, forgetting for a minute his secondary purpose and just enjoying the warmth and the steam.

Laurens swallowed dryly.

Hamilton opened his eyes and Laurens quickly got back to washing himself off.

“Turn around,” Hamilton instructed him once more.  Laurens did so mutely, putting the soap down on its ledge, and Hamilton, washcloth now draped over his shoulder, stepped up behind him, resting the side of his face against his back and wrapping his arms around him.

“Mm…”  Laurens took a stronger stance and turned his face up, letting the water hit him.  Hamilton wrapped his hand around his shaft, moving it over him as he hardened.  His hand was still slippery with soap and Laurens braced himself against the wall.

“Your thank you present,” Hamilton joked, lifting his head momentarily to kiss his shoulder blade.  “You’re a good boyfriend.”

“Hah.”  Laurens’ hips jerked into his touch.  “You’re being…  This is generous.”

“I think you earned it.”  Hamilton kept moving his hand and Laurens gave a soft groan.  Hamilton ran his thumb around Laurens’ cockhead and then repeatedly over his slit, teasing him as Laurens’ hips shook.

Hamilton slid his hand back down and over Laurens’ shaft, working his length and running his other hand over his side and upper thigh.  If they had been outside the touch would have made Laurens shiver but he just gasped and then gave a little shake of his head, blowing water from his face.

“Mm…”  Hamilton was leaning against him and he nuzzled his back, a smile on his face as he continued to stroke him.  He could feel how tensely Laurens was holding himself and he let him thrust into his grip, adjusting his rhythm to match him.  “God,” Hamilton breathed as Laurens bit back a whimper.  “I love doing this to you.”

Laurens’ breath caught.  “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton grinned.  “You’re a beautiful piece of man.”

Laurens gave a short distracted laugh.  “What was that?”

“You heard me.”  Hamilton picked up his pace.

“I thought you said you were—feeling better.”  Laurens leaned a little harder on the wall.  “You’re talking nonsense.”

“Aw, come on.  We both know you’re a real beefcake.”  Hamilton’s grin broadened when Laurens whined, the noise not quite as soft as he would have liked to pretend.  “And I know you like my voice.”  Hamilton cleared his throat, annoyed that he still had to do that.  “You like to hear me talk you up a little.  Vain,” he commented.  “Luckily for you I secretly like that about you.”

“Alex…”

Hamilton pressed his face to his back again.  “Yeah, J.?”

“ _Alex_ …”  Laurens repeated, his voice a little louder, a little needier.

“Oh.”  Hamilton managed to not laugh.  He kept going, feeling the brief quiver that ran through Laurens’ body before he adjusted his stance again, sliding slightly down the wall with his knees not-quite-buckling and his breathing coming louder.  Hamilton continued to pump him, leaning against his hard wet body and feeling him tense and push his hips forward into his hand.  Laurens came with a gasp and leaned forward, his forearms against the wall.  Hamilton moved with him, putting his hands at his waist instead.

Laurens breathed out slowly and then carefully took a step back, the water hitting his chest and running down his body.

Hamilton kissed his skin lightly and stepped away, ringing out his hair and pulling open the shower curtain.  “Are you done?”

Laurens turned and caught his arm.  “Don’t you…?”

Hamilton looked at him in a moment of surprised confusion, then glanced away, climbing out of the shower and drawing the curtain closed behind him.  “I’m good,” he said in a light tone designed to hide some kind of mild embarrassment.  “Maybe later.”

Laurens paused.  Since when did he not…  He felt a little guilty for having enjoyed himself once he realized that, unlike him, Hamilton was not currently ready to go.  He took another moment under the water then turned it off and followed him out.  He was handed a towel before he had the chance to reach for it or say anything.  “Oh, thanks.”

“That’s a fresh one.”  Hamilton was standing in the open doorway.  Laurens’ old towel was in the laundry basket and he was half dressed.  “I want to wash this,” he complained, kneeling and picking up his dirty shirt and sweater, “but I’m out of clothes.”  He sat up straighter suddenly and sneezed wetly into the fabric.  “…Gross.  Sorry.”  He balled the clothes.

“I left a sweatshirt here,” Laurens said as he got dressed again.  “Why don’t you borrow that?”

“You sure?”

“Of course.”

Hamilton hesitated and then got it out of the bag Laurens had left there.  He pulled it on over his bare chest.  “Thanks.”

“Not at all.”  Laurens waited for him and then took his hand, tugging him close and putting the side of his face to his.

“Hey.”  Hamilton pushed him away firmly.  “Stop that.  We went over this.”  He went back into the bathroom and Laurens watched as he wet his toothbrush.  “The shower was a one-off, that’s not how this is working, J.”

Laurens tipped his head to the side, looking over Hamilton.  He thought that the sweater suited him somehow.  “I wasn’t kissing you.”

Hamilton made a scoffing sound around the toothbrush in his mouth.

“I wasn’t,” Laurens insisted.  “I could have.”

Hamilton just gave him a look, one eyebrow arched expressively.

“Let’s just go back to bed,” Laurens coaxed.

Hamilton spat into the sink and ran the water.  “Uh, yeah, no.  Those sheets are dirty.  You’re seeing your father this weekend, remember?  You want to tell him you didn’t play in the game he flew up to see you in because your boyfriend gave you mono?”

“You don’t have mono.”

“Not the point.  Christ.”  Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “Why’m I being so careful?  You’re already so healthy, I bet anyone would barely even notice if you got sick.”

“So is that a yes?”

“No, it’s me bitching.  I’m stripping the futon.”  He walked past him and took the sheets off the mattress, just dumping them in a pile by the door.  “There’s food in the fridge.  The stuff you picked up.  I know you must be hungry.”

“In a little while.”

“You’re a freakin’ cuddle whore.  Sorry, sorry.”  Hamilton tossed the two pillows into the pile.  “That was mean, I shouldn’t snuggle shame you.”  He grinned and laughed at his own joke, cutting off abruptly with a couple of coughs that made him clear his throat and press his fist to his chest.  “Anyway,” he went on, having gained control of himself with relative ease, especially compared to earlier, “you’re just saying no to lunch because I jerked you off and now your serotonin’s in overdrive.”

“Oxytocin.”

“Huh?”  Hamilton looked up.

“Oxytocin.”  Laurens took his hand again and pulled them both down onto the futon, lying down in the opposite direction from normal in a small concession to Hamilton’s concerns.  He put his arms around him and his hand on the back of Hamilton’s head, tucking it down underneath his chin.  “I thought you got an A in chemistry,” he teased.

“Yeah, well.”  Hamilton was smiling.  “I had a really good partner.  He carried me in lab.”

“Mm.”  Laurens took a deep breath and this time Hamilton didn't protest.  Instead he shifted a little closer, tucking his hands between them for warmth.

“…How do you know I had the chemical wrong?  Serotonin’s a thing.”

“Look them up later.”  Laurens tightened his grip on him slightly.  “Do you want my coat?  You can use it as a blanket.”

“Nah.  This is fine, J.”  He yawned in spite of himself.  “Huh.  Don’t know how I can still be tired.”  He started to turn his head up, then caught himself and ducked it back down, kissing Laurens slowly on the collar instead.

Laurens smiled.  “Hey.”

“That didn’t count.”

“I know.  I was just going to ask if you’ll be free when I get back on Saturday night.”

“‘Course I will.  Come over whenever, I said that already.”  Hamilton kissed him again, his eyes closed, and clarified, “I’ll be here.”


	137. Weekend Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving for Boston (Laurens & Co.); Dinner (Hamilton & Eliza); Leaving for Boston (Lafayette & Angelica & a Friend); Dinner (Hamilton & Eliza) Pt. 2

“You get the new album?”  Grayson took out one earbud and offered it to Laurens.  “You’ll like this.  It’ll get us through the first leg of this trip at least.”

Laurens took it and crossed his legs with his ankle on his knee.  “Thanks.”

“No problem.  I know you’ve got good taste, unlike _someone else_ ,” he said, raising his voice for the last two words and kicking at the seat in front of him.

“Cut it out,” Trumbull complained.  “Seriously, Will, you’re being a friggin’ pain.”

Grayson shrugged and turned the volume up a couple of notches.

“Stop, I’m not trading you seats,” Laurens heard Trumbull’s younger brother protest in front of him.  He bit back a laugh.

“Wait like a minute in,” Grayson said.  “Minute-twenty.  There’s this great drop, you’ll see what I mean.  It’s killer from there on out.”

“This is good,” Laurens agreed.  “Did you just download it?”

“Last night.  Hey, if I manage to score tickets this summer…?”

“I’m going to be back in South Carolina.”

“Shoot.  Right.”  Grayson fell silent to let Laurens listen to the track, turning away and looking out the bus window as the early morning gray above highway moved past.  “What was the first concert you went to?”  He asked, turning back after a few minutes.  “Mine was pretty lame.  Papa Roach, ninth grade.  It was on this navy base,” he went on, “and I got dropped off outside with a couple of friends.  We had to walk along the road like two miles to get to the stage on the hottest night of the year and then it was just sweaty drunk military guys crashing into each other in front of the speakers.”

Laurens did laugh this time.  “Seriously?”

“Yeah, it blew.  We had to walk all the way back out, too, but we thought we were pretty badass.”  Grayson laughed at himself.  “Kids suck.  Okay, Laurens, first concert, go.  And none of that fancy opera house shit, I mean actual music.”

“Papa Roach counts as music?”

Grayson shouldered him.  “Come on!”

Lauren looked up at the ceiling, having to think and distracted by the song playing in his ear.  “When I was a kid my father went on a business trip to Toronto and his friend was a professional music critic and he took me to see a show he was doing a write up on.”

“Seriously?”  Grayson pulled a face.  “I was trying to tease you, why is your actual story almost as classy?”

“Hey, I thought you wanted me to listen to this.”

“Yeah, yeah…”   Grayson quieted and turned his face back to the window.

Laurens folded his arms across his chest and leaned back, closing his eyes.

“I’m flying out as soon as we get back to the city,” he heard Tench say behind him.  “I’m probably going to catch a cab to the airport.  I’ve got my bag already packed and everything.  You want a postcard from Delhi?”

“Sure.”  That was McHenry.  “We can see if it actually gets here before you return.”

“There’s Thanksgiving,” Tench pointed out.  “If it gets slowed down from that and holiday mail, that’s not my fault.  I’m packing light,” Tench went on, “since it’s just a week and I wanted to leave space in my suitcase for stuff I’m bringing back to the country.  My parents wanted me to look for some things and I figured I can get some cheap presents for people.  And food,” he added.  Laurens heard the seat shift and the location of his voice raise as he got to his knees and turned to speak to the row behind him.  “Make sure you give me the list of stuff for your folks.”

“Shit,” Tallmadge swore.  “Right.  I’ll text them again.”

“This next one’s good,” Grayson said, nudging him.

“Got it.”

Satisfied, Grayson settled back, nodding along as the beat picked up again.

“Hey.”  André leaned across the aisle.  “How’s Alexander?”

Laurens suddenly and completely lost track of the lyrics.  “Alexander?” He glanced apologetically at Grayson, but he was listening curiously to their conversation and didn’t seem offended. “He’s fine,” Laurens said.  “Annoyed that Lafayette's ditching him for Boston.”

Laurens saw André make eye contact with someone behind him and resisted the urge to turn, especially with the earbud in.

“Hey, about the other night…”

“I’m fine too,” Laurens said, more firmly.

“Right, right.  I just wanted to make sure you weren’t still hung over,” André joked.  “Since you’re starting this evening and all.”

“You saw me,” Laurens said, turning back to Grayson.  “I wasn’t that drunk.  He’s full of shit.”

“No comment.”

“Tch.”  Laurens brushed the words away.  “Hey, André.  My father is coming up to Boston as well and wanted to meet up for dinner after the game.  Can you join us?”

André nodded.  “Of course.  Thank you.”

“He asked if you were free,” Laurens said.  “He likes you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

André shrugged and nodded again and Laurens leaned back against the seat.

“I’m putting that one on again,” Grayson informed him.  “Since we missed it.”

“Sure.”  Across the aisle André took a book out of his bag and Laurens closed his eyes again, focusing on the music.

 

“It’s just so stupid,” Hamilton complained, tugging his scarf down.  “I would’ve gone to Boston too but _no_ ,” he coughed shallowly into the back of his hand, “I’ve got too much freaking work to catch up on.  Also it’s expensive.  This sucks.  Winter sucks.  I hate everything.”

“I’m sorry you can’t go with them.”

“I know,” Hamilton sighed.  “I’m gonna be busy playing catch up all weekend and also it would have been a bad idea anyway since it turns out Congressman Henry Laurens is flying up.  Dick.  Don’t tell John I said that,” he added quickly.

“I won’t,” Eliza reassured him.

“You’re the best.”  He stepped further to the side, keeping to his half of the sidewalk as students passed him in the opposite direction.  “Hey, you want to hang out tonight or something?  I kind of got used to having people around this semester,” he admitted.  “It’s weird to be on my own now.”

“I’d love to,” Eliza said, taking his gloved hand in hers for a moment and giving it a little squeeze.

He glanced down but she was already returning her hand to her pocket.  He mimicked her.

“When are you free?”

“Hm?  Oh, I dunno.  Early.  Whenever.”

“Are you working this afternoon?  You said you need to catch up on things.”

“Shit.  Yeah, I should go in.  Actually, I need to talk to G-Wash about something.  Can I meet you somewhere right after that?  Should still be early afternoon, maybe four.  Shit,” he repeated, shaking his head.  “That won’t work, my place is a dumpster fire.  Okay, can I go back to my apartment, clean, sanitize, burn all my fabrics, and then give you a call?”

“Why don't you come over to my place?”

Hamilton looked up at her in surprise.  “…Really?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.  I can do that.  Uh.”  He paused, fidgeting uncomfortably.  “…What should I wear?”

Eliza laughed.  “What you have on now is fine.”

“Are you sure?  Because, I mean, these pants are from the thrift store and Mulligan took like a half-inch off the sleeves on my shirt and there’s a hole on the collar—”

“You’re fine,” Eliza said in her best soothing tone, taking her hand back out of her pocket and patting him on the arm.  “You’re just coming over to do homework and have dinner.  It’s fine.”

“…I’m invited to dinner?”

“You’re my friend, Alex.  Of course you are.”

Another pause.  “Should I bring anything?  Wine?”

“Don’t,” she suggested.

“Right, right, I can’t buy that.  Soda?  Pâté?  I don’t know, what do fancy people like?  I missed the potluck part of André’s party.”

“You’re my guest,” Eliza said, “and I’ll be offended if you feel the need to bring anything.”

“I’ll bring flowers,” Hamilton said, not listening.  “That seems safe.”

“All right,” Eliza agreed.  “I’ll wait on campus for you.  Let me know when you’re free and we can head over.”

“I wish I had brought a tie,” Hamilton muttered, adjusting his scarf again.

 

“ _Bonjour, monsieur._ ”

Lafayette grinned and bent into a deep bow.  “ _Mademoiselle_.”  He offered his hand dramatically to Angelica and she laughed and brushed it aside, picking up her duffle bag and slinging it over her shoulder.

“Do you have the tickets?”

“Right here.”  He patted the breast pocket of his shirt and zipped his jacket up over it.  “Thank you for paying me back.”

“Of course.  Thank you for arranging it.”

“I’m just glad someone could come with me,” he enthused, turning in a slow circle to look at the high ceiling of the train station and picking up his backpack.  “It would have been fine on my own, but this will be much more fun.”

“Are you excited to see John play?”

“Oh, yes,” Lafayette agreed as they headed with the flow of people towards the gates.  “This way, I think.  I looked it up earlier.  But there’s a lot that I want to see in Boston as well.  I told Adrienne I would find her all of the historic buildings and a penguin.”

“…A penguin?”

“They’re very cute.”

“Did she make this list of things to find or did you?”

“Ah, that is, how do you say, the million dollar question.  Pardon me.”  He stepped to the side to let a woman and her stroller by.  “The ride will be quite long.  Should we get snacks?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Angelica agreed.  “Is this where we need to wait?”

Lafayette nodded, motioning at the mostly-full seating area.

“All right.”  She handed him her bag.  “Stay here with our things.  I’ll be right back.”

“Get drinks, too,” he called after her.  “Something unusual!”  He paused.  “Or that photographs well!”

“Lafayette?”

Lafayette turned around at his name.  Gouverneur was turned around in one of the chairs, pulling his headphones down around his neck and looking up from his e-reader. 

“Oh.”  Lafayette carried their luggage over and Gouverneur took his bag off the seat next to him so that he could join him.  “What are you doing here?”

“Going to Boston.  I’ve got an interview.  You?”

“Angelica and I are going to watch the away game.”

“Right, your roommate.”

“We’re going to do a little sightseeing too,” Lafayette said cheerfully.  “We will take full advantage.”

“We should meet up at some point.  I’m going to be there all weekend.  Angelica’s cool, right?”

Lafayette didn’t really know what he meant by that.  “She’s very cool,” he assured him.

“Alexander’s always talking about how smart she is,” Gouverneur started, falling silent as Lafayette got up to wave Angelica back over.

“I got smoothies,” Angelica said as she walked up, holding one out for Lafayette.  “That’s not very unusual but I thought you might like the colors.”  She took a sip of her own.  “Gouverneur, right?  We met at the Halloween party.”

“ _Enchanté_.”

“Mmhm.”  Angelica took a longer drink.

“Angelica,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, “Gouverneur is also going to Boston.  We should do something together.”

“Are you going to the game as well?”

“Nah.”  He shook his head.  “I was just telling Laf.  I’ve got a job interview for after graduation.  Plus I know a girl up there so at least I’ve got a place to stay.”  He nodded at Lafayette, who was only paying half attention as he tried to find the best angle for a picture of his drink.

“What’s the interview for?”

“Law firm.  Not for doing anything cool in it,” he clarified, “kind of stuff our friend Alexander’s already got expertise in but they said they’d do a little mentoring too and are interested in hiring new or prospective law students.  Bit of a long shot since I don’t actually have the degree in hand, but,” he shrugged, “they were willing to speak with me at least.  In person only,” he added.  “Super old school.  Good thing I’ve got some money and we’re not that far away.”

“Are you sitting near us?”  Lafayette checked Gouverneur’s ticket.  “Maybe there will be empty seats and we can move around.”

“We can probably work out something.”

“Have you been to Boston before?”  Angelica asked, crossing one arm over her chest and putting her hand on the inside of her elbow.  She took another drink.

“Few times, yeah.  Like I said, I know a girl up there.”  Gouverneur sighed with anticipatory self-satisfaction.  “It’s gonna be a good weekend.”

Angelica rolled her eyes.

“Don’t judge me,” Gouverneur said, leaning against the backrest of his chair.  “You have your hobbies and the two of us have ours.  Me and her,” he clarified, motioning towards where the train would pull up, “not me and Lafayette.”

“Lafayette has similar hobbies,” Lafayette said.

“Fair enough.  Speaking of similar hobbies,” Gouverneur said, leaning forward and nudging Lafayette, “you want to—mhmm—” he raised his eyebrows meaningfully, “up in Boston?  I figure I’ll have some free time, thinking it might be my reward for _acing_ the interview.”

“…You’re not still talking about sex, are you?”  Angelica asked as Lafayette tipped his head to the side and nodded in consideration.

“No, no,” Gouverneur laughed.

“You look very put out,” Lafayette commented to Angelica.  “I’m a little offended.”

“Because I didn’t want to hear about your wild swinger’s life?”

“Yes.  Not that I have one,” he added.  “Adrienne made it clear that that would be crossing a line.”

“Who’s your favorite author?”  Gouverneur asked Angelica abruptly.  “Off the top of your head.”

“That is an unfair question,” Lafayette scolded him.  “Don’t answer him,” he told Angelica.  “He did the exact same thing to me.  He will ask you and then he will form a critique of your preconceived flaws from what you tell him.”

“All I said,” Gouverneur defended himself, “was that it’s _incredibly_ pretentious to answer that kind of question with ‘Voltaire.’  And was I wrong?  Tell her why you said that.”

“He gave my ancestor the title ‘ _héros des deux mondes_ ,’” Lafayette protested to Angelica.  “That is not pretentious!”

“Incredibly pretentious,” Gouverneur repeated, folding his arms and leaning back in the chair again.

“That is a trick question,” Angelica said, agreeing with Lafayette, “but an obvious one and you walked right into it.  Besides which, he’s right.  You need to dial the hero worship down a bit.”

“I do not _worship_ ,” Lafayette said sulkily.  “I get into enough arguments with Adrienne about that.”

“Now you’re intentionally misunderstanding us.”

“Perhaps.”

“Definitely,” Gouverneur said, nodding at Angelica.  “You’ve heard his complaints about Sunday mass, right?”

“All _I_ said was that it takes up the entire day and I don’t want to go,” Lafayette protested.  “I wouldn’t mind if they encouraged me to go do charity work somewhere meanwhile and then we could meet up afterwards.  I even made a _list_ of places I could help out at but, no, apparently half of them were not in _keeping_ with the religion.”

“Aren’t these the same people who have been letting you have extramarital relations with their daughter?”

“He’s going to marry her,” Angelica pointed out to Gouverneur.  “And he’s well-connected and very rich.  He tried to use a five dollar bill as a post-it note the other day.”

“Seriously?”

“No, I would have written the message on it and slipped it under the door.  I would not have taped it to it.”  Lafayette paused.  “But I could have,” he added.  “No one would have stolen it.  It would have been a message, not money.  No one would do that.”

Angelica patted him on the shoulder fondly.

“Man…”  Gouverneur stretched his back out and looked up at the ceiling.  “I’m not exactly struggling to get by here, but it must be nice to be one of the richest people in France.”

 

Hamilton stepped out of the building once he saw Eliza come up the sidewalk, awkwardly shifting a bouquet of red and pink carnations to his left hand and raising his right in greeting.  “Hey.”

“Oh, those are lovely,” Eliza said, her breath clouding in front of her face.  She hugged him lightly, careful not to damage the flowers, and put her gloved hand on his upper arm.  “It’s a little bit of a commute.  Do you have everything?”

Hamilton raised the bouquet.  “Hope so.  I was going to get lilies,” he said as they started off, “but then I remembered that those are poisonous to cats and I could remember _that_ but not if you guys actually _had_ a cat, not surprising, I guess, I had my ear talked off in two languages about why not to send lilies as sympathy flowers while in France.  Anyway, point being that I didn’t want to bring flowers, accidentally kill or injure your pets, then get sucker punched by Angelica the next and last time I saw her.”

“The carnations are lovely,” Eliza repeated, “and thank you for being so considerate.”

“Least I could do.”  Hamilton shrugged, still awkward, and sniffed, pressing the back of his hand to his nose and forcing Eliza to quickly duck to avoid getting smacked in the face with the bouquet.  “It’s so cold out here,” he complained, oblivious as he dropped his arm.  “Is it going to hurt the flowers?  Should I stick them in my coat or something?  Bag?”

“Don’t crush them.  It will be warmer on the subway.”

“God, I hope so.”

Eliza shook her head, trying to get her long hair to lie properly again, as she guided him.  “At least it’s still mid-afternoon.  The way you were talking, Alex, I thought we would be headed over after dark.”

“I felt bad about making you stay so late, so I powered through.  I would’ve just arranged to come in on the weekend instead, normally by the time Friday rolls around I’m ahead on everything, but…”

“But you weren’t able to go in for a few days.”

“Yeah.  Things build up.  Also I figured I needed to put in a little face-to-face time with the big boss.”  Hamilton cleared his throat.  “Which was a good idea on my part, as it turns out, he was in a real good mood to see me back, didn’t even ask me to hammer out any scheduling bugs over the weekend.  I should skip out more often,” he joked.  He nudged her a little before she could say anything.  “I’m kidding.  Can’t afford to do that, and I mean that literally, you know what kind of pay raise I got when I switched jobs?”  He whistled.  “‘Cause _dang_.  If you break it down into how many hours of unpaid work I’m actually putting in every other week the reimbursement rate is still iffy but I gotta admit, it’s nice to think that maybe I can get my next place not as a favor from a guy who owes Herc.”  He looked at her and gave a little sheepish smile.  “Not that, uh, not that I don’t appreciate the place I got now and the opportunity of working with the president.  You know.”  He hesitated.  “Did you ever work somewhere?”  He asked tentatively.

“No.”  To the point, not overly sympathetic or embarrassed.

“Right.  Well,” Hamilton said, recovering more smoothly than he would have if she had made him uncomfortable about it, “if you ever need help putting together a resumé, I’ve got experience.”

“Thank you,” Eliza said genuinely.  “I’ll take you up on that.”

“Yeah?  Great.  Besides,” he said, “I bet you’re smart enough that it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have any office experience.  Trust me, we’ll just pull something together from your various honors and certificates, it’ll look killer.  You ever help your parents at their jobs?”

“I’ve done things for my father before.”

“Excellent,” Hamilton said.  “Okay, hold onto that thought because when the time comes I’m gonna mine you for more details.  You’re solid,” he said, going a step beyond where he needed to in tone to reassure her.

She gave him an amused smile, biting the inside of her lip to keep from laughing at how far he had run with the offer of help, and he quickly looked away, turning his attention to their surroundings instead.

“Still bright out.  I know Angelica got those lights on campus replaced—”

“Both of you.”

“Right, both of us, but people usually tell me that I need to cool it so I thought I’d shift the spotlight to her.  We got the lights replaced so it’s safer to walk at night but that’s a relative term and, I dunno, I’d feel bad asking you to do it.”

“That’s sweet,” Eliza told him.  “And I have pepper spray in my bag.” 

“…I’d just feel bad,” Hamilton said again for lack of anything else to add.

She slipped her hand through his arm, letting it rest just below his elbow, and leaned into him for warmth.

Hamilton looked up at one of the light posts by the sidewalk as they passed it.

“It’ll just be us and Peggy and my parents,” Eliza said after a while.  “Angelica is already in Boston with Lafayette.”

“At least there’s Peggy,” Hamilton said nervously.  “Sorry,” he added quickly, “I don’t usually meet parents.”

“We’re not dating.  You don’t need to worry.”

“I want them to like me.”

“They will,” she reassured him.  “Angelica and I have already talked you up to them.”

“Has Peggy talked me down?”

“Watch the puddle,” Eliza instructed him, tugging him away from the water in their path.

“First impressions are important.  For my second dinner I’ll be late and make you all wait up for hours.”

Eliza laughed and nudged him.  He wasn’t expecting it and half-stumbled.  “You’re so nervous.  You’re going to be a mess over Thanksgiving.”

“God, don’t remind me.  Or, rather, help please.  I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive.  I met the congressman before, but, you know, _yikes_.”

“You can be discreet when you want to be.”

“You have absolutely no evidence to back that up, Eliza, and you know it.”

“Don’t jinx yourself.”  Eliza took her hand off of his arm to take her phone out of her pocket.  She removed her metro card from its holder on it as they entered the station.  “There.  Warmer already.”

Hamilton followed her through the turnstile.  “Okay, I’ll give you that one.  Nice going, Schuyler.”


	138. Book Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slow Game; Part of the Family; Look I Know It's Illegal to Do This in Public Spaces but We Are Talking about an AU Where Thomas Jefferson Is a Political Science Professor Just Roll with It

“The seats at Eliza’s game were better,” Lafayette complained.  They were sitting towards the back of the away team’s student section, far above the field.  “I can barely tell who’s playing.”

“We could duck out early,” Angelica suggested, taking a sip of her coffee, steam rising from its white lid.  “They’ve been leading the whole game.  John hasn't even been put in since halftime.”

“If something happens and I’m not here to yell at John for Alexander he will be upset with me.”

“If he injures himself again, you mean.”  Angelica rolled her eyes.  “I’ll never understand.”

“I had to get stitches too,” Lafayette protested.

“You were hurt in a storm while helping someone else.  That’s very different than taking yourself out because you’re too reckless in a silly game.  Eliza can get rough but she’s never torn a limb out of its socket.”

Lafayette couldn’t argue and fiddled with his phone, trying to use the camera to get a better view of the field.  “They’re going to, how do you say, punt it.”

“Let me see that.”  Angelica sounded more interested and she moved the phone over so they could both watch McHenry trot out onto the field.  “That’s James, isn’t it?”

“ _Oui_.  He was at Mulligan’s.”

“Yes, I remember.  We talked for a while after you left.”

“It was a good party,” Lafayette reminisced.  “A few unfortunate instances aside.”

“Yes.”  The ball was kicked into the end zone and collected by the opposing team.  “That’s one way to put it.”  Angelica moved back to sit properly in her seat as the game continued.  “I don’t want to just go back to the hotel after this.  I’m pretty sure that guy at the counter thought we were a couple even after I told him where he could shove it.”

“We would make a handsome couple.  I’m certainly a better height for you than Alexander.”

“Why are we bringing _him_ into this?  Compare yourself to my actual boyfriend.”

“I’ve never met him,” Lafayette said.  “So that is a little difficult.”

“I want to go see the city,” Angelica went on.  “It’ll be a little late, but we can walk around at least.  There are plenty of historical things for you to get your picture taken in front of.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette agreed.  “And we can get dinner.  I want to get sushi.”

“That’s not…  All right,” Angelica said.  “I’ll look up a good restaurant.  Not like we can just get that in the city, of _course_ we had to go all the way to Boston for it.”

“Sarcasm?”

“I just thought you’d want something that was more of a regional speciality.”

“Adrienne went out with her friends tonight and I wanted to match.”

“All right.”

“It will go with the aquarium.”

“Shouldn’t we get sushi after that?  Work up our appetites?”

“We can go back.  And we should find something for Alexander to make up for his not being able to come.”

“Another postcard?”  Angelica asked.  “You could send it at the same time as you mail the one for Adrienne.”

“Oh, that could be funny.  Yes, I like that.  You have very good ideas,” Lafayette said admiringly.  “I knew you would, because Alexander was so annoyed about how much smarter than him you are, but it’s nice to see it for myself.”

Angelica smiled.  “Thank you.  I have another idea.”

Lafayette leaned in a little, listening.

“I think we should leave early and stream the rest of the game on my phone.  We wouldn’t be able to get to your John if anything were to happen to him anyway and we’ll track him down after if we have to.”

Lafayette hesitated, his gaze lingering on the field.  “It wouldn’t be right,” he said.  “I’d feel badly about leaving John.  I told him I would watch him play.”  His phone lit up with an incoming message before Angelica could respond and he opened it.  “Adrienne agrees—Oh, this isn’t Adrienne.”

“How could Adrienne agree with you already?  You have to tell her the problem first.  You’re too old and too clever to fail the Sally-Anne test.”

“I know exactly where everyone thinks their marbles are,” Lafayette reassured her as he showed her the screen.

 

> G. Morris:  You will NOT believe who I ran into at my interview.  We’re heading down to Boston Common for some light reading.  I’m sending you my location—the two of you should join our book club.

 

A second message came through.

 

> G. Morris: PS it’s Jefferson

 

“A book club with Jefferson?”

Lafayette was already getting up excitedly.  “I’m sure the rest of the game will be very boring and John will not mind our missing it.  He isn't playing anymore anyway.”

“A book club with Jefferson in the park?”  Angelica repeated, in a tone that was half curious and half suspicious.  She gathered her things and hurried after him.

 

“You didn’t have to bring flowers.”

“You’re hosting me,” Hamilton said, sitting between Peggy and Eliza at the dinner table and trying to hide how nervous he was, “so it was the least I could do.”

“Well, they’re lovely.  Thank you, dear.”

Hamilton smiled and nodded at Catherine Schuyler, seated diagonally across from him, and toyed with his fingers in his lap.  “You’re welcome.”

“They’re almost as big as the ones JC brought the first time he came over.”

“Alex isn’t dating any of us,” Eliza pointed out to Peggy, “so he doesn’t need to try to ingratiate himself.”

Hamilton laughed nervously.

“So, Alex, Eliza tells us that you’re studying political science?”

“Yes, uh, yes sir,” Hamilton said, trying to feel out the proper tone.  “I’m going to graduate this year, I’m just getting my senior project set up.”  He took the dish of potatoes au gratin from Peggy.  “Thank you.  I’m trying to set up a thing,” he went on, getting a little more comfortable.  “Did Angelica—shoot, Eliza,” he turned to her as he served himself, “remind me, I never gave her an update, I guess you can hear it first—Sorry,” he said to her father again, “I’ll start over.”  He passed down the dish and cleared his throat.  “So we’re required to write a research paper for graduation in the major and I just—I wanted to do a little more than that, you know?  I want to continue in the field, get into law but with an eye to affecting actual policy change.  So I thought it would be a good idea to get some practical experience under my belt.  I’m on the student council, as I’m sure Angelica mentioned, I’ve collaborated with her before on a couple measures she came up with.  One of the big problems we have is with getting outside of our little bubble and hearing from a broader range of people.  There’re a lot of hoops to jump through before a measure can be brought to the table if you want it presented in a way that’ll actually give it a decent shot at seeing any kind of decent funding and what that ends up meaning is that the only people _bringing_ measures are the ones who are intimately aware of the way the system works.  It’s just a scaled down version of the problems boards like these have higher up the chain of authority, or out in the real world.”  Hamilton was talking more enthusiastically, leaning forward and gesturing while Peggy held a plate of lamb chops and waited impatiently for him to notice her or get to his point.  “So then I thought, okay, it’s all well and good to read some books and do a write up on how bottlenecking like that is an intentional rigging of the system but that doesn’t actually _do_ anything.  I’m part of the system, well, the system in the kiddie pool, and why not practice what I preach and show how it can be changed and opened up and prove that it’s better that way?”

He caught himself suddenly, noticing Peggy still holding the dish out of the corner of his eye and quickly took it from her with a hasty apology.  He served himself just enough to not be rude and held the plate out for Eliza.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah?”  Hamilton looked quickly back across the table at her parents in startled confusion that only grew when he saw them both watching him with genuine interest.  “Excuse me?”

“What are you doing for your project?”

“Oh.  Oh!”  Hamilton smiled broadly.  Eliza took the plate from him and passed it across the table to her mother.  “I introduced a measure myself to make some changes to the charter, relax the restrictions on what kinds of things the council will listen to.  There were a bunch of rules already in place to weed people out and the biggest one I wanted to focus on was what makes up an organization by their account.  Long story short, I wanted to simplify it so all you had to do was fill out a short form, available online and renew that registration for a pittance at the start of every school year.  That’s all.  There were a bunch of other requirements before—membership size was the most problematic.  It’s easy to get people on board for a popular cause, but that’s it.  So we have to filter out a few more completely out there proposals for funding a semester, so be it.”  Hamilton shrugged and then laughed, pleasantly surprised by their faces.  “Of course, I’m leaving this year, so maybe I shouldn’t talk.”

“You’re the worst,” Eliza teased.

“No way,” Hamilton shot back, turning and feeling, just for a moment, a little helpless in the face of her smile and the ease of conversation with her family and the way the light hit her hair.  “Burr’s the worst, he’s the one—John,” he leaned on the name like he needed it as a physical reminder, “talked to them for me.  I was out sick so I sent my boyfriend in my place,” he explained to her parents.  “He convinced them for me.”

“That’s pretty ironic,” Peggy pointed out.  “You’re playing the system just like you were complaining about.”

“Shh, Margarita,” Hamilton said, nudging her.  “It’s not my fault I had to use the rules already in place to open the door further.”

“Why was he giving you so much trouble?”

“I’m making him out to be awful but he just thought I was going about it all the wrong way in the first place.  I think fundamentally he agreed with me that the council should get new ideas through it, but _he_ thought the way to do that was some kind of PR campaign, encourage people to participate, join up with preexisting organizations…”  Hamilton paused for a moment, suddenly getting a little more vulnerable and unsure.  “It’s not a bad strategy.  I just… wanted something a little more intuitive.  He said it encouraged impulsivity.  I guess he’s not wrong.  I bet he was real mad when I sent John down,” he added after a beat.

“You’re very creative,” Philip Schuyler told him.  Hamilton beamed.  “It’s a good trait to have in law.”

“Like I said, I’m planning on going into that.”  Hamilton glanced at Eliza, who nodded encouragingly.  He felt his smile broaden.  “After I graduate.  I’m not—I know I need to get applications in to law schools ASAP if I want to go direct but I’m still running in circles about if it’d be better to do an internship somewhere first…  It’d definitely help to build up my bank account some, and Washington offered to extend my time with him.  That pays well and it’s not completely irrelevant.”

“Let me know if you decide to work first,” Philip Schuyler said.  “I could always find use for another set of hands at the office.”

Hamilton sat up a little straighter, his meal all but forgotten.  “All right.  I’ll do that, sir.  Thank you very much.”

Eliza put her hand on the back of his chair and leaned behind it to stage whisper to Peggy.  “In case Angelica didn’t already tell you, we’re keeping him.”

 

Jefferson took a long drag and leaned back against the park bench, crossing his legs and adjusting the lapel of his maroon coat with a short tug.  “The United States badly needs to regain ground lost to third world countries in terms of production,” he said, his tone the same as if he was giving a lecture in class, “and hemp could provide a great deal of value as a natural fiber.”

“It needs less pesticides to grow successfully than cotton.  Less water too.”

“A good point, Gouverneur.”

Lafayette paused, his hand halfway to his mouth.  “Are we smoking hemp?”

“A relative, Lafayette, but not the same thing.  A variety of _Cannabis sativa_.”  Jefferson turned his face towards the sun and closed his eyes lazily, falling silent for several seconds.  “Fancy running into all y’all up here.”

Gouverneur snickered, then put his hand over his mouth when he couldn’t get a hold of himself.  “‘All y’all.’”  He nudged Lafayette sitting next to him on the grass.  Lafayette laughed.

“We were here for the football game,” Angelica said, brushing her hair out of her eyes as a sharp breeze kicked up.  On the ground Lafayette made a noise of protest and turned away from the wind.  “Lafayette and I were here for the football game,” she clarified, having to concentrate a little more than usual to sound as on top of the conversation as she usually did.  “Gouverneur was here for an interview.”

“I know that,” Jefferson said as Gouverneur whispered something to Lafayette and the both of them broke out in giggles.  “I ran into him at the office, remember?”

“—Of course I remember.  But what were you doing there?”

“John Adams is an old _frenemy_.  He and his wife are still heavily involved in university policy, bless their old withered hearts, and I had some business matters to discuss.”

“Teej,” Gouverneur repeated, louder, to Lafayette, setting them both off again.

Jefferson heard and gave them a less-than-amused look.  “What was that now?”

“It is a brilliant name,” Lafayette assured him earnestly.  “T-J, your initials.  Teej.  I cannot do it.  My initials are M-J-P-Y-G-D—”  He stumbled over the recitation and gave the world at large a hurt look.  “I got it wrong.”

Gouverneur howled with laugher and Angelica put her hand over her mouth, shaking silently.

“Meejpuheerguhduehmduelle.”

Angelica laughed so hard she slipped off the bench.  She reached to tug her skirt down past her knees, forgetting she was wearing jeans.

“Say that again,” Jefferson prompted with a spreading grin.

“Meejpuh…”

“Stop, stop!”  Gouverneur patted Lafayette hard on the arm, still in hysterics.  “I’m gonna fuckin’ hurl!”

“I like it,” Angelica told Lafayette, struggling to keep a straight face and crossing her legs, having decided that the ground was more comfortable than the bench anyway.  “You should introduce yourself that way to people.”

“…Eerguhdu…”

Gouverneur fell over and rolled onto his side away from Lafayette.

“I’m all right with Teej,” Jefferson declared with self-satisfaction as Lafayette continued to puzzle over how to say the acronym.  “Got a good ring to it.”

“Professor Teej.”

Jefferson looked down at Angelica.  “Y’all think I should call myself that in class?”

“ _I’d_ respect you more,” she declared.  “And you’d probably shock Alexander into shutting up for once.”

“Hm…”  He leaned back again, stroking his chin.  “Now that _is_ an incentive.”

“Teej.  Teej…”  Gouverneur repeated to himself, now lying on his back with his hands behind his head and looking up at the sky.  “Dr. Teej.  Hey, Dr. Teej, you ever read dime store novellas?”

“I’m a fan of the cowboy and Indian genre,” Jefferson drawled.

“I bet you can’t even fire a gun.”

“I shot a turkey once.”

“In a cage,” Lafayette said, sitting up straighter.  “He grew up on a farm.”

“That’s cheating,” Gouverneur said as Jefferson protested.  “There’s no hunting instinct in that.”

“I shot it in a cage because my father forced me to,” Jefferson said with another drag.  He brought his hand with the joint back down and rested it on the arm of the bench.  “He never thought I was enough of a man.”

No one said anything for a couple seconds and then Lafayette patted Gouverneur on the knee.  “Please show him your leg.”

“Mm?”  Gouverneur looked over at him.  “Sure.”  He started to roll up his pants leg.

“Y’all don’t need t’ do that,” Jefferson said with a wave of his hand.  “…Actually, what are y’all doing?”

“I don’t mind,” Gouverneur said, still twisted to the side on his back with his hands on the cuff of his pants.  When no one responded right away he stretched back out lazily.  “You should let me tell the story,” Gouverneur complained mildly.  “I earned that one.”

“You did,” Lafayette agreed.

“I lost it,” Gouverneur clarified for Angelica, turning his head towards her.  “Car crash.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is why you should let me just show it,” he said, arguing with no one in particular.  “I don’t need people to offer apologies.”

“Whip it out,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.  “Whip it out, whip it out—”  He was cut off by Angelica laughing.

“I was fleeing across state lines,” Gouverneur claimed, sitting up and rolling up the leg of his pants.  “Almost made it all the way to Canada.  Needed to get it amputated below the knee.”  He stopped when most of the prosthesis was in view.  “The hardest part, physical and psychological trauma aside, was getting a good fit on the socket.”

“It looks like a lightsaber,” Jefferson whispered loudly as he leaned forward to get a better look.

“Pretty badass, right?”  Gouverneur looked pleased with himself.  “The foot part only lasts a couple of years.”  He rapped on his shoe.  “So that’s getting to be annoying.  I need to take care of that soon.  Other than that I think I’ve made this look work.  Definitely a conversation starter and it’s not like I’m embarrassed about it.  Occasionally people are real condescending assholes but I’ve got a thick skin and I don’t mind telling them to get fucked.  Politely,” he added.  “Mostly.”  He picked his joint up off of the brick curb and took a drag.

“Does it hurt?”  Angelica tucked her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on on her knees.

“Now?”  Gouverneur shrugged.  “Hurt a lot at first, obviously.  I had that whole phantom limb thing going on, that’s pretty depressing.”  He took another, longer, hit.  “I got over it.  I’m used to it now,” he went on.  “I like to think it’s taught me things that the rest of you never had to learn.”

“True enough.”  Jefferson sat back.  “What an experience.”

“… _Teej_ ,” Gouverneur said after a pause with a snicker.  “It sounds like a brand of peanut butter.”

“It sounds like,” Lafayette motioned a space about the size of an orange in the air in front of him, “like a very small country.”

“Or a brand of athletic equipment,” Angelica interjected.

“Maybe those are the exports of my country,” Lafayette said excitedly.

“‘Your’ country?”  Jefferson asked.

“His country,” Angelica corrected Lafayette with a motion towards Jefferson.

“His country,” Lafayette agreed.  “What money do you use there?”

Jefferson shrugged.  “Dunno.  Why?”

“I want to buy a souvenir of the park.”

“Because of the movie?”  Gouverneur asked.  “It is good.”

Lafayette looked at him blankly.

“Uh…”  Gouverneur scratched his arm.  “ _Good Will Hunting_?  Famous scene filmed at this park?  With the bench?”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side.  “Is that a documentary?”

“What?”

“I do not know what you are talking about.  I want a souvenir of this man,” Lafayette said, standing and motioning toward the statue of the first president they were sitting near.  “I saw a vendor towards the entrance who was selling, how do you say, statuettes.”  He held his hands up, one palm about six inches over the other.

“ _That’s_ what you meant…?  I dunno,” Gouverneur said, not getting up.  “I wouldn’t want to buy that.  I think it’s weird to have a statue of some guy watching me sleep.”

“Oh, I won’t keep it,” Lafayette said lightly.  “I agree.  I wouldn’t want that.”

“What about that fake cat?”

“It’s under my desk,” Lafayette said.  “And it is a _cat_ , not a human person.  It is very different.”

“Got it.”

“Who are you giving it to?”

“John?”  Lafayette frowned.  “No, then it will still watch me.  The other John?”

“Which other John?”

“John André,” Lafayette said, offering Angelica a hand up.  “No,” he said again, shaking his head as she got up and let go of his hand to brush herself off.  “That is a _stupid_ idea.  He’s already in Boston,” he explained as an aside to Jefferson.

“Give it to Washington,” Jefferson drawled and took a drag.  “He’s stuck back in New York and you’re constantly fawning over him anyway.”

“That is an _excellent_ idea!”  Lafayette got out his wallet preemptively.  “Thank you!  Would you like to look with me?  I think they also had postcards and you could send one back to Virginia.”

“All right.”  Jefferson got up and crushed the rest of his blunt on the metal rim of the nearby trashcan, then tossed it in.  “You think they sell stamps?”

“Possibly,” Lafayette enthused as if he was more certain.

“We’ll stay,” Gouverneur told them, mimicking Jefferson’s drawl, then turned to Angelica.  “So what kind of books do you like?”

“Thank you for meeting with me the other day,” Lafayette said as they walked away.  “I think everything is fine.  I think…  I think I have to temporarily declare a political science major,” he confessed.  “I think once I do that then I can change to you and if I switch again I don’t have to.”

“Bureaucracy,” Jefferson drawled again.

Lafayette nodded with more energy than might be expected.  “Yes!  Yes,” he repeated, “bureaucracy.  It is a funny hydra, always with more heads the more you cut off, so many councils and committees…”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”  Jefferson’s accent was gone.

“That is a good trick,” Lafayette said, a little distracted in spite of himself.  “With your words.  I do that too.”

Jefferson waited for him to find his train of thought and Lafayette quickly apologized and continued.

“Ah, sorry.  Actually,” he said, “I wanted to know, why were you so sure that it was nothing more than a witch hunt against Dr. Bartow?  You can see why I am interested,” he went on, “I really did like her and I’m _very_ good looking, I’m a little concerned that I did not earn the A,” he fake confessed.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re fine.  No offense to your vanity.  She’s a professional, like I said,” Jefferson continued as they drew near the vendor, “it was just slander.  Just a disgruntled spouse being a jackass.”

Lafayette nodded and made an encouraging noise.

“We don’t need that kind of drama,” Jefferson said, and then Lafayette’s ears perked up as he made two more statements.  “We’ve got enough already.  Besides, you don’t want people to start digging randomly for that kind of dirt.”


	139. nóstos ("a return home") + álgos ("suffering")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Could Have Been; Sushi Night; Look, a Distraction!; Burn Out

“You did fine,” Eliza assured Hamilton, leading him upstairs by the hand.  “They liked you to begin with, remember?”

Hamilton looked around, a little distracted by the polished hardwood floors and dusted antiques on all the surfaces.  Old family pictures hung from the wall along the staircase.  “Yeah,” he said, obviously not paying full attention.  “I’m surprised I’m allowed in your room.”

“We’ll keep the door open.”

“Is it ‘cause of the boyfriend?”

“John?”

“Right.”

Eliza considered this.  “It probably helps.”

“Sweet.  This you?”  He stopped them, pointing to an oval baby picture.

Eliza retreated down a step, her head cocked to the side.  “Hm?  Oh!  Yes, that’s me.”

“You’re cute.”  Hamilton leaned in slightly.  She was already several months old in the picture, dressed in white with a shock of dark hair.  “And this…”  He indicated the photo next to it.

“That’s Angelica.” Eliza let go of his hand and motioned to a third one on the other side.  “That’s Peggy.  See?  They engraved the frames.”

“Angelica,” Hamilton read, “Elizabeth, and Margarita.”

“Those are my grandparents,” Eliza said, pointing to another photograph, this one much older and in black and white.  Hamilton studied it.  A wedding.  He looked slowly back down the staircase at the other photos hanging on the wall.  Eliza spoke up again after several seconds passed and it had become obvious that he was lost in his own thoughts.  “Would you like to see more pictures?  I can show you others of us when we were children.”

Hamilton nodded, bringing himself back to the present.  “Yeah.  I’d like that.”

She took his hand again.  “Come to my room.  I have an album.”

“I don’t have stuff like this,” he said a little apologetically as they continued to climb the stairs.  “Pictures.  Not old ones.”

“Did they get lost?”

“I guess.  I’m not sure if my cousin would have inherited them and I don’t know what happened after he killed himself.”

Eliza gave him a little surprised glance as they stepped out onto the second floor but he wasn’t looking at her.  He was distracted again, this time by a carved grandfather clock.

“I’m sorry.”

“Mm?  Oh.  …Yeah.  Well.  Sorry, that was dark.  I just mean that I don't think there were many to begin with and they’d have been in one of those boxes that got lost in the shuffle.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”  She pushed open the door to her room.

Hamilton stood awkwardly in the middle of it, turning in a slow circle and looking at her bookshelves and the trappings of a happy childhood still on display.

“You can sit on the bed.  I can’t imagine not having any of that.  I don’t have much either,” she went on as he sat and waited politely, “but I was so young when I came here.  It’s not the same.”  A strand of hair that had fallen out of its ponytail slipped over her ear and into her face and she tried and failed to blow it out of the way in habitual irritation.

“Do you have dual-citizenship?”

She glanced at him, then cracked a smile.

“I’m just saying.”  He toyed with his fingers.  “That’s one thing.”

“You always have to find the answer, don’t you?”

“Guilty.”

Eliza knelt next to one of the bookshelves and began sorting through the albums and yearbooks on the bottom row.  “I think it was easier for me.”  She tipped one book back, inspecting the cover.  “My earliest memories are in our house upstate.  Angelica and Peggy are already there.”  She put the book back with a shake of her head, then tucked the strand of hair back behind her ear.  “It’s very…”  She looked over at him.  “Secure.”

He hesitated, probing the tone, then nodded, not feeling any pity there.  “Yeah.  Must’ve been nice.”

“I don’t envy you.”  Eliza took out a small child’s album, its cover decorated with animal stickers and checked the first couple of pages.  “I’m glad I was able to have this.”  She closed it and stood.  “These aren’t as nice as the ones hanging up.”  She sat next to him on her mattress, both of them shifting and adjusting over a soft white blanket with a large watercolor floral print.  “We took these on vacation when I was,” she paused, thinking, “seven and Angelica was eight.”  She turned the pages for him, showing her and her sisters in a nice hotel room, an elevator, at the beach.

“Your parents seem nice,” Hamilton said.  “I mean, I know we didn’t talk much, nothing to write home about, but…”  He stopped her hand on a page including a photo obviously taken by a child of Philip Schuyler.  He was much younger, his hair was not yet gray, and he was wearing sunglasses and leaning on the railing of the hotel room’s balcony with a smile.

“They are.”

“I’m glad for you too,” he said truthfully.  He was a surprised that he managed to not sound unbearably jealous.  “I don’t know a lot of people with good parents, someone should break that pattern.”

“You can borrow them if you’d like,” Eliza said, letting him turn the page.  “You can be their honorary son.”

“Don’t I need to be dating you for that?”  Hamilton looked up.  He had meant it as a joke but when he made eye contact her expression was unselfconsciously serious.

They could both hear the soft clatter of dinner being put away downstairs and the gentle creak of the floorboards as the other members of the family passed over them.  Several long seconds passed.

“…I love John,” Hamilton said.  He was acutely aware of where he was and how the unbidden gentle desire inside him was reflected in her eyes.  _They were dark_ , he thought to himself, the words piling up in the narrow space between them.  _Like the country sky at night, like nostalgia, like the stain from—from silver nitrate, like a million other things I could drown in, until I looked up through the water and saw myself on the surface in perfect negative._   His voice sounded distant to himself, as if underwater.  “I—can’t—I can joke about his friends or, don’t take this wrong, your sister, but I—”  He put his hand over hers and kept himself from leaning in to kiss her. 

“Of course you love him.”

Hamilton took a sharp breath and the spell faded.  Time seemed to move normally again and a rush of relief flooded through him.

“He’s intelligent and handsome and—broken.”  She smiled, wan like the moon.  “I can understand exactly why you love him.”  There were other things there that she was leaving unsaid.

“…Right.”  Hamilton cleared his throat.  “I’m not gonna go into what ifs.  That’s not gonna—no one needs that.”

Eliza took her hand away from his to turn the page again.  “I hear that you’re good at bad poetry.”

“Did Lafayette tell you that?”  Hamilton asked, putting an edge on the words so they would come out annoyed.  “Seriously, he acts like he’s all that.”

“He’s good with literature.”

“I notice you didn't answer my question.”

“You didn’t answer mine.”

“Yeah, okay, fine.  You heard right.”  The tone of the conversation had returned to something very close to normal.  “What’s up?”

“Help me respond to something.  It’s pretty terrible,” she made herself laugh.  “But I think it was meant as a joke so we don’t have to be too mean.”

“What’s this?”  Hamilton grinned and nudged her, relieved to have a part to play.  “Is my dear Betsy getting poetry from someone?”

“Perhaps,” she said, almost lightly.  “I’ll show you and we can decide if it really qualifies as a poem.”

 

“Jack!”

Laurens was smiling broadly as his father got up from the table the waitress had just escorted him and André to.  Henry Laurens took his son by the arm and pulled him into a brief hug.

“John André,” he said with a nod, offering his hand.  André took it amiably and they shook.  “Martha, darling, greet the boys.”

“You brought Martha?”  Laurens asked as they took their seats, before she could say anything.  “Why?”

“It’s nice to see you too.”  Martha was tall with a strong curl to the medium brown hair that fell over her shoulders and features dissimilar to their father’s in contrast to Laurens’.

“Why are you here?”  Laurens asked again.

“I brought her to look at the university,” Henry Laurens explained, picking up his menu and turning to the entrées.  “Martha expressed interest and they have a good program.”

Laurens gave Martha a quizzical look and she denied their father’s assertion with a little exasperated shake of the head.

“Thank you for inviting me to dinner,” André said.  “I appreciate it.  I know this is better than what I’d be getting if I just went out with the guys.”

“Not at all.  You’re a friend of Jack’s, you’re more than welcome.  Where did the rest of your teammates wind up for dinner?”

André and Laurens glanced at one another.

“Probably just burgers or pizza somewhere,” Laurens said with a shrug.  “I’m not sure.  I don’t think they had anything in mind.”

 

“I think I’ll send the one of the minuteman to Alexander,” Lafayette said, sitting at the sushi bar next to Angelica, a postcard in each hand.  “It’s too sensual to send to Adrienne.  What if her parents intercept it?”

“It’s just of a statue,” Angelica said.  “Admit it, Lafayette, you’re jealous.  He’s too much competition.”

“That’s not true,” he protested.  “It’s—”  He stopped abruptly and leaned back on his stool, looking through the large glass window out onto the street.  “One moment, please.”  He got up abruptly and Angelica watched as he went outside, checked briefly for traffic, then hurried across the street to stop a crowd and talk to them, pointing towards the restaurant and then bringing them with him back inside.

“Angelica,” he announced proudly, motioning over his shoulder at Laurens’ teammates, “look who I found!  They’re going to have dinner with us.”

“Oh,” Angelica said, not quite thrilled at first, but her tone improving as she picked through their faces.  “That’ll be fun.”

They took seats along the bar, Tallmadge at Lafayette’s other side and McHenry at Angelica’s.

“Congratulations,” Lafayette said to Tallmadge.  “It was a good game.”

“Thanks.”  Tallmadge picked a plate of potstickers from the moving belt.  “I didn’t know you guys were coming to watch.”

“We wanted to see John Laurens,” Lafayette explained.  “I wanted to see him,” he clarified, “and I wanted someone to come with me.”

“Where’s Alexander?”

“He had too much work to do.”

“That’s too bad.  Stuck all by himself back on campus.”

“Actually he’s having dinner with my family,” Angelica said, inserting herself into the conversation.  “Eliza told me she invited him over.”

“Eliza did?”

Angelica looked back at McHenry and nodded.  “She felt bad for him.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted to come anyway,” Tench said.  Lafayette leaned forward to see him on Tallmadge’s other side.  “Laurens is out with his father anyway right now.  André got dragged along.  Sucks for them.”

“Hey, free meal,” Grayson, on the other side of the long table, pointed out.   “If we’re seated during happy hour does that mean we get the prices even if we stay longer?”  He turned on his stool, looking for an employee to flag down and ask.

“It's fine,” Lafayette assured him, looking up from the postcards he was trying to show Tallmadge.  “I want to send this one to Alexander,” he went back to explaining, letting him take them from him to pass down the line and taking a plate of shrimp nigiri off the moving belt.  “What do you think?”

“Doesn’t really look like Laurens,” Tench said and handed them back.

“Is it supposed to?”

“Aren’t postcards supposed to show what you're missing while you’re stuck back at home?”

“Yeah, okay.”  Tallmadge read the short description on the back.  “We could…”  He made a gesture like he was drawing on it with an invisible pen.  “Fix the hair or something.”

“There’s an idea.  Hey, JT.”  Tench leaned forward, unable to easily reach across the table because of the moving belt in the center.  “Can you alter this?  Make it look more like Laurens.”  He awkwardly handed the postcard over then took a plate of California rolls.  “Someone’s got a pen, right?”

“Here.”  Angelica took one out of her purse and passed it down.  “Do you draw?”

“Better than he tackles,” Humphreys told her.  He was nudged by the older Trumbull brother.  “Oh, come on.  He’s JV, it’s nothing personal.”

“He still practices with us.”

“Yeah, because you’re here,” Humphreys said a little more softly in response to the complaint.  “He mostly does cartoons,” he told Angelica.  “He’s good.  It’s funny stuff.”

“I can’t put his number on him.”

“Just draw it on the front,” Tallmadge told him.  “That’s close enough, he’ll get the point.”

Lafayette was trying to see across the table.  “What are you adding?”

“I’m making the jacket a letterman one,” JT told him.  “And I’m going to fix his hair.  I don’t think I can do much else, the picture is pretty dark.”

“Draw a helmet at his feet.”

“Why?”  He continued to alter the jacket.  “Hey, be careful, I don’t want the ink to smudge.”

“I saw you on the field,” Angelica said to McHenry.  “You played well.”

He smiled.  “Thanks.  Your sisters didn’t come?”

“They were busy.”

“Right, you said they’re having dinner with Alexander.”

“Eliza is, at least,” Angelica agreed.  “Peggy might have had other plans.”

“Oh.  Well, tell them hi, I guess.”

“I will,” Angelica assured him.  “Would you like me to tell Eliza anything else?”

Lafayette tapped her on the shoulder before McHenry could respond.  “What do you think?”  He handed her the postcard.  “Don’t touch the ink—oh, tuna!”

“I’m being careful, relax.”  She took it and looked it over while he picked another plate off the belt.  “Very nice.”  She handed it back.  “You should give him a speech bubble.”

“What do you want it to say?”  JT asked, motioning for Lafayette to pass it back to him.  “Just a standard ‘wish you were here’?  I can do it in fancy lettering.”

“That sounds good,” Lafayette said agreeably.  “Do you have enough room?”

“Yeah, hold on.”  He bent over the paper again.

Angelica turned back to McHenry.  “So where’s your family from?”

 

“We’ll have the guest rooms set up,” Henry Laurens said, taking a drink from his glass of white wine, the bottle he had ordered to share sitting on the side of the table.  “So you boys will be all set once Martha picks you up.”

“Thank you, Martha,” Laurens said, teasing her a little with his politeness.  She made a face at him over the rim of her glass of water.

“And you said they’ve never been to the region before?”

Laurens shook his head.  “Never.”

“Well, that will be fun for them.  Maybe you can show them around a little.  It would be a shame if they left without seeing the city at least.  I suppose it depends on what the weather is like and how busy you all are.  Do you have any plans?”

André watched as Laurens shrugged, seemingly at ease.

“No.  I was thinking we should go around the property some.  It’ll be warmer than New York, at least.”

“Yes,” Henry Laurens said, his glass down on the table again but his fingers running over the stem.  “How is Alexander liking the climate?  You said it’s very different for him.”

Laurens couldn’t, off the top of his head, remember when he had said that, but he didn’t have time to ponder it.  “He hates the cold.”  His father was still watching him, and he tried to put together the rest of a complete answer.  “But, it’s funny, he refuses to turn his heating on as high as it should really go.  He just has this little space heater that he uses sometimes instead, even though he gets central.  I mean,” he backtracked a little, feeling like he was painting Hamilton in too negative a light, “his apartment’s pretty small, so it’s really not that bad.”

“Does he live by himself?”

Laurens nodded.  “Yeah.”  He couldn't help himself and he shot a grin at André.  “It’s a studio.  Sorry,” he explained to the others, “I was blanking on the word the other night and was describing it as a no-bedroom.”

To his relief his father just chuckled and shook his head, taking another sip from his glass.  “That’s the life of a young man in New York City, isn’t it?”

Laurens smiled and nodded.  “I guess so.”

“I hope he’s not too strapped for cash,” Henry Laurens said.  “It can’t have been easy to move from the Caribbean all the way to New York.  Pardon my asking, but he’s on a scholarship as well, isn’t he?”

Laurens nodded again, unable to keep from sounding a little proud, even if he didn’t hear it in his voice.  “It’s a full ride.  And he works for Dr. Washington.”

“Of course.  That must give him some spending money.  How nice for him.”  

André took his phone out.  “Excuse me.  I’ll put this on silent.”

Laurens hadn’t heard it go off and both he and Martha both watched as he typed for several seconds before putting it away.

“Is that Mina?”  Laurens asked.

“Yes,” André said brightly, nodding encouragingly at him.  “We just started dating,” he informed the table.  Martha and Laurens made eye contact and shared a silent conversation—exasperated and understanding.

“Good for you,” Henry Laurens said, not observing his children.  “Does she go to your school?”

“Yes.  She’s actually one of Margret Shippen’s sorority sisters.”  Laurens shot him a surprised glance at the more formal name.  André continued without pause, sounding almost like he was reading from a script.  “She’s a theater major and she’s very talented.  We heard her sing the other night,” he said, indicating Laurens next to him.  “She was good, wasn’t she?”

“A concert?”

“Uh,” Laurens looked a little uncomfortable, “actually, she was singing at a club.  A bunch of us went to support her.”

His father laughed.  He seemed genuinely enthusiastic of the idea.  “I hope you boys enjoyed yourselves.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said quickly, realizing that this was a way to move the topic off of Hamilton.  “It was pretty fun.  I’d never been to this particular one before, but the music was good.  André’s right,” he said, turning back to him with a grin, “Mina’s a good singer, and the other acts weren’t bad either.  The drinks were pretty cheap,” he added, raising his glass to his mouth.  “—Mm, and it was fun to meet some new girls and go dancing.”

Martha rolled her eyes as Henry Laurens laughed again and took a drink of his own.

“You should thank André for arranging things,” he instructed Laurens, a clear note of pride in his voice.  “It sounds like everything worked out well for both of you.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed, nodding first at his father and then at André.  “It all worked out pretty well, wouldn’t you say?”

Henry Laurens put his glass down again and extended his hand.  “John.  Please, may I pour you a refill?  We have this whole bottle to finish.”

“Oh, uh.”  André let him take his glass.  “Thank you.”

“Not at all.”  Henry Laurens uncorked the bottle again, sounding still amused by their antics as he directed the conversation back to where it had been before.  “Are you friends with Alexander and Lafayette as well?”

André nodded.  “I work with Lafayette at the language center.”

“How’s that going?”

“Really well.  He’s a lot of fun to work with.”

Martha, wrapping pasta around her fork, asked, “Didn’t he donate that?”

André shook his head.  “He donated to the French department.”

“Where does the center get its funding from then?”

André paused and thought about that.  “I’m not sure,” he admitted.  “The general school budget, I guess?”

“It doesn’t come out of stuff earmarked for linguistics more specifically?”

André tipped his head to the side as he thought back.  “We were just talking about money and funding the other day, but I don’t think the language department came up,” he admitted.  “John,” he said, turning to Laurens and taking his drink back from his father.  “Thank you.  Do you know what ended up coming out of the endowment?”

“No.  You know who would, is Alexander.  I’ll ask him.”  He started to move his hand towards his pocket, then caught himself.  “When I get back to the city,” he said in semi-apology.

“Do you have a lot of work to do over the rest of the weekend?”  Henry Laurens asked.  “You and Lafayette are already up here in Boston, why don’t you just cancel your tickets and I’ll fly you both down with me.  Alexander can still meet you in a couple of days.  I’m sure one of us can still get him from the train station.  If you’re around then maybe we won’t even have to impose on your sister to do it.”

Laurens froze up, unable to think of a valid excuse on the spot.

“You’d only be back in New York for a day and change on either side,” Henry Laurens said.  “It’ll give you more breathing room in Columbia, especially if you wanted to show your friends around a little.”

“Uh,” Laurens said, “uh, I’d have to—Lafayette hates flying.”  He let his father take and refill his glass.

“That’s a shame.  It must make going home to France a challenge.”

“Yeah, uh.”  Laurens ran a hand over the short hair at the side and then back of his head.  “He hates it.  The train was his idea in the first place,” he explained, relieved to be able to ground his excuse in something real.

“You don’t have issues flying, do you?”  Henry Laurens looked at André, giving Laurens his glass back.

André smiled a little brighter than he had to.  “No, sir.  Which is fortunate, because especially when I was younger I had to fly a lot.  Lafayette really hates it, though,” he went on, trying to move the conversation.  “I took him to the airport to pick up Adrienne when she came to visit and he was so nervous just setting foot on the property.”

Henry Laurens shook his head with an amused smile.  “That poor boy.”

“He said he honestly just hadn’t flown much before coming to the states,” André explained, “I guess he didn't know.”

“He and Alexander went back for the summer, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

André looked at Laurens in anxious surprise as he caught his stifled startle reflex.

“That’s what I thought,” Henry Laurens said.  The bottle of wine was empty and he motioned casually to a server to take it out of their way.  “Thank you.”  He turned back to Laurens.  “I was under the impression at first that you were the only one staying with Lafayette.”

Laurens felt his heart in his throat.  “I…”  He took a drink of the wine to clear it.  “…I didn’t realize at first that he was going as well.  I knew Lafayette was there, obviously.  He was seeing a couple of friends of his from Paris, I guess it all got jumbled together.”

“St. Thomas to New York—”

“St. Croix.”

Henry Laurens looked at his son in mild surprise, then nodded amiably and corrected himself.

“Excuse me.  St. Croix to New York to Paris.  New England and now South Carolina.  Your friend is getting around.”

André looked anxiously between them then suddenly leaned a little across the table to talk to Martha, his demeanor switching back to friendly and seemingly oblivious to the tightrope of conversation happening next to him.  “Did I ever tell you about the time I filmed a music video on a plane?”

She looked understandably startled.  “What?  You were in a music video?”

That got Henry Laurens’ attention as well and he also turned to look at André, who glanced up at him and smiled, his cheeks a little red from either the wine or the story.

“Yeah.  Oh, man, I had completely forgotten about this but listening to Laurens talk about Lafayette reminded me.”

Laurens gave him a quizzical look and André returned it with a smile that was almost a wince.

“Okay, so, did your brother tell you that I had a couple modeling gigs?”

Martha nodded.  “In Asia, though.”

“Right, in Korea.”  André paused to take a long drink of wine.  “So it was a relatively popular campaign and, uh, my mom’s family on that side, they’re pretty well connected, so they, uh…  Well, there was a call for talent…”  He trailed off, hoping that the rest of the story could be left unsaid.  When he was met with three faces staring blankly at him, he reluctantly finished: “…I was in a boy band.”

An identical delighted grin spread over Laurens and Martha’s faces.

“Excuse me?”  Laurens asked.

“Yeah,” André said, running a hand up into his hair with an uncomfortable half-smile.

“Were you _famous_?”

“We weren’t, like, _idol_ famous.”

“But you had fans.”

“We had an album.”  He forced himself to say that clearly and not in a mutter and to not just slouch back down in his seat.

“Okay, I’ve looked you up online before for the ad.  Why did I never find this?”

“I had a stage name,” André admitted, his words, despite his best attempts, coming out more and more obviously embarrassed.  “If you kept going back in the results you’d—”

Martha whipped her phone out and put it away with a sad and pleading noise when Henry Laurens put his hand on her arm.

“ _Dad_.”

“After dinner.  But,” he turned to André, clearly as unable to resist as his children were, in spite of what he might have said, “you should at least tell us your stage name so we can look you up more easily while we wait for the car.”

 

By the time Hamilton got on the final train to head back to his apartment his throat was tight, not with sickness but with a painful knot.  He wanted to scream, to hit the wall, to bury his face in his hands and cry.  It wasn’t that it shouldn’t be so hard to say no, but that it had been far too easy.  All his life he had fought for opportunity and this—the connections, the money, the promise of a family, of a _future_ —

He closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wall.  He tried to take a slow breath but his mind flooded with old photographs and it got stuck.

_John couldn’t even promise being out to his father.  His father, who wouldn’t approve anyway, and Eliza H—Eliza Schuyler would start dating some poet and he’d find himself stuck—dropped—in the middle._

“Stupid,” he muttered to himself.  _Stupid.  Throwing that away.  Everything you ever wanted, your one shot at the life you deserve._

“Stupid,” he repeated out loud.  He kept his eyes closed, not caring enough to see if anyone on the car was looking at him.

He counted stops in his head and got off at his station, walked to his apartment, and went to bed, his body tired and aching.


	140. Set Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #GetJohnLGBTA+Friends2017; Detective Work

“Hey.”  Laurens pushed the hotel room door open and removed the card key from the slot above the handle.  “Where did you guys end up going?”  He stepped in, André following him, and saw McHenry quickly close his laptop.

“Sushi bar.”

“Any good?”  Laurens put the card on the table and was momentarily distracted by a rerun of a baseball game playing on the television.  “When was this?”

McHenry shrugged, answering the first question if not the second.  “Lafayette was there.”

Laurens turned from the screen.  André was hanging up his coat in the closet.  “You had dinner with Lafayette?”

“Yeah.  And Angelica.  A bunch of us were just walking around and he spotted us and came out.  We figured we might as well.  It was pretty decent.”

Laurens handed his coat to André when he put out his hand for it in silent offer to hang it.  “What a coincidence.  I guess we’re all staying in the same area.”

“How’s your father?”

“He’s good.  He brought my sister to check out a school.”

“Where’s Grayson?”  André asked.

McHenry motioned towards the closed door at an angle from the one they had just come through.  “Bathroom.  Are you looking forward to going home for Thanksgiving?”  He asked Laurens as André yawned and took his shirt off, crouching on the ground and opening his small suitcase.

Laurens shrugged.  “I guess.  It should be fun.  Lafayette’s coming, he’s always good company.”

“Alexander too, right?”

Laurens was watching the game again.  “Yeah.”

“Spring break’s better,” McHenry said after they both watched the batter get struck out.  “Just as long and you can just chill.”

“Fall break wasn’t bad,” André said.

“That’s not as long,” Laurens pointed out.  “The full week’s better.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” McHenry said.  “Just as long but no family dinners.”

“Thanksgiving’s the worst,” Grayson announced, stepping out into the main room in only pajama bottoms.  “Making nice with relatives you only see once or twice a year.  Gross.”  He sat on the bed McHenry was already on.  “Plus you know everyone’s got that one racist uncle.  They’re gonna make you get your hair cut while you’re there,” he added with a nod towards André when he stood up in his sleep clothes.

André tried to look up at himself.  “Yeah,” he admitted.  “Want to take bets on what day I get dragged down to get it shortened?  At least they’re not doing the rice bowl on your head trick anymore.”

Laurens laughed.  “Please come back to campus with a bowl cut.”

“No way.”

“I will pay you to come back with one.”

“Not enough money in the world, friend,” André said to Grayson.  They all turned towards the wall behind the beds at a sudden shout.  “They’re having fun.”

McHenry opened his laptop again and started typing.  “I’m texting Tallmadge.”

“Who needs sleep?  We’ve got a long ride down in the morning.”

“I’d rather sleep in a bed than a chair, thanks.”

“John Laurens,” Grayson said, “you’re getting soft.  I thought you were all boy scouts and shit.”

“I missed my sleeping on long distance buses badge.”

“Clearly.”

“I’m going to train down to Columbia on Monday,” Laurens went on.  “I’m preemptively over it.”

“Fair enough.”

“Tallmadge says to suck it up,” McHenry reported.  “Tench is flying out as soon as we get back to the city.”

“For a week,” Grayson complained.  “For vacation.  It’s not like he’s shipping off to battle.”  He went to the door, grabbing the card key Laurens had put down on the way.  “I’m going to go join in,” he said in spite of his previous statement.  “You boys coming?  André?”

“I just changed.”

“So?  Come on, we don’t have to stay long.”

André glanced down at himself then shrugged.  “All right.  You two?”

“Maybe later.”

“Right.”

André and Grayson headed out.  Laurens could hear voices next door enthusiastically welcome them a few seconds later.

“Loud,” he commented, sitting on the other bed.

“Ha.  Yeah, they are.”  McHenry was watching his computer screen.  He pushed up his glasses as they started to slide down his nose.

“Can you see close or far?”

“Hm?”  McHenry looked up.  “These are for distance vision.”

“How strong are they?”  Laurens lay back against the pillows, scrolling through the messages on his phone.  “Like can you see someone walking towards you?”

“Uh, I can see that there’s a person,” McHenry said.  “But I wouldn’t be able to recognize their face until they were pretty close.”

“How close?  Like…”  Laurens trailed off, recognizing that it was an oddly intrusive line of conversation.  “Sorry.”  He half-laughed awkwardly.  “Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s fine.”  McHenry paused, then lowered his computer screen.  “How’s Alexander?”

Laurens stilled for a moment, his heart jumping nervously.  “He’s good,” he finally said.  “I mean,” he amended, “he’s been sick, that’s why he couldn’t come this weekend.  That and I think he’s trying to catch up on other work because things got more thrown off than he wants to admit when he messed up his final project proposal and had to redo it.  And he missed a thing for student council and I had to go to it for him and I’m pretty sure he’s going to overcompensate for their next meeting.  Other than that,” he tried to tie up his thoughts in a coherent way, aware that he was starting to ramble, “he’s good.”

McHenry laughed.  “Good.”

The silence was just starting to turn awkward and Laurens was just about to get up and go wash up or head next door, he hadn’t decided which, when McHenry spoke again.

“Do you know Elizabeth Schuyler well?”

“Not really.”  Laurens watched as McHenry ran his hand up through the back of his short black hair.  “Why?”

“Lafayette introduced—Well, no, we already technically knew each other.  She’s Alexander’s friend, right?”

“Something like that.”

McHenry repeated the gesture and Laurens realized what he was leaving unsaid.

“Do you want me to ask him about her?”

“No,” McHenry said, “that’s all right.  I don’t want to make it weird.”

“He likes talking.”

McHenry was quiet for a few seconds.  “She’s really nice,” he finally said.  “She’s a lot easier to talk to than the guy I dated in high school.”

Laurens was very aware that if he had been eating or drinking he would have choked.  “Uh-huh?”  He wished he could have said something smoother and he was embarrassed by how clumsy his response was.  “Weird.  I mean,” he tried again, still fumbling and feeling his face quickly heat, “—Sorry, I mean, that sucks.  About your…”

“It’s fine,” McHenry said with a little more finality than Laurens felt he would have normally.  “But anyway, Eliza’s really nice.  Maybe you should talk to Alexander after all.  Or…”  He hesitated and lifted his laptop screen again.  “Or maybe Lafayette instead.”

“I’ll text him if you want.  He’s always on his phone anyway,” Laurens added as he typed, not at that moment talking to Lafayette and not feeling like seeing the irony in the disconnect between his words and his actions.  “What do you want me to ask him?”

McHenry hesitated.

“I’m going to text him,” Laurens said.  He made a point to sound like it was a done deal.  “So you might as well help me out here.”

“Um.”  McHenry shifted how he was sitting, getting on to his knees and then sitting back on the mattress again.  “I don’t know…  Can you ask him what sort of stuff she likes?  But don’t make it weird,” he added quickly.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t want to impose.”

“I really don’t mind.”  Laurens switched to the chat with Lafayette.  “Trust me.”

“You sure?”

“I’m going to say that André and I were looking into getting souvenirs for everyone,” Laurens said.  “I can ask more specifically about her from there.”

“Okay, great.”

Laurens heard how McHenry was trying not to sound excited and he felt both relieved that he could work off the uncomfortable situation he had created as well as a little guilty at the voice in his head that was suggesting that maybe if Eliza was busy with someone else she wouldn’t have time to spend with others.

 

“Angelica.”  Lafayette was sitting in the hotel room’s chair, his legs tucked under him.  “Angelica,” he repeated, louder.

She opened the bathroom door and leaned out, still fully dressed with her towel over her shoulder.  “We flipped for this.  I’m showering first.  Honestly, Lafayette, you’re as bad as _two_ sisters.”

“I need to get back to John,” Lafayette said.  “He’s trying to trick us.  Would you like to participate in the mystery?”

Angelica sighed but came over without further complaint.  “What’s going on?”  She sounded genuinely interested as she sat on the arm of the chair.

“‘Hey Lafayette,’” Lafayette read, “‘André and I were thinking about getting presents for people back in New York.  What would Eliza like?’  He’s lying,” Lafayette said, looking up at her.  “He only bought one postcard for his brother from Vermont, and only because André and I wanted to look at the gift shop _and_ only because he is very fond of his brother.”

“Much more so than of Eliza,” Angelica agreed, tipping the screen towards her so she could read it.  “No build up to it.  It’s almost ten.  Do you really think he’s out shopping?”

“No,” Lafayette said.  “I’m going to ask him where he is and if he can take a picture of whatever he sees that he thinks is good so I can ‘get a better idea of what is available.’”

“Good idea.”

They both watched as the screen showed Laurens typing again almost right away, then deleting it, then typing again.

“Do you mean that I am also as good as two sisters?”  Lafayette asked hopefully while they waited.

Angelica laughed and tossed her towel over his head.  “Why not?”

“Why not,” Lafayette agreed happily, pulling it off.  “Oh, he says his battery is low.”  He clicked his tongue at the phone.  “Why are you lying to me?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?  Why would he lie about this?”

“And not well.”

Angelica grinned and nudged Lafayette.  “Tell him that we want to meet him.  I have a spare battery he can even borrow.  Tell him to drop a pin so we know where to find him.”

“Angelica Schuyler,” Lafayette said admiringly, following her instructions.  “That is a _devious_ trick.”  Lafayette sent Laurens their own location for good measure.

“Do you think Jefferson is still going to be in Boston tomorrow?”  Angelica asked.  “I don’t think—oh.”  She gave the phone a startled look.  “Is he really at the same hotel as us?”

“That’s what he says,” Lafayette confirmed in surprise.  He looked up at her again.  “…Shall we go bother him?”

“He wouldn’t like that.”

“So we should go?”

“Ask him who he’s with,” Angelica said.  She got up and went back to the bathroom to check her reflection in the mirror.  “It might be fun.”

“He says it’s just him and James McHenry,” Lafayette said, reading off the phone and trailing after her.  “But some of the others are at a party in the room over.”  He watched as Angelica fixed her hair.  “I want to go to the party.”

“Of course you do.  You’re like that dang energizer bunny.”

Lafayette straightened out his shirt in the mirror.  “And?”

“I’ll go with you.  If it sucks I’m leaving, though.”

“That is fair,” he agreed.  “We will buddy system.”

She tucked her hand through his arm.  “To John Laurens’ room first?”

“Yes.  I’m very glad I managed to put this weekend together,” Lafayette said, grabbing both card keys off the tv stand and handing her one.  They turned off the light and left the room together.  “I think I needed to, how do you say, get away from it all.”

“You’ll be getting away from it all next week.”

“No.”  Lafayette shook his head.  “That will be getting _into_ it.”

Angelica gave him a sympathetic nod.  “What does Alexander think about it?”

“He’s not looking forward to it.  Actually,” Lafayette clarified as they waited for the elevator, “he’s been dreading it ever since John suggested it.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Thank you.  Oh, and good luck to us, too, in solving our mystery.”

“I think it’s already solved,” Angelica said with a laugh as the elevator arrived and they got in.  “Don’t you?”

“What were you and McHenry talking about last night?”  Lafayette asked as the doors closed.

Angelica just smiled at him and Lafayette sighed, not actually needing her to answer his question.

“It’s not fair.  I am the one who introduced them!  Of course you should get to be the go-between, but I was the matchmaker.   I feel so left out.”

“They already knew one another,” Angelica pointed out.

“Yes, yes, they took a class together.”  Lafayette tried not to scoff.  “They hardly said a word to one another and yet, _quelle surprise_ , after my party they are exchanging texts and he is asking you about what on earth she could be doing with another boy at her house for dinner!  I don’t get any interesting gossip anymore,” he complained.  “Alexander and John are for the most part happily an item in spite of their _massive_ issues and I want things to be as even-keel and stable there as possible, which has the unfortunate side effect of there being nothing exciting for me to follow along with.”

“Didn’t you just say that Thanksgiving will likely be a disaster?”

“I’d like it not to be.  I’m trying to be an optimist.”

“That’s a dangerous game.”

“I like danger.”  The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the hall.  “It makes life more exciting.”

“Are you a gambling man, Lafayette?”  Angelica asked as they walked towards the room number they had been given.  She still had her hand in the curve of his arm.  She was shorter than him but she met his gaze with a self-assured playfulness.

Lafayette smiled, the expression spreading slowly.  “Actually,” he said, “I am.  Do you have a wager in mind?”

“I bet,” Angelica began, “that I will be able to get my sister a date before you get John to admit that he’s jealous of her.”

Lafayette gave her a put out and mildly offended look.  “I am not taking that.  I am an optimist, not an idiot.”

Angelica laughed.  “Would he deny it that strenuously?”

“And all you would have to do would be to tell that other one that Eliza would in fact agree to go,” Lafayette complained.  “It’s a very unfair bet.”

“All right, all right.”  Angelica rapped on the door to the room Laurens was staying in.  Loud conversation filtered out from under the one next to them.  “We’ll think of something else.  So what does Adrienne think of your gambling?”

Lafayette shot her a worried look.  “Do you still talk to her?  Please don’t talk to her if you are going to be telling her about that sort of thing.”

“My lips are sealed,” Angelica promised him as the door opened.  “Good evening.”  She smiled at Laurens winningly.  “May we come in?”


	141. Noise Complaint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sports Party

“You should come to games with us,” Angelica said, sitting in a circle on the carpeted hotel floor next to McHenry and leaning back against the television stand.  She picked a card from the hand she was holding and put it face down in the center of the circle as people talked loudly around them.  “I go to all of Eliza’s matches and I don’t think any of the remaining ones will overlap with yours.”

“How much are tickets?”

“Just show your student ID.  Lafayette comes too,” she added, leaning over and tapping his leg to get his attention.

“Hm?  What does Lafayette do?”  He looked down at her, distracted from his own conversation.

“You’re going to be coming with me to the rest of Eliza’s games.”

“Oh, yes,” Lafayette agreed.  “Yes, I will be doing that.  Oh,” he said, narrowing in on McHenry who looked vaguely concerned at the sudden enthusiastic attention, “we should make _signs_!”

“We’ll talk about it,” Angelica assured him as Grayson on her other side won the round and collected the prompt card.  A new one was read and Angelica showed McHenry her hand so they could select one to play together.

“Who’s Eliza?”  JT asked McHenry.

Angelica leaned forward to talk around him.  “My sister,” she told him.  “She’s a friend of James’.”

McHenry gave a tentative grin.

“How on earth are you winning every round?”  Angelica asked Grayson, putting her hand on his arm and allowing herself the pleasure of flicking her gaze over his bare chest.  “Is there some secret here?  Did you bribe everyone or do you have blackmail on them?  What are you doing to do if you lose?”

He laughed, self-satisfied.  “I’ll give you this one if you want,” he said, offering her the prompt card teasingly.  “I think I can spare it.”

“Mm, no thank you.”  She took her hand off of him to lightly push the card away.  “I’d prefer to defeat you on my own merit.”

“Yeah, is that why you’re cheating by playing doubles?”

“I’ll join you,” Lafayette said, suddenly dropping into a crouch just behind Grayson and making him jump and almost drop his cards.

“ _Jesus_!”

“What are we playing?  Hm.”  Lafayette leaned forward over Grayson’s shoulder and physically moved the cards in his hand so he could read them all properly.  “Play this one.”

“Get your own hand.”

“But you’re already several rounds in,” Lafayette complained, pushing himself into the circle between Grayson and Angelica anyway.  “I’m at a disadvantage.”

“Deal him in,” Grayson instructed the group at large and scooted over to make space for him.

“Thank you.”  Lafayette took his cards from Tench as he dealt them out and leaned forward to hand them to him.  “Oh.  This one is altered?”

Tench laughed.  “Tallmadge and I edited some of them.  We took a label maker to the ones we never played with anyway and improved them.”

Lafayette nodded approvingly.  “I see.  And you made them personalized to people that you know.  I like it.  I will play it,” he announced.

“You’re not supposed to tell people what you’re putting down.”

“There’s a bunch of those,” Tench said with a shrug.  “Someone else play one.”

“You can’t tell me what to play.”

“It’s my going away party,” he complained.  “I can tell you whatever I want and you have to do it.”  He collected the submitted cards and read off the initial prompt again.  “‘I drink to forget…’”  He turned over the first card and started laughing hard, rocking back and then forward.  “‘Charles Lee.’  Who put this?”  He demanded as the rest of the circle laughed.  “Lafayette?”

“No,” Lafayette said, delighted anyway.

“That was us,” Angelica said, reaching out for the card she and McHenry had won as Tench tossed the rest into the discard pile without even bothering to read them out loud.

“That’s one of the instant win cards,” Tench said, still snickering.  “Nice job.”

“Is he really that bad?”  Lafayette seized the opportunity to ask.  “I thought you were friends with him.”

Tench shrugged.  “He’s a pain,” he said, a little more curtly than strictly necessary.

“He rubs people the wrong way sometimes,” Grayson said.  “He’s a good captain, though.”

“He’s an asshole,” Tench muttered as he passed the prompt deck down the row.

Grayson made a noncommittal gesture that Tench seemed satisfied enough with.

“What’s his major?”  Lafayette asked.

Tench gave him a confused look.

“I need to declare one,” Lafayette explained.  “I don’t know which to choose so I might as well also take who I might have to take classes with into consideration.”

“Business,” Grayson said.  “But he’s graduating this year.”

“You’re safe,” Tench joked.  Next to him JT snorted.

“What are the rest of you?”  Lafayette asked.  “It’s very strange to me,” he went on, “in France we did not have this changing of fields of study almost at whim, much less this long period of being, how do you say…”  He looked at Angelica for help.

“Undeclared.”

Lafayette nodded.  “Undeclared.”

“I’m undeclared,” JT said.  “I need to pick something by the end of the year.”

“Engineering,” Tench said, raising his hand briefly to draw attention back to himself.

“History.”

Lafayette cocked his head at Grayson.  “What kind of history?”

“Early modern England.”

Lafayette clicked his tongue in disappointment.

“I’m in the pre-med program,” McHenry finished.

“What about you?”  Tench asked Angelica.  “What’re you studying?”

“I’m a double major,” Angelica replied.  “Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies—”

“That’s a triple major?”

“No, that’s just one,” McHenry explained to JT.  “It’s just trying to be a catch-all.”

JT looked skeptical but accepted the answer.

“—and Political Science.”

“Like John Laurens,” Grayson said, turning and looking for Laurens across the room where he was sitting on one of the beds, crowded around a laptop with several other people, including a very flustered André.  A series of red Solo cups had been arranged and then forgotten on the small hotel table, and Laurens was drinking from another as he laughed casually, toying with a ping pong ball in his free hand.

Loud foreign pop music was playing and Tallmadge had his fist pressed tightly to his mouth as he shook with silent laughter.

Laurens looked up and saw Grayson watching and shushed the others quickly as Humphreys snorted and ducked to the side, clearing his throat loudly to cover for himself.

“What is it?”  Grayson asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” André quickly lied.  “We’re just watching old videos.”

“Old YouTube videos,” Laurens agreed, struggling to keep a suitably straight face.  “They’re just…”  He trailed off, holding his expression carefully neutral as he nodded.  He took a drink from his cup, unable to say anything else.

“I can’t believe I forgot about this,” Tallmadge finally managed in a voice that he was trying hard to keep from being a squeak.  “I cannot _believe_ …”

“I can’t believe you remembered the band name,” Humphreys laughed, slapping him on the back.

Tallmadge grinned.  “What can I say?  I have a knack for remembering this kind of thing.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, “I’m sure that really comes in handy a lot.”

“Hey, more than you might think.”

“I can’t believe you already knew,” André complained.  “You didn’t say anything?  I spent _five years_ thinking I was finally free of anyone knowing.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Tallmadge defended himself.  “Uh.”  He rubbed his hand hard over his mouth again, trying to keep from laughing.  “Al-almost anyone.”

André quickly looked over at Tench, who hadn’t been paying attention and was only just turning to see what Grayson was staring at.  He saw the others watching him in anticipation and looked between them cautiously.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Tallmadge assured him.  “I’ll tell you later,” he added when he thought no one else was paying attention.

Tench gave him a skeptical look, then nodded.  He turned back around to both Angelica and Lafayette staring at him closely.

“…What?”

“John,” Lafayette called out, sitting up taller to make sure that he could be seen.  “Will you tell me later, too?”

“Fine,” Laurens said.

“No,” André said.

There was a tense moment as they both started and then looked at one another, André in surprise and Laurens with guilt.

“I can’t believe you,” André said.  “I brought this up as a favor!”

“I know, I know,” Laurens said with an awkward laugh, raising his free hand in apology.  “But, I mean, it’s _Lafayette_.  He’s way more embarrassing than this.”

“That’s it,” Grayson said, getting up and crossing the room.  “What’re you watching?”

André quickly tried to pause the music video but accidentally hit it twice and started it from the top again.

Recognition suddenly lit up Tench’s face and he was on his feet and by the bed in a flash, grabbing André by the shoulders and yanking him away from the laptop to a noise of startled protest.  “Let it play,” he instructed eagerly.  “This one was my favorite!”

Humphreys turned around to face the wall, bracing himself against it with both fists as he laughed.

“You had a _favorite_?”

“Uh, of course.”  Tench had André restrained with his arm across his chest.  He looked down at him in all seriousness.  “You do this funky drop down to the ground and then spring back up thing in this one.”

By this time the others were all packed around the laptop as well and Tallmadge tried to imitate the move with his hand in the crowded space.

“Wouldn’t that hurt your ankles?  Did you wear braces or something under the high tops?”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Angelica exclaimed, putting her hand briefly over her mouth.  “I’ve _seen_ this before!”

André moaned and dropped his head in resignation as Angelica put her hand down hard in her excitement on his shoulder.  She dug in a little with her polished and painted nails as she pointed at she screen with her other hand.

“Peggy had me help her make that shirt!”

“The one made out of belts?”  Laurens couldn’t help but ask, his head tipped to the side and brow furrowed in confusion.

“We all have our embarrassing middle school phases," Angelica shot back.

“Yeah,” Grayson said, nodding at the screen with his arms folded over his bare chest and eyes wide.  “That’s _definitely_ true.”

“I think Adrienne showed me this once,” Lafayette said, turning his head first to one side and then to the other as he scrutinized the video.  “I’m going to call her,” he announced and took his phone out of his pocket.

“Didn’t both Peggy and Adrienne meet him?”  Grayson asked.

“Well, he looks different now,” Tench pointed out.  “This was almost a decade ago and he’s got different hair.”

“Less eyeliner,” Tallmadge added.

Tench nodded.  “That too.”

“Adrienne!”  Lafayette turned away from the rest of the group, seeking semi-privacy for his conversation.  “—Oh, I’m sorry, what time is it?”  He put his hand over the speaker and looked back to the others.  “What time is it in Boston?”

“Eleven,” Laurens said, handing the ping pong ball to Lafayette and then taking his own phone out to check the time and his messages.  Nothing from Hamilton.

Lafayette’s eyes widened and he switched to rapid French, apologizing to Adrienne over the line.

There was a sudden pounding on the door, causing everyone to jump.  André, finally freed, slammed the laptop shut, and Laurens, cup still in hand, crossed in the most direct path to the door, jumping up onto the corner of the other bed and then back down again.

“What is—”  He stopped talking abruptly.

“What is this?”  Von Steuben asked, stepping into the room as Laurens quickly moved out of his way, standing with his back against the wall.  “There are noise complaints,” von Steuben continued in something very close to the shout that he would use on the field, as he scanned the room, taking in the nine team members plus Angelica and Lafayette, still on his phone.  “The front desk has called my room to tell you to knock it off!  You two!”  He pointed at Angelica and Lafayette.  “Are you from the university?  I know you,” he amended, looking at Lafayette, “you are John Laurens’ roommate.”

“This is my friend,” McHenry said quickly, putting his hand on Angelica’s shoulder.

Von Steuben turned back to Laurens.  “Is that beer pong on the table?”

Lafayette tossed the ball across the room as if that would hide the evidence.

“ _Gib mir das_.”  He took the cup out of Laurens’ hand and sniffed it, then recoiled a little in surprise, and then took a sip.  “This is just straight Gatorade?”  He handed it back as Laurens nodded.

“We had a couple bottles,” Humphreys said, moving over to the table and holding up one of the cups, offering it to him from across the room.

Von Steuben gave them all a very tired look.  “It is late.  Keep it down so I do not have to come back here and make it quiet as the dead, do you understand?”

Laurens gave a little nervous laugh.  “Yes, sir.”


	142. Confessional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angelica & Lafayette Unpack Many Things

> J. Laurens: Are you coming back to the city this morning?

> G. Lafayette: Not at all!

> G. Lafayette: Oh one minute please I have pictures for you!

> G. Lafayette: Be very excited

> G. Lafayette: I found the BIGGEST turtle

 

“Lafayette.”

“Just one moment.”  Lafayette stepped to the side, out of the way of the crowd, and scrolled through his pictures.  “What do you think of this one to send to John?  Does it show the size well?”

Angelica looked at it and then at the top of the tall tower-like tank next to them, where a large green sea turtle was swimming at the surface.  “Yes.  The kelp is in there for scale.”

“I hope he likes it,” Lafayette said, sending the picture.  “John likes turtles,” he explained.

“Ah.”

“And sent.  Shall we head back down?”  He started walking and she fell into step alongside him.  “I want to see the little tiny lobsters again.  Did you get a video of the electric eel for Alex?”

“Of course.  I caught the whole sign lighting up.”

“Wonderful!  People should send us on trips more often,” he said, “we’re very good travel correspondents and we get along well.”

“That’s good since we were sharing a room.”

“Thank you for agreeing to that.  It was more fun than being split up.  Except for the part where I woke you up in the morning,” he said in an apologetic tone.  “I thought my headphones were plugged in, I didn’t realize you could hear both of us talking.”

“It was just the one time,” Angelica said, accepting the apology and then needling him a little with it.  “If you did that on a daily basis you’d come back to all your things in the hall.  John is so patient with you.  Why don’t you just take your calls somewhere else?  Let your poor roommate sleep.”

“Adrienne and I prefer to have our privacy.”

“Isn’t she usually at school?  So it’s not really private anyway.”

Lafayette looked vaguely uncomfortable.

Angelica laughed.  “You’re so lucky John likes you.”

“He’s too good to me,” Lafayette agreed readily.  “That’s why I’m looking for things to send to him.”

“You’d do that anyway,” Angelica said.  “You’re enjoying it as well.”

“I am,” Lafayette agreed.  “And after this we are going to the gift shop,” he reminded her.  “I want to get Adrienne something and,” he paused, tipping his head to the side and thinking, “and I think something for Adelaide and Aglae as well.”

“So what’s the deal there?”  Angelica asked.  “And don’t just tell me what you said before, about what you decided on officially with Adrienne when she was in town.  I want the whole story.”

“This is the price I pay for being interesting,” Lafayette said with a shake of his head.

“Come on.”  She slipped her arm through his and took his hand, giving him a little tug.  “I’ll only tell my sisters.”

“Adrienne and I talked,” Lafayette began again as they continued to walk, “and I realized that I was being a little, how do you say…”

“Promiscuous?”

“ _Un petit peu_.  I never _did_ anything,” Lafayette said.  “I never—well, no, _bien_ , I did some things but never with them—or—I mean that I never did anything with them other than flirt a little, which—which, all right, they did know about, but…”  He looked at Angelica nervously.  He was relieved to see that she didn’t appear to be judging him.

“I think I said this before,” she began, tugging him to the side to let a group of shouting children run past, “but the most important part is that everyone is on the same page.  It sounded before like you and Adrienne were not.”  They stopped walking to look into one of the tanks.  “She’s a very sweet girl,” she said, “and I’d hate to have to anger her by murdering  you for taking advantage.”

“It’s very scary when she gets angry,” Lafayette agreed, staring off through the glass with a glazed-over expression as he thought back.  “Mostly because it hardly ever happens.”

“Was she angry when you came to the United States?”  Angelica glanced up at Lafayette when he didn’t immediately respond and shook her head with only a little sympathy.  “You poor dumb boy.”

“We worked it out,” Lafayette said with a nervous laugh and then, sounding more confident, added, “just like we solved this one.  We are really a very good team.”

“So you have boundaries in place?  Ones that the both of you agree on?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, more cheerful again.  “This right now, what we are doing, is perfectly fine.”

“Good,” Angelica said with a laugh.  “If I were to date you it would already feel almost like cradle robbing, I’d hate to make it worse by stealing you from a high schooler.”

“Oh, she was supposed to graduate last year.  What does ‘cradle robbing’ mean?”

“It’s also phrased as ‘robbing the cradle.’  It means going after someone too young for you.  But what was that?”

Lafayette took his arm away so he could write down the new vocabulary.  “I like phrases like this,” he said.  “They are so evocative.  If I use it on John and Alex do you think they will get mad?”

“Possibly.  What were you saying about Adrienne?”

Lafayette glanced up, just a little cagey as he made another note next to the phrase and then put the notebook and pen away.  “Nothing.”

“Lafayette.”

He breathed out harder in irritation at himself.  “It’s supposed to be a secret.  Oh, not from anyone in France,” he clarified, “but don’t tell people, please.  She did not just fail the year,” he added, “there were health reasons.”

“Is she all right now?”

Lafayette nodded earnestly.  “Much better.”

“I’m glad.”

They started walking again.  “Adrienne wasn’t… _mad_ when I left,” Lafayette said carefully.  “She was… I hurt her,” he admitted.  “I didn’t realize how much until later.  Things were much more uncomfortable for her than I thought they would be.  But may I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“The lobsters,” Lafayette said, moving them towards the compartmentalized tank, each segment holding tiny bi-color blue and white lobsters.  “Does your boyfriend know that you are here with me and flirting with all the boys?”

“I’m not his property,” Angelica said, just a little sharply.  They looked at the tank for a minute in silence before she sighed and added, “I don’t know what to do with him.”

Lafayette glanced at her and saw her brow furrowed and her mouth turned down.

“It’s… just been…”  She breathed out slowly.  “A very long time.”

Lafayette watched her reflection in the glass as she ran her hand over the strap of her purse.

“I do like him,” she said.  “And he does know I am here, actually.”

“Did you ever think of asking Adrienne to go on a break with you?”

“No, never,” Lafayette said quickly.  “I could never do that.”

“Mm, but would you have wanted to if you knew that she would not be upset and that you could get back together with her at your own convenience?”

“No,” Lafayette repeated firmly.  “I would not want to do that.  She’s my lobster.”

Angelica looked at him.  “Excuse me?”

Lafayette was still watching the tank and he raised one hand, making a claw motion.  He turned to Angelica.  “…Oh, did I never say?  I used to practice English by watching _Friends_ reruns.”

Angelica laughed.  “Of course you did.”

“Lots of American sit-coms are based in New York City,” he went on.  “It is like the Paris of the United States, but we also have our seat of government there as well.  And it is inland.”

“But the sit-coms are the same.”

“It’s an important cultural setting.”

“A global city.”

Lafayette cocked his head slightly, trying to think who the idea was most reminding him of.  Many people, he decided, and now Angelica among them.

“Have you ever been to Paris?”

“Me?  No.  I’d like to go one day.”

“I think you’d like it,” Lafayette said truthfully.  “Maybe even more than I do, since you will be able to make it in your image just like I do with New York.”

“It is different when you’re coming to the place as an adult, or something like one, isn’t it?  As opposed to when you grow up there.  You thrust your own ideas upon it more blatantly.  A place like Paris has a certain cultural cache,” Angelica said, “and it’s difficult not to engage with that instead of the city itself.”

“I don’t think they’re entirely separate.”

“They’re not the same thing.  The idealized New York you see isn’t the same as the one the woman who grew up above the corner store lives in,” Angelica argued.  “Her city is very different from yours, even if you want on the same streets.  Even if you had the same means, her lived experiences would have shaped that city around her to look and breathe differently than it would for you.  You might both have heard the same myths but they’d resonate in different ways and you’d believe different lies.”

Lafayette considered this.  “All right,” he finally said, as they left the exhibit and continued walking down towards the exit, “but I don’t think that was my point and I still think you would like Paris.”

“I probably would.  I expect to.”

“Yes.  I should send Aglae a postcard from it over winter break.  She was very excited to hear about it.”

“What’s her Paris?”  Angelica asked.  “Dark lipstick and wine or pastel macarons?”

“Macarons,” Lafayette answered immediately.  “And _la tour Eiffel_ in spring.”

“A postcard might be best,” Angelica agreed.  “Something that won’t break the fantasy.”

“It would be best if she could see it for herself,” Lafayette said.  “Everyone deserves to have their hearts a little bit broken.”

“Mm.”  Angelica looked into the long central tank as they continued to wind around it.  “There are many directions I could run with that.”

“I know,” Lafayette said.  “Let’s try to hit them all.  We can return to your sisters but you were playing the devil’s advocate with me earlier which is a little rude but I forgive you and would like to hear more.”

“You are such the conversationalist,” Angelica teased.  “What did you want to know?”

“What were you hoping I would give you permission to do?”

Angelica looked at him, tipping her head to the side so her cheek almost brushed her shoulder.  He waited patiently.

“I’m not sure.  But you’re the only one I know who’s been in a similar situation.”  She looked forward again.  “I love my sisters, but they’re so…  They wouldn’t understand.  Not Eliza,” she said.  “She would tell me that if I don’t like him any more then I should break up with him.”

“And Peggy?”

“Peggy isn’t much for dating.  I do still like him,” Angelica went on.  “It’s not that I don’t want to ever see him again.  I’m just fed up with all of this, and he’s part of that.  Thank you for inviting me to come with you this weekend,” she said after a pause.  “I’ve enjoyed myself.”

“Good,” Lafayette said.  “So have I.”

“Did you want a picture in front of the penguins?”

“Yes, please.”  He posed.  “May I ask you something else?”

“All right.”

“Before we left you said that you had a secret, too.  What did you mean?”

Angelica took his picture and then sent it to him.  She put her phone back in her purse.  “I’m not going to hang around in New York after graduation,” she said, a little too casually, as they headed for the gift shop.  “I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure yet.”  She ran her hand up and over her hairline.  “I was thinking of applying to the Peace Corps, or to this program I saw in England…  I just have to get out,” she said with finality.  “I’ve lived in this state, with my family, my entire life.  I want to see what else is out there.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I can understand that.”

She just smiled wryly at him.  He returned the gesture, almost sheepish.

“Is this the sort of thing you were looking for for Adrienne?”  Angelica offered him a stuffed penguin off one of the shelves.

“Ah, yes, thank you.”  He took it and turned it over, inspecting it.  “Is there one with nicer—Thank you,” he repeated as she swapped it out for a different one.

“And for your other friends?”

Lafayette pulled his mouth to the side as he looked around them at the merchandise on display.  “…Magnets?”

“All right.”  She led the way across the store.  “‘Fish you were here’?”  She shook her head at the colorful aquatic themed magnets.  “These are incredibly tacky.  Maybe I should get Peggy one.”

“Oh, can we talk about Peggy and Aglae?”

“Of course we can.”

“They are dating, yes?

“As far as I can tell.”

“But you said that Peggy does not date?”

“Not normally.  There’s a first time for everything.”

“That’s true.”  Lafayette circled the four-sided display of magnets, selecting his favorites.  He added, sounding a pleased with himself, “My first time was when I was sixteen.”

“There are _children_ here,” Angelica scolded.

Lafayette took his selections up to the counter.  “I will get this, too,” he said, showing her the magnet she had read.  “For Peggy and maybe it can be from both of us?”

“You don’t have to do that.”  Angelica followed him and then added in a holographic bookmark of an ocean scene to the pile.  “For Eliza.  I saw a place selling ice-cream outside,” she said.  “I’ll pay for us there.”

Lafayette nodded.  “That sounds good.”

They headed out after he paid, both of them closing their coats against the cooler air and stiff breeze off the docks.

“Up front,” Angelica said, nudging him in the correct direction.  “What would you like?”

“Oh.”  Lafayette turned to her with a pleased smile.  “I had this brand with André in Vermont.  We were going to tour their factory but it was too far away and we also wanted to see an orchard, so we compromised and picked an orchard that served it in their cafe.”

“What would you like?”  Angelica repeated with a laugh as she got her wallet out of her purse.  “Are you going to try something different?”

“I should,” Lafayette agreed.  “Then I will have a flavor I associate with that trip and one I associate with this one.  Taste is a strong reservoir of memory.”

“If you want to associate it with our trip, there’s a Boston-exclusive.”

“There is?”  His eyes widened and he put his hand on her arm.  “We should both get it.”

“All right,” she agreed and ordered for them.  “Do you want to pick them up?”  She asked as the employee scooped the ice cream. “I’ll take a picture of you with both of them.”

“What a wonderful idea!”  Lafayette took both cups once they were ready and looked around for a suitable backdrop.

“If you come this way I can get the entrance to the aquarium in the background.”

“Another good idea.”  He did as she instructed.  “Skill at photography must run in the family.”

“You should come over for dinner sometime,” Angelica said as she took and then sent the his picture.  He handed her one of the cups once she had put her phone away.  “If Eliza is allowed to bring strange boys over then I am too.”

“That is true,” Lafayette said, a little distracted as he typed with one hand.  “I am telling Adrienne that one of those is for her.  It isn’t, of course,” he went on, “but I am telling her to pretend.  I am also telling her that it is actually yours.  But that she should still love me anyway,” he finished, sending the message.  “There’s been so much going on around here,” he added, following Angelica to a table, still outside but sheltered from the wind and the worst of the chill.  “It makes me realize how much I miss her.”  He was typing again with one hand, holding his spoon with the other.  “But that is enough about me and my dearheart,” he said.  “Shall we move on to Eliza?  Do she and James McHenry like each other?”

“He definitely likes her,” Angelica said, taking a bite of her ice cream and letting the plastic spoon linger in her mouth for a moment longer.  “Do you know anything about him?”  She tapped the spoon on the rim of the bowl.

“I don’t think I know much that you do not,” Lafayette said.  He glanced up from his phone.  “It is five PM in France.”

“A little before dinner?”

Lafayette nodded.

Angelica toyed with her spoon.  “Medicine is a promising career, assuming he has a mind for it.”

“I think his grades are good.  I don’t usually see him with the others,” Lafayette said as he typed.  “Only sometimes.  They talk as if he is very studious.”

“That’s good.”

“He obviously told John that he was interested in her.”

“Obviously.  I had the opportunity to speak with him a little over dinner and then again at the party.  He seems like a nice boy.”

“Do you screen all of Eliza’s suitors so thoroughly?”

“I want her to be happy,” Angelica said.  Something in her tone caught Lafayette’s attention and he glanced up.  She was looking over his shoulder at nothing in particular.

“I like Eliza too,” Lafayette said.  “Does she like anyone else?  We could lay them out for her,” he went on, motioning in front of himself with the spoon, “like a game show.  They could answer questions and we could moderate and she could pick the winner!”

Angelica laughed.  Lafayette smiled, pleased with himself and continued to type, holding his spoon in his mouth as he used both hands.

 

> A. Hamilton: And I know it’s wrong, so don’t even start there and dont’ tell me that it’s okay because nothing happened.  It’s not, not really.

> A. Hamilton: I don’t know what to do.  I’m freaking out, Lafayette.  I cant talk to John about it because fucking yikes he has ~*~issues~*~ with jealousy already, how the fuck am I supposed to even bring it up without either making him scared about my seeing her again or hate himself for not being idk good enough

> A. Hamilton: and that’s the THING

> A. Hamilton: I know this sounds bad, I don’t know how to make this not sound bad

> A. Hamilton: but part of me hates that he’s good enough.

> G. Lafayette: I don’t think that you should tell him.

> A. Hamilton: look not to sound like an unappreicaitv douche, but why am I not surprised you don't think I should tell him?

> G. Lafayette: I think you are right.  There’s no way to tell him without it ending badly. 

> A. Hamilton: …yeah

> G. Lafayette: Like you said, you didn’t kiss her.  You just had dinner and told her that you are in a committed relationship.

> A. Hamilton: yeah

 

“She likes Alexander,” Angelica said.  “I’m sure you know that.  You’ve seen them together.  When we went out last weekend and at his apartment…”

Lafayette looked up from his phone, carefully keeping his expression controlled to reveal only mild surprise.  He nodded.  “Yes.  I didn’t know how serious she was.”

“She likes him,” Angelica said.  She was silent for a few moments as she ate.  “And, truth be told, I can’t blame her.”

“Is she very upset about it?”  Lafayette asked sympathetically.

“She would have told me.”

Lafayette nodded and ran his spoon along the melting outer edge of his ice cream.

 

> G. Lafayette: Do you still want to see him when he gets back to the city?

> A. Hamilton: Yeah, I mean

> A. Hamilton: yeah

> A. Hamilton: He’s still coming over.  I think I need to see him, even if I don’t say shit about it

> A. Hamilton: get my hands on him you know?

> G. Lafayette: I think you will feel better after you get to see him again

> A. Hamilton: god i hope so

 

Lafayette put his phone face-down on the table.  He picked up his bowl to eat and without lying wrote Hamilton out of the conversation.

“Adrienne didn’t tell me everything, even though I thought she would.  It’s not all that surprising, I suppose, since I did not tell her things either.  This is quite good,” he said, interrupting himself.  “It is supposed to taste like a cream pie?  Can we find a real cream pie later?”  He took another bite and went back to his original topic.  “Adrienne has, ah…”  He frowned, not sure of the English turn of phrase he wanted to put the fine point on it.  “ _Elle a toujours été délicate_?”  He looked questioningly across the table at Angelica, who nodded.  “Her parents were, ah, they were very angry when I left for the United States.  Adrienne did not speak to me for some days,” Lafayette said with a very nervous smile.  “But once she did she sounded disappointed but not violently upset so, naturally, I thought it was not…  Could you please not tell your sisters this?”  He asked.  “Adrienne liked meeting all of you very much and she never told me that she wanted this to be a secret but it was one that _I_ wanted to keep for her.  She was already in her final year of schooling when I left,” Lafayette confessed.  “She missed enough time that she had to take it again.”

Angelica looked at him with surprise.  “Seriously?”

“She never complained about it,” Lafayette said quickly, almost as if he was trying to make an excuse, although it wasn’t clear for whom.  “She tried to never let anything show in our conversations, but the fact of the matter is that she needed to either take a medical leave of absence and come back to the year or graduate with diminished grades.  I know that she has had health problems in the past, I remember when her parents split for a short time she had an episode then, but it was not so bad that she had to miss more than a few days of classes.”  Lafayette looked down at the table guiltily.  “She has an autoimmune disorder.  Shortly after I left she had a… bad episode.  So far as I know, no one even suggested that my leaving might have been the cause for the flare up, but—they can be triggered by stress.  She hid it well; I didn't even know about it until later, but—”  He cut himself off, not sure how to end the sentence.  “I think it was, of course, my fault,” he said at last.  “She was upset when I found out.  I think she was hoping, somehow, that I never would.  But between that and the embarrassment of facing our friends—I honestly did not think they would lay any of it at her feet,” he said, sounding genuinely dumbstruck.  “I thought it would be my drama and would not reflect on her.”

Angelica shook her head slowly.

“…She corrected me from thinking so,” Lafayette said, managing to collect himself and taking another bite of ice cream.  “When we were in Vermont, I thought she was going to leave me and I was being very childish and she pointed out that in practice I had been the one to abandon her—oh, I didn't think I was abandoning her,” he added quickly, “I thought she would have a happy final year with her friends all around her while I was off being daring—but that is besides the point.”  He put the bowl down.  “The point is that I caused her pain and she has had to suffer for my actions much more than I have and even so I still dreamt about what it might be like to be with other girls and only suspecting the details does not make it much better.  And that is why,” Lafayette said, finding the thread that would lead his detour back to Angelica, “I am telling you this.  We are not all good people, not all of the time.  But we can try our best to learn from one another and I think that although the two of us are quite different, we also are struggling with some of the same questions.”

Angelica studied him for a long moment, the stylish cut of his imported coat against the late autumn air and the seriousness in his dark eyes.

“Yes,” she said, knowing that he was interrogating her in the same way, “but I don’t think we are looking for the same answers.”

“Maybe not quite,” Lafayette nodded.  “Something close?”

“Something close,” Angelica agreed.


	143. Reconnecting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Pre-SC

“Hey, how’re you feeling?”  Laurens dropped his gym bag on the floor, then the backpack that had been doubling as an overnight bag.  He had gone straight to Hamilton’s apartment after getting back to campus on the bus.  “Did you see the game?”

“Caught the highlights on my phone.  All the clips that made it online without a paywall.”

“It was streaming, you know.”

“Sorry, I had—”  Hamilton stopped.  “…I got caught up in stuff, missed it.  I saw both your touchdowns, though.”

Laurens was grinning as he brushed Hamilton’s loose hair from his face.  “You need to cut back on how much time you spend at the office.  In general, Alex.”

Hamilton smiled, a little thinly.

“Alex?”

Hamilton turned away.  “Sorry,” he repeated as he put his hand to the back of his neck and tipped his head like he was working a knot out of the muscle.  His hair slid across his shoulder blades.  “Kinda tired still.  I really got knocked for one.  How was dinner with your father?”

“It went well.”

Hamilton heard the honesty in his voice and didn’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated.  The suppressed nervous energy ate at his chest.

“We had a good time.  I would’ve taken you a picture of the food but it was a nice place and they don’t take well to that kind of thing.”

“Aw, come on, congressman’s son?  I’m sure you could’ve gotten away with it.”  Hamilton managed to catch the words before they became sharp and turned them into something much more playful as he glanced back at Laurens over his shoulder with a teasing smile.  “Bring me anything?”

“I’m not enough?”

“Of course you are.”  The words were more forceful than they would have been normally, emotion just beneath the surface.  Laurens noticed it and assumed he knew why.

“I’m glad we have a couple of days before leaving for break.  I can’t wait to make up for lost time this week,” he joked, trying to meet Hamilton’s normal sense of humor.  It won him a short laugh.

“Me too.”  Hamilton put his hand on his arm.  The feel of him was familiar and comforting and he leaned into it, feeling what had initially been a fleeting burst of amusement deepen into genuine relief at having him back.

“Did you really see me?”  Laurens asked.  He flexed his arm under Hamilton’s hand.

“Of course I did.”  Hamilton kissed him again and slid his tongue into his mouth.  “Probably every second you were on the field,” he said as he moved off a little.  “The highlights, John, I told you.”

“I missed kissing you,” Laurens murmured.  He put his hands on Hamilton’s waist and drew him close again, pressing their mouths together.

Hamilton’s heart skipped and he tightened his grip on his arm, making an almost gratuitously pleased noise into the kiss and pushing his body flush against Laurens’.  Laurens moved one hand up his back, keeping him against him with a little pressure as he hungrily explored his mouth with his tongue.  He had missed the physical sensation and the closeness and he actually growled when Hamilton pulled away again, but stopped abruptly when he almost tenderly kissed his cheek and then backed up against his chair.

“Sit.”

Laurens sat.

Hamilton leaned over him, his tongue in his mouth once more and one hand rubbing him over his jeans while the other tangled itself in his hair.  Laurens arched, leaning his head back into the touch as his hips rocked shallowly.  Hamilton gave a breath of a laugh.

“It hasn’t been that long, J.  We fooled around before you left.”

“Barely.”

“Mm.  Maybe I’ll enjoy myself more this time.”

“I hope so.”

Hamilton hadn’t moved far away and his lips had been brushing against Laurens’ as he spoke.  Laurens took his lower lip between his teeth and pulled lightly, coaxingly.  Hamilton felt the side of his mouth quirk up involuntarily and he relented, kissing him again as Laurens made a long, low noise of pleasure.

Hamilton straddled him.  Laurens put his hands back on his waist and kept him in place as Hamilton rubbed up against him.  He groaned into the kiss and tried to urge him closer.  Hamilton undid his fly.

“Up.”

Laurens lifted his hips and Hamilton got up.  He worked his jeans down and stepped to the side while Laurens kicked off his shoes and then freed his legs.  Hamilton knelt in front of him and put his hands on his thighs, feeling and appreciating the thick muscle, and moved them forward to where his skin got softer and thinner and just barely dipped his fingers in along the elastic of his underwear.  He could feel hair and heat and Laurens whined impatiently.

“What’re you in the mood for, J.?”  Hamilton let his fingers slide a bare centimeter further, trying to urge more of a response from him.  “Good old fashioned American blowjob?  Something more exotic?  I think your bondage tape’s out here still…”

“Whatever you want.”

“Descriptive.”

Laurens’ hips jerked as Hamilton slipped him out of the fly-front of his briefs.

“Ah…”

“Yeah, that’s what I want to hear.”  Hamilton kept his hand high on his shaft, running his thumb around his rim and slit.  “You said you wanted to get sick of me, don’t you remember?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re staying here for the rest of the weekend, aren’t you?”

Laurens grinned.  “If you’ll have me.  If I—recall, you were the one kicking me out before.”

“For your own benefit.  We went over this, J.”  Hamilton leaned down and took just his cockhead into his mouth.  He sucked briefly on it while Laurens moaned and then moved off, a little out of breath as he pressed his tongue to the underside of his shaft.

“I’ll stay,” Laurens managed.

“Do I need to tie you up?”

“No, just—”

“This?”  Hamilton sucked on him again.

“Yes—”  Laurens put his hand firmly on his shoulder.

“Hey, come on.”  Hamilton shrugged it off.  “Not this time.  You gotta restrain yourself, tiger.”  As sure as he was that he was no longer actually sick, he wasn’t convinced that he could give the same kind of performance as usual.  “We’re mixing it up.  Variety.”  He stroked his sac lightly, his hand underneath the fabric.  Laurens gasped in surprise and Hamilton teased his slit with the tip of his tongue. His voice was just loud enough for Laurens to still be able to hear him.  “I missed the way you taste.”

“God…”  Laurens gripped the sides of the chair hard.

“I remember making you sit like this at your dorm, do you?”  Hamilton paused to take him into his mouth again, gently cradling his sac.  “Right after you busted your shoulder.  Moron.”  The insult was tender and punctuated with a slow lick.

“M-mn.”

“Make you sit there so I could suck you off.”  Hamilton’s tongue and breath were soft and warm and Laurens couldn’t help how his hips leaned towards him.  “When was the first time I did that?”

Laurens made a small needy sound.

“Do you want to finish like this?”  Hamilton slid his mouth over him, slowly moving down and then up again.

“N-no.  I, ah, let’s have sex.”  Laurens waited several more seconds while Hamilton pulled off all the way and then took him again.  “Alexander.”

“Mm?”

Laurens’ breath caught at the vibrations on his cock.  “Now.  Stop.”

Hamilton sat back and took his hand off of him as well.  He stood.  “Right.”  He straddled his legs again but remained standing. “Let me get changed.”  He pulled Laurens’ sweater and then his shirt up over his head and arched his bare chest towards him.  Laurens leaned in an inch and kissed his skin.  Hamilton put his hand on his shoulder and ran his other up into his hair once more.  He lowered himself to kiss him deeply, just barely brushing over his cock.  Laurens pulled him closer and felt his face flush when Hamilton finally moved back and started to undo his pants.

“I…”  He hesitated.  He felt Hamilton still and wait for him to finish.  “I want you to do it.  The sex.”

“Yeah?”

Laurens could tell Hamilton was trying to keep his voice level and he felt embarrassed that he was so obviously concerned about making him lose his nerve.  “Yes,” he said firmly.  He tried to keep images of the white tablecloth and his father and sister sitting across from him out of his mind.  He wasn’t very successful.  “If you want to,” he said anyway.  “It seems fair.”

“I only want to if you do as well.”  Hamilton was no longer straddling him and even though Laurens was looking away, he hadn’t heard any more clothing hit the floor.

“I do,” Laurens said.  He meant it, even if he was having a hard time convincing himself of that in the moment.  “You’re good at it,” he added more easily.  He heard Hamilton laugh slightly.  “And it seems only fair.”

“Well, okay, if you insist, J.  I’m more than willing.”

Laurens watched as he discarded first his pants and then his underwear as he crossed the room.  He caught a glimpse of his bare ass just before he vanished into the bathroom.  Laurens stood and finished undressing as well.

“You need a proper bed.”

“That’s a popular opinion,” Hamilton said as he stepped back out and cut the bathroom light.

“It’s awkward to just stand in the middle of the room,” Laurens said, “and it’d be worse to sit on the floor.”

“It’s not really the floor.”

“It’s practically the floor.”

“You want to do it on the floor, we can do it on the floor.”

Laurens lay down on the futon.  Hamilton took the hint and got on it next to him, still talking and betraying slight anxiety.

“I’m already suited up and ready to go.  If I don’t give you the full attention of both my hands, sorry, might be using one myself.  That stuff you got for your birthday, by the way,” he clicked his tongue, “A-plus, you’ll see what I mean.  I didn’t realize how much of a difference getting the right kind made.  It’s definitely more comfortable, less reapplying—”  He stopped talking when he put one hand on Laurens’ abs to brace himself and Laurens took his hand and moved it down past his cock.  “—Uh.  I don’t mean to rush you if you’ve got something else in mind, but you want to flip over for me?”

Laurens had his eyes open even though he was just looking up at the ceiling.  “No.  Let’s do it like this.”

Hamilton tried not to let his surprise show.  “All right, then.  No problem.”  He leaned forward and kissed where his hand had been.  “I like this.”

Laurens made a noise of consent, trying to relax his body and keep his heart from racing too quickly.  It was made harder by the feel of Hamilton’s bare skin against his own and the knowledge that the only thing that separated them was a thin layer of latex.  He jerked, genuinely startled, when Hamilton put his hand back between his legs.

“Are you—”

“Sorry,” Laurens apologized quickly, and then, managing a half-joke, “your hand’s cold.”

“Oh, yeah.”  Hamilton almost laughed.  “Sorry about that.  It’ll warm up.”

“I don’t—doubt—”  His voice shook as Hamilton slowly pressed his finger into him, just up to the first joint.  “Ah…”  He spread his legs further, his feet planted on the mattress.

“Can you lift your hips—Thanks, J.”  Hamilton pushed in further, going even slower and more carefully than normal.  This was not his usual angle.  But then, he remembered with reassuring fondness, it was how he had done it the first time.  “Talk to me,” he said, wanting verbal cues to follow.  “I like your voice.”

“What do you—Mm…”

“Tell me about your game,” Hamilton said, landing on something that he figured Laurens could talk about without too much effort.  “You made your first touchdown twenty minutes in?”

“Fifteen—”  Laurens heard his breath catch.  “I, ah,” he shook his head slightly, trying to clear it.  “It was a handoff, I took it at the thirty…”  His voice was wavering.  “Ran it.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton moved his free hand over the outside of Laurens’ thigh.  “I saw that.  Saw you dodge between two guys.  You’re fast on your feet.”

Laurens couldn’t help but grin a little at the compliment.  “Saw the—first one coming, so I knew to get out of the way.  The second one was all i-instinct.”

Hamilton shook his head with an affectionate smile.  “Damn, J.  Tell you what, post-apocalyptic situation, you’re my first pick for surviving in the wilderness.  I’m gonna stick with you.”  He pushed in further and heard Laurens’ breath hitch.  “What about the other one?”

“Second half.”  Laurens tried to keep his voice steady.  His hips were shifting, rocking back and forth without his thinking about it as his body craved contact.  “Third quarter.  Ah—”  Hamilton had added a second finger and he closed his eyes.

“Third quarter,” Hamilton prompted after half a minute in which he had been moving back and forth and curling his fingers against him.

“Mm.”  The sound was thin.  Hamilton could tell he was biting his lip.  “Caught it.  At the twenty.”

“It was thrown at the twenty or you caught it at the twenty?”

“Sorry.  It was—thrown at the twenty.  I—”  Laurens broke off into a gasp and a moan, one of his hands tugging at the blanket he was lying on.

“You…?”

“Alexander…”

Hamilton slid his free hand under his ass, above where he was arching off the bed.  “Finish your story first, J.”

“Thrown at the twenty, I caught it in the end-zone.”  The words came out in an impatient rush.  “Solid throw, easy.  I don’t know how I was open.  Please.”

Hamilton paused, trying not to laugh.  No way to argue with that request.

He slowly took his hand away—he heard the faintest moan as he did so—and after a pause to apply additional lubricant pushed into him.  He hadn’t been expecting the loud noise of pleasure and he felt his cock jerk, suddenly even more sensitive and almost throbbing as he was very aware of the blood pounding in his body.

He had put one hand at Laurens’ thigh to help guide him and the other on the mattress next to his waist.  Laurens grabbed that one by the wrist and urged him closer.

Hamilton readily gave in, moving down over him and pushing further in.  His face brushed Laurens’ chest and he felt it slightly tacky with sweat, even in the cool air of the room.  Laurens put his other hand on his shoulder, keeping him down as Hamilton thrust into him.  He forced himself to go slowly until he heard Laurens make and then repeat an impatient noise.  He picked up the pace and the amount of force and was rewarded with a breathy moan.

Hamilton swore quietly.  He had his eyes shut tight against his heart beating in his ears and he tried to think about something other than what they were currently doing.  He replayed the clips of the game he had seen—at least Laurens was clothed in that and there were things for him to distract himself with, like trying to remember how he had dodged to first one side and then the other or what the numbers on the opposing players’ jerseys had been.  He could hear Laurens’ heavy breathing and he felt him urge him a little closer and he tried to balance between staying in the moment and giving himself over to the heat and pressure growing inside him.

Laurens pressed Hamilton almost flush against him, letting his cock run up on his torso as they moved and arching his hips off the bed to give him better access.  He felt Hamilton suddenly push harder into him, twice, a third time, and jerk, both his hands on the mattress for support.  A rush ran through his body and then built to fast orgasm as Hamilton leaned away and put his hand on his cock, jerking him off with quick deft movements.

He lay flat on his back, his heart racing, as Hamilton sat on his heels and panted.

“…Tossing this.”  Hamilton managed to get out.  “J., you want to go wash up first?”

Laurens managed to leverage himself to his feet and put his hand on the wall for guidance as he made his way to the bathroom.  His legs were shaking.

Hamilton got the overhead light and waited in the dark until Laurens lay down on the mattress again, then traded him places.  He was back out more quickly and he slipped under the covers and wrapped his arms around him, smiling against the side of his chest when Laurens draped an arm across his shoulders.

“It was weird not having you around.”  Hamilton nuzzled him and held him tighter.  “I got used to having you here all the time.  I dunno what felt more off, you being in the city but not with me or you being up in Boston.  Why Boston?”  He yawned.  “They just got a harbor and shit tea.”  He quieted, trying to get a read on the mood.  Laurens’ chest was rising and falling slowly and his arm felt like near dead weight.  He nuzzled him again.  “I love you.”

“You too.”  The words were mumbled.

Hamilton kissed his skin.  He lay awake in the dark for a long while, listening as his steady breathing intermingled with the erratic sounds of the building.  It was a familiar beat, soft and warm.


	144. Transitory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday; Monday

“Did you know that Angelica thinks that New York is boring?”

“Did you know that you’re the biggest gossip on both sides of the Atlantic?”

Lafayette gave Hamilton a hurt look.  Hamilton, sitting next to Laurens on his futon, shrugged.

“No, I didn’t,” Hamilton relented after looking down at his laptop, then back up to Lafayette’s still-wounded expression.  “Did that come up in Boston?”

“We were in a strange city.  Of course we were bound to make comparisons.  I hope you had a decent weekend without any of us around to bother you.”

“I had dinner with Eliza.”  Hamilton looked back down at his laptop again and started typing.  “Angelica probably told you that, though.”

“She did.”  Lafayette continued to sit at an angle at Hamilton’s desk. 

“You didn’t tell me you had dinner with Eliza.”

Hamilton glanced up at Laurens.  “All right.”  He could feel himself hedging the words.  “I had dinner with her.”  There hadn’t been any real need to bring it up.  But wasn’t it better that he at least established that nothing of any importance had happened?  “Potatoes au gratin.  Lamb chops, cooked with garlic and rosemary.  Green salad, I don’t know what was in that one.  Sparkling water.”  He leaned against Laurens and slipped his arm through his.  He took his hand and intertwined their fingers, reassuring himself that he was still there.

“Angelica is a lot of fun,” Lafayette said, trying to keep the mood up.  “She helped me pick out postcards and we named all the blue penguins at the aquarium.  Which you would know,” he went on, with a mock affronted air, “if you would check Snapchat.”

“Sorry.  I can’t keep track of all that stuff.”

“I should get an account.”  Hamilton looked at Laurens again, this time in surprise.  “…Tench left for India already,” he explained.  “He said he’d use it to keep everyone updated.”

“You’ll follow him and not me?”

“I’m more interested in seeing Chennai than Boston.”

“Orientalist.”

“Been to Boston.  Was in Boston at the same time as you.  Never been to Chennai.”

“Give me your phone, J.”  Hamilton put his other hand on his arm.  Laurens passed over his phone and he unlocked it and went to the app store to download it.  “In return you have to show me anything particularly good.”

“It’s a deal.”

Lafayette made a little noise of protest, then reconsidered.  “Make him follow me too.”

“Gotcha.”

“Am I going to regret this?”

“Nah,” Hamilton said, “you’ll like the filters.  I’m surprised you’re not all over this already, they’ve got stuff that airbrushes you and shit.  Make your cheekbones _really_ killer, you’ll like it, trust me.”  He hit download and got up, handing the phone back.  “I need to pack.  You boys want to help?”

Lafayette looked around the one room apartment.  “I think we’ll be involved either way.”

“Good point.”  Hamilton was crouching on the floor and emptying out his backpack, trying to channel his nervous energy into something productive.  “Can I do laundry at your place, J.?  Is that weird?  It’ll cut back on bulk but if it’s too whatever I can manage.”

“It’s fine.  You can always borrow anything you forget, too.”

“Ha, yeah, there’s a difference there between ‘towel’ and ‘pants’ and only the former is one size fits all.”

“Do we need to bring fancy clothes?”  Lafayette asked.  “Is Thanksgiving dinner very formal?”

Laurens shook his head.  “It’s just my immediate family.  Just pack something nice.”

“How nice is nice?  Is that like business casual or formal or as long as there are no obvious stains?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Business casual.”

“Gotcha.”  He cleared his throat and brightened up a little.  “At least I’m not gonna be sick over vacation.  That’d blow.  It’s already going to be weird enough having to sneak around your father, why complicate things?”

Laurens looked uncomfortable.  “Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean it.”

“I agreed with you.”  Hamilton didn’t sound entirely on board regardless.  Laurens tried to look to Lafayette for support but he was typing on his phone and didn’t see.

“Hey.”  Hamilton changed the subject.  “I’m printing my e-ticket, sending it to the library.  Anyone else want to get in on this?  Lafayette?  You’re the one who insisted on this, you want to come down with me?  Why does this country have to be so big?”  He complained.  “Almost fifteen hours to Columbia.  I know, I know, colonialism, that’s the answer.  But who knew that a train would take so long?  I kind of figured it would be more doable.”

Lafayette made a little complaining noise that quickly shut Hamilton up as he signed in for the trip and sent his ticket to print.  “John?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens got his phone out as well.  “I’ll go with you guys.”

“Score.”  Hamilton shut his laptop and nudged him.  “Sick of me yet?”

Laurens made a sound very similar to Lafayette’s and Hamilton laughed humorlessly.  “Maybe you will be after this trip.  Eleven AM boarding at Grand Central, one AM disembarkment in Columbia.”  Hamilton shook his head slowly.

“We could have flown,” Laurens pointed out.  “You knew it was going to be long.”

“Uh.”  Hamilton quickly glanced at Lafayette.  “No, I uh, no.  That would have been rude.  He hates flying and how could we just abandon him for that long?”

Lafayette made an affirmative sound and stood, looking out the small window.  “Let’s get the tickets before the rain starts up again.”

“I hope the weather in South Carolina is better than this,” Hamilton complained as he grabbed his coat and keys.

 

> G. Lafayette: It’s just very very unfair

> G. Lafayette: I put all this effort into getting them together and then I am agreeing to come down to South Carolina with them to John’s home so that there will be more of a buffer between them and his father who still does not know about theyr relationship, and they are just ignoring me anyway!

> G. Lafayette: The trip started off so well

> G. Lafayette: we played cards, I won, we bought snacks from the food car, I took pictures and tried to send them to France but I have no connection so all of my messages are getting backed up and will go through when we get closer to the next stop je suppose

> G. Lafayette: but as soon as the car cleared out they started getting all… touchy

> G. Lafayette: oh to clarify because I am sure you will be reading this in an hour or so and thinking to yourself, “Lafayette, does that mean that they are angry with each other?  But what could be wrng, they are not even at the house yet?”  And no you are wrong abacus I mean that word very differently.

> G. Lafayette: oh that is a strange correction!  I was trying to type “because”!  What is an abacus?

> G. Lafayette: I cannot look it up, I do not have signal.I will have to interrupt them to ask

> G. Lafayette: one moment please Adelaide

 

“John,” Lafayette said, looking up from where he was draped over an entire row of front-facing seats.  Laurens and Hamilton were sitting across from him, a table holding the remnants of lunch and an abandoned deck of cards.  “Alexander,” Lafayette tried again.  He rapped his hand on the table to get their attention.

Hamilton made an irritated noise into the deep kiss he and Laurens had been locked in and untangled himself, leaning away with his arms still around Laurens’ neck.

“What?”

Lafayette turned his phone around.  “What is this word?”

Hamilton shifted and leaned forward carefully to take the phone.  He had his legs draped over the seat-divider to what should have been his seat while sitting in Laurens’ lap.  Laurens made a little cautioning noise.

“What word?”

“Abacus.”

“It’s a…”  Hamilton frowned and looked up at Laurens.  “How would you describe it?”

Laurens put one hand on his back and one under one of his legs, adjusting him into a more comfortable spot on his lap.  “An abacus is that old-fashioned counting tool with the beads on wires.  You push them back and forth.”  In his lap, Hamilton imitated using one.

“Oh,” Lafayette said with sudden realization.  “ _Un abaque_.”

“You couldn't get _abaque_ from abacus?”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Lafayette complained.  “And I can’t connect to the internet to look it up on my own.”

“You need a physical dictionary.”

“But that is so impractical.”

“Says the guy who had to interrupt us to ask what an abacus was.”  Hamilton was already turning his attention back to Laurens, sliding one of his hands up into his freshly cut hair.  His voice had dropped back down to a purr.

Lafayette made an annoyed and grossed out face.  “We are in public, John,” he complained.  “Control your man.”

“There’s no one around, Lafayette.”  Laurens let Hamilton kiss him lightly and returned the favor.

“We’ll be dignified in South Carolina,” Hamilton reassured everyone, including himself.  “Don’t you have a book you can read meanwhile or something?”  He flicked his tongue over Laurens’ lower lip.

“How—tch.”  Lafayette got up indignantly, gathering up the cards with him and going to sit in a seat across the aisle.  He mixed up the cards, just picking up half and moving them to the back of the stack, then separated the deck into two and made an attempt at shuffling them properly.  Instead he lost control of the cards and accidentally shot them across the table and aisle. He tried to catch the last few before they flew through the air and under the table he had been sitting at initially.

Lafayette looked up with a sheepish grin.

“…How do you say, fifty-two pick up?”

The other two ignored his attempt at humor and he paused and then rolled his eyes as he got up and knelt on the floor to gather them.

“Adelaide,” he dictated to his phone as it recorded a voice memo, “I am now picking up an entire deck of cards because the other two will not help me.  Also an abacus is an _abaque_ or a _boulier_.”

“Lafayette,” Hamilton complained, breaking away from Laurens.  He sat up, one leg carefully on either side of Laurens’.  “Would you stop?  You’re making us look bad and you’re the one who dropped them all.”  He saw the wounded look Lafayette gave him and sighed.  “All right, all right.  Is that thing still on?  Hi Adelaide.”

Lafayette held up his phone for Laurens.

“…Hello.”

He clicked his tongue.  “That was John,” he clarified for the message.  “He’s being awkward and not engaging with me.”

Laurens wanted to argue, but Hamilton was running one hand up under his shirt and, well, he wasn’t wrong.

“Can’t you journal or something meanwhile?”  Hamilton asked, standing and slowly moving to help Lafayette pick up the cards.  His hand lingered on Laurens’ torso longer than it had to.  “Write to Adrienne?  Describe the countryside.”

“It still all looks the same,” Lafayette complained.  "It's not as though everything suddenly changes colors when you cross state lines.”

“Vermont was orange.”

“That was seasonal.  You are being argumentative.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Why did you want to play cards, anyway?  You’re not very good.”

“I was going to play solitaire while you two were _in flagrante delicto_.”

“Barely.  Also, you know, unlike you, some of us never got that classic high school making out in the hallways sort of experience.”

Lafayette gave Hamilton a very unimpressed look.

“I didn’t,” he protested.  “Never _on campus_.”  He handed Lafayette a stack of cards.  “Here.”

“I don’t believe you.  But thank you.  It’s just hard enough,” Lafayette said dramatically as he stood, all the cards collected.  “I am adrift in a foreign land and my roommate is too busy robbing the cradle to pay attention to me…”

Laurens made a disgusted noise.

Lafayette had paused intentionally and he glanced over at Laurens to see his reaction.

“Your English is so weird,” Hamilton told him.  “It’s such a kooky hodgepodge of gobbledegook cant making this patchwork of impenetrable lingo.  Words metaphorically akimbo.”

Lafayette looked at him in shock, then narrowed his eyes as he caught on.  “Very funny.  Making up nonsense so you can tell me fake definitions while I have no dictionary.  You could at least try to make them sound real.”

“You can’t fool him,” Laurens told Hamilton with a straight face.  “He’s too perspicacious.”

Lafayette opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then closed it decidedly, looking at both of them with suspicion.  Maybe it was better to keep quiet until the conversation had moved on.  He sat back at the other table, deck of cards neatly stacked in front of him.  He got back on his phone.

“Don’t ostracize yourself,” Hamilton joked.

“I know what ‘ostracize’ means,” Lafayette complained.

“Can you spell it?”

Lafayette gave him the most unamused look.

“Come on,” Laurens said, nudging Hamilton with the back of his hand.  “He’s fine.”

“Yeah, I know.”  Hamilton leaned against the table, shifting his weight to one leg.  “Look at him all, slick and multi-lingual.  When the aliens invade they’re gonna spare him or at least pickle his brain.  What’ll we get?”  He snapped his fingers.  “Zilch.  Gonna have to go work in their plutonium mines on Mars.”

“‘Zilch’ is a good one.”

“Yeah, I hadn’t even thought of that.”  Hamilton looked back across the aisle, where Lafayette had apparently regained signal and was talking excitedly on the phone in French, and moved his hand from the table to Laurens’ shoulder.  He squeezed it and slid it to the back of his neck.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Laurens replied.

“Lafayette can watch our stuff.  You wanna see how big the bathroom at the end of the car is?”

Laurens shook his head.  “No.  Not really.”

“Come on,” Hamilton tried again, doing his best not to think about their destination even as he brought it up.  “It’s no different from the dorm bathrooms and this is the last time we’re going to get any kind of privacy all week.  I _missed_ you.”

“I missed you too, but I don’t want to fool around in a single stall public bathroom.”

“It might be big enough.  You don’t know.”

“I’m _pretty sure_.”

Hamilton made a put out noise and slid his hand up through the short back of Laurens’ hair.  “Just look with me.  If it’s disgusting then, okay, nothing to be done about that.”

Laurens still looked very skeptical so Hamilton slid back into his lap, leaving one foot on the floor and tucking his other leg up so he could turn to face him.

“Please, J.?”  He stroked the back of his head, leaning in and looking at him closely through hooded eyes.  He drew his other hand across his jaw and down the side of his neck, feeling Laurens swallow hard.  “Just see if it’s an option.”  He trailed his fingers over where his shirt covered his collarbone and then nipple.  He let one finger tease it.

Across the aisle Lafayette covered his phone’s speaker to talk to them.  “Please go.  You are making me very uncomfortable and I am trying to have a conversation.”

“Pervert.”  Hamilton hopped up and offered Laurens his hand.  Laurens took it automatically and was led down the narrow aisle to the opposite end of the car.  He was grinning by the time he opened the door and slipped in and was laughing when Hamilton squeezed in behind him and jammed the door shut.

“Wait a—this is ridiculous.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Hamilton put his hands at his waist and kissed him quickly.  “Just don’t touch anything.”

“I’m gonna fall over.”

“You want—no, don’t sit.”

Laurens stepped away from the toilet and towards the sink, his foot knocking up against a bucket and mop wedged in the corner.  “Alex, there’s not any room.  We might as well go back out.”

“What, and invade Lafayette’s privacy? He’s on a personal call out there, J.”  Hamilton had moved with him and was kissing his neck.  He could feel Laurens make a low noise in the back of his throat.  “‘Sides, we’re supposed to rack up a bunch of exotic locals so we can finally beat him at relationship bingo, remember?”

“I—”  Laurens didn’t really and was too distracted to ask about it.  In spite of his complaints he had his hands on Hamilton’s back and was pulling him close to him.  He nudged his face up and kissed him, pushing his tongue past his lips.

“Mm…”  Hamilton had his hands at the front of Laurens’ pants.  He fumbled with the button and fly as the train car shook and he could feel them go around a long curve.

Laurens moved his own hands down to help.  He yanked down the fly and leaned his hips towards Hamilton.  Hamilton started to move away, rethought his initial plan to kneel, hesitated, pressed himself up against him again and remained standing.  He gyrated his hips and was rewarded with a moan.

“We need music in here,” Hamilton joked, kissing and biting lightly at his neck, careful not to leave marks.   “Would you have danced with me at the club?”

“I—danced.”  Laurens’ voice caught.

Hamilton laughed.  “John Laurens danced?”  He kissed him again, just under where his neck became his jaw.  “I’m jealous.”  Back to a purr.

Laurens half-laughed nervously.  “Yeah.”

“So show me your moves,” Hamilton teased, rotating his hips again.  “What’d’you have up your sleeve, tiger?”

“Arm—”

“Don’t you fucking dare make that dad joke, John,” Hamilton said abruptly, his tone changing.  “I swear to God that will kill the entire fucking mood.”

Laurens laughed, ducking his head down.  The thrill of being in semi-public and the anxiety of knowing where they were headed were combining to make him almost giddy.

“So?”  Hamilton tried prompting him again.  “C’mon.”

“André and I—”

“André?”  Hamilton cut him off again.  “You danced with André?”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton leaned in, a grin on his face.  “Hot.  You wanna show me how you danced with him?  A little bump and grind—”

The train slowed suddenly as it neared the next station and they both over balanced, lurching to the side.  Hamilton swore as he knocked his shin into the toilet and Laurens took a wide step to try and catch both of them and accidentally put his foot into the bucket.  He grabbed hold of Hamilton and both of them crashed into the wall, the mop falling over with a clatter.

“Shit,” Hamilton swore, pushing off of Laurens to stand on one leg and rub his other one.  “Fucking…”

Laurens bent over to pick up the mop.  “Yeah, we’re not doing this.”  He did up his pants.

Hamilton swore again.  “Come on,” he tried, “the train’s gonna be stopped for a while.”

“You don’t know how long.  That last one we barely pulled in before we left again.  I don’t want to injure myself.”

“Hamilton gave a long sigh.  “Fine, fine.  I guess we can go back to making out at the table.  It smells like cleaning solution in here anyway.  Lemme just piss while we’re in here.”

“I’m leaving,” Laurens said firmly.

“Oh, come on, not like you haven’t seen it before.”

“We’re at a station.  I’m getting off before anyone else gets on and I have to exit this thing in front of other people.”

“Okay, okay, jeez.  Hurry up and get out, then.”

Lafayette looked up from his call as the bathroom door opened with a bang and Laurens was pushed—he could see Hamilton’s hands on his back for a second before his arms retreated and the door slammed shut again—out and almost into the luggage rack.

“That was fast.”  Lafayette checked the time on his watch.  “Did you not return the favor?”

Laurens sat down across from Lafayette at his table.  “Very funny.  We realized it was a bad idea once I got my foot stuck in a bucket.”

Lafayette gave him a sympathetic nod.  “I could have told you as much,” he said, excusing himself from the call and hanging up.  “Adrienne and I had a very difficult time on a train before, and that was even after she snuck me into the women’s toilets.”

“You—Does Hamilton know you already checked off ‘trains’?”

Lafayette shrugged.

Laurens picked up the cards and shuffled them, then started dealing out three hands.  “And why the women’s?”

“The men’s just had a single hole in the floor that opened out onto the tracks and it scared me.  I’d much rather put my foot through a bucket.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed as Hamilton rejoined them.  Laurens moved one seat over so he could sit next to him, which he did, immediately slipping under his arm even as he continue to deal out cards.  “That’d be worse.  Right, do you remember the rules for Texas Hold ‘em?  We’re playing Oxford stud now, I’ll walk you through it.”

“My boyfriend’s so sexy,” Hamilton teased, winking at Lafayette across the table as he put his hand on Laurens’ thigh.

Lafayette laughed and shook his head and settled into the game, happy to let them pretend that everything was settled and that a couple of good days would be enough to buoy them all through the week.


	145. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting Picked Up; Guest Rooms

“Sixteen hours and change,” Hamilton muttered, his hands deep in his jacket pockets and the zipper up to his chin.  “Almost a two hour delay.  No dining cart, not that it really matters, would just have been nice to stretch my legs, don’t make a jab about how you’re taller, not one hundred percent in the mood.”  He yawned and squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment.  “We’re gonna get fucking stabbed out here,” he announced.

Lafayette looked up from his phone to raise an eyebrow at him.  It went unnoticed and he returned to typing.

 

> G. Lafayette: You don’t know how much I miss you.

> G. Lafayette: Would it be very very rude to buy a ticket to Paris for Wednesday?

> A. de Noailles: Today is Tuesday and you would miss your holiday

> G. Lafayette: We can have Thanksgiving in France

> G. Lafayette: we can go to kfc

 

Hamilton was tapping his foot on the floor next to his bag.  It was even faster than usual as he tried and failed to get back to a place of if not the enthusiasm of the train then at least relative calm, away from the—not even the dread, the resigned _knowledge_ of what it would be like to have to interact with Laurens’ father.  Next to him Laurens was also on his phone and trying hard to ignore him.  Hamilton looked over at him and saw his back angled slightly away and exhaled loudly.

Headlights appeared out of the dark outside of the small train station and then a sleek black sports car pulled up as Laurens took a step forward in anticipation, one hand tightening its grip on the bag slung over his shoulder.

“This is her.  Come on.”

Hamilton shook his head as Laurens took the short flight of steps in two long strides and rapped his knuckles at the driver’s side window before the engine stopped and it opened. “You’ve got to be _kidding_ me…”

“Get out.”

“Nice to see you too, Jack.”

If Hamilton had been in a better mood he would have been amused by the nickname and the exchange.  As it was he watched as Martha slid out and pulled the seat forward.

“You guys don’t have a lot of luggage, right?  Dad’s car would have been better.”

“Yeah, right, I don’t want to drive dad’s car on my first day back.”  Laurens’ mood was starting to lift and Martha rolled her eyes and handed him the keys.  “You didn’t scratch it, did you?”

“On the drive to the station?  Come on, Jack.  Hi,” she said, putting out her hand for first Lafayette and then Hamilton to shake.  “I’m Martha.”

“Lafayette.”

“Alexander.”  Hamilton thought that she held his hand a beat longer than Lafayette’s and looked at him just a little more intensely.  He forced himself not to glance nervously at Laurens, torn between wanting to stand on his own and wanting reassurance.  The action would have been missed, as Laurens was efficiently storing their luggage in the half-trunk and small backseat of the car.

“It’ll be a tight fit,” he said, “but we should be fine.”

“Were you going to make me take a cab back if there wasn’t enough space?”

“Ride share.  Get in,” he said to Lafayette, who climbed over a bag to get to the far back seat.  Hamilton started to go around to the front, then caught himself and got in next to him.  He looked up at Laurens as he did, wondering if he was going to say anything.

“You fit, right?”  Laurens undid his jacket.  “You’re the shortest.”

Hamilton felt himself rankle at the words on top of the argument and the ride down and the whole situation.  “What did I _just_ say?”

“It’s not a very long drive.”  Laurens put his hand on his shoulder and slid it an inch up towards the back of his neck as Martha got in on the other side of the car.  Hamilton’s eyes flicked between his arm and his face and he relented.  That wasn’t real calm, that was a desperately fastened on façade.

Laurens took his hand off of him and readjusted the driver’s seat.  He got in and closed the door. 

“This is going to be—” Hamilton muttered to Lafayette as he leaned in close so he couldn’t be heard from the front.  He broke off his sentence as he adjusted the bag between them so he wasn’t putting his weight on what felt like a spike from the railroad.  “—a long fucking week.”

Lafayette had just opened his mouth to respond when the car sudden accelerated backwards and then turned around sharply.  They barely paused at the stop before shooting out onto the mostly empty street, cutting aggressively between the occasional car.

Hamilton looked at Laurens in the rearview mirror in alarm then disbelief at the barely repressed smirk on his face and the way he was already glancing tauntingly at his sister.  His phone went off and he took it out of his pocket, one hand gripping the side of the car for balance and a misplaced belief that he could control its actions.

 

> G. Lafayette:  >> G. Lafayette: Would it be very very rude to buy a ticket to Paris for Wednesday?

>> A. de Noailles: Today is Tuesday and you would miss your holiday

>> G. Lafayette: We can have Thanksgiving in France

>> G. Lafayette: we can go to kfc

> A. Hamilton: Is this an invitation to go with you

> A. Hamilton: because i accept

 

The car didn’t slow down as it made a right and Hamilton’s phone flew out of his hands and under the front seat.

“How’s everyone else?”

“They’re fine.”  Martha sounded completely bored in spite of Laurens’ driving.  “You just saw dad.  Jemmy’s excited you’ll be here for his birthday, of course.”

In response to her tone Laurens sped up a little more.

“What’s the top speed limit in the United States?”

Hamilton slid down in his seat, mostly unsuccessfully, and tried to fish his phone out with his foot.  He only managed to reach a couple inches and gave up.

“Eighty-five,” Laurens and Martha answered simultaneously.

“In Texas,” Laurens added, not to be outdone.

“What are we going now?”

“Half that,” Laurens blatantly lied.

“This is your boyfriend,” Lafayette mouthed at Hamilton, pointing towards the front of the car.  “Not mine.”

“We can’t all be Adrienne,” Hamilton whispered back.  “Some of us have to be fuckin’ morons and balance shit out.”

“We’re getting a cake,” Martha went on, just as casually as if the conversation were happening over tea, “I’m not sure what he wants on it, I think you’re supposed to help him pick.  Oh, at our last game, the outside hitter—you’d hate her, Jack, I’m not even going to get into that—actually fell _into_ the net.  We still won the game but jeez.”

Laurens grinned and laughed and Hamilton bit his lip at the clear heady adrenaline rush audible in it.  He leaned forward to steal a nervous glance at his sister and was slightly reassured by how little she seemed to think of his speed.

Martha noticed and nudged Laurens’ hand on the gear stick.  “Slow down, moron, you’re freaking out your friends.  He does this all the time,” she informed them, twisting in her seat so she could talk to them.  “He’s trying to scare me.”

“If I am, it isn’t working.”

“Then do you want to cut it out?”

Laurens was smiling and Hamilton had caught the fond note in his voice when he answered her.  He slowed the car just a little, bringing them down to just over the speed limit.

“If we get pulled over again…”

“I’ll pay it, stop complaining.”

Lafayette watched them bicker affectionately and remembered sitting in the dorm with Laurens while he bitterly emphasized how his father’s standing and connections would keep him out of any trouble.  He caught himself before he laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

Lafayette waved his hand at Hamilton.  “I don’t know how to translate it,” he lied.

Hamilton opened his mouth to complain but kept quiet as Martha started to talk again.

“He used to race planes,” she said, still facing away from her brother and the road and drawing her hand out in front of herself to mimic the movement.  “With his car.  If you go out to—it doesn’t matter—anyway, you can see them taking off from the road.  Do you remember, Jack?  You don't do that anymore, do you?  Can you get close enough to the runway in the city?”

“Not like that.”

“He used to see how long he could keep up with them,” she went on.  It seemed like there might be more to the story but she left it there and tipped her head, looking over Lafayette and Hamilton again.  “You both only just moved to New York, right?  How do you like it?”

“A couple years ago.”

“Oh.”  Martha tipped her head the other way.  Her thick ponytail swung behind her.  “I thought—never mind.”

“Did you tell her I just got here?”

“No, no,” Martha cut back in before Laurens could say anything.  “I misunderstood.  The postcard he sent to Jemmy made it sound like you recently moved.”

Hamilton frowned.  “Yeah,” he said, thinking about something other than what he was saying, “I told him that’d sound weird.”  Before he could ask anything else, Lafayette explained that he had just come to the United States a little over a year ago and he and Martha were quickly deep in conversation.  Hamilton watched the orange streetlights flash by outside and felt his apprehension grow.

 

The house—the manor, as Hamilton called it under his breath to no one in particular as they entered, wishing that Mulligan was there to appreciate his snipe—was not as old as the ones they had stayed at in France or even at Mt. Vernon, but it was large with excessively high ceilings and broad windows that looked out from all three floors onto the immaculately maintained grass that surrounded its shingle style Victorian façade.  Separate buildings on the property which Laurens had mentioned in passing that they could see in the morning held stables ( _stables_ , Hamilton had thought, wishing again that Mulligan had come down with them) and equipment and housing for some of the people who worked for the family.  Hamilton thought he would probably feel much more comfortable if he was going to visit someone there as he looked at the landscape paintings on the walls above the stairs as they climbed and wished they were family portraits instead.

Martha had split off as soon as they were on the second floor, telling Laurens with a yawn that rooms for his friends were made up.

“How many guest rooms do you have?”  Hamilton hadn’t been able to refrain from asking and he hoped he didn’t sound overly awed.

“There are five kids,” Laurens said.  “Plus if relatives visit…  It’s a big family.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Are we on the same hall or do we get our own wing?”

“You’re both on the third floor.  I’m down here with Martha and Jemmy.”

“We’re at the kids table.”

“Harry’s the third oldest.”

“Christ, John, I’m just making a joke.”  Hamilton crossed his arms uncomfortably as they climbed to the third floor.  “That’s a terrifying picture,” he added as an old oil portrait of a scowling man came into view at the top of the stairs and made him regret his previous wish.  “Tell me he’s dead, I don’t want to run into him in the middle of the night when I’m trying to find the bathroom.”

“Alex.”

“I’m just saying,” he muttered under his breath.

Laurens sighed and led them down the hall.  “These are your rooms.”  He pointed to two doors.  “The bathroom’s at the end, no one else will be using that one.  Make sure you turn the fan on when you use the shower.  There’s a thermostat…”  He opened he door to one of the rooms to show it to them on the wall.  “You can adjust the heat for yourselves.  You have towels in the bathroom and you can use whatever is in there.  If you need something you can call me or just ask someone, you’re our guests, it’s fine.”

Hamilton put his bag down on the floor.  “Lafayette?”

“I’ll take the other one.”

“Sure.”

Lafayette left and Hamilton looked around the room.  Twin sized bed, thick mattress, plush comforter, neatly made.  Empty glass upside down on a paper doily on the nightstand, heating vents on the floor.  Hamilton turned the knob on the thermostat and felt the one closest to his foot react after barely a second.  He raised the heat further.  Screw it all, he might as well be warm without layers.

“Do you like it?”

He turned back in surprise to see Laurens still standing in the doorway and looking nervous.  He brushed his short hair from his face.

“I know it’s not really…  I mean, it’s kind of a lot.  If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have put this much money into it.”

“It’s a very nice house.”

“It’s okay, Alex.”

“No,” Hamilton insisted, “I mean it.  I bet the view is great in the daytime.”

Laurens relaxed a little.  “Yeah.  Yeah, it is.  I can show you, if you’d like.  You can see the sunrise really well this time of the year from the east dining room…”

Hamilton gave a little laugh and put one hand up.  “What am I getting myself into?  Sure, John.  What time is that?  I’ll set an alarm.”

“I’ll double check and message you.”  Laurens paused, then leaned forward and gave him a very quick kiss on the cheek.  “I’ll message you,” he repeated, stepping back and trying and failing to look casual.   “Let me know if you need anything.”

Hamilton shook his head slowly, his chest tightening in spite of his silent attempts at reassuring himself.  No one needs to know.  It’s fine, it’s just a few days, you have each other and that’s all that matters.  The words helped.  He started believing himself again.

“Sure thing, John.”

As soon as Laurens left he took his phone out of his pocket.  He was typing even before he finished discarding his jacket.

 

> A. Hamilton: Hey

> A. Hamilton: you like gossip, right?

> E. Schuyler: Alex, I’m offended.

> E. Schuyler: Of course I do.

> E. Schuyler:  Spill.

 

Hamilton smiled and lay down on the bed, clumsily kicking his shoes off and then twisting to toss his socks to the floor after them.

 

> A. Hamilton: so I looked up the laurens estate but its way bigger than it looks online like not to sneeze at your place but this is several times the size

> A. Hamilton: you could probably give each of Adrienne’s cats their own room

> A. Hamilton: you could probably find enough crap in here to furnish them all too

> A. Hamilton: ……and yet ive got a twin bed

> A. Hamilton: fi this wasnta set guest room, i’d be worried someone had put two and two together

 

Hamilton forced himself to stop and wait for Eliza to respond.  It didn’t take long.

 

> E. Schuyler: Are you still worried about his father finding out?

> A. Hamilton: of course

> A. Hamilton: more about how john will react to that if im being honest because I don’t give two figs about HL

> E. Schuyler: How do you think John will take it?

> A. Hamilton: shit…

> A. Hamilton: Not well.

 

Hamilton got up and started to change for the night.

 

> A. Hamilton: his sister’s freaking me out a little

 

He typed carefully with one hand as he dropped his shirt next to his bag and undid his pants.

 

> A. Hamilton: i dunno just got a vibe

 

He put the phone down on the floor as he finished changing, watching as the screen said that she was typing.  Being able to see it while standing reminded him that he still had contacts in, and he swore under his breath and crouched down again, digging for his glasses.

 

> E. Schuyler: What do you mean?  Do you think she sensed something between you?  Or that she already knew?

> A. Hamilton: dunnno

> A. Hamilton: sorry, I’m not being very helpful

> A. Hamilton: trying to change for bed need to get up at the ass crack of dawn

> A. Hamilton: can we put a pause on this and come back to overanlyzing every facet f my existsnce sometime later?  Tomorrow

> E. Schuyler: Of course

> E. Schuyler: I’m looking forward to it :)

 

Hamilton cracked a smile and stood back up, tossing his phone gently onto the bed as he headed for the bathroom.  He could try again tomorrow with Laurens as well.


	146. Performances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary Eleanor & Henry Laurens

“I couldn’t connect to the wifi on the train,” Lafayette whispered as he carried his computer down the hall, keeping one hand on the wall to guide himself in the dark.  “I’m sorry I could only text and not see you properly.  I hope you had a good day?  At least you are ahead of me and not behind, you must have been asleep for some of it, my dearheart.”  He adjusted his earbuds as Adrienne responded.

“I thought something like that must have happened.  My day was fine, Gil, oh, we’re starting a new book at school—”

“Oh!  I’m sorry,” Lafayette apologized, cutting her off as he almost bumped into a small table holding a decorative vase and dry display.  “Keep going,” he said quietly as he headed down the stairs.

“Can you see where you are going?”

“Not really.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Do,” Adrienne insisted as Lafayette stepped short and almost tripped on the stairs.  She bit her lip, half concerned and half holding back a laugh.

“I’m all right,” he reassured her in a slightly louder whisper.  “I don’t want to get the lights…  There are more bedrooms on this floor and I don’t want to wake John’s younger siblings or his father.  John himself…”  He shrugged.  “That would be all right.”

“Then he’d ask what you were doing up and you’d have to talk to him.”

“True,” Lafayette conceded, “and then even if he was fine with me taking you somewhere more scenic, which I am sure he would be or I would not be doing this in the first place, it would still delay things.”  He headed down towards the first floor.  “I wanted to take you outside,” he went on, “since the little bit I managed to see of the grounds last night was so lovely and I think that once the sun rises…”  A small lamp was on in a room off to the side from the main entryway, whoever was using it just out of sight around the corner.

There was the clatter of a mug hastily put down on a table.  Lafayette froze.  A chair pushed back and then footsteps approached.

“Hello—Lafayette?”

“ _Oui_.”

Laurens turned on the overhead light.  “What are you doing down here?”

Lafayette winced and shielded his eyes.  “Being blinded.”  He turned his laptop around.  “I wanted to talk to Adrienne outside.”

“What—for _privacy_?”

“Is Alex here with you?”

“No,” Laurens answered—a little too quickly, Lafayette thought.  “It’s just me.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette glanced at Adrienne, not sure how to respond.  That’s nice, we’ll leave you to it?  She gave him a little encouraging nod and he sighed to himself.  Very well.  “May we join you?”

Laurens hesitated.  “Sure.  Do you want coffee?”

“Please.”  Lafayette seated himself at the small dining table in the adjourning room and put his laptop down.  “Au lait.”  He leaned forward to talk to Adrienne while Laurens was gone.  “You don’t mind?”

“It would be rude to just leave him here on his own without at least asking if he wanted company.”

“It’s his own house…”  Lafayette looked over the screen at the tall windows that opened out onto the property.  “At least we will have a nice view here once the sun rises.  I’ll turn you,” he promised.  “It was very thoughtful of him to leave the wifi network and password next to the bed for me.  It’s almost like he knew I would just bother him about it anyway.  When we have our b&b on the lavender farm we should make sure to always include that information for our guests.”

“I thought that was you and André.”

“It’s always you too,” Lafayette said.  “Even when I don’t specify.”

Adrienne smiled and Lafayette rested his arms on his legs, looking back down at the screen.  “I love you,” he mouthed and then, a little louder, “oh, I suppose that doesn’t need to be kept secret.  Maybe John would like us as a distraction.  John,” he called quietly, turning and putting his arm on the back of the couch.  “John, I have a question for you when you come back here.”

Laurens reappeared in the dining room with a mug in hand.  He turned off the light from the kitchenette behind him and sat next to Lafayette as he continued.  “Would it make you uncomfortable if Adrienne and I flaunted our love or would you prefer it as a screen to hide behind?”

“I don't need to hide behind you,” Laurens said, then followed up quickly with, “but go right ahead.”

“We are just trying to help.”

“Mostly.”

“John.”

Laurens didn't say anything.  He picked up his mug from the table and took a long drink, leaving it against his lips after he had finished. 

“What were you doing down here?”

“Nothing.”  Laurens put the mug down finally.  “Told Alex to meet me,” he admitted, quieter.

“Do you want me to get him?  We could have a party, like at Washington’s.”

“No.  Don’t be weird.”

“It’s not weird if it’s the four of us,” Lafayette pointed out.  

Laurens was silent again.

“…Not that it would have been weird with just the two of you…  Ah, what were you doing, anyway?”

“We were going to watch—Never mind, you’re right.  It is weird.”  Even in the dim light Laurens was obviously embarrassed.  “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You were probably thinking that it made more sense to sit in public than in his room.”

Laurens shushed him.

Lafayette nodded knowingly at the computer screen.

“Alexander can still come down.”

“I know—”  Laurens didn’t mean to sound so irritated and defensive and he stopped himself short before Lafayette could get annoyed with the tone he had taken with his girlfriend.  “I don’t want to wake him up if he’s asleep.  We can meet some other morning, it’s fine.”

“Maybe we can find things to do in the city,” Lafayette said after a beat.  “I’d like to see the city.  I’ve never been here.”

Footsteps on the stairs made Laurens start and he got up quickly, just as he had when Lafayette had approached.  He was too much on edge, Lafayette thought.  Too obviously nervous.

“Who is it?”

“…Daddy?”  A tiny voice.

Lafayette watched as Laurens’ shoulders relaxed and he gave a little annoyed breath.

“It’s Jack.  Mary, what are you doing down here?”  Laurens walked a couple of steps towards her voice.  A small girl with her hair falling messily out of a braid stepped hesitantly into the dining room.  She looked up at Laurens with wide brown eyes and locked her hands behind her back, then noticed Lafayette at the table and kept looking curiously at him while answering her brother.

“I was thirsty.”

“Why didn’t you get water from the bathroom?”

She shrugged.

Laurens sighed.  “If I get you water will you go back to bed?”

Shrugged again.

Laurens, muttering under his breath, left the dining room.

Mary Eleanor kept staring at Lafayette.  He was sitting sideways in his chair, head tipped slightly to the side.  He waved carefully.  She smiled.

“What’s your name?”

“Mary Eleanor.”

“That’s a very nice name.”

“Thank you.”  An automatic response.  Lafayette smiled.  He recognized that one.  “What’s your name?”

“Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette.”

Her eyes had managed to grow progressively wider over the course of the recitation.  “No,” she blurted out when he had finished.  “It isn’t.”

Lafayette was startled.  “Yes it is.”

“It’s too long.”

“My name is very long,” he agreed.

“What is your first name?”  She had gotten over her uncertainty and was climbing into Laurens’ abandoned chair.

“Ah…”  Lafayette put his hand out automatically as she slipped for a moment but then settled herself.  “I have six first names.”

“I have two.  Why do you have six?”

“Why do you have two?”

She shrugged.

Lafayette shrugged grandly as well in response.  “ _Voilà_.”

She giggled.  “What does that mean?”

“I…”  Lafayette frowned and leaned on the table.  “What does that mean?  Adrienne,” he turned to the laptop but she had left.  The video chat had closed and there was a message from her on the screen instead.

“Why are you talking to your computer?”

“I was talking to my girlfriend,” Lafayette protested.

“Is your computer your girlfriend?”

“No—”

“Pretty much.”  Laurens came back with a glass of water.  He handed it to Mary Eleanor who took a long drink.  “Right.  Bed.  Remember?”

She put the glass down.  “I’m awake now.”

“And you shouldn’t be.”

“What time is it?”

“Too early.  Where’s your nanny?”

“Daddy gave her the week off because it’s Thanksgiving.”

“Well, where’s Martha, then?”

“I can watch her.”

Laurens looked at Lafayette in surprise.  “She’s going to take advantage of you.”

“I like kids.”

Mary Eleanor jumped out of the chair and put her hands on Lafayette’s arm.  “Can I show you my room?”

“Of course you can,” he said to her, a little more emphatically than needed in order to make a point to Laurens.  “Where is it?”

“Upstairs.  Do you go to school with Jack?”

Lafayette got to his feet and closed his laptop, tucking it under his arm and taking it with him.  “Yes.  I’m a better student than he is.”

“Hey,” Laurens protested to their backs as Lafayette let her lead him away.

“English isn’t—Oh.”  Lafayette was surprised to see Hamilton on the stairs,   neatly dressed for the day already.  “John—Ah,” he corrected himself with a glance down at Mary Eleanor who was holding his hand.  “Good morning.  This is Marie Eleanor who is going to show me her room.  You may have the rest of my coffee if you would like.”

“Uh, sure.”  Hamilton looked between them in confusion.  “Is John downstairs?”

“He’s having coffee.”

“Right.”

Lafayette turned and watched over his shoulder as he went up the stairs, letting Mary Eleanor guide him.  Hamilton hesitated a moment, then continued to descend.  Laurens stepped out into the main hallway, a little stiffly, Lafayette thought.

“Hey.”  Hamilton smoothed down his hair and fiddled with the undone top button of his shirt.  Lafayette turned away.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was, I mean, I got dressed though.”  Hamilton glanced over Laurens.  Pajama pants decorated with the Gamecocks logo and a worn sweatshirt, neither item something he had seen him with in New York.  He felt overdressed and embarrassed for it.  “Guess I shouldn’t’ve bothered.”

“You look good,” Laurens said very quietly as Lafayette and his sister reached the second floor.  He didn’t close the space between them.

“It’s fine, John.”  Hamilton walked past him and into the dining room.  “So, where’s this coffee that I heard about?  Which one of these is mine?”

“The one on the right was Lafayette’s.  I can get you a clean mug.”

Hamilton waved him off, already raising it to his mouth and taking a long drink.  He remained standing, one hand on the back of the chair.  It was getting light outside, the sky quickly going from black to navy to dusty gray.

“The sun will be coming up over those trees.”  Laurens pointed, standing behind his own chair.  “How did you sleep?”

“Well.  It’s a comfortable bed.”  Hamilton was talking a little slower than usual, enunciating a little more clearly.  He drummed his fingers on the back of the chair and Laurens felt a guilty twinge.

“It’s just me, Alex.”

“Sorry.”  Hamilton took another drink of coffee and continued to look out the window.  “…I’m just not real comfortable here.  You get it.  I don’t need to explain.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“I sure as hell hope so, Jack.”

Laurens tensed, then realized he had been trying to make a joke and forced himself to laugh.

Hamilton looked over at him with a thin smile and took a seat.  “So when are we meeting the rest of your family?”

“My father’ll be down in an hour or so,” Laurens said, getting to the actual question.  “He’ll probably ask us to have breakfast with him since we just got in.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton debated sneaking back upstairs and pretending to be asleep.  Was he allowed to plead jet lag when they hadn’t switched timezones?

“I’ll ask Lafayette to join us.  He’ll probably be glad for the break.”

“I missed it, did he go off with her on his own or did you force them together?”

Laurens shook his head.  “That was all him.”

“Lucky.”  Hamilton commented with forced lightness and with another sip.  Watching the kid.  Bullet-proof excuse to get out of interacting with the adult.  Why hadn’t he thought of that?  Maybe he’d have to steal a different sibling.

“Sleep well?”

Hamilton glanced at Laurens.

“Right.  I already asked that.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes over the top of the mug as he took a longer drink.  At least he wasn’t the only one on edge.

“I used to camp in the backyard,” Laurens said after another, increasingly awkward, minute.  “Right over there.”  He pointed out towards the trees.  “We had a tent—I guess we still have it somewhere—and sometimes in the summer they’d let me stay outside.”

“Nice.  By yourself?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Sometimes I’d invite friends over.  My troop stayed out there one night for a badge.  You can’t see it from here, but there’s a fire pit, so you can have a cookout and everything.”

“Nice,” Hamilton repeated, a little more genuinely as he had to appreciate what wealth and stability could do for a kid growing up.  “Sounds fun.”

“It was.  It’s too cold this time of year to really enjoy it, of course, but in the summer…”

The legs of the chair scraped loudly against the floor as Hamilton pushed himself away from the table and leaned forward against it, folding his arms on it and resting his head on them.  “In the summer?”

Laurens smiled fondly at him and leaned one arm on the table as well, letting his hand toy with his long hair.  “In the summer I loved spending time out there.  I ran all through the woods.  There’s a stream down there, and we’d bring nets and buckets and catch crawfish and fight them.  When it got dark lightning bugs would come out and we would try to catch them with the same nets.  Wasn’t as effective,” he noted and Hamilton gave a short fond laugh.  “But it was fun.”  Laurens was still running his fingers through his hair.  “I used to bring in caterpillars and frogs, that sort of stuff, try to keep them in my room.  We’d find all kinds of things.  Baby birds, garter snakes, animal bones…”

“‘We’?”

“Francis mostly.  He was my friend when I was a kid.”

Hamilton was silent for a moment.  “ _That_ friend?”

It took Laurens a beat to figure out what he meant.  “…Yeah.”

“You still in contact?”

Laurens shook his head.  “We had a falling out.”

“Too bad.”

“We made up a code,” Laurens said, trying to think of something else to say and starting to slip more into his accent.

Hamilton grinned and leaned his head a little towards his hand.  “Yeah?  Nerd.”

“It was so we could pass notes in class and actually have conversations when he was over because Martha was always underfoot.”

“All right, Mr. Bond,” Hamilton teased, lightly touching Laurens’ wrist with one of his hands, his head still cradled in his arms.  “How did this code of yours work?”

“It was a cipher,” Laurens explained, hyper-aware of Hamilton’s fingers running lightly over his exposed skin.  “Different numbers filled in for different letter combinations.”

Footsteps in the hall caused him to suddenly snap back to the present and he jerked his hand away as he turned and then stood to greet his father.

“—Good morning, sir.”

Hamilton got to his feet with a start and a clatter as well, knocking the chair back and catching it hastily before it fell over.  “Good morning, Mr. Laurens.”  He put his hand out.

Henry Laurens already had his son by the forearm and he pulled him into a brief hug.  Hamilton awkwardly hesitated, started to withdraw his hand, then thought better of it and left it out firmly.  “Jack,” Henry Laurens was saying meanwhile, “it’s good to have you home again.”

Laurens was smiling, if a little nervously, and he motioned back towards Hamilton.  “You remember Alexander.”

“Of course.”  He shook his hand firmly—Hamilton desperately tried to compare it to the first time they met and failed to make any kind of meaningful comparison.  “How have you been?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Please.”  Henry Laurens motioned them both back to the table.  Like Hamilton he was already dressed for the day.  “I’m going to get a cup of coffee.  I’m surprised you are down here so early,” he continued, as he went into the other room.

“Lafayette was here was well until just a couple minutes ago,” Laurens said, following him.  Now that he was talking to his father and going with him through the house the rolling cadence of his words was getting more audible, his vowels stretching themselves out as comfortably as his old clothes.

Hamilton looked around slowly and then took his seat again.  He busied himself with his mug, holding it between his hands and to his lips without drinking any more until they came back.  He could still hear them talking from the kitchenette, Laurens explaining that Lafayette had left with Mary Eleanor and that everything had gone smoothly the previous night.

“Good, good,” Henry Laurens said as he led the way back into the room, mug in hand.  “Breakfast will be at eight,” he informed Hamilton, “I’ll fetch Lafayette if he’s not back by then.”

Hamilton just nodded.

“So how has your semester been?”

What kind of answer did that question necessitate?  Hamilton nodded, forcing a polite smile.  “Good, thank you.  Busy,” he added, “It’s too bad I wasn’t able to make it to the Boston game,” he went on, feeling a little emboldened, “but I caught the highlights and Lafayette told me it was great to see in person.”

“It was a good game,” he agreed, raising his mug to Laurens, seated across the table from him.  Laurens grinned and shrugged in a display of false modesty.  “Are you friends with the other players?”

Hamilton felt his smile become just a little forced as he once again tried and failed to read the tone he felt certain was lurking just beneath the surface.  “Uh,” he stalled and glanced at Laurens who didn’t give him any useful clue.  “Oh, yeah, but I mean,” he went on, trying to cover all possible bases, “I know John best.  We’ve met, though.  I’ve taken classes with Ben Tallmadge before and Lafayette and I try to get people together to go to the games.”  He took a shot in the dark, gambling that what he was about to say would win rather than lose points.  “Hey, John, remember that Halloween party?  You could’ve at least tried to get some of them to come in costume.  I have a friend who lives in an apartment off campus,” Hamilton explained to Henry Laurens, shaping the story by omission to make it more all-American and collegiate, “and he threw this party on Halloween, good time, really fun, we brought some girls—actually, Lafayette’s girlfriend was visiting from Paris at that point,” he went on, eager to segue into a safer topic, “and I’m pretty sure he scared her away from ever immigrating by the amount of sheer _enthusiasm_ with which he shoved everything Americana at her.”

Henry Laurens gave an appreciative laugh, to Hamilton’s great relief.  “He can be very enthusiastic.  Did you bring your girlfriend as well?”

“N—”  Hamilton cut himself off with a little jerk of concern again and barely managed to stop himself from glancing at Laurens again.  “No, I, uh,” his heart was pounding in his chest.  “I’m not seeing anyone.”  The words were like lead.

“That’s too bad.  You’re very busy with school and work, I presume.”  Henry Laurens was maintaining steady, attentive, perfectly reasonable eye contact.

Hamilton was once again very aware of the power imbalance between them and he swallowed against his tongue as it seemed to take up too much space suddenly in his mouth, but held his gaze.  “Yeah.  I’m real freakin’ short on time.

Laurens cleared his throat and Hamilton quickly took a drink of coffee.  Watch your tone, Alexander.

“Alexander works for Dr. Washington,” Laurens said.

“Yes, I remember.  How is that going?  Is he a real slave driver?”

Hamilton had to try very hard to keep his expression neutral.  “He can be very demanding, but I knew the position would require a lot of hard work and inconvenient hours when I accepted it.”

“Good for you,” Henry Laurens said.  Hamilton mentally added the “boy” and knit his fingers firmly together in his lap.  Less than a week and they’d be back in New York.


	147. Knight in Shining Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lancelot and Portraiture; Horseback

“Now you be the dragon and _I’ll_ be the knight.”

Small hands pushed Lafayette insistently into the closet and the door slammed.  He adjusted the clip-on tiara adorned with silver glitter and light blue rhinestones in his hair and cleared his throat.

“Ah, very well, what is that noise out there that I hear?”

A tiny stifled giggle.  He grinned and raised his voice.

“Is that _Lancelot_ , here to slay _moi_?  I don’t think so—”  Lafayette attempted to shoulder the door open dramatically but hit resistance and his head.  The laughter outside rose in volume to a shriek.

“—Mary Eleanor?”  He tried the handle but it was jammed.  “Mary Eleanor?”

“I caught you!”  Her reply was so delighted that if he had not been wedged between dresses and jackets on children’s hangers on the one side and a tiny hanging shoe rack on the other he would have smiled.  “I _caught_ you and now you have to do what—”

“What are you doing?”

“Daddy!”

“What is—Mary Eleanor.”  Henry Laurens’ voice was suddenly sharper and Lafayette could hear him come further into the room.  “What is going on here?”

“Nothing!  We were just playing.”  There was a scraping noise on the outside of the closet door and then it opened.  Lafayette stepped out, raising his hand in an awkward wave.

“Ah.  _Bonjour_.”

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Mary Eleanor echoed to her father.

“Did she lock you in there?”  Henry Laurens was looking sternly down at her.  She was standing guiltily behind a chair—a little too tall for her still but the perfect height to wedge under the closet doorknob.

“We were playing dragon,” Lafayette explained quickly, taking off the tiara and putting it on the bed.  “I was the dragon.  She was only pretending to hold me captive.”  Mary Eleanor nodded quickly, latching onto his hand again and looking up imploringly at her father.

Henry Laurens kept his gaze on her.  “That’s not how we play games, Mary Eleanor.”  She nodded again.  “What do we say to your brother’s friend?”

“I’m sorry.”  She let go of his hand and turned to face him.

“It’s all right,” Lafayette reassured both of them, taking her hand back.  She smiled brightly, looking between him and her father.  “See?”

“That’s not a game that we play,” Henry Laurens repeated and Lafayette held back a nervous laugh.  Not his child or his rules.  “It’s time for breakfast.”

“I want to keep playing.”

“You need to get dressed and come downstairs to the table.  Everyone else is already seated.”

Mary Eleanor hesitated for a moment, then went to her dresser.  “I can’t get my shoes on.”

“I’ll send Martha up to help you,” Henry Laurens said, escorting Lafayette from the room.  “Thank you for watching her.”

“No, not at all,” Lafayette said quickly.  “I like children.  She’s very fun.”

They passed Martha on the stairs.  She had apparently already anticipated the request.

“Do you boys have plans for today?”  Henry Laurens asked as he led Lafayette into the same room where he had had coffee earlier that morning.  He motioned him to an empty chair next to Hamilton, who was sitting very stiffly, his hands in his lap and his plate untouched.

“Do we have plans?”  Lafayette asked Laurens, sitting across the table from him next to his father at the head.

Laurens gave a very slight shrug and picked up his knife now that they were back.  The plates in front of them were already filled—eggs and bacon and toast.  Spread options were in the center of the table.  He answered while cutting a sliver of butter.  “I thought I’d show them around, sir.  It’s a nice day.”  There were two empty seats to his right, then a teenage boy at the far end of the table.  He pulled a face as he looked outside but Henry Laurens didn’t see.

Hamilton picked up his napkin and put it in his lap as soon as Laurens touched the utensils.  Apparently he had been waiting for permission to handle the settings and desperately needed something to do with his hands because he folded it over a couple times before he was satisfied.

“It is a nice day,” Lafayette agreed, trying to help the conversation along.  “It’s much better weather here than it is in New York.”

“We have horses,” Laurens said.  “We could take them out if you want…”

“Can I come?”  There was another boy on Hamilton’s left, younger than the one across from Henry Laurens, and with thick curly hair and skin covered in freckles.

“Did you do your homework yet?”

He slouched down a little.

“Let your brother show his friends around on his own first.”

“What do you have to do?”

He launched into an explanation and Hamilton said quietly, “James,” to Lafayette without looking at either of them.  Lafayette nodded.  “A frickin’ waiter brought out the food,” Hamilton added in a whisper.  “Frick.”

“Harry, you could help out a little too,” Martha complained as she shepherded the youngest member of the Laurens family to the table, shoes and all.

“You do it faster.  She listens to you more.”

Martha helped Mary Eleanor into her seat and automatically began to cut her food for her.

“I do it faster because you don’t try.”

“I’ll try once you graduate.”

“You better.”

Lafayette made eye contact with Mary Eleanor across the table and mouthed a silent growl.  She bit her lip and smiled as Martha sighed and pushed her plate closer to her in irritation, putting the fork in her hand.

“Eat.”

Hamilton stole a glance at Jemmy out of the corner of his eye as he carefully cut his own food.  He was still talking to Laurens, sitting further up at the edge of his chair, and the corner of Hamilton’s mouth twitched up as he recognized some of the same gestures for emphasis, only more enthusiastically adopted.  When Laurens answered him it was with tone and words only a little more careful than if he had been talking to someone his own age.  If his father hadn’t been there, Hamilton could have let himself imagine what it would be like to have a more permanent seat at the table, just as he had tried not to do at the Schuylers’.  He tried to glance at Henry Laurens, but he couldn’t quite see his face at the angle and with Lafayette between them.  If he had been sitting more relaxed he would have been able to but his back was straight and his feet were firmly planted on the floor.  A voice in his head pointed out that it would be embarrassing if his feet wouldn’t have reached the floor.  He tried to argue with it.  _What kind of giant-ass chairs would those be?  How long has it been since that happened?_ The Laurens family was very tall, the voice pointed out.  Harry looked like he was close to his height.  What about Martha?  Was she taller?  _Shut up_ , Hamilton thought grumpily.  _I can't even win against myself now, what is this bullshit?_   He could hear some response forming about how Angelica would say that he was his own worst enemy and he tried to forcefully end the conversation right there, not sure when she had said that but having to begrudgingly admit that she would.

“The original property is from the fourteenth century,” Lafayette was saying to Henry Laurens when Hamilton tuned back in.  “But it burned to the ground just before your American Revolution and was largely rebuilt.”

“Such a shame,” Henry Laurens said.  “This is all much newer than that, of course.”  He motioned around them.  “We’re the first family to live in it.  I worked with a friend of mine to have it built.”

“Ah,” Lafayette nodded good-naturedly.  “I see.  And did you design it, then?”

“Every inch,” he said with obvious pride.  “I wanted to make sure it would be a good place for the family.  What do you think?”  He asked, turning to Laurens and asking him in jest.  “Was it good enough for you?”  He turned back to Lafayette before Laurens could answer with more than a noise of agreement.  “By the time I commissioned it I knew it needed to be a large place, plenty of room for the kids to grow into.  It’s served us well,” he finished fondly, raising his mug to his lips.

“It is a beautiful place,” Lafayette assured him.  “Alexander and I were marveling at it already just last night.”

Hamilton felt a little irritated at the characterization, accurate as it might have been.

“I would love to take a tour of it during my stay.”

“Do you know what you should see,” Henry Laurens began, “is the portrait room.  We’ve managed to save some old paintings of the family from back to before the Revolution.  If you have an interest in things like that, Jack or I would be more than happy to take you down and walk you through it.”

Lafayette had been half-playing a part but his eyes lit up with genuine excitement.  “That would be marvelous, yes,” he enthused, and turned brightly to Hamilton.  “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hamilton said, uncomfortable to be drawn into the conversation.  “That sounds fascinating.”

“Jack said something about you being a Revolutionary War buff, is that right?”

Lafayette nodded.  “It is because of my family, you see, my direct ancestor left France to fight in the Revolution.”

“Yes,” Henry Laurens smiled indulgently, “I believe that came up.  Well, several of Jack’s ancestors were involved with the fighting and governing as well.  I’m expecting a call after breakfast, but if you’re interested I’d be happy to introduce them to you.”

Lafayette was almost vibrating in spite of himself, his food temporarily forgotten as he sat practically on the edge of the chair.  “That sounds perfect, thank you very much.  John,” he scolded, “why did you never tell me that you had these pictures?”

Laurens shrugged.  “They’re not royalty or anything.  Practically everyone’s got family from back then.”

Hamilton coughed delicately into his napkin.

“Ah.”  Lafayette tried to redirect the conversation.  “So that will be later today.  Are we all ready to go out after breakfast?”  He looked Hamilton over and added, “You should change first.”

“I know.”

“That’s good.  Well, then,” Lafayette picked up his fork and knife again.  “I am looking forward to this.”

 

“So, like,” Hamilton said, distracted with the reins and with staying in the saddle, “is this an ‘everything the light touches is your kingdom’ sort of deal?  Just how big is your property, anyway?”

“…Big,” Laurens said, avoiding giving an actual answer.  He changed the topic.  “That horse isn’t giving you any trouble, is she?  That’s Martha’s.”

“What do you mean, ‘that’s Martha’s’?  It’s bad enough that your family actually has horses, you mean you’ve got personal ones?  Is this like her twelfth birthday present or something?  Am I riding her twelfth birthday present?”

“She shows them.  Not very seriously.”

“‘Not very seriously,’” Hamilton muttered, looking down at the bay with a more critical gaze.  “I’m riding a frickin’ show pony.  I feel like a damn Southern belle.”

“You’re very underdressed for that,” Lafayette called back over his shoulder.  “It’s a good thing we taught you to ride.”

“We could just _walk_ , like _normal people_ ,” Hamilton complained.  “Not all of us grew up dreaming of being centaurs, Lafayette.”

“I like this horse,” Lafayette informed Laurens, pleased.  “She rides very well.”  He trotted back to them in a tight circle.  “Where are we going?  Are we going to find a turtle on your property as well?”

“I just wanted to get out of the house,” Laurens admitted.  “And the weather’s nice.  I mean—we have the property, we don't have to stay inside the whole time.”

“I thought you said your father would be at work.”

“He’s going to be gone most of the week.”

“Not today and not Thursday.”

“No,” Laurens admitted again.  “Not today or Thursday.”

Hamilton sighed and looked back at the house.  “So Wednesday.  Friday, Saturday.  We’re leaving Sunday morning and I assume he’ll be here for that.  I guess it could be worse.”

“Do you show horses, John?”  Lafayette asked.

“No.  I mean, I know how to ride, I can do all the same shit she asks them to.”

“Prance?”

“The jumps,” Laurens corrected Hamilton, not quite sure if he was intentionally making fun or him or not.

Hamilton raised up uncomfortably in his saddle.  “Of course you go for the macho option.”

“You might be a good jockey,” Lafayette told him.  “You have the build.”

“Ha ha, not quite I don’t.”

Lafayette nudged his horse and it sped up, taking him further across the grassy field.  “How far are we taking them?”

“Out to the trees, I guess,” Laurens said, nodding ahead at the wooded area in the distance.  “We can go through, but it’s really better on foot.”

“So are you inheriting this entire thing or is it being split five ways?”  Hamilton asked.  “‘Cause even just twenty percent of the Laurens estate is probably plenty but if you’re going primogeniture then you’re definitely set.”

Laurens just gave him a look and Hamilton glanced away, biting the inside of his lip and uncharacteristically wishing he could have been left behind.  He wasn’t quite sure if he meant in his room or in New York.

“…I’d get the bulk,” Laurens admitted.

Hamilton blinked.  “Seriously?”

“Of the property,” Laurens quickly amended.  “There are funds for my siblings, of course, he’s not just leaving them out to dry, and the inheritance they already have…”

“Right, right.”  Hamilton looked back over the house—really taking it in, all three stories, large garage and detached units and expansions—and gave a slow whistle.  “Dang.”

“What?”  Laurens was obviously uncomfortable.

“Nothing.  No, not nothing.  A lot.  A lot of somethings.  A lot of dollars, that’s more like it.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“I didn’t ask to not have it.  We’re all born into shit, John.”

“J.,” Laurens said, suddenly sharp.  “There’s no one else around.”

Hamilton stared back at him levelly.  “J.,” he finally said.  “Cool it.”

Laurens looked away, turning so that his shoulder was between them.

Hamilton wished he trusted his balance enough to text on a horse.  He could think of several people he would rather bitch to than actually try to engage with Laurens right then.

“Lafayette.”  He compromised and moved past Laurens—rather ungainly, he didn’t really have things down like controlling pace or, frankly, direction, but the horse was good-tempered and seemed to take pity on him.  “I have to ask.  Was it this weird hanging out with Adrienne’s family the first time or were you just always the new son-in-law?”

“They didn’t like me at first.”

“Right, right.  We got a theme going, or what?”

“They came around,” Lafayette said as Hamilton pulled awkwardly back on the reins, trying to convey that he wanted to walk alongside him.  “I…  You’re really not very good at this.  Would you like help?”

“I got it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I haven’t fallen off yet, have I?”

Lafayette privately thought that wasn’t really the same thing, but he let it slide.  “It takes people a while to come around sometimes,” he said soothingly, keeping his voice just loud enough for Laurens to easily hear him.  “But neither of you have said anything to anyone.  So you are not even at that stage yet.  You’re worrying about—Well, not ‘nothing,’” he said thoughtfully.  “But you are a step ahead of yourself.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything.  This wasn’t the commiseration that he had wanted.

“Don’t worry,” Lafayette said.  “I am already hard at work being very loud and flashy and distracting.”  Lafayette looked back over his shoulder at Laurens.  “It is, how do you say, water off of a duck’s back to me.”

Hamilton shook his head.  Wrong expression.

Laurens nodded.

“I can talk to anyone about anything,” Lafayette said.  It was more of a statement than a brag.  “And I am very much looking forward to seeing these portraits.  I was not lying about that at all.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high.  It’s nothing museum-quality.”

Hamilton looked down at the reins in his hands, studying the thick weave and how it was a couple shades darker brown than the horse’s neck.

“I think he likes you,” Laurens said.  “If you don’t mind spending some time with him then it would make things less crowded.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Lafayette assured him.  “I love talking to people.”

“That’s true.”  Hamilton turned his gaze to the ground and wondered how he was supposed to get back on the horse if he actually _did_ fall off.

“It’s the least I can do.  You both helped me when Adrienne was staying.”

“True again.”  Hamilton tried to stop thinking about how he’d probably need a boost.  “Tit for tat.  Basically the same situation.  Less heteronormative but also more stereotypical.  I take it back, I don’t feel like a Southern belle, I feel like half a romantic subplot in a teen drama.  It’s the subplot ‘cause it’s gay,” he added, getting his second vocal wind and letting his words drown out his nerves.  “That’s also why it’s so hella dirty, but they don’t show that part, it’s just a bunch of groping and then a cut to black.  Too obscene for television.  They wanted to be able to air it at a decent hour and neither of us have the actual tits to tat-ilize the audience.”  He made a face and shook his head as a bug flew a little too close.  “Just nobody die, okay?  We’re already hitting all the stereotypes with your father in the picture.”  Hamilton looked over at Laurens, a little too seriously for his tone.  “Fuck the ratings.”

Laurens shook his head slowly but he could feel that he was just barely starting to smile.

Hamilton breathed out in something like a laugh.  “I’d kiss you but I don’t know how to do that on a horse.”

“Oh, like this.”  Lafayette drew up alongside him and put his hand on his saddle horn, leaning in before Hamilton could say anything and kissing him on the corner of his mouth.

Laurens laughed loudly as Hamilton let out a sudden yelp of startled and indignant protest and shoved Lafayette away then punched him on the arm.

“Fucking _homme à femmes_!  I was just trying to be clever, I wasn't asking for a demonstration!”

Lafayette pulled a betrayed face and rubbed where the hit had landed.  “Your _télévision amèricaine_ is so violent.”


	148. History Buff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ramos; Lock up your Daughters and Horses

Lafayette knocked on Henry Laurens’ open office door.  The man looked up from his desk, where he had been on his computer.  He took off his glasses and tucked them into his breast pocket.

“ _Bonne après-midi_.”  Lafayette easily kept the words light and friendly and let his accent carry into his English.  “I am sorry to interrupt.  Is now a good time?”

“An excellent time.”  Henry Laurens stayed sitting a moment longer, marking or saving wherever he was and then stood.  “Where are the others?”

“They’re, how do you say…”  Lafayette was at a genuine loss for words for once.  “They are putting… helping…”

Henry Laurens was watching him and he frowned.

“They are doing the horses,” Lafayette finished, knowing that was not the correct verb.  He saw startled confusion in Henry Laurens’ face and he tried again.  “With the—the leather chairs that you ride on them and the—”  A moment of confused and annoyed French muttering.  “—They are washing the horses and the horses are going to sleep.”  He winced internally, knowing that none of that was correct and wondering how it was that he had managed to immediately stumble into a gap in his vocabulary.

“…The leather chairs?”

“—The saddles!”  Lafayette said the word with an overabundance of enthusiasm.

Henry Laurens paused, then laughed.  “I follow.  Come with me.”  He led Lafayette out of the room.  “Did you have a good ride?”

“Yes.”  Lafayette walked alongside him through the hall.  “You have a beautiful property.  Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Not at all.  You’re Jack’s friend, after all.”

Lafayette nodded.  “He’s been a very good help to me at school.”  Talk up the son, flatter the father.  “He’s helped me a lot with my studies and showing me around the city.  He has also introduced me to his other friends, from his football team, and it’s been very good to know other people in the city.  He has been very supportive and it has made it much easier for me.”

Henry Laurens smiled, real warmth reaching along with a note of evident pride when he spoke.  “I’m glad to hear it.  Jack tells me you are a good roommate as well.”

“Ah, does he?”  Lafayette added another half step to his walk, honestly pleased to hear it.  “Good!  I would be very upset if he were secretly tired of me.”

“No, no.  It sounds like you are good company.  I hope you’ll keep in touch after he graduates.”

“Is he going to be leaving the city?”  Lafayette took in the decor and detailing on the moldings as he asked the question.  “He didn’t say anything to me.  Ah, I know he has to move out of the dorm, but I was hoping he’d be staying in New York.”

“Nothing’s finalized yet.”  Henry Laurens slowed his steps to take his keys from his pocket.  “But Jack and I have always talked about him getting an internship before starting at law school.  It’ll be good for him to get some real world experience before diving into classes again.  That’s what I did,” he went on, slowly turning through the keys.  One, two, three.  He unlocked the door at the end of the hall.  “It’s better that way.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette was watching him closely.  “And he will take an internship in New York…?”  His question trailed off as Henry Laurens let him into the octaval room and he found himself face to face with over two hundred years of the family’s legacy.

 _Alexander would hate this_ , he thought as he took it in with a happy thrill.  Glass-doored display cases, similar to the bookshelves in Washington’s office, stood against two of the walls and the rest displayed family memorabilia.  Old weapons as well as portraits hung on the walls and were displayed on a small round wooden table in one corner.

“It’s not the sort of thing you’d find worthy to put on display back in Europe,” Henry Laurens said, carefully closing the door behind them, “but I’m proud of it anyway.”

“This is like a _museum_ ,” Lafayette enthused, a little breathless as he walked across the room and stood several feet away out of respect from a gray military uniform behind glass.  “Everything is in such good condition.”

“Thank you,” Henry Laurens said, crossing to stand next to him, his arms folded across his chest.  “It’s not all from the period you’re interested in, of course.”

Lafayette shook his head.  That was no matter.

“It’s my cabinet of curiosities,” Henry Laurens said.  “All the twists and turns of our family history that are still in good enough condition to display, even to such a private audience.”  He clapped Lafayette on the shoulder.  “The portraits to the right of the door are the ones I thought you would be most interested in.”  He steered him towards the small table and the oil portrait hanging above it.

Lafayette noted distractedly that the room, in spite of Henry Laurens’ description of it, seemed to be arranged chronologically.  It was like the stations of the cross, he noted, reminding himself to tell Adrienne later and thank her for familiarizing him with the layout.

“This,” Henry Laurens said, looking up at the portrait of a middle-aged man posed artificially at a desk with a serious expression, “is my professional inspiration, the president of congress during the Revolution.”

Lafayette made a suitably impressed noise and took a step closer, peering up at him curiously.  He turned his attention after a few moments to the smaller portraits collected and arranged on the table.  “Oh.”  He picked one up without thinking, then hastily apologized and put it back down.  “—Ah, I am sorry—”

Henry Laurens stepped next to him and picked it back up with a reassuring shake of his head.  “One of his sons.  A war hero.  Young man of great promise, actually worked for the general himself, and pushed for a battalion of black soldiers in a quixotic attempt to put an early end to slavery.”  He handed the oval frame to Lafayette.  “It is an uncanny resemblance, isn’t it?”

Lafayette nodded slowly.  “He looks just like an older James.”

Henry Laurens smiled fondly at the picture.  “Jemmy’s still such a boy.  But I’ll tell you something, you blink and you’ll miss it, but I’ve seen that exact expression on Jack.”

 

> A. Hamilton: seriously it was just a moment but idk…  I wouldnt secondguess myself normally bt I'm so freakin high strung over this whole thing and it was dark and I was tired

> A. Hamilton: I dont knwow what I expect you to tell me, it’s not like you were there.

> A. Hamilton: jesus fuck i’m kind of embarrassed about how much I'm just talking myself in circles

> A. Hamilton: Sitting on the couch in the front living room or salon or whatever, texting NYC, obsessing about a couple of different handshakes

> A. Hamilton: ugh

> A. Hamilton: You know what, this is so not cool.  Can we keep it between ourselves?

> E. Schuyler: um

> A. Hamilton: ………You already told your sister didn’t you

> E. Schuyler: I didn’t tell them the last four lines!

 

“He’s going to be busy for a while, right?”  Hamilton looked nervously up from his phone.  “Should we set an alarm or something?”

“What would that do?”

Hamilton shrugged, leaning against the stable wall.

“We’re fine,” Laurens said, almost more to convince himself than Hamilton.  “Lafayette’s a smooth talker, remember?  And, trust me, my father does not need much prompting to go off on a tangent about work.  He's almost as bad as you.”

“Could you not.”

“Sorry.  Look, even without Lafayette he’d be busy for the next couple hours.  I asked him at breakfast.  He’s working on a report and he’s not one to rush that.”

Hamilton nodded, marginally calmer.  At least he could understand being too absorbed in one’s work to be willing to get up.  He watched as Laurens walked by with a saddle.

“You want help with any of that?”

“It’s fine.  They’re more comfortable with me, anyway.”

“Braggart.”

“They can tell you’re not used to them, that’s all.  Horses pick up on things like that.”

Hamilton looked suspiciously over at the stalls.  “Again, I’m sorry that I didn’t have my own pony as a kid.”

“I’m sure they’ll warm up to you,” Laurens said soothingly as he put the saddle away and headed back for the three sets of reins draped over the back of a chair.  “She liked you by the end of the ride.”

Hamilton made an uncertain noise.  “I guess.”  He turned his attention back to his phone as the screen lit up again.

 

> H. Mulligan: Hows the trip?

 

Hamilton glanced up.  Laurens was wiping dirt and sweat from his brow, his other hand at his hip.

 

> A. Hamilton: awkward.  uncomfortable

> A. Hamilton: how’s NYC?

> H. Mulligan: fuckin hailed today

> A. Hamilton: I’m kind of jealous

> H. Mulligan: hah

 

Laurens came over and stood against the wall next to him.  “Who’re you talking to?”

“Mulligan.”  He put the phone away.  “So what’s the plan?”

Laurens wasn’t listening, staring off towards the horses without seeing anything in particular and frowning.

“…John?”

His eyes lit up and he looked down at Hamilton with a grin.  “I just remembered something.”

“Oh yeah?”  Hamilton brushed a couple of loose strands of hair out of his face, then wiped his hands on the front of the jeans he had earlier traded out his chinos for.  “What is it?”

“You’ll like it.”  Laurens was teasing a little now, trying to encourage him to play along, and Hamilton looked at him curiously.

“What is it?”  He repeated.

“Just remembered something my friends said.”  Laurens slipped his arm casually around Hamilton’s waist and Hamilton grinned at him, not sure where he was going but liking it.

“Yeah?  You gonna tell me?”

“I reckon you’re gonna want t’ hear it.”

Hamilton laughed and turned to face him, putting his hand lightly on his chest.  “Are you doing that just to try and get a rise out of me?”  When Laurens didn’t immediately deny it he laughed again and moved directly in front of him, putting both his hands at his hips and keeping his own close.  “All right, J.  I give up.  What’s your secret?”

“Do you remember when I first told my friends…  You know…?”

“About us?  Of course.”

“Well, I think you’re completely underselling your horsemanship skills, because one of the first things they said was that you tamed the stallion.”

Hamilton paused, then laughed and put one hand on Laurens’ chest and pushed away from him.  “ _That’s_ what you’re being all sexy about?  Oh for Christ’s sake, J., that’s a compliment for _you_ , not me!”

“Hey, come on.  It’s for you too.”

“I _guess_ , but—”

Laurens impulsively took Hamilton by the shoulders and kissed him, pushing his tongue into his open mouth.

Hamilton stiffened in surprise at first, then let out a low desperately appreciative moan and leaned up against him once more.

He kissed him back hungrily, sucking against his tongue and running his hands up his chest and collar and along the side of his face.  He felt Laurens shiver involuntarily and he pressed closely against him, his heart racing.  He put his arms around his neck, moving one hand up behind his head and keeping it down, keeping their mouths together.

Laurens groaned softly.  Hamilton was mimicking doing to his tongue what he would do to his cock and he was getting hard against his jeans.

“We should,” Laurens managed to get out, breaking the kiss just long enough to stumble over the words.  “We—”  He bit back a moan as Hamilton insisted on kissing him again and rubbed deliberately up against him.  “Alex.”

Hamilton made a soft noise of protest.

“Alex, the groom’s going to—There’s help for the horses, I don’t actually do all that work myself, I’m sure he saw us come back…”

Hamilton pulled away reluctantly.

“…I thought we should go somewhere a little more private.”

“Back at the house?”

Laurens nodded.

Hamilton gave him a skeptical look but stepped back.  “All right, I’m trusting you.  Lead the way.”


	149. The Favorite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siblings

“Where are we going?”

“My room.  I figured we could play some video games.”

Hamilton could hear how carefully Laurens had said those words now that they were back inside, how easy it would be to draw back the curtain on them.  He couldn’t help the little grin that was starting to play on his face again and he nudged him affectionately from behind with one hand on his lower back.  “Oh yeah?  I cannot wait to finally kick your ass at Call of Duty.”

“He sucks at Call of Duty.”

Laurens stopped walking abruptly and Hamilton almost tripped over himself as he tried not to crash into him.

Martha was watching them from her bedroom door.

“What’s your problem?”

“Calm down, Jack.”  Martha looked over at Hamilton and gave him a little half-wave.  “You need to ambush him, he’s too impatient.  If you’re really having problems I can team up with you.”

“We’re not playing with you,” Laurens said, a little more forcefully than he needed to.

“It’s pretty great once you get the hang of it,” she said, continuing to talk to Hamilton.  “He’s such an obnoxious winner, really makes it satisfying when you take him out.”

Hamilton laughed.

“Clear out, Martha,” Laurens said.  “Don’t you have homework to do or something?”

She made an annoyed noise and stepped back into her room.  “Come get me if you need a third,” she instructed.

“Not happening.”

“…She seems nice,” Hamilton said as her door closed and they kept going down the hall.  “Helpful.”

Laurens made a noncommittal noise and Hamilton smiled, a little wryly, at the back of his head.

They reached Laurens’ room and he pushed open the door.  Hamilton stepped in before him and took a look around.  It was almost familiar—he had seen snippets of it before, and he noted the sports posters and dusty blue comforter, then stood awkwardly off to the side as Laurens closed and, after a pause, locked the door behind them.

“Well?”

Hamilton shrugged, not sure what he was looking for.  “It’s nice.  Bigger than I thought it would be.  Bigger than the guest room.  Is that a walk-in closet?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice,” Hamilton repeated, then crossed to look out the window and down at the grassy lawn.  “You got a good view, too.”

“It’s the same as yours.”

“More or less,” Hamilton agreed.  “Well, not really.  We’ve got different perspectives on it all.”  He heard the mattress creak behind him as Laurens sat on it and he turned around to see him with his hands folded between his legs and his eyes carefully watching him.

“…What is it?”  Hamilton hesitated, then nervously shook his head.  “John.  Sorry.  I can’t say it in the big house.”

Laurens nodded.  Hamilton sat tentatively next to him and after a moment put his hand lightly on his thigh.

Laurens looked down at it and then back up at him.

“Wanna make out?”

Laurens laughed.  He was filled with a nervous energy, half anticipation that had been growing as they approached the room and continued to build after he had closed the door and sat on the bed, and half actual fear of what he was daring to do and how many ways it might go wrong.  He didn’t stop Hamilton when he took his hand away and leaned back, but instead ran his own hand up through his hair and shook his head.

“This is a bad…  What are we doing here?”

“Video games,” Hamilton responded, keeping his hands tidily to himself, balled into fists and resting on top of his legs.  “We’re just killing some time shooting Nazis or whatever the plot was.”

“I do have the older games.”

Hamilton wasn’t sure whether or not he should tell him that wasn’t the point.

Laurens had started to get up but he stopped himself and settled back down.  “So…”  He put one hand behind his back and leaned on it, looking up at the ceiling.

“John?”

“Maybe tomorrow.  When he’s not in the house.”

Hamilton looked over at him, the way his hair was lying not-quite-neatly after he had messed with it, and the worried look in his eyes.  He turned a little further and leaned up, aiming to kiss the slightly rough skin of his cheek, when there was a knock at the door and Laurens leapt to his feet.

“Who is it?”

“Do you have a phone charger?”

Laurens swore under his breath and crossed the room.  Hamilton wondered wildly if he should stay seated or get up—which would look more unrealistic?—as he unlocked and opened the door.

“What happened to yours?”

“The cord broke.”

“Damnit, Harry!”

Hamilton would have been amused at how bent out of shape Laurens was getting when all that was being interrupted was some awkward sitting if it wasn’t for his own discomfort.

“What are you doing, anyway?”

“Trying to figure out how to kill some time while Lafayette’s getting the grand tour from Dad.”  Laurens walked over to his desk and Hamilton made eye contact with his next younger brother in the doorway.  He forced himself not to look away, reasoning that, like with animals, to do so first would be to admit to something.  Fortunately he only had to hold his gaze for a second or two before Harry followed Laurens into the room, Hamilton all but forgotten in light of more important things.

“Can I have your room?”

“What?  No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I live here.”

“Not most of the year.”

“During vacation I do.”

“Are you going to keep staying here after you graduate?  I thought you wanted to get an apartment or something.”

“You can’t have my room.  What’s wrong with yours?”

“It’s smaller and it’s next to Mary.”

“So?”

“She’s _loud_ and she keeps bothering me.”

“Wow,” Laurens said with full sarcasm as he found a spare charger at the back of one of the desk drawers and handed it over.  “I wonder what that’s like.”

“Can I have your room after you move out?”

“I’m not just moving out, my stuff has to go somewhere.”

“We can put it in storage.  In the attic.  Or in my room!  I’ll even move it all.”

Laurens rolled his eyes.  “Fine, we can talk about it after I get another place.”

“Yes!”  His two objectives satisfactorily taken care of, Harry left.

Laurens closed the door again.

“Mood kill,” Hamilton commented, kicking his legs once, twice, absentmindedly.

“Sorry.”

Hamilton shrugged awkwardly as Laurens sat back down next to him.  “I meant to show you something,” he said, changing the subject and leaning into him just a little as he took his phone out.  “Don’t get weird, okay?  Angelica gave this to me last week and then I completely forgot about it and then you were off kicking butt in Boston…”  He pulled up the portrait Peggy had taken of the two of them in Times Square.  Shirtless, flowered, lit up by the storefront behind them as Laurens kissed him.

Laurens tentatively took the phone from Hamilton.  He hadn’t realized how tender the moment looked.

“Well?”  Hamilton watched his face, reading the photograph in it.

“It’s a good picture.”

“Yeah?”

Laurens studied it for several more seconds, then handed him his phone back.  Hamilton slipped it into his pocket.  “Do you think I can get a copy later?”

“I’m sure.  Text her and ask her to get you one.”

“I could just get it from you.”

“You should let her know that you like it.”

Laurens hesitated.  “Yeah, okay.  You’re right.  She did a good job and…  I’ve, I don’t have anything else like that.”

Hamilton smiled.  “Hey.”

“…Hey.”

He had his hand on his leg and his face tipped up, when someone knocked at the door and Laurens didn’t even get up before shouting at them.

“ _What_?”

Hamilton automatically flinched away at the sound right by his face.

There was another knock.  “Jack?”  Martha.

“What is it?”  Laurens couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice when he opened it.

“Hi.”

He glared.

“Dad wanted to talk to you.”

“I— _why_?”

She shrugged.

“Isn’t Lafayette with him?”

“Yeah, he wanted you to talk to him about genealogy stuff.”

“Can’t I tell him about it later?  He’s going to be here all week and I live with him.”

“Okay, jeez.  Should I tell him you’re busy doing something?”

That stopped Laurens short.  The conversation suddenly caught up with him and he shook his head quickly.  “No, it’s fine.  I’ll go talk to them.  Are they still in his office?  Thank you for getting me.”  He clapped Martha on the shoulder as he brushed past her, forgetting to excuse himself to Hamilton or say goodbye.

Martha leaned tentatively into his room.  Hamilton was still sitting on the bed.  He raised his hand in awkward greeting.

“So how’s that Call of Duty going?”

Hamilton laughed nervously and stood.  “We didn’t set it up yet.  Sorry.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Uh, Harry came by and was asking for a charger and to… take his room?  And then you…”  Hamilton’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he put his hand to it automatically.

“Maybe you can play later tonight.”

“Yeah, sure.”  Hamilton hesitated.  “I suck at video games,” he added, trying to make conversation until Martha felt that she had done enough of her duty as a member of the hosting family and could leave.  “John and Lafayette kick my ass.”

“He said you were good at some of mine.”

Hamilton looked over in surprise.  “Yeah?  I’m sorry that we ended up with them.  He didn’t mean to.”

“It’s all right.  It was just a mistake.  He gave them back to me earlier today anyway.”

Hamilton nodded.

“You can borrow the one you were playing, if you want.  It’s really old, I’ve beaten it a dozen times.”

“I finished it.”

“Well, if you want.”

They both stood there in awkward silence for a moment, neither sure how to end the conversation but also not knowing how to carry it on.  Hamilton grasped at the first topic he could think of.  “You’re graduating soon, right?  Are you going to go to New York too?”

Martha made a face before she could catch herself.  “No.”

Hamilton was mildly surprised.  “Why not?”

“I just don’t want to.  No offense.  I’m thinking West Coast?”  She walked across the room and pulled out the chair from Laurens’ desk and sat in it, crossing her legs.  “I like California.”

“Sunny,” Hamilton said quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed again and wondering if it was too familiar to do so, “or so I hear.  North or South?”

“I’m applying to a bunch of the UC schools.”

“I don’t know much about them,” Hamilton admitted.  “I never looked into those.”

“Where else did you apply?”

“Hm?”

“For college.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton laughed awkwardly.  “I, uh, I didn’t.  Just the one.”

“You didn’t even apply to a safety?”

“—I had to get out,” Hamilton said, a little shortly.  “I couldn’t stay there any longer.”

There was a tension in the room.

“And I heard, I heard about this scholarship,” Hamilton continued, unable to sit with the silence any longer, “I heard about their funding for international students, saw that I could get in on that on a technicality, not actually a state,” he said by means of explanation, “and they said that it’d carry over even if I got full citizenship rights, I had to ask about that.  They said that if my scores were good enough and I could swing the application—I’d have to do work-study, but I don’t mind the work.  I like keeping busy.”  He sounded as though he was repeating something he had long ago convinced himself of.  “It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”  He paused and then added hesitatingly, “I got real lucky.”

“You must have really impressed them.”

“Yeah.”  Some of his normal cockiness was coming back into his voice.  “Hey, I write well.  I studied my ass off—besides, I’m good at standardized tests, it’s just a skill set like any other—and the sob story probably helped.”

“Do you like the school?”

“Yes,” Hamilton said immediately.  “It’s great.  It’s a great institution.  And I’ve been given a lot of opportunity that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

“That’s good.”

“…I’m not trying to talk you into going there,” he went on, a little awkwardly again.  “I just…  I like it.  I met a lot of people that I wouldn’t have crossed paths with otherwise.”

“Like Jack?”

“Right, and Lafayette and Angelica and Eliza.  Washington.  Mulligan too, although he’s not actually affiliated.  I should probably check in with some of them,” he said, taking his phone out without really thinking about it and unlocking the screen.  No new messages.  He put it away again.  “So John said you guys used to go camping?  You’ve got a great property.”

“Oh, yeah, out back.”  Martha motioned over her shoulder and towards the window.  “We were both scouts so it came in handy.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that.”  He caught her skeptical look and he amended.  “I mean, he said that he was.”

Martha nodded.  “He left in high school.”

“Too much sports?”

“He’s always been involved in stuff.  Scouting, football, science fairs,” she snorted with sudden amusement, “making up his own spy code.”

“Right, that.”

“He told you about that?  He and Francis were _insufferable_ about it.  Did you know he kept some of their letters?  I think they’re still in the closet.  Fitting, right?”  She didn’t see the surprised look that Hamilton gave her as she punctuated that sentence with a laugh.  “I mean, you know Jack.”

“He’s a spoiled brat,” Hamilton said, not paying much attention to his words as the gears in his head turned rapidly.  “He made your father mail him electronics for his birthday and he one-day express ordered a pair of shoes because he didn’t have anything else that would match his sling.”

Martha smiled.  “Yeah, that sounds like Jack.  He acts so holier-than-thou, but you should see the shit they wrote to each other.  Don’t get me wrong, I stopped after accidentally intercepting the first obvious one…”

Hamilton barely managed to keep himself from gaping.  “None, none taken.”

Martha looked suddenly guilty.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean that bad.  Um.”  She stood.  “I should let you get back to your own stuff.”

“Right,” Hamilton said.  He stood as well.  “I’ve got homework to do.”

“Same.”

He followed her out of the room.

She paused in the hallway.  “Look, I really didn’t…”

“You didn’t make it weird.  It’s fine.”

She nodded and then offered him a relieved smile.  “You know,” she said, almost shyly, “I like you more than Francis.”


	150. Reaching Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> L'école française; Texting

“Yessir,” Laurens was trying not to sound irritated as he stood next to Lafayette’s chair in his father’s study.  “I think the student ID should get him access to collections at other schools.  You’ll have to file a request,” he said to Lafayette, “and I’m not sure how you’d really go about doing that.  I think you’re going to need to talk to a librarian back on campus.”

“But what about private collections?”  Lafayette asked.  “Is there a record of those somewhere and how would I gain access?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I’m really not sure.  If they’re private then their owners aren’t obligated to open them to you.  I guess if you write and explain that you’re a descendant…”

He trailed off as the door creaked open and they all turned to look.  Mary Eleanor was leaning into the room, both her hands on the doorknob and looking up at them with big eyes.

“Sweetheart,” Henry Laurens started in a cajoling tone.

“Are you done yet?”

“We’re having a meeting,” he replied and Laurens wondered very briefly at the absurdity of calling any of this a meeting as if it was official business and as if his baby sister was an impatiently waiting donor.

“I’m _bored_.”  Her eyes trailed from her father right past Laurens and to Lafayette.  He smiled at her and she took a step into the room.

“Sweetheart,” Henry Laurens began again, a little more firmly, “what do you do when your father is busy with work?”

“Don’t disturb him.”  She was still watching Lafayette.

“I’m talking with Lafayette.  He asked me to explain some things to him and we’re very busy.”

“I don’t mind,” Lafayette said automatically, giving Mary Eleanor a small wave.  “Would you like to listen?  You probably know much more about all of this than I do.”

She was across the room in a flash and climbing up into his lap—Laurens and his father were both too caught off guard to say anything.  She settled down, leaning against his chest, and he put his arms around her.

“Please go on.”

Laurens would have enjoyed seeing his father have to scramble to gather his thoughts back together more if he wasn’t likewise still staring at Lafayette, sitting perfectly at ease with the small child in his lap and toying with the corner of his sleeve.

“…Ah.”  Henry Laurens cleared his throat.  “Right.  Jack?”

“—Yeah, yes.”  Laurens snapped back to the conversation.  “Uh, honestly, Lafayette, your best bet would be waiting to talk to a librarian after we’re back on campus.”

“Are you a librarian?”

Lafayette looked down at Mary Eleanor.  “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am an exchange student from France and they would not hire me for that job.”

“Oh.”

“I was telling Lafayette that I know a few people who might have some things he’d be interested in, and if not then they should at least know someone.  But I wanted to ask you, do you remember, two or three Christmases ago, who was it that said that they had an actual letter—”

“Why don’t you speak French?”

“ _Je parle français.  Je parle le français tous les jours avec ma petite amie et maintenant je suis en train de parler avec mon chevalier.  Que penses tu?_ ”

Mary Eleanor sat up straight with a delighted laugh.

“…Perhaps we should wrap this up for now.”  Henry Laurens sat back in his chair with a bemused shake of the head.

“I can look for the  handout on the university library,” Laurens offered.

“ _Entends-tu?  Ton frère va dans son chambre, et pour quoi?  Parce qu’il a des notes pour nous._ ”  He tapped her lightly on the nose and stood, picking her up and carrying her as he did so.  “I appreciate your offer very much,” he told Henry Laurens.  “ _Merci beaucoup_.”

“ _Merci beaucoup_ ,” she echoed as they left the other two Laurenses in confusion.  “Where are we going?”  She asked once they were back out in the hall.

“Hm…  _Je ne sais pas.  Où veux-tu aller?_ Where do you want to go?”

“My room,” she said decisively.  “Lafayette,” the name was drawn out.

“ _Oui?_ ”

“How do you say ‘room’?”

“ _Chambre_.”

“How do you say ‘my room’?”

“ _Ma chambre._ ”

“I want to go to _ma chambre_.”

“ _Chambre_ ,” he repeated, correcting her pronunciation.

“ _Chambre._ ”

“ _Oui.  Très bien!_ ”

Mary Eleanor giggled as Lafayette carried her up the stairs, making an exaggerated noise of complaint at her weight and readjusting her in his arms.

“ _Tu es très grande…_ ”

“What does that mean?”  She asked, pulling herself up higher in his grip and tugging on his earlobe, tipping it to her to investigate his earring.

“You’re very big.”

“You’re bigger.”

“That’s true,” he agreed.

“Are you bigger than Jacky?”

“ _Nous parlons seulement en—hein?_ ”  Lafayette tipped his head towards her as she twisted the stud curiously.

“ _Hein_.”

“‘Jacky’?”

“ _Oui_.”

“ _Ton frère, il s’appelle ‘Jacky’_?”

“ _Oui_.  Jacky.”

“ _Très bien_ ,” Lafayette said happily, storing that information away for later use.  “ _Oui, je suis plus grand que Jacky_.”  He shifted her to one arm and gestured with his other out at his height and then dropping dramatically an exaggerated six inches.  “ _Jacky est moins grand que moi.  Et tu es moins grande que Jacky._ ”  He paused to open the door to her room and then set her down just inside it.“ _Et voilà!  Nous sommes ici!_ ”

“ _Ma chambre!_ ”

Lafayette nodded approvingly and put out his hand at her level for her to give him a high five.  She did so enthusiastically and then went to dig through the chest of toys by her bed.

“How do you say ‘closet’?”

“ _Le placard_.”

“How do you say ‘I locked you in the closet’?”

“ _Je t’ai enfermé dans le placard_.”  Lafayette rubbed the side of his head in memory of where he had hit it and temporarily abandoned his rule.  “How did you learn to do that?”

“Martha did it to Jacky once.”  She drew out a toy crossbow triumphantly and spun around.  Lafayette took a quick half-step backward.

 

Laurens lay in bed that night, unable to get comfortable in spite of the expensive mattress and fresh sheets.  He shouldn’t have met up with Hamilton that morning.  Stupid.  It was stupid.  He rolled over onto his side and stared across the dark room.

His friends had been right, he shouldn't have brought them home with him at all.  What had he been thinking?  Was it like bringing a _girl_ home?  _No_ , he pushed that thought aside aggressively, _because he had brought Lafayette too.  That made it fundamentally different._

He turned onto his back again, eyes still open, imagining shapes, monsters, on the ceiling.  _It wasn’t weird,_ he tried to reason with himself, _because neither of them had anywhere to go and he was just doing them a favor.  Besides, it would have been rude to bring just Lafayette._

He avoided thinking about what it would have been to just bring Hamilton.

He shouldn’t have met up with him that morning.

He shouldn’t have brought him back to his room.  Nothing happened, of course, nothing would have happened, he wasn’t _interested_ in anything happening anyway—

Laurens put his hands over his face.

 _One day_ , he thought grimly.  _One freakin’ day_ —the internal voice sounded too much like Hamilton and he forced it to be quiet.  He had seen the disappointed look in his eyes.

The clock on the wall ticked once, twice, three times—

_One freakin’ day before you flipped shit and over what, J.?  Your father friggin’ breathing in the same house as you?   I thought you said there was nothing to worry about so why the hell are you getting so bent out of shape—_

Laurens sat up and rubbed at his shoulder.  He took his phone off the table next to his bed.

 

> J. Laurens: Hey.  You up?

 

> J. André: Watching a movie

> J. Laurens: Sorry, not important.  I’ll text you later.

> J. André: Don’t worry about it, I’ve seen it before.  What’s up?

> J. Laurens: Can’t sleep.  Driving me crazy.   What movie?

 

> B. Tallmadge: no dick pics

 

Laurens snorted, feeling his spirits lift slightly at the unexpected answer.  He crossed his legs under the covers and leaned onto them as he typed.

 

> J. Laurens: the fuck?

> B. Tallmadge: Hey, you started it.  It was the classic “you up” text

> J. Laurens: What are you talking about?

> B. Tallmadge: …Wait 

> B. Tallmadge: Crap, now I jst look like a pervert, thanks a lot for completely missing the joke.

> J. Laurens: Right…

 

> J. André: Star Trek

> J. André: 1986

> J. Laurens: Which one is that?

> J. André: Voyage Home.  The one with the whales.  We saw it at that movie night thing during orientation, remember?

> J. Laurens: Right, right… That was the same night you swore that the girl who was checking student id was hitting on you

> J. André: SHE WAS

> J. Laurens: Dude let it go.

 

> B. Tallmadge: Anyway, moving on

> B. Tallmadge: So you’re up late

> J. Laurens: Couldn’t sleep

> B. Tallmadge: Hard same.  I drove down last night so I crashed all day and now I’m wired.  Also I had a double expresso with dinner.

> B. Tallmadge: So.

> J. Laurens: You’re back home?

 

> J. André: You saw her staring

> J. Laurens: Seriously…

> J. André: I was about to say that I should look her up but I think she graduated by now.  She had to be at least a year ahead of us, right?  Since she was helping run stuff.

> J. Laurens: Aren’t you seeing someone?

> J. André: Yeah

 

The chat indicated that André was still typing and after waiting for several seconds without another message sending, Laurens switched back over to his conversation with Tallmadge.

 

> B. Tallmadge: Yup.  It’s going pretty well.  It’s nice to see people again.

> B. Tallmadge: My cousins are staying with us for the week and jfc I forgot how loud toddlers are.  Don’t get me wrong, theyre precious and adorable and officially I love them and am the favorite uncle.

> B. Tallmadge: But—and this is off the record, of course—they just don’t shut UP.

> B. Tallmadge: Other than that it’s been a good trip so far.  I’m going to meet up with some friends from high school later

> J. Laurens: lol

> J. Laurens: Sounds fun

> B. Tallmadge: I told you about Abe, right?

 

> J. André: I meant if I wasn’t seeing Mina of course.  Or idk if I had connected with her before?

> J. Laurens: The orientation girl?

> J. André: Right, her.

> J. André: Don’t get me wrong, Mina’s great, I'm just talking about stuff that never happened/never will happen.  But she’s so cool, I’m really enjoying getting to know her

> J. André: Hey, the four of us should get together sometime.  I bet Alexander would really like her, too.

 

Laurens knew how he should respond to that, and he promised himself he would, but later.  He went back to the chat with Tallmadge.

 

> J. Laurens: Probably.  Is he the one who actually grew up on a cabbage farm?

> B. Tallmadge: Hey

> B. Tallmadge: Is that shade I’m sensing?

> B. Tallmadge: I’m sorry we can’t all be as fancy as you, with your race ponies and your servants.

> B. Tallmadge: But yeah, that’s him.  We’re getting together this weekend, should be fun.  See if it can top the time we cabbaged the dean’s house

> B. Tallmadge: Also I skyped with Tench yesterday and he got in okay but he bought the wrong ticket back so get this, he’s coming in a day late and he’s stuck in Beijing for fourteen hours!  He tried to find a different one already but they’re all sold out 

> J. Laurens: Shit

 

> J. Laurens: Tench is coming back a day late and he’s got a ridiculously long layover in Beijing.

> J. André: That sucks.

> J. André: I couldn’t get the wifi to connect when I was there.

 

> J. Laurens: Tell him to bring a book lol

> B. Tallmadge: Haha right?  I told him he also needs to get his communications professor something since he keeps missing class

> J. Laurens: That’s different, he’s got a waiver for that.

> B. Tallmadge: Yeah for participation not for screwing up the tests because games keep gettign scheduled too close to lecture.

 

> J. McHenry: Yea

 

Laurens froze, suddenly forgetting what he was going to say to the other two as a new message came through.

 

> J. McHenry: You okay?

 

Laurens switched to the third chat, mentally kicking himself for sending it in the first place.  He hesitated, not sure how to respond.

 

> J. Laurens: Yeah sorry.  I was just awake and bored so I was messaging people.

> J. McHenry: got it

> J. McHenry: so how’s SC?

 

Laurens tried to respond to André or Tallmadge but he was suddenly at a loss for what to say to them.

 

> J. Laurens: It’s ok

> J. Laurens: I mean, it’s family

> J. McHenry: ha

> J. McHenry: I hear you

> J. McHenry: Are they being cool?

> J. Laurens: They’re fine, there’s just a lot of them.

> J. McHenry: right right

> J. McHenry: youve got four younger siblings, right?

> J. Laurens: Yeah and they’re just all over the place.  I mean they’re fine, it’s just adjusting back.

> J. McHenry: yea adjusting to being back home can be rough

 

Laurens hesitated again, watching as the alarm clock on his bedside table changed to 2:08.

 

> J. Laurens: Maybe he can find the professor something at the airport.

> B. Tallmadge: Dude, I don’t think they sell “sorry I’m a moron and fucked up my flight plans so I missed your class please let me retake the pop quiz you were strongly hinting at throwing” keychains.

> J. Laurens: lmao

 

> J. André: Which airline is he flying on?  Do you know?

> J. Laurens: idk I just heard from Tallmadge

> J. André: Because if it’s Air China he should—oh okay, I’ll just message him.

 

2:09.

 

> J. Laurens: Did your parents know you were dating a guy?

 

He shot off the text before he could second-guess himself.  He could see McHenry start typing immediately and he wished he could take it back.

 

> J. McHenry: They knew about it.  It wasn’t a big deal, though.

> J. McHenry: I mean, I don’t know how things are with your family, but it really wasn't the same sort of situation.

 

Laurens noticed, as he stared at the screen, that the messages coming through had jumped back to more formally written.

 

> J. McHenry: They expected me to like guys I mean, lol

> J. McHenry: So it’s not really the same thing.

> J. Laurens: Why did they expect that?

> J. Laurens: Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.  

> J. Laurens: How’s your break going?

> J. McHenry: nah its ok

> J. McHenry: its going pretty well, I have shit to do though before the end of the week

> J. McHenry: paper

> J. Laurens: Right, right.  Hey I’m going to turn in.  Hope you get your paper done and I’ll talk to you later.

> J. McHenry: thanks, you too!

 

Laurens sat back against his headrest and stared across the darkened room for several minutes.  Why had he done that?  At least he had been able to back out of the conversation quickly.  He couldn’t help but feel a sick stab of jealousy that McHenry’s family hadn’t even cared.  It bit into him, twisting his stomach and making it hard to breathe.

 

His phone lit up again and it took him a minute before he could bring himself to unlock the screen and read the message.  To his surprise, it was from Peggy.

 

> P. Schuyler: No prob.  It came out well.  I’m moving into Hercules Mulligan’s spare room this weekend.  You guys should come over sometime.  I’ve got a book from class on representation in media that I think you’d like

 

Laurens read it over carefully then plugged his phone in and put it back on the table.  He lay back down.  He could respond to her in the morning.


	151. JV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday (Story Time; Science Report [talk to me, talk to me]; Dress Up [talk to me])

Lafayette woke slowly, warm under his blankets and comforter with the heater humming in a friendly way at the other end of the room.  He stretched out, reaching his legs out as far as they could go and bending his arms over his head.

He sat up in the dark room and silenced his softly buzzing phone alarm, then called Adrienne.  He turned on the light by the bed and straightened out his shirt while he waited for her to pick up.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully once she appeared on the screen, dressed for school and sitting in her much brighter bedroom.  “It is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, smiling to herself as he yawned behind his hand.  “Just barely for you.”

“It’s several hours past midnight,” Lafayette protested, adjusting his shirt again and studying his appearance in the camera, making sure that the tone on tone script reading “Freedom” could clearly be read.  “But more importantly, I needed to find a time when we could be alone.  It’s so easy to get interrupted here!  Between John and Alex, and John’s father, and his siblings—Oh,” he cut himself off and leaned a little closer.  “John’s family calls him ‘Jacky.’”

“‘Jaqui’?”

“‘Jacky,’” Lafayette corrected.  “Mary Eleanor told me.”

“The little one?”

“Yes.  She likes me.”

“Yes,” Adrienne smiled.  “You said.”

“Did I?”  Lafayette yawned again.  “When do you have to leave?”

“Soon.”

“May I see what you are wearing?”

She pushed her chair back and stood.  He made an appreciative noise at her blue dress and how it matched his shirt.  He tugged at the material to draw her attention to it and she laughed.

“Yes.  I see.”

“It’s just nice,” he said, pleased.  “We didn’t even plan this one.”

“No,” she agreed.  “We didn’t.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said with a little frown, “speaking of planning, John’s father showed me the family heirlooms.”

“That was nice of him.”

“Yes,” Lafayette agreed.  “John told him that I like things like that.  So it was nice of both of them.  But they were all in this small room that was—I’ll tell you about it afterwards.” Lafayette said, cutting himself off.  “It is not important to the thrust of my story right now.  What I was reminded when you said ‘planning,’ my dearheart, is that I don’t think Henry Laurens is planning for John to stay in New York City after he graduates this year.”

Adrienne looked surprised.  “Is that so?”

“I think so,” Lafayette said.  “I’m not sure.  I got a little distracted,” he confessed, “but Alexander is under the impression that they are both staying in the city.  He told me,” he said.  “He said that he asked him about what his plans for the future were and John told him that he’d rather stay in New York, although he was considering working for his father the summer after graduation again.”

“That’s… concerning,” Adrienne said delicately.  “John has made two sets of plans.”

“I don’t know that he made the ones I heard about yesterday,” Lafayette said.  “It might have just been that his father—”

They both started at the sound of Lafayette’s door opening and Lafayette automatically slammed his laptop shut, then realized in exasperation at himself that there had been no need to do that.

“Hello?”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Mary Eleanor.”  Lafayette got up.  “Why are you up?”

She shrugged, fiddling with the hem at the long sleeve of her nightgown.  “I’m not tired.”

“Again?”  He had to mentally double check that she had been out of bed the previous night as well.

She shrugged again.  “Who are you talking to?”

“My girlfriend.”  Lafayette helped her climb up onto the bed.  “Adrienne.”

“Why didn’t she come with you?”

“She lives in France.”

“Oh.”

“Where I’m from.”

She nodded.

“… _Je viens de France_.”

“ _Oui._ ”

Lafayette yawned behind his hand.  “ _Alors, je suis fatigue._ ”

“I’m thirsty.”

“ _J’ai soif_ ,” Lafayette repeated for her and handed her the glass of water from his nightstand.  She took it carefully with two hands and drank.  He waited until she was finished and then put it back.  “ _Tu as soif et je suis fatigue.  Allons—_ ”

“I woke up and it was dark and it scared me.”

Lafayette quieted.  She was looking at him with wide eyes.  He put his arm over her shoulders and she immediately leaned into him.  “ _Veux-tu rester avec moi?_ ”

She understood the tone if not the words and nodded, pressing closer and putting her face into his side.

“ _Bien_.”  Lafayette pulled the covers up over her and she crawled into his lap.  He switched back to English for convenience.   “It’s very late.”

“You were up.”

“I was calling Adrienne…”  Lafayette saw her turn her face up and give him a decidedly unimpressed stare.  “…I was,” he protested.

“If you are up then I can be up.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am an adult.”

“No you’re not.  You’re just one of Jacky’s friends.”

“You are very biting, do you know that?”

She looked puzzled and he regrouped his thoughts.

“What if I told you a story?”

“Mm…”  She settled down, tucking her legs in and leaning against him as he rested against the head of the bed.  “Okay.”

“ _Bien.  Il était une fois…_ ”

 

> A. Hamilton: Actually’ve hd a lot of time to work on that

> A. Hamilton: i thoguht it was going to be a problem but turns out no

> A. Hamilton: nt a problem, just gotta do it around… stuff

> A. Schuyler: “Stuff”

> A. Hamilton: okay okay okay

> A. Hamilton: “uncomfortable family dynamics”

> A. Hamilton: And trying to actually see some of the other two while I’m here

> A. Hamilton: did Lafayette tell you he’s now the fmaily babysitter?  turns out the youngest Laurens took a shine to him and her actual literal nannys out of town so…

> A. Hamilton: oh good god you guys had a nanny too didnt you

> A. Hamilton: sweet jesus

> A. Hamilton: I have GOT to get some non-trust fund friends

> A. Schuyler: What has the drama been like?

> A. Hamilton: I see you not answering my question, miss schuyler

> A. Hamilton: Uh…

> A. Hamilton: nt as bad as it could be tbh

> A. Hamilton: More like John's awkward af around his dad and hella jumpy around everyone else and hes got like a million siblings so theyre all over the place, keep bustng in a nd every time they do he gets just that much more on edge

> A. Schuyler: That’s too bad.

> A. Schuyler: Although I’m glad that his father isn’t being too difficult.

> A. Hamilton: right?

> A. Hamilton: the congressman can keep in his lane, who knew?

> A. Schuyler: So what are you all up to today?  Apart from Lafayette, who—judging from the pictures he sent me—is hosting a tea party

> A. Hamilton: i gotta say thats an awful lot of yelling in french of ra tea party

> A. Hamilton: Uh…

> A. Hamilton: well I’m working n this shit, hoping I can finish it up today.  John’s off with his favorite brother, something about a school project or rice or i dont know i came in late

> A. Hamilton: Actually we’re in SC it could totally be both

 

“Knock knock.”

Hamilton looked up from his phone and the textbook and folder paper in front of him.  He pushed back from the desk in his guest room as Martha leaned in the door.

“Sorry to disturb.  If you’re hungry I was going to order a pizza.  Do you want some?”

“Oh, yeah.”  Hamilton automatically patted his pocket for his wallet.  “Sure.  How much?”

“It’s fine, don't worry about it.”

“I can pay.”

“Dad gave me money.”

“Oh.”  He took his hand away.   His wallet wasn't on him anyway.

“So what do you like?  Vegetarian?  Hawaiian?  Meat lovers?”

“Anything’s fine.  I’m not picky.”

“Come on, you’re our guest.  I’m supposed to ask.”

“What did Lafayette get?”

“Hamburger.  Right?”  She nodded at Hamilton’s confused expression.  “I showed him the menu and I guess there’s a hamburger pizza now so…”

“What is…  It’s my fault,” Hamilton said with a mixture of resignation and pride.  “I’ve created a monster.”

“So, pizza?  Here.”  She took out her phone and handed it over.  “You can look at the menu too.  I’m also ordering the supreme and the tomato and spinach.  It’s for all eight of us.”

“Uh…”  Hamilton scrolled.  “I don’t know.  Hawaiian?”  He picked one of the ones she had already named.

“Sounds good.”  She took her phone back, placing the order on the site.  “So are you busy or did my brother just ditch you?”

“I’m not—It’s fine, I know he wants to see the rest of you.”

“Jemmy,” Martha corrected.  “I think he’s gotten his fill of everyone else already.”

Hamilton laughed awkwardly, not quite able to agree or disagree with her.

“They’re back from the library,” Martha told him.  “If you want to go meet up with them.  They’re downstairs in the big living room.  You’re not going to be intruding,” she went on before he could say anything.  “Seriously.  You’re good at reports and stuff, right?  I’m sure another set of eyes would help.”

“…All right.”  Hamilton got up, not sure if she had come primarily to get his order or to collect him.  “I’ll head down.”

 

Down the hall and down the stairs (and down the hall again, around the corner—how big was this house?), Hamilton found Laurens and his younger brother sitting on the floor on opposite sides of a coffee table of dark polished wood.

Laurens looked up from the book he was paging through.  “Oh, hey.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Hamilton waved him off and sat at one of the two narrower ends of the table between them.  “Martha was asking about dinner and said you guys had gotten back.”

“Yeah, just a few minutes ago.”

“Fifteen minutes.  We were going to start right away but instead Jack was telling me about how you and Lafayette had asked what Thanksgiving was going to be like and he said that it was just a regular dinner only fancier and I was asking him,” Jemmy raised up on his knees as he talked, clearly eager to make a connection with Hamilton as one of his older brother’s friends, “what business casual was because I don’t go to work so I didn’t think that I had any but—guess what?  It turns out that we’ve got almost _identical_ outfits that meet the criteria—”

“Fine,” Laurens said cutting him off as he got farther and farther off track.  “We got back about fifteen minutes ago.”

Hamilton cracked a smile.  “Some sense of time he has, right?”  He asked Jemmy, making the effort to reach out.

“You know,” Laurens protested, directing his comment to Jemmy rather than Hamilton, “you don’t get to complain, kid, I’m finding your sources for you.  And stay on topic.  We’re doing this assignment right now.”

“Can I help with anything?”  Hamilton put his hands, folded, on the table.  He was sitting a little too upright.

Laurens’ phone alerted him to a message and he started a little and picked it up.

 

> J. McHenry: Hey, I’m getting back to campus on Sunday.  Let me know if you want to get coffee or hang out or whatever :)

 

“Alex is good at writing,” Laurens said, feeling a little emboldened as he shot off a generic affirmative response and put his phone away.  Hamilton felt his smile grow a little.  “He edits papers for people for work.”

“That’s not my day job.”

“Yeah, okay, take the compliment.”  Laurens nudged Hamilton.  His hand was blocked by the table and lingered just a moment longer on his leg than it should have.

“I can look over whatever you have,” Hamilton quickly offered.  “Do you have a draft?  I can help you draft.  What are we working on?”

“A report on rice plantations.”  Jemmy turned his notebook around to show Hamilton what he had written so far.  Hamilton pulled it a little closer to himself and cocked his head to the side as he read his childish print.

“What class is this?”

“Huh?”

“It changes who your audience is.  Like, if you’re writing for a science class, that’s a totally different paper than if it’s for a history class.  You’re gonna be focusing on different material and you’re going to want to present it completely differently.  Right?”

“It’s for my science class.”

“Too bad.  Uh,” Hamilton quickly tried to edit himself.  “Not your fault.  You didn’t—I mean, there’s just a lot you could say if it was a humanities paper.  More of a focus on the social and cultural whatever around the crop.  Who planted it, where it came from, forced labor ‘cause I’m assuming you’d have to bring that part in even if the focus is more modern…”  He slid the notebook back across the table.  “But this is good too, we can whip this out.”

“I can still talk about where it came from.  I can put it in the introduction.”

“Hm.”  Hamilton tipped his head the other way and looked up at the ceiling.  “Yeah, that’s true.  Good point.  So,” he picked up one of the books, “do you have guidelines for what kind of writing the teacher wants, or what?”

Laurens felt himself smiling—he was just self-aware enough to recognize that it wasn’t casual or cheerful or amused but adoring and that it wasn’t just in the gentle curve of his mouth but in the soft warmth of his eyes—and he couldn’t come close to clearing it from his face when his father walked in.

“How are you boys doing?”

Laurens ducked his head down.  The words on the page were meaningless.

“—I was offering to help proofread his writing,” Hamilton said almost too quickly.  The tone was appropriate at least and he motioned at Jemmy who to his great relief got to his feet, eager to show his father what he had been working on.

Hamilton looked at Laurens as the other two talked behind him and was dismayed to see how obviously red his face was.

“John…” he mouthed.

“I’m getting a drink,” Laurens announced, getting up and turning determinedly to walk past the other two.  “Do either of you want anything?  Sir?”  He was already leaving the room.

“—I’ll help.”  Hamilton got up, shooting an anxious glance at Henry Laurens and quickly following him out.  “…I’ll help?”  He asked Laurens’ back as soon as they were down the hall and out of realistic earshot.  “What kind of…  You could’ve stayed, you know.  It’s only awkward if I’m left there on my own.  Shit,” Hamilton said nervously.  “Just act _cool_.  You’re gonna make him wonder.  I’m not Francis, you know, John.  I already stick out here.”

Laurens shot him a startled look as he stopped in the entryway to the kitchen.  “Francis?”

Hamilton closed his eyes.  _Shit_.  “…I didn’t mean anything.  Martha mentioned him,” he said, his arms folded even more tightly.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing,” Hamilton said emphatically and he watched as Laurens let out a relieved breath and kept walking.  “We were just talking after she got you yesterday.  He came up.  She mentioned him.  Your friend.”

“Right.”  Laurens was getting out glasses.

Hamilton leaned on the counter and fiddled with his thumb.  His heart was in his throat.  “This isn’t the time to get into this.”  _Please just tell me.  I won’t be mad._ “I got the impression that the two of you were pretty close.”  He watched Laurens put ice in the glasses.  He looked back down at his hand with a sinking feeling, knowing that Laurens was not going to tell him anything, at least not without having it forced out.  “Gotcha.  Later?”

Laurens ran the water.  “Later.”

_Liar._

“…Nice filter system,” Hamilton said, changing the subject.  “Right there on the faucet.  Convenient.  Hard to fit, I know, I looked into it, went for the pitcher filter instead, still a pain in the ass, didn’t trust my pipes.  I’m surprised your father sprung for that thing considering you don’t gotta worry about that sort of stuff and also judging from his voting record I figured he genuinely thought a little heavy metal in the drinking water was good for the immune system.”  Hamilton drummed his fingers on the counter.  “John.”

“We were real tight,” Laurens said in a very low voice, just barely audible over the running water.

“Yeah?  You still talk to him?”

“We had a falling out.”

“Right.”  He was no longer fidgeting.  “Did he know how you felt?”

“Yes.”  The water stopped running and Laurens put the last of the full glasses down next to the sink.  “Yes.”

“…Yes.”  Hamilton paused, then ran his hand over his face, letting his fingers pinch the bridge of his nose.  “Never thought t’ mention this before, you little…”  He muttered more or less incomprehensibly.  _The letters_.  The words buzzed in his head and he tightened his fingers but couldn’t push them away.  _The letters, the letters, the letters…_

Hamilton forced himself to drop his hand and make an attempt at sounding no more than frustrated.  “Let me take two of those.”  He picked up two of the glasses and, with effort, steered his words away from what he could not address.  Not here, not in his father’s house, not with his family around.  “You’re gonna spill them all over your nice hardwood floors and I don’t care how much money you’ve got, John, water damage is a pain.”

 

“I’m just saying,” Hamilton said, sitting crosslegged on the floor with his plate in his lap, “as an islander I’m offended by default.”

“I don’t get it,” Martha said, standing in the entryway to the living room with the empty pizza boxes after they had consolidated the remainders.  “I _asked_ you to pick what you wanted.  You’re the one who told me to get that one.”

“You mentioned it earlier,” Hamilton protested.  “I was trying to be polite.”

Martha just looked at Laurens in exasperation as she left the room.  “Your friends are _weird_.”

Laurens laughed from his seat on the couch and put his plate down on the table.  “Come on, Alexander.  It’s just pizza.”

“It’s like if they called it ‘Mexican’ and then just dumped jalapeños and shredded cheese on top,” Hamilton argued.

“That would never happen,” Laurens said, forcing himself to keep a straight face.  “They’d also add ground beef and green onion.”

“I’d try that,” Lafayette, sitting next to Hamilton, said.

“You’d eat out of the trash if I told you that was the local way to do it.”

Lafayette huffed and took a bite out of his Hawaiian pizza.

Hamilton opened his mouth to speak as he pointed at the slice.

“No way,” Laurens interrupted him.  “You do not get to call it case in point when you’re the one who ordered it and you had two pieces yourself.”

Hamilton slouched down.  “…Yeah, okay.”

“Hey.”  Laurens finished his pizza and put the empty plate down on the table.  “I found something.  I want to show you once you’re done.”

Lafayette asked something muffled through a full mouth that might have been “Me too?”

“Sure,” Laurens nodded.  “It’s just up in my room.  You can come.”  _It’d probably be for the best if you came,_ he couldn’t help but silently add on.  His phone was lying face down on the arm of the sofa.

Lafayette wiped his hands and mouth on a paper napkin.  “I’m finished.  Where should we put the plates?”

“Just leave them here.  It’s fine.”  Laurens got up and Hamilton followed a second after Lafayette did, eyeing the trash they were leaving behind for someone else to clean.  “I found it in storage,” Laurens said, sounding obviously pleased with himself as he led the way back to his room.  “It was easier than I thought it was going to be.”

“What did you find?”

Laurens didn’t answer Lafayette and he turned back to shrug at Hamilton, who mirrored the gesture.  Whatever it was, it couldn’t be too thrilling, for a couple of different reasons.

Laurens let them into his room and motioned at a cardboard box on his desk.  “Go check it out.”

Hamilton glanced at Lafayette then walked over and took the lid off.

“…Whoa.”

He reached in and pulled the yellowed newspaper away from the green and white marble chess pieces.  “Nice.”

“Do you want it?”

Hamilton looked back at Laurens.  “The hell?”

“You can have it.”

“Seriously, John?”  Hamilton looked back into the box, unwrapping another piece.  “This is really nice.”

“No one’s using it.”  Laurens paused.  “Uh.  Do you think we can make room in one of the bags?”

Hamilton burst out laughing and turned around.  “You’re smuggling an antique chess set out of your house for me.  Now that’s the way to a guy’s heart.”

“Hey…”  Laurens was starting to get more flustered and Lafayette clapped him on the shoulder approvingly.

“Yeah, sure.  Or, I dunno, just bring some other stuff back with you.  Get it to blend in.  I’m sure there are some other things you can pack up with it.”

“Clothes?”

“Clothes!”  Hamilton pointed excitedly at Lafayette.  “Thank you for reminding me!  You remember, John?”  He crossed to the dresser.  “I told you I’d go through all your things.”

Laurens groaned and Lafayette left him to help Hamilton open the drawers and sort through them.

“What are you looking for?”

“I dunno.  He said there’s a lot of preppy shit in—ooh, Lacoste.”  He pulled out a teal polo shirt from the bottom of the drawer.  “I like the alligator, better than the little guy on the horse, feels more tropical.”

“Like the pizza.”

“Yeah, sure, I got a theme going.  John, get the door.”  Hamilton slipped out of his shirt and pulled Laurens’ old one on.  “Mm, I guess it’s okay.”

“It’s too big in the shoulders.”

“It’s not falling off.  I’m just making a statement, Lafayette.  Help me find some pants.”

Lafayette crouched down to get the bottom drawer and made a pleased noise when he opened it.  “Shorts?”

“I better, yeah?  What clashes?  But not like ‘going to blind you’-clashes, like ‘this is tacky but maybe that’s what they wear at the golf course’-clashes.”

“Hm…”  Lafayette sorted through the options while Laurens, resigned to his fate, leaned against the wall next to them to supervise.  “Ah!  Here!”

“Score,” Hamilton said approvingly.  He dropped his own pants to the floor and stepped into the shorts.  “Nice pun.  Salmon color and salmon print.  I’m keeping my shoes I guess but do you have a belt?”  He tugged at the loose waist.  “For the look and also for practical reasons.”

“You’re not going out like that.”

“Good God no.  I need a picture, though, and I want to be able to actually pose.”

Laurens crossed to the closet and came back with a blue and green woven belt.

“Thanks.”  Hamilton took it.  “Hey, Lafayette, can you be the cameraman?  I told—Oh, sunglasses.”  He looked back at Laurens who was already going back into the closet to fetch them.  “Thanks, John.”

“Are these for Angelica?  Can I send them to Adrienne?”

“Schuyler Sisters, plural,” Hamilton said, putting the mirrored glasses on.  “What do you think?  Hair up?  Down?  Shoot, I gotta pop the collar…”

Lafayette had already set the camera on his phone to film and he looked over the top at Laurens.  “Are you not offended?  He’s making fun of you.”

“Yeah,” Laurens shook his head, “I know this is my wardrobe, but I never looked like _that_.”

Hamilton shook out his hair and sent the sunglasses sliding down to the edge of his nose.  “Hey, I’m working it.”  He pushed the glasses back up with one finger.  Laurens snorted.  “You’ll see.  Ready?”

Lafayette stopped filming and switched to the correct setting.  “You need a less distracting background.  The wall?”

“Poster’s gonna get in the way… Here.”  Hamilton went to stand by the desk, started to strike a pose, then stopped, looking between the other two in obvious confusion.  “Shit.  How’m I supposed to stand?”

Laurens laughed again as Lafayette took a picture.

“I’m serious,” Hamilton protested.  “I need a prop or something.  Golf club?  Trophy?  Pile of twenties?”

“You have the chess set.”

“I don’t think I can hold an entire chess set,” Hamilton complained.  “And I’ll look dumb with just a single piece.”

“That’s why you’ll look dumb?”

“C’mon.”  Hamilton adjusted his collar and rested the knuckles of one hand on the top of the desk, staring off into middle distance.

“I like that.”  Lafayette took a picture.  “Alex, move your face a little—yes, good.  _Merci_.”

“ _De rien_.”  He stepped away after Lafayette had taken a couple more.  “Let me see.”  He took the phone and flicked through them.  “Yeah, these aren’t bad.  I dunno.  They’re lacking something.”

“A jacket?”

“I was gonna say a watch worth more than all my belongings combined, but I like that better.  More obvious.”  He handed the phone back and let his hand brush against Laurens’ arm as he walked past him and into the closet.  “You got anything good, John?”

“You’re not trying to match to all of that, are you?”

“Hey, you’re the secret prep, not me.”

“You do know that I didn’t dress like _that_ , right?”

Hamilton just laughed as he sorted through the clothes hanging up.  “Are these all from sports?”  He stole a look around the rest of the closet.  It was relatively neat but filled with belongings from over a decade, stacked on shelves and in cubbyholes without much obvious order.

“Varsity jackets.”

Lafayette passed Laurens as well, leaning on the door to the closet.  “Try one on.  Those look very American.”

“We’re not going for _American_ , Lafayette, we’re—oof.”  Hamilton turned, the first jacket he had pulled off the bar hanging thick and heavy on his frame.

“Try a different one.”

“On it.”  He put it back and sorted through his options more carefully, pulling them out and looking them over, then sliding the hangers down the bar.  “These in order?”

“More or less.”

“Right.”  He skipped down to the end of the line and took the last one off.  “Yeah, this might work.”  Slipped it on, did up the snaps.  “How do I look?”

Lafayette gave him and enthusiastic thumbs up and Laurens averted his eyes.

“…What?”  Hamilton looked down at himself.  It seemed to fit.  Shoulders just a little narrow, not hitting past his hips.  “C’mon, John, this actually goes more than just the shirt.”  He stepped out of the closet to look at himself in the mirror above Laurens’ dresser.  “Not a bad color scheme, either.  Navy and gray.  I could totally work this.”  He looked over at Laurens again but he was still carefully avoiding his gaze.  “…Seriously, John.  Does it look bad?”

“No.”  Laurens’ voice sounded a little funny.  “You look good.”  He was pressing the corner of his lips together tightly like he was trying to bite back a laugh.

“…This _is_ your jacket, right?”

“Yes.  I, uh,” Laurens started to lose his battle, “I grew like six inches in seventh grade.”

“Is this your _JV_ jacket?”  Hamilton recoiled a little from his reflection and twisted to see the back.

“It doesn’t _say_ that anywhere!”  Laurens was laughing properly now.  “It’s not like it’s _obvious_ —although I think my mom wrote my name on the tag…”

Hamilton swore as he took it off and peered closely at the label on the inside of the collar.

“Damnit, John!”

“Put it back on,” Lafayette encouraged, “I didn’t get a picture yet.”

“Whatever.”  Hamilton put it on a little more aggressively than he needed to.  “Doesn’t matter to me.  I’m taking it anyway.”

“You’re taking it?"

“Yeah.  If you don’t mind.  It’s not like you’re wearing it and, I dunno, I’d like a souvenir.”

“…I don’t mind.”

“Okay.  Okay, great.”  Hamilton put his hands in the pockets and felt his heart jump as one of them brushed against a piece of folded paper.  He studied his reflection in the mirror.  “Don’t worry,” he reassured Laurens, trying not to let anything show in his face, “I’m not gonna wear this thing around here.  Keep it in your room, even, I’ll just pick it up with…”  He motioned towards the chess set.

“Alexander gets two presents and I get none,” Lafayette pointed out.  “That’s not very fair.”

“Shit, he’s right.  John, you gotta find something for our friend the marquis.”

“It doesn’t need to be anything as fancy,” Lafayette said as Hamilton changed back into his regular clothes and carefully folded the jacket, placing it on top of the chess set.  “I will accept a trinket.”

“I’ll make you a doggy bag,” Laurens said.  “Leftover Thanksgiving turkey.”

“We’re leaving several days after Thanksgiving.”

“You’ll think of something,” Lafayette assured him, clapping him on the shoulder.

“…Don’t you still owe me a birthday present?”


	152. Thanksgiving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prep; Henriette; (*)Dinner

“You could help, you know.”

“You’re better at this than I am.”

“Oh, come on, Jack!”  Martha leaned on the tiny bit of space left on the kitchen island.  “You’re a good cook!  You used to help mom all the time!”

“Lafayette’s better than I am…”  Laurens trailed off as it became obvious his protest wasn’t going to be taken well.  He sighed.  “Fine.  But we’re streaming the game in here.”

“Uh, duh.  If I have to cook I’m going to at least watch those losers get their butts kicked.”  Martha crouched down, opening the cabinet.  “Okay, I got the green bean casserole and the mashed potatoes.  Your call, do you want to take over the yams or the pies?  The turkey’s in the big oven,” she clarified a little unnecessarily.  “Don’t _touch_ it, that stupid thing took me all morning.”

“Pie.  What happened to the chestnuts?”

“Ugh, do we have to?  They’re such a pain.”

“I have friends over, Martha, we need chestnuts for stuffing.”

“ _Fine_ , but you’ve got all the sweet things then.  You hear me?”  She had to snap her fingers to get him to make eye contact.  “Yams, pies, and cranberry sauce.”

“‘Pies’?”

Laurens looked over at Hamilton, standing awkwardly just outside of the kitchen.  “Pumpkin and…  What else did you get?”

“Pecan, of course.”

“Look,” Laurens said,  “I don’t have time to do all of that.  Besides, you really are a better baker than me.”

Martha made a noise of protest.

“I can help,” Hamilton offered.  “Uh, maybe.  I  don’t know, am I allowed to help?”

Martha shot her brother an apprehensive look, then offered Hamilton a mixing bowl.  “You can help Jack with the crust.  It has to chill for half an hour before it goes in the oven.”

“Got it.”  He held the bowl and looked to Laurens for help.  “So, crust?”

Laurens was already flicking through a set of well-worn notecards in a tin.  “It’s going to be two cups flour.  Did you get the butter and the eggs out already?  They can’t be cold.”

“On the counter by the stove.”

“Why do the eggs need to be out?”  Hamilton was scooping flour.  “I get the butter.”

“They’ll spread more evenly and quickly through the batter,” Laurens explained.  “It makes the dough lighter and helps it cook more evenly.”

“Oh.  Cool.  Chemistry.”  It was a half-hearted attempt at an inside joke.

Laurens smiled.

“I told you Jack’s a good baker.”  Martha was hovering by the oven like she was trying to resist the urge to check the turkey.

“Don’t do it,” Laurens warned her.  “It hasn’t been in nearly long enough.”

“Do you guys make dinner every year?”  Hamilton asked, pressing on with the conversation.

“Yep.”  Martha was biting her lip as she looked down and through the glass door of the oven but then she turned away.  “We got pretty good at this thing.  I’m going to start the yams if you’re not going to, Jack.  You should help with this more often.  Remember that time you went to the game with dad instead?”

“Yeah, because that was the year we didn’t have any sides because you burned them all.”

Martha gave an annoyed huff but fell silent.

“I don’t mind helping,” Hamilton said quickly, still holding the first cup of flour, “and, hey, I’m sure we can get Lafayette in here too, make us both earn our keep.”

“No,” the other two both said quickly.  Hamilton looked at them in surprise.

“He’s already helping,” Martha said.

“He’s definitely better upstairs than down here,” Laurens agreed.

“It’s so much easier to do this without Mary underfoot.”

“She gets into _everything_.”

“She’s trying to help too,” Martha said, almost scolding him.  “…But, no, seriously, she’s a _pain_.”

 

“ _En garde!_ ”

Lafayette ducked with time to spare as the inflatable sword swung over his head.

“ _Je suis Lancelot, le chevalier de la charette!_ ”

“ _Très bien_ ,” he said enthusiastically, breaking character and sitting back up, taking his hands from his knees to applaud.

Mary Eleanor beamed, dropping her sword, decorated with three broad strips of red tape, for a moment.  “Did I say it right?”

“You are so good at French, my little Knight of the Round Table,” Lafayette assured her, following her into English to properly praise her.  “You are much better than Jacky was when he was your age.  Now…”  He felt around and pulled the stuffed dragon they had been using earlier out from under her bed, waving it faux-threateningly at her.  “ _Tu es Lancelot et je suis le dragon._ I hate you and all the king’s knights!  _Je te déteste!  Je déteste tous les chevaliers du roi!_ ”

She swung at him and he pulled the toy out of the way before she could make contact with it.  With a shrill yell and something in French about rescuing the princess she launched herself at him, much to his surprise.  He yelped right before she made contact and the two of them fell over backwards.  Something surprisingly hard—her elbow, maybe—hit him in the jaw and then she sat up, pushing forcefully off of his stomach and holding up the toy dragon triumphantly.

Before he could congratulate her and extract himself with some remaining dignity she was pushing it in his face a little more violently than strictly necessary.

“ _Je te tué, Monsieur Dragon!_ ”

“ _Je t’ai tué.  Je vous ai tué_ ,” Lafayette corrected, trying to push it and her off.  He finally managed to sit and then stand, both actions made very stiff and unwieldy by how she had flung her arms around his neck and forced him to lift her with him.  She flailed her legs in midair and he made a rather concerned noise and quickly put her down on the bed.

“ _Merci_.”

He was breathing heavily, face flushed, when he sat next to her.  “ _Et voilà.  Reposons-nous._ ”  He let himself fall backward onto the mattress, putting his arms out over his head.

She crawled over next to him and began to run her fingers through his hair.  “Can I dress you up?”

“ _Demande-moi en français._ ”

“ _Peux-je… euh… te…_ ”

“ _Se déguiser._ ”

“ _Peux-je te déguiser?_ ”

“ _Oui_.”

She began to separate out small sections to braid.

“ _Comment dit-on_ Thanksgiving?”

Lafayette shrugged.  “Thanksgiving.   _Jour de grâces_ _américain_.”

“ _Aimes-tu le jour de grâces américain?_ ”

“ __Do I like Thanksgiving?  Very good. _Oui, je suppose._ ”

“ _J’aime la sauce à la canneberge_.”

“ _Tu aimes—_ Did I teach you ‘cranberry’?  When did I ever teach you that?”  Lafayette frowned.  Mary Eleanor left one tiny braid in his hair and moved on to another one.  “Ah, well.”  He shrugged.  “What are you doing with Marie-Joseph’s hair?”

“Braiding.  Are you sure that’s your name?”

“Very sure.”

“Can I have a French name?”

“But of course,” Lafayette said, with a fresh surge of enthusiasm.  “You are _Marie-Éléanore_!”

She wrinkled her nose and tugged on the braid she was working on, prompting another startled yelp.  “ _Mon nom est déjà Marie-Éléanore.  Je veux un nom français comme toi._ ”

“Ah…  You want a French name like me…?”  Lafayette cast about and offered the first name to spring to mind.  “ _Henriette_.”

“ _Henriette?_ ”

“ _Oui_ ,” he said, nodding as best as he could while she still had her hands in his hair and he was still on his back.  “Because your father is Henry.  _Car ton père s’appelle Henri et toi, tu es une petite Henri, une Henriette._ ”

She considered that, then nodded approvingly.  “ _D’accord_.”

“ _D’accord_ ,” he agreed, closing his eyes and letting her continue to work. 

 

“Is she going to be okay finishing everything else up?”

Laurens shrugged as he let Hamilton into his room.  “She’s really pretty decent.  We would have asked someone else to take care of it otherwise.”

Hamilton didn’t ask if Laurens meant that they would call up a friend of the family or if they’d pay someone to deal with it.

“Besides, it’s mostly just switching things in and out, the prep is all done…  Where’s Lafayette?”  Laurens was still standing in the doorway and he looked down the hall as if he’d find him there.  “Is he still with Mary?”

“I think so.  You’re going to need to tip him.”

“Yeah, really…”  Laurens closed and automatically locked the door.  “So,” he paused, looking a little awkwardly at Hamilton, “how’ve you been?”

Hamilton snorted, amused in spite of himself.  “How have I been?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like I haven’t really gotten to see you much…”

“John, are you surprised?  This place is crawling with your family,” Hamilton said, gesturing broadly around them.  “Plus, you know, family-oriented holiday, you’ve been off at school, I’m just surprised you’re not busy going out every night with your old friends.”

“We’re not that close anymore.”

“Yeah, you said as much, John.”

“J.”  Laurens had dropped his voice and the sudden shift came off as almost shy.

Hamilton shook his head slowly, his expression twisting into pity and barely suppressed frustration.  “Are you ever gonna tell him, J.?”

“Yes.”  His voice was a little louder but not any stronger.  Laurens couldn’t bare to see the look on Hamilton’s face and he turned his gaze to the floor.

“God, J.”  Hamilton motioned outward with both hands helplessly and let them fall to his sides.  “This isn’t tenable.  You know that.  Even if—not with me, eventually…  He’s going to find out.  Don’t you want to do it on your own terms?”

“I love you,” Laurens said, latching on to the wrong part of his statement.

“I love you too, J.”  Hamilton sighed and sat on his bed, drawing one leg up and holding it.  “I had a good dinner with Peggy and Eliza and their parents,” he said, resting his chin on his knee.  His words were a little muffled from the position.  It muted the challenge.  “Their father’s a lawyer.  He offered me an internship at his office next summer, if I want it.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

Hamilton shrugged awkwardly.  “Telling you now.”

Laurens sat next to him, suddenly sensing how precarious their conversation might get.  “James McHenry likes Eliza,” he said abruptly, almost feeling like he was outing him, even though he had been asked to talk to Hamilton about it.  “He wanted me to ask you about her.”

Hamilton had been looking straight ahead but he glanced up at Laurens at that.  “I know.”

“You know?”

“Not that he told you.  That he likes her.  Been talking to her.  She showed me his messages.”

Laurens felt a surprising defensiveness twist in his chest.  “Those were private.”

Hamilton shrugged again.  “They weren’t inappropriate or anything.  She just wanted help responding to one.”

“Still.”

“I got it, J.”  Hamilton couldn’t help the outburst.  “You’re private.  You don't like talking about stuff.  Not everyone’s like that, you know.”  Hamilton turned his head away from Laurens.  He had seen the hurt look in his face before he had even finished talking and he squeezed his eyes shut, biting his tongue.

“…I’m sorry,” Laurens said.  “It’s…”

Hamilton held his breath.

“I’m asking a lot.  From you.”

“You are.”

“I’m trying.”

“Not enough, sometimes.”  Hamilton dropped his leg, sitting properly.  He sighed heavily.  “You can tell McHenry that she thinks he’s cute.”  His throat tightened as a sense of loss swept unexpectedly over him.  “She’s honest,” he added.  “She wouldn’t have said it if she didn’t mean it.”

Laurens put his hand on the side of Hamilton’s face and turned it up.  He kissed him slowly, tentatively.

Hamilton turned his body towards him and put his arms around his shoulders, one hand tightly gripping his shirt.  He felt, somewhat irrationally, that they were caught in a turning upside down of time and that physical proximity was all they had.  He had to literally hold on to him, keep himself grounded through touch, or something irreparable would splinter.

He kissed him harder, running one hand up into his hair and the other over his shoulder and arm as Laurens loosely mirrored him, his hands moving over his body like he had forgotten how he felt.  Hamilton had his tongue in his mouth, his heart racing with desire and nerves, and Laurens’ hips jerked when he put his hand to them.  He pressed his body closer to him and felt Laurens respond.  He bit and sucked lightly on his lower lip, unable to take his mouth even just that far away for more than a second before he had to return it desperately, Laurens’ arm tightly around him and keeping their bodies tightly together as he pushed them back onto the mattress.  Hamilton rocked his hips intentionally against Laurens’, rubbing up against him and coaxing a low groan from him.

“Alexander…”

Hamilton slipped his hand down, cupping Laurens between the legs.  He was already hard and Hamilton felt him shift into the touch.  He tipped his hips towards him as Hamilton rocked his hand over him with enough pressure to make up for his pants still being in the way.

Laurens kept kissing him, breaking away every few seconds in impatient longing, as it became increasingly difficult to think of anything beyond Hamilton’s hand on his cock.

“God,” Hamilton said, breathless against his lips, “ _Yes_.”

That sent a rush of pleasure through Laurens, all the way down his spine and to his groin like wildfire, and he pushed more hungrily against Hamilton, barely restraining himself from grabbing him by the wrist and working his hand over him.  Hamilton moaned quietly into the kiss and moved his hand more quickly, his other gripping his shirt tightly.

Laurens gasped, realizing suddenly that he was further along than he had thought, and started to say Hamilton’s name in protest or warning.  “Alex—”

Hamilton yanked him close by his shirt and pushed his tongue back into his mouth in a nonverbal but very clear command.  Laurens let go and let the rush of desire overtake him, thrusting against his hand and then rocking his hips into it as his orgasm pulsed and then slowly faded.

“Alexander.  I—”

Hamilton kissed him again, still full of nervous energy, and rolled him onto his back.  Laurens willingly slid his hands across his legs and ass as he straddled him, still kissing him.  He moved his hand down a little to stroke him through his pants and from behind, when someone tried his doorknob and then when it wouldn’t open knocked sharply.

“Jack?”  His father.

Laurens practically sent Hamilton flying as he shoved him off and leapt to his feet, eyes wide with fear.  Hamilton had stumbled but got up quickly and rubbed frantically at his mouth as if to hide evidence of what they had just been doing.

“Just a—”  Laurens looked around in a panic, not sure what he was searching for or what he needed to do.  “I just—”

“Get the door,” Hamilton hissed at him as Henry Laurens knocked again impatiently.  He grabbed a random book off his nightstand and threw himself down on the ground with it as if he had been reading innocently all along.

Laurens opened the door hastily.  “Yessir?”  The question was a little too pitchy and his face was far too flushed.

Henry Laurens’ eyes flickered over him and then he leaned to the side to take in Hamilton, book out in front of him as he stared at the page without comprehending it.  Hamilton felt his gaze rest piercingly on him.

“What’re you boys up to in here?”

“We’re just hanging out,” Laurens said and then, with a burst of inspiration, “I locked the door because I thought Mary Eleanor would get bored with Lafayette soon and I didn’t want her barging in and making a pain of herself.”

Henry Laurens nodded.  Hamilton tried hard not to look up from the book.

“I came to collect you boys.  Dinner’s on the table and we’re all waiting on you.  Martha said that she sent you a message.”

“I—missed it,” Laurens managed.

“Come on.”  Henry Laurens stood in the doorway and motioned for both of them to exit.  “Your sister put in a lot of work.  We don’t want the food to get cold.”

Hamilton got up and put the book back as Laurens looked, stricken, around the room and unable to think of an alternative, followed his father downstairs.

He made it as far as the entryway to the large dining room, not the more informal one they had been making use of earlier.  He saw Lafayette and his family sitting around the table.  Jemmy saw him and his eyes lit up.

“—I’m sorry, I need to—I’ll be right back,” Laurens apologized hastily as he quickly backed out of the room.

“Jack,” Henry Laurens said sharply.

“I’m sorry, sir.”  Laurens was still retreating.  It looked like his father might follow after him for a moment—at the very least he raised his hand, one finger out to gesture his command back to the table—when, to Hamilton’s surprise, Martha cut in.

“I don’t see why Jack got to bring friends home for vacation.”

Henry Laurens looked at her in surprise.  “What?”

“I’m just saying,” she went on in a petulant voice, “I have to do _everything_.  I cooked practically all the food and I took care of ordering dinner last night and you won’t let me go hang out with my friends even though Jack got to bring two of them home.  It’s not fair!”

“Dad paid for the pizza and Jack’s at college,” Harry said, “at least he’s coming home.  You said that once you leave you’re not coming back at all.”

Martha shushed him quickly and a little frantically.

“Martha,” Henry Laurens began, “what are you talking about?”

“—I want to go out with my friends, too,” she said, turning back to him from Harry.  “I’m seventeen.  I shouldn’t have to be stuck here with children all day.”

“Hey,” Harry protested.  “I’m not a child.”

“Then stop acting like one!”

Henry Laurens rubbed his temples.  “Martha, quiet.  You’re not going out on Thanksgiving, no matter what Jack is up to.  This is not up for discussion.”

“Okay, but what about the rest of the week?  It’s not fair that I have to be here all the time.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said.  “After dinner.  We have company.”

“It seems pretty straight forward to me.  Jack gets to do whatever he wants just because he's a boy and he’s the oldest—”

“Martha,” he cut her off sharply.

“Can I have a friend over?”  Jemmy piped up.

“No,” both Henry Laurens and Martha said in unison.

He slouched down in his seat with a put out scowl as Laurens slipped back into the room.

Hamilton noted nervously that he was now wearing light denim jeans instead of khaki slacks and that they didn’t go with the rest of his outfit.

“Subtle,” he muttered to Laurens as he sat at the table and took his and his brother’s hands.  Henry Laurens began to say grace.  Laurens looked up from where he had lowered his eyes just long enough to shoot Hamilton a warning glance.  Hamilton quickly looked down at his lap.

“Thank you for making dinner, Martha,” Henry Laurens said after he had finished and as he moved forward to carve the turkey.  Any trace of their previous argument had vanished from his voice.  “It looks wonderful.”

“Jack helped with dessert,” Martha said, still sounding annoyed in spite of how artificially her interruption had begun.  “But that’s still in the kitchen.”

“Well, I for one am very grateful for the two of you,” Henry Laurens said.  “And for the rest of you.  I thank God for blessing me with such talented and responsible children.  I am very proud of everything you have accomplished so far.”  He looked at Martha who clearly knew how the ritual went and immediately picked up the thread.

“I’m thankful for God and my family and that Jack was able to bring his friends over for the break.  Especially Lafayette, who has been very helpful,” she said as she passed a bowl of stuffing down.

“I’m just thankful that I got a week off of school,” Harry said and Hamilton had to bite his lip to keep from laughing, especially when a prolonged silence indicated that he was done.

“…Right,” Henry Laurens said with a note of disapproval.  “Alexander?  What are you grateful for?”

 _Locks_ , Hamilton thought.  _And the ingenious fucker who invented the door._

He cleared his throat.  “Uh, right.  I’m…” he looked around the table, drawing a blank on what he could possibly say.

Jemmy was frowning at Laurens on his other side, his head cocked.  “Did you change your clothes?”

“No.”  Laurens said the word a little too sharply and Jemmy’s frown deepened stubbornly.

“Yes you did, we were matching before.”

“I’m thankful for this lovely warm weather we are having,” Hamilton said quickly and loudly.  “God bless South Carolina, am I right?”  He took the bowl from Harry and shoved it at Laurens without helping himself to any of the stuffing.  “John, your turn, what’re you thankful for?”

“I wasn’t—”  Laurens cut himself off and passed the bowl down immediately.  “Thank you God for having watched over our family for another year and keeping us safe.”  Under other circumstances Hamilton would have wanted to roll his eyes at how Laurens immediately switched tones from irritated but real to much more staged.  “I’m grateful that we are all able to be here today and can enjoy this meal in good health.  I am especially thankful that my friends could share this with us.  Lafayette,” he said, riffing off of Martha and making her stifle a laugh behind her fist, “you’ve been of _great_ service.”  Lafayette inclined his head graciously and went back to cutting the turkey he had put on Mary Eleanor’s plate.  “And…”  He felt his heart stick in his throat as soon as he considered the words.  For a moment he thought he would back down but then he remembered the look on Hamilton’s face in his room and he plowed ahead.  McHenry had said that his parents had expected it.  His own father certainly didn’t and would be that much less likely to pick up on a little gesture, and wouldn’t it feel amazing to get away with something right under his nose?  Prove to the world and to himself that whatever was holding him back, it wasn’t fear of him.  “And Alex.  I’m very grateful to you.  That you were able to be here as well.”  He met his surprised gaze and put his hand on the table between them, leaning forward slightly.  “I know it wasn’t easy for you to make the time,” he half-lied, his voice lowering and getting more intimate.  “Thank you.”

Lafayette saw Hamilton freeze, saw Laurens leaning further into his personal space than he should, saw the way Harry was just starting to frown in confusion and how Martha’s eyes darted to first her father and then to him across the table.  He could see enough of Henry Laurens captured in the shock on her face to spur him into poorly thought out action.  He stood up with a clatter, rattling the plates and cutlery on the table as he knocked into it.

“John is right.  I need to thank you for inviting us into your home.” The mood shattered under the weight of his overly loud voice.  He had completely forgotten to put the French accent on the English words.  “Monsieur Henry Laurens—”

“ _Henri_ ,” Mary Eleanor piped up.

“ _Oui, ma cherie_ ,” he agreed with her, glancing over his shoulder and then turning back to a bemused Henry Laurens as he continued in a French accent this time, “ _Monsieur Henri Laurens_ , thank you so much for taking us under your wing for the span of these days.  If you or any of your children ever find yourselves back in France, there is a home for you.”  He put his hand over his heart and gave a half-bow.  “I would be honored to repay the many favors you have shown us.  I know you were not thinking of me at the time that you created him,” he went on, gesturing dramatically at Laurens and no longer fully aware of what he was saying as Laurens moved away from Hamilton to gape at him, “but thank you for having done so regardless.”  He abruptly reached out and picked up Henry Laurens’ hand from where it was resting at the edge of the table, then shook it as if sealing an agreement.

“Lafayette,” Laurens said from across the table in a strong tone of disgust and horror.

Lafayette quickly sat back down as Martha burst out laughing and then tried to cover it with a fake coughing fit.

“Well…  Thank you, Lafayette,” Henry Laurens said.

Lafayette nodded frantically, taking comfort in how bewildered he sounded and trying to convince himself that the wilder the statement he had made the better and it certainly had been distracting hadn’t it?  He tried hard to keep his smile from becoming a wince, but it was visibly strained.

“You skipped us,” Jemmy protested.  He and Mary Eleanor (who was nodding vigorously) among the table were the only two who looked offended instead of varying shades of confused and hysterical.

“I’m so very sorry,” Lafayette assured him.  “Please go.  I am done now, I won’t overshadow whatever you have to say.”

As Jemmy launched into listing all the things he was grateful for, Lafayette caught Hamilton’s eyes across the table.  He gave him a little nod and it was returned.

“Thank you,” Hamilton mouthed.

Lafayette half-smiled ruefully and gave the ghost of a shrug.  His interjection had been clumsy and a little late, but the desperate gratitude on Hamilton’s face made him think it was better than not at all.


	153. Family Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner Conversation

”I should ask about immersion schools,” Henry Laurens said, leaning slightly across the table to listen as Mary Eleanor chatted away happily with Lafayette.  “I’ll have to see if I know anyone with connections.”

“What’s an immersion school?”  Jemmy asked.  Laurens was distracted scooping vegetables and didn’t answer, so Jemmy repeated his question to the rest of the table.  “What’s an immersion school?”

“It’s a school where they teach classes in another language,” Hamilton explained.  “Instead of just having specific classes to teach you the language.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a better way of learning them,” Hamilton went on.  “Makes more connections between the different parts of your brain.”

“Cool.”

“Is there an immersion school around here?”  Martha asked.

“Take her back to France with you,” Laurens joked to Lafayette.

“Daddy, can I go?”  Mary Eleanor asked immediately.  “Can I go?”

“Not right now,” Henry Laurens said.  “Let’s look into classes first.”

“You will be so fluent by the time you visit,” Lafayette said reassuringly.  “You will be able to talk to everyone in France.”

“Did you study French too?”

“Me?”  Hamilton automatically pointed to himself.  “Yeah.  Among other things.”

“Do they speak Spanish in St. Croix?”  Martha asked, taking the plate from Laurens.

“And French.  Well, French Creole.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “Close enough, right?  Who am I to judge?”

“Do you know Spanish too, then?”  Jemmy asked, rocking forward a little in his chair.

“Yeah.  I don’t know a lot of people on the mainland who speak it, though.”

“Jack knows Spanish,” Jemmy said immediately.

“Not really,” Laurens cut in.

“Mom used to speak it,” Jemmy went on.

“She didn’t speak it to us much.”

“I remember her talking in it,” he insisted.

Hamilton watched the back and forth with interest and then turned to Laurens, hoping to catch him off guard.  “ _¿Sabes mucho_?”

Laurens turned red.  “No.”  They both wondered what language he was responding in.

“Alexander watches those dramas,” Lafayette said.

“I don’t watch them very much,” Hamilton said, a little defensively in front of Laurens’ father and the rest of his family.  “I just put them on sometimes.”

“I didn’t say that you watched them very much.”

“Yeah, but it’s implied with that sort of thing.”

“Can you understand all of them?”

“I put the subtitles on sometimes.  I dunno.  It’s usually pretty basic.”

“Jack said you studied Hebrew.”

Hamilton looked up in surprise at Henry Laurens.  “Uh, yeah.  Yeah, I mean,” he glanced at Laurens who did not give him any useful information, “the school was, like, casually religious?  They taught all of us how to read and write, basically everyone was Jewish.”

“I see.  Did you like it there?”

Hamilton shrugged, still a little suspicious of anything that came out of Henry Laurens’ mouth.  “Yeah.  It was a good school.  Better teachers and funding than the public schools, that’s for sure.”

“I’m surprised they let you in,” he said mildly as he cut the turkey on his plate.

“They didn’t have a problem with me,” Hamilton said, starting to get defensive.  “The private Christian school didn't want me, that’s how I ended up there.  They had a problem with my family situation,” he went on with false lightness.  “Didn’t matter that my test scores were good.  They were a private institution, they could do what they wanted.  God bless religious freedom.”

Hamilton braced for the kick or nudge from Laurens.  Instead his father laughed.

“And then you got a full ride up to New York.  It sounds like they missed out.”

Hamilton blinked.  “Um, I guess?”

“Trust me,” Henry Laurens said, still chuckling to himself, “name dropping is the life blood of these institutions.  That’s how they get their donations and attract new students.  Your old school must be hounding you already.”

“I don’t know if they know how to contact me,” Hamilton admitted, completely thrown off guard.  “I didn’t keep my old number when I moved and I haven’t really been in touch with anyone.”

“Well, just you wait until graduation,” Henry Laurens said.  “Someone will be savvy enough to look you up.  New York might be a big city but I doubt there are that many Alexander Hamiltons with your academic history.”

Hamilton glanced at Laurens and he nodded encouragingly.

“I guess so,” Hamilton said.  He paused and then cast caution to the wind as he bragged, “actually, they could probably already find me through my work.”

“How long have you been working for the president?  A year?”

“This is my second semester.”

“Maybe word hasn’t made it back there yet.  I doubt anyone expected you to rise that quickly.”

Hamilton puffed up his chest.  “It was pretty fast.  They don’t usually hire undergrads to work for anyone at that level.”

Martha rolled her eyes.

“They’re very similar,” Lafayette told her across the table.  “Don’t you think?”

“Why did they hire you if they don’t usually?”

“Probably because I’m good at what I do,” Hamilton told Jemmy, half as a joke.  “I was working for a different boss before, but a lot of the tasks were the same or similar,” he explained in more detail.

“It’s not all the same,” Henry Laurens said.

“No,” Hamilton agreed, “but there are parallels.  I’m calling more important people now and filing things that’ll cost a lot more to replace.  Honestly,” he admitted a little sheepishly, “it’s still office work.  I know office work.  I’ve done it since I was a kid.  At least the meetings I have to take notes in are marginally more interesting now.”

“Alex is underselling himself,” Laurens said.  “That whole place falls apart when he’s not there.  Dr. Washington calls him off the clock all the time.”

Hamilton shot Laurens a nervous look.  Was that giving too much away?

Laurens seemed to realize the problem with what he had just said because he quickly backtracked.

“—I mean, he does, doesn’t he?  Isn’t that what you've said?”

Hamilton nodded and jumped in line.  “Yeah.  I told you that.”

“Dr. Washington calls me outside of office hours as well.”

“That’s different,” Laurens pointed out to Lafayette, “you also woke him up to give you a ride back from the airport.”

“I did not,” Lafayette protested.  “He was already awake.”

“Lafayette and the president are very close,” Hamilton said, eager to change the subject.  “They met before Lafayette came to the states.”

“I know,” Henry Laurens said, seemingly amused.  “He told me.”

Hamilton realized he couldn’t tell if he meant Lafayette or Washington and he looked back at his plate.  Things were moving too invisibly for comfort.

“Mom used to talk in Spanish to us at night,” Jemmy said.  “Right?”

“Yes,” Martha agreed.  “And with Grandma and Grandpa.  Do you remember them talking on the phone?”

“She told me that if I learned Spanish I could talk to people when we went back to visit in Puerto Rico.”

Hamilton tipped his head to the side, listening curiously.

“Grandma and Grandpa moved to the US long before you were born,” Henry Laurens said.  “We don’t know anyone there to visit anymore.”

“If you learn French then you can visit with Mary Eleanor,” Lafayette said brightly as Hamilton looked back down at his plate without really seeing what was on it.  “I will take you all over the country.”

“How are you going to do that if you are here?”

Lafayette opened his mouth to respond then closed it again thoughtfully.  “A very good point.  I will visit with you.”

“Have you decided to stay in America?”  Henry Laurens asked.

“For the time being,” Lafayette said.  “I don’t know what will happen after I finish my studies.”

“Jack’s going be a lawyer,” Jemmy enthused.  “Like Dad.”

Laurens laughed.  “Yeah.  So is Alexander.”

“I could be a model,” Lafayette mused.  “I was scouted.”

“You were scouted?”

“Yes.  He gave me a card.”  He motioned the size of it in the air for Harry.  “It was very nice of him.”  He picked up his fork again.  “These are very good,” he said, picking an individual candied cranberry out of the relish.  “Is it hard to make?”

“The cranberry sauce?”  Martha asked.  “You just boil it down.”

“Sugar,” Mary Eleanor piped up, talking around the spoon in her mouth.

“And add sugar,” Martha agreed.  “The berries themselves are very tart.”

“We add orange, too,” Laurens said.  “You can see the rind.”

“Okay, but that’s still just three ingredients and the process is literally just boil it down until it looks edible.”

“Dr. Washington only had the kind out of a can,” Lafayette said, sounding impressed in spite of their explanation.  “Which in retrospect is very odd because this is much nicer.”

“He probably didn’t want to serve this kind unless he could grow the berries himself,” Hamilton said.  “I bet he used as many of his own ingredients as possible.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette agreed with a nod.  “He did.”

“I told you so.  You’re not the only one subjected to his gardening rants.”

“I thought you used orange juice,” Harry said.

“No, just cut up an orange.”

“Mom used to use orange juice.”

“No she didn’t.”

“Yes,” he insisted, “she did.  I remember.”

Martha and Laurens looked at each other skeptically across the table.

“Mom used to do it,” Harry said again in a quieter, more serious voice.  He had cast his eyes down at the table and he looked up again hopefully to see if he had gotten a reaction.

Martha made an exasperated noise.  “Fine.  Next year you can make it yourself and you can add all the juice you want.”

“Can we change the topic?”  Laurens asked.

Hamilton snorted and tried to cover it with a fake cough.

“I ran into William Manning the other day,” Henry Laurens said.  “He’s upset that his daughter is staying in England over the holidays.”

That had startled Hamilton into an actual coughing fit and he pushed away from the table with his napkin to his mouth.  “Excuse me,” he managed after a few seconds.  “I think I choked on something for a second.”

“Have you had much contact with her?”

The conversation was still going on around him.

Laurens shook his head stiffly.  “No.”

“That’s too bad.  It sounds like she’s having quite the time of it.”

“Jack’s terrible at keeping in contact with anyone,” Martha said.  “He didn’t even wish me a happy birthday on time.”

“Martha,” Henry Laurens warned.  She fell silent.  “Anyway,” he went on, “he’s still trying to convince her to visit for Christmas at least, even if she wants to return before New Year’s.”

“That’s a long trip,” Laurens said.  “I don’t blame her for not wanting to make it.”

“It’s not that bad.  Besides, she can get a direct flight from London.”

Laurens shrugged uncomfortably.  “I haven’t spoken to her in years,” he said, trying to edge the conversation towards its conclusion.  “I’m not really in touch with anyone from high school.”

“That’s too bad.  You had some good friends, didn’t you?”

“I guess so.  It’s just been a while.”

“Have you heard anything from your old teammates?  Or Francis?”

Hamilton looked quickly between Laurens and his father.  Henry Laurens seemed to have said it off the cuff and was already distracted scolding Jemmy for reaching all the way across the table to get the butter tray.  Laurens, on the other hand, looked decidedly jumpy.

“I’m not in contact with anyone anymore either,” Lafayette said, sliding into the conversation to rescue Laurens.  “Oh, except for de Ségur and our friends.  And Adrienne?  But we did not go to the same school, I just lived with her.”

“You lived with her?”

“Oh, no, it’s just that my family is from the south and she lives up just outside Paris.  It was much more convenient.  My grandmother arranged it.”

“Does she go to an all girls’ school?”  Martha asked.  “She’s Catholic, right?”

“Yes and yes,” Lafayette replied happily.  “Her teachers would probably hate me if I wasn’t very very rich and from a supposedly good family.”

“How rich are you?”  Harry asked curiously.  “Like, are you like Bill Gates rich?”

Lafayette looked a little puzzled.  “Ah, I’m not sure.”

“You need to give him a French example,” Laurens teased.

“No, no, I know who that is,” Lafayette said, “I just don’t know…  I don’t keep track of things like that.  I am not L’Oréal rich.”

“But are you Chanel rich?”  Martha joked.

“Oh I have more than Chanel.  —Not Chanel overall,” Lafayette hastily tried to clarify, “but more than any one individual within that—”

“Will you marry me?”

“Martha,” Henry Laurens warned again.

“What?”  She turned to look at him.  “I’m just _asking_!”

“I am already spoken for,” Lafayette said with polite dignity.  “But thank you for your interest.”

“How much more do you have than them?”  Harry asked.  “Like, a couple thousand or…?”

“I don’t know,” Lafayette said, trying to keep a delicate distance from the details of the topic.  “Twice as much?”

“Twice as much as a couple thousand or twice as much as they have total?”

“He has to mean total,” Martha said.  “Who would even count down to the thousands at that point?  Seriously,” she said to Lafayette, “ _please_ marry me.”

“Are you richer than Dad?”  Jemmy asked.

“Ah,” Lafayette said, getting even more flustered.  “That is not a very…”

“So who won the game today?”  Henry Laurens asked loudly.  “I’m afraid that I missed it.”


	154. WE005

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Espionage; Movie Night

 

“Hey.”  Laurens knocked on and then pushed open Hamilton’s door.  “Lafayette and I are going to watch something in the movie room.  Do you want to join us?”

Hamilton looked up from the desk, his laptop open in front of him but the screen black.  In spite of coming to collect him, Laurens and Lafayette were distracted with their own conversation and neither was watching him even a second after opening the door.

“I am _not_ ,” Lafayette argued from the hall.

“How about dinner?”  Laurens asked, his tone carrying a little sharpness.  “What the hell was that, anyway, talking to my dad about sex?”

“You were being so awkward I blacked out a little,” Lafayette protested.  “It’s not my fault!”

Hamilton gave a bare laugh, caught somewhere between amused and all the more on edge.  “Thanks.  But I should get some work done.”

“Right.”  Laurens looked in to answer, then turned back out to the hall.  “He’s staying.”

“Will he join us later?”

“Maybe in a while,” Hamilton said, answering Lafayette’s question and noting that he had not left Laurens’ side since dinner, apparently rationalizing that was the best way to ensure he and Hamilton would not be seen alone together.  “Let me know what you decide to watch?”

“Sure.  Do you know where the room is?”

“I’ll find it.”

“It’s down in the basement.”

“In the…  How many floors does this place _have_ , John?  Never mind, where are the stairs for that?”

“Other side of the kitchen.”

“Which kitchen?”

“Kitchenette.”

“Got it.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll call you if I get lost.”

“You can’t miss it,” Laurens assured him.

“Good luck with your work,” Lafayette called, and Hamilton watched as Laurens was tugged away.

As soon as they left he turned forward in his seat again, frowning at the computer without waking it up and drumming his fingers on the dark wood of the desk.  After a minute had passed he impulsively got up and slipped out of the room, reasoning with himself that no one was paying him any attention and now was a good time to bring the chess set and jacket back up to where he was staying.  He didn’t run into anyone on the way to Laurens’ room and he quietly let himself in.  The box holding both gifts was still by the desk and after collecting it he stepped into the closet and took a careful look around.

Shelves on both sides held old textbooks and clothes, what were obviously a couple old class projects, and a couple of unused canvases.  Hamilton bit his lower lip.  He shouldn’t be here.  But then, he reasoned, Laurens shouldn’t have given him a reason to be here at all.  He dropped into a squat put the box to the side, then studied the lower shelves.  What he was looking for wouldn’t be stored at eye-level and there were more boxes and containers closer to the ground.  He ran his hand over a couple of dusty shoeboxes stacked up on top of one another and hesitated.

The first one he opened had a pair of brown dress shoes.

The second one held lightly worn sneakers and a crumpled flier from a game.

The third one was half-full of paper.

Hamilton felt his stomach turn over with a sense of disbelief and dread—why disbelief, he had been told to expect it—and he slowly sat back on his heels and sifted through the papers.

Many of them were pieces of scrap, old receipts, a couple of inches torn from a notebook.  Others were full sheets.  A couple were multiple sheets folded together.  All of them were covered in chains of numbers.

“What the fuck, John,” Hamilton muttered, unable to not speak as he sorted through them.

 _He probably forgot about them_ , he reasoned with himself as he tried to tamp down what he was slowly recognizing as hurt.  _They’re obviously ancient, he probably doesn’t even remember saving them._

_He did remember writing them._

Hamilton put the box down, open, in front of him and sat back on the ground, rubbing his hands up over his face and into his hairline.

“What the _fuck_ , John,” he repeated.

He picked up the box again and dug through it more intently.  Maybe Martha had been wrong.  Laurens had mentioned the codes in passing, maybe they were perfectly innocent and he was making a big deal out of nothing.  He hit cardboard without seeing anything that at a glance looked like a key, but some numbers seemed to come up frequently, he noticed.  449.  8.

His heart in his throat, he twisted to the side and picked up the jacket.  He put his hand into its pocket and pulled out a tightly folded piece of paper.  He opened it.

His hunch had been right.  It was part of a cipher.

Hamilton picked up a brief note written on a piece of scrap.  The writing on it didn’t look like Laurens’.  The strokes of the numbers were unfamiliar.

“A hundred…”  Hamilton muttered under his breath, trying to keep his voice from sounding too anxious to his own ears as he scanned the key for the correct words.  The message slowly formed itself into nothing more than an hour and class assignment.  He dropped it back in the box, his whole body flooding with relief.  That was nothing.  Less than nothing.

He was about to take out his phone and confess to Eliza what he had done when a little nagging voice pointed out that he had decoded one of the most innocent looking ones.  What about the longer letters?

Hamilton wished he could have found the dignity and moral strength to hesitate before giving in.

He picked up one of the full-length pages and started to decode what he could from a random spot halfway through.

 

_503 109 8 226 486 188 157 160 163 556 139 537 400 484 120_

_in your car I will give you --- --- gri nd close against my ---_

 

A sense of numb fear gripped him as he continued to read, skipping over the numbers that didn't appear on the key.  Others started to fall into place around them as he discarded it and picked up another.  He read obsessively.  A completely different image of Laurens' teenage years formed, at odd with what he had been led to believe.  Here was Laurens explicitly being propositioned by--and, judging by the tone of some of them, actively propositioning in turn--his classmate.  The list of places and times grew, even if the actions remained confined to making out and touching.  Almost an hour later, Hamilton put the last letter down and closed the box.  He put it neatly back on the shelf, picked up the jacket and chess set, and left.

 

> A. Hamilton: Eliza

> A. Hamilton: I need your advice.

 

“Dude, stop.”  Laurens jerked the plate of pecan and pumpkin pie away as Lafayette draped his arm over his shoulders and tried to steal a bite.  “I got you your own plate, remember?”

“I gave it to your brother.”

Laurens glanced over where Jemmy was sitting on the far end of the long sectional sofa, the plate abandoned next to him and his gaze completely captivated by the movie.

Lafayette leaned further onto him, letting his fork graze the top of one of the slices of pie.

“You’re the worst,” Laurens complained, shrugging him off with a great effort.  “You said that you wouldn’t even want any after dinner and I said I didn’t want you to steal mine and that’s why you were getting your own.  Is any of this ringing a bell?”

“Shh, don’t talk during the movie.”

Laurens rolled his eyes as Lafayette settled back with his stolen handful of popcorn, still leaning up against him.  “You’re making it weird,” he complained in a loud whisper over the sound of an escalating argument on the screen.

“I am European and you are a jock, this is to be expected.”

“…How’s that now?”

“You’re all…”  Lafayette flicked his free hand forward.  “With the butts and the slapping after goals.”

Jemmy looked over at them, the movie losing his interest.

“We do _not_ do that,” Laurens protested hotly as Lafayette turned his hand palm up and made a squeezing gesture.

“Well, whatever you do.  I don’t know, you’re all very far away from me when I am in the stadium.  At Boston you practically looked like ants.”

“Did you see Jack’s game in Boston?”  Jemmy asked excitedly, the movie forgotten.  “Dad and Martha went and I watched it on the big screen.”

Lafayette wondered for a moment he meant there was a television around somewhere even larger than the very sizable one in front of them, but it didn't seem important to press.  “Ah, yes, I went with a couple of friends.”

“Did Alexander go, too?”

“No, he couldn’t make it.”

Jemmy nodded, accepting the reiteration that Hamilton had a very full schedule.

“I liked it quite a lot,” Lafayette said.

“You told me you left early.”

Lafayette shushed Laurens and shifted away, turning to face Jemmy.  “Do you watch all of John’s games?”

“Yeah,” Jemmy nodded enthusiastically.  “He’s really good.  I’m glad he got to play another year.”

Lafayette paused, surprised, then gave a little laugh.  “Yes,” he agreed, “me too.”  He reached behind him to pat Laurens on the shoulder.  “I am his roommate, so it worked out very nicely for me.  I’d have to find someone else to live with otherwise.”

“You could live with Alexander.”

“He has his own apartment; I live in the dorms.  Besides, Alexander is going to graduate next year, like John.  They’re both leaving me,” Lafayette concluded, a little melodramatically.

“You need other friends.”

Laurens snickered.

“I do have other friends,” Lafayette said with dignity.  “Jacky, should I join a frat?”

“Don’t call me that.  And it’s your choice, but you’d probably like the camaraderie.”

“Will they haze me?”

“How do you know that word?”

“I was reading about American _fraternités_  online.”

“Right.  And probably, but can you blame them?”

“Depending on what they do to me, yes.”

“What would they do to you?”

“Uh.”  Laurens looked over at his brother.  “Make him go streaking in the middle of the night or something.”

“That sounds weird.”

“It is.  Don’t join a frat,” Laurens instructed him, not bothering to keep from coming off a little over-protective, even in front of Lafayette.  “I’m not in one.”

“Was Dad in one?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s different.”

“Because things were different when he was your age?”

Laurens laughed, used to that statement.  “Exactly.”

“I don’t really want to get naked in front of a bunch of other guys,” Jemmy said, turning back to watch the movie.

Laurens felt his stomach twist a little.  That had been the right answer and he had meant it perfectly innocently anyway.

“They get naked in front of each other all the time,” Lafayette said, stretching his long legs out on the ottoman.

Jemmy looked back at him skeptically.  “Really?  Why?”

“They change in the locker room,” Lafayette pointed out.  “It’s not strange at all.”

“Oh.”  Jemmy turned away again, more interested in the television.  “Yeah, okay.”

Laurens held the plate towards Lafayette, suddenly not upset about sharing anymore.

“I will let your friends know I am interested once I am back,” Lafayette said as he took a handful, “then I’ll be around for when they try to contact me.  It would be rude to be out of state and have to turn down their requests to meet, especially if a different fraternity finds out as well.”

“Just email them back later,” Laurens said, “they’re not in charge of anything so they’ll just be passing your contact information along.”

“But it would be rude to not respond properly and I always know my schedule better when I am in the thick of it.”

Laurens hesitated, then asked, “Are you expecting them to woo you?”

Lafayette gave him a confused look.

“Are you—Seriously, Lafayette, all they’re going to do is let you know that they got your message and are passing it along.  It’s not open season for frats yet and they’re not going to _wine and dine_ you.  They already know you, they’ll just bother you in the cafeteria and try to rope you into some open house event.  You’re not getting the red carpet treatment this time.”

“I’m not expecting anything _special_ ,” Lafayette protested, “I just want to be in the city at least when we go out to dinner…”

“That’s wining and dining,” Laurens pointed out.  “ _Literally_.”

“No,” Lafayette protested again, “no, I just mean a regular dinner at a restaurant where they explain the details to me, I am not looking for something fancy—”  He stopped as Laurens laughed at him.  “It’s just normal,” he tried again, more meekly.

“Oh good Lord.”  Laurens handed him the pie.  “Lafayette, trust me—Jemmy,” he said, “what happens when a group wants dad to help make a law in their favor?”

“They take him out to dinner and give him free stuff,” Jemmy answered promptly.  Laurens motioned towards him triumphantly.

Lafayette looked baffled.  “But…  But everyone does this.”

“It’s not normal,” Laurens told him.  “You’re just rich and fancy.”

“But _why_?”

“Because you’re rich and fancy,” Jemmy repeated.

“But I’m not _giving_ them anything!”

“Your donation to the French department?”  Laurens asked.  Lafayette’s eyes widened.  “Besides, just having you around enhances their status.  You’re like a trophy husband.”

Lafayette swore in shocked French.  Laurens patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s good that you know,” he assured him.  “You’ll be much less easy to manipulate.”

“They weren’t all manipulating me,” Lafayette argued, “sometimes they were just being nice.  Like, how do you say, to keep up with the Joneses!”

Laurens made a skeptical noise.

“They were,” Lafayette said, trying to cover his uncertainty with determination.  “It is too much effort to go through so much trouble just to get what you want!  Sometimes people do things to be nice!”

Laurens just patted him again, unable to bring himself to either agree or shut him down.

“Washington takes me out to dinner all the time,” Lafayette protested weakly and with an uncertain note of fear.

“He already knows you by now,” Laurens said to reassure him.  “I meant when people are trying to get you to agree to throwing your lot in with theirs.”

Lafayette chewed on his bottom lip.

“Don’t do that.  Alexander does that all the time and it just makes them rough.”

Lafayette stopped.  He took out his phone and began typing rapidly to Adrienne.

“Double checking what I said?”

“ _Oui_.”

“Like I said, Tench and Tallmadge already know you and what a moron you can be.  I can make sure they know to tell everyone in their house all about all the stupid shit you’ve done and about that egalitarian streak of yours and they’ll treat you just like anyone else.  I promise.”

 

> E. Schuyler: He’s lying to you?

> A. Hamilton: That’s a strong word.  He’s not LYING

> E. Schuyler: He’s not being honest.

> A. Hamilton: It’s hard for him.  I don’t blame him for not wanting to dig up old high school shit, I’d like to close the door on all of that too.

> E. Schuyler: But he kept the letters.

> E. Schuyler: Why keep them if they don’t still have meaning?

 

Hamilton, unaware of the conversation happening several floors down, worried his lower lip and leaned back against the wall.  He was sitting on the floor in the guest room and he looked across at the bed.

 

> A. Hamilton: I’m not mad at him.

> A. Hamilton: more to the point I dn’t want you to be mad at him.

> E. Schuyler: You’re my friend, Alex.

> A. Hamilton: yeah well

> A. Hamilton: c’mon

> A. Hamilton: Please?

> E. Schuyler: I’m not thrilled with you, either. >(  You should have known better than to search through his things.  What were you thinking you would find?

> A. Hamilton: I don’t know, proof that I was being a paranoid jealous ass?  He wasn’t telling me anything, Eliza.  I was sitting there at dinner and it was just

> A. Hamilton: I didn't know the answers to any of it

> A. Hamilton: that his kid siblings are more ok with the mom stuff, that he isnt close with his high school friends anymore, why hearing his father mention francis made him look like he wanted to bolt from the table…

> E. Schuyler: Did you even ask him about it?

 

Hamilton lowered his phone, resting his hands in his lap.  That hadn’t really been the response he had been hoping for.

 

> A. Hamilton: Lafayette talked to Jefferson and he said there had been an investigation into Bartow after her husband accused her of getting too friendly with the students during the divorce proceedings.  I assume that’s why she had TAs before but doesn’t now but I don’t know if that’s why she isn’t taking advisees anymore.  Jefferson strongly implied it, but frankly I don’t think he knows for sure.  You probably know all of this since you were tight with her and Jefferson said it wasn’t exactly covered up.

> A. Hamilton: What you might not have heard was that the investigation was private.  University business.  Jefferson was on the committee that looked into it and he says that he smelled a rat from the start and shut it down pronto.

> A. Hamilton:  Do you want me to follow up on that one?  I can see what Washington says or if I can locate and pull the file.

> A. Burr: I didn’t know about the ruling.  If you can find out more without too much hassle, I would appreciate it.

> A. Burr: Thank you, Alexander.

> A. Hamilton: No prob

> A. Hamilton: Happy Thanksgiving

> A. Burr: You too.

> A. Hamilton: You free to meet after break?  First official day back?  Library? 8 AM?  I know that’s early but if I recall you have morning class.  I’ve got a little more I can tell you but I’d rather not put it in text form.

> A. Burr: That sounds good.  I have some things to fill you in on as well.


	155. Midnight Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting Advice and Information

Hamilton knocked on Lafayette’s bedroom door.  “Can I come in for a sec?”  When he heard an affirmative noise he opened it, then immediately flinched away with his hand over his eyes.  “Dude, put some pants on!”

“Hm?”  Lafayette looked down at himself where he was lying, one leg cocked up and the other spread at an angle, shirtless with only a pair of boxer-briefs.  “These are pants.”

“In England, not in the U.S. of A.”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side, still inspecting himself.  “You cannot see anything.”  He tugged at the thin fabric (navy blue with white stars) on his thigh.  “And I do not think these are technically pants in England.”

“Whatever.  They’re tight.  I can see more than I ever wanted to.”

“You are such a prude.”  Lafayette did not move to cover himself.

“Okay, moving on.”  Hamilton closed the door, looking carefully at his eyes only.  “Can I talk to you?”

“Please.”  Lafayette made an overly grand gesture.  “I am all ears.”

“You’re all something, all right…”  Hamilton took a seat in the cushioned chair a few feet from the bed, his conversation with Eliza still running through his head.  “Did you know John had a high school beau?”

“—Belle?  Martha Manning?”

“Francis something.”

“No.”  Lafayette looked surprised.  “Did he tell you?”

“Sort of except not at all.  I found letters between them that didn’t leave much to the imagination.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In the closet in his room.”

Lafayette made an aggravated and exasperated sound and rolled over onto his front, dramatically pulling his pillow out from under the covers and over his head.  “You went through his things?”

“He wasn’t telling me anything, Lafayette.  I had to know.”

“You are in so much trouble,” Lafayette pronounced, reaching over for his phone without looking up.  “I have to tell Adrienne.”

“Hey, hey, hey, stop,” Hamilton said, quickly kicking out at the edge of the bed as if he could knock the phone away even though it was far out of reach.  “And can you sit up?  Stop rolling around like some kind of porn star.”

Lafayette had turned onto his side and was lying with one hand draped casually over the front of his underwear and looked at Hamilton in surprise and hurt.  “Excuse me?”

“Seriously.  I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

“Stop body shaming me,” Lafayette complained.  He sat up cross-legged.  “I can’t help being beautiful.”

“You can help not putting clothes on.”

Lafayette scoffed and did not get dressed.  He did pull his pillow into his lap.

“Now you just look naked,” Hamilton complained.  “But whatever.  Help me.”

“I don’t know what you want.  You shouldn’t have been going through his things.”

“He wouldn’t _tell_ me anything, Lafayette.  No, that’s not right, I knew there was some guy he had a crush on when he was younger and he told me when I asked that they didn’t do anything.  That’s a very different definition of ‘not doing anything.’  If it was you…  Wouldn’t you be upset by it?”

“But it was a very long time ago,” Lafayette said, confused.

“He lied about it!”

“Okay,” Lafayette said soothingly, “all right.  I understand why you are upset.”

“Do you?  Because, frankly, you’re the guy who switched his ticket from Cyprus to the United States and ditched his girlfriend in France.”

“What does that have to do with anything?  And why are you bringing that up?  Why would you bring that up?”

“I’m just saying,” Hamilton began, “you play kind of fast and loose with the definition of telling people you’re dating the truth as well.”

“Adrienne never _asked_ if I was going to New York,” Lafayette complained.  “And, like with John, that is in the past.  Don’t you maybe think that there is a reason why he didn’t want to talk about it?”

“Yeah, because he’s a self-centered asshole.”

“I think that was a very difficult time for him.”

“Big whoop,” Hamilton complained, kicking his feet up onto the edge of the bed.  “That was a difficult time for a lot of us.  High school sucks.”

“Alexander.”

“So he doesn’t want to relive it.  You know, he needs to, at least a little.”

“Probably, yes.”

“Don’t say that he’s not there yet.  He’s older than both of us, Lafayette, he should have worked this out, at least more than he has.”

“Why do you think he has not?”

“I dunno.  Because his dad’s an asshole and he feels like he has to live up to something.”

“He only has one parent left.  I’m sure he doesn’t want to risk losing his father.  I think having only one of them probably affects things.”

“Like we’d know.”

“That is a little unfair.”

“This whole thing is unfair.  All of it.”  Hamilton swept one hand out at the room.  “He’s got this freakin’ manor and we can’t even enjoy it right.  I can’t get comfortable here.  How can I when the guy I thought I came down with doesn’t exist, at least not here in South Carolina?”

“I think I would not like to be here in the summer,” Lafayette commented idly.  “All the humidity.”

“Can we focus, please?”

“Sorry.”

Hamilton paused in spite of his complaint.  He drummed his fingers on the armrest of the chair.  “I dunno,” he finally said.  “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“Coming to Columbia or dating John?”

“Columbia.”

Lafayette nodded, relieved.

“I wish I could leave.  Head back up to New York.  Get outta this place.”

“It’s already Thursday night,” Lafayette protested gently.  “We’re leaving this weekend and it cannot be worse now that the stress of the holiday has passed.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Hamilton warned moodily.  He fell silent again.

“If you truly feel that you need to go, I will buy your ticket,” Lafayette said after a brief pause.  “But, I think, that if you can you should stay.  Leaving now will just be drawing attention to it all and making a scene.  Nothing is pressing, nothing will change in a few days.  He said himself at dinner that he is not in contact with anyone, and that sounds true.  The only thing that is different is that you found out a secret that he prefers to pretend never happened about when he was garbage teenagers,” he said with as much conviction as possible.  The phrasing and grammatical error made Hamilton snort in begrudging amusement.  “Yes, he misled you about the nature of that relationship, but that is it and it is hardly as though they are at risk of starting anything up again if it was so many years ago.  Besides, you know that it is very stressful for him to be here as well.  Realistically you cannot expect him to get into anything while you are both here.  But maybe after you leave…”

“He’ll be so worn down by this stupid trip that he’ll just spill everything.”

“Not exactly how I would have put it, but yes.”

Hamilton sighed and put his feet back on the ground.  “All right.  I’m getting out before you start up your phone date while I’m still here.”

“Oh, how did you know I was going to call Adrienne?”

“Just a hunch,” Hamilton said a little sarcastically as he left.  “I’m going to get a drink.”

He headed downstairs quietly, feeling almost accomplished by how he was able to find his way to the kitchen without having to second-guess himself, but then he frowned at the cabinets and hesitated before trying one, only to have it open onto stacks of plates.

“Other side.”

Hamilton turned.  Martha was standing in the doorway behind him.

“Thanks.”  He crossed the room and got out a glass, then filled it in the sink.

“Do you want hot chocolate or anything?”  She was looking through the cabinet too.  “We have the powdered kind, and I can heat up milk…”

“I’m still full from dinner.  Thanks.”

“Right.”  She took out a glass and filled it while he stood awkwardly a couple of paces away and watched.

“I was just thirsty.”

“I saw you come down,” she admitted abruptly as she turned around with her full glass.  “I was with Mary—I hoped I’d catch you.”

Hamilton shifted his weight from foot to foot.  “Yeah?”

“About earlier—”

“Oh,” Hamilton said, cutting her off, and rambling as he tried to cement his own convictions.  “That’s all right.  I mean, yeah, I was kind of—I talked to Lafayette about it.  He's right, it was a long time ago, I’ll just talk to John when we’re back in New York, try to finally get the full story about of him.”

“…I meant at dinner,” Martha said.

“…Oh.”  Hamilton took a drink of water in order to avoid putting his foot further into his mouth.

“What I was going to say,” she went on carefully, “is that I don’t think you need to worry.  Dad’s pretty dense sometimes about things he doesn’t want to admit to.  It’s easier for people to pretend that nothing’s happening, you know?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Was it very…?”

“Jack?”  Martha grimaced slightly.  “He’s so transparent.  I hope you find it endearing.”

“Ha.”

“…Anyway.”  Martha took a drink.  “What were you saying?”

Hamilton paused, then put his glass down on the counter.  “John never told me about Francis.”

“Oh.”  Martha looked nervous.  “Um, I’m younger than you guys.  Maybe I misinterpreted?”

“I read the letters,” Hamilton said bluntly.  “You didn’t misinterpret.”

“Shit.”  Martha put her glass down too and took a step closer to him.  “Look,” she began, “I only told you because I figured—Please don’t tell Jack.  I don’t want—It’s not just you,” she said, quickly, “Jack’s really weird about stuff.  When Mom was sick, it was really hard on him and Dad.  Neither of them are the same as they used to be, and…”  She trailed off.

Hamilton seized his opportunity.  “Can you just explain what the deal is with Francis?  Like, it—it _was_ a long time ago, right?  They're not still in touch?”

“Jack and Francis?”  Martha scoffed.  “Jack doesn’t talk to anyone from that time.  He only talks to us because we’re family and he has to.”

Hamilton leaned back against the counter.  “That’s actually kind of sad.”

Martha shrugged.

“…So,” Hamilton tried again, “it was just like…  Horny teenage boys messing around?  No feelings?”

“I don’t think so.”  Martha hesitated.  “But…  I think he was pretty hurt when they stopped talking.  They had a fight or something.  I don't know what happened,” she went on slowly, hedging her words, “but he was upset.  It was around the same time that Mom was really going downhill.  That probably didn’t help.”

Hamilton nodded, feeling a little guilty without being able to explain why.  “Got it.”

Martha ran one hand over her arm and looked away, then back at him seriously.  “You’re not going to break up with him, right?  I shouldn’t have said anything at all.  He’s really happy with you.”

Hamilton gave her a confused look.

“—I know I’ve hardly seen you guys, but, trust me.”  She sounded genuinely worried.  “You’re good for him.”

Hamilton felt a little twinge of annoyance.  “I’m not his therapist.”

“I know,” Martha said quickly.  “I know.  I’m not asking you—I’m sorry.”  She ran her hand over her arm again.  “Can you just forget all of this?”  She pleaded a little.  “We just—We worried about him.  I worried about him.  Those letters don’t mean anything.  It was just some stupid high school thing with some jerk he no longer talks to.  Jack’s way happier with you than I’ve ever seen him.”

Hamilton looked down into the water in his glass.

“…Alexander?”

“So you were thinking about making hot chocolate?”

“Yes,” Martha said, earnest and relieved.  “Would you like some?  I’ll get you a mug.”


	156. Black Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wakey Wakey; Coffee Shop AU (jk)

Hamilton woke to Lafayette literally sitting on top of him on the bed and slapping him lightly on the face.

“ _Bonjour mon petit chaton_.”

“What the _fuck_!”

Lafayette hopped off the bed as Hamilton thrashed under the covers.

“We’re going shopping,” he informed him, already across the room and turning the lights on.  Hamilton managed to get his arm free and covered his face with it.  “Get dressed!  We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“‘We’?”

“Yes.  You and me and John and Martha.”

Hamilton groaned.  “I was afraid you were including me in this.”

“That is what ‘we’ implies, yes.”

“Why didn’t I get a say in this?”

“You were not around during the movie when we discussed this,” Lafayette said, digging through Hamilton’s bag for clothes to hand him.  “So we decided for you.  Would you rather stay here?”

“No.”  Hamilton took the shirt and jeans.  “Thanks.  Uh.”  He looked between the two pairs of underwear Lafayette was holding up for him.  “Olive.  Thanks.  This is weird, but thanks.”

“Get dressed and wash up and come downstairs,” Lafayette instructed him from the door.

“Do I have time to shower?”

“I’m going to come collect you if you’re not there by the quarter hour.”

“Got it.  Bits and pits it is.”

When Hamilton came downstairs he found the others already ready and waiting for him.  Martha was typing on her phone while Laurens and Lafayette talked.

“We grabbing breakfast there?  I can’t believe I’m getting up before dawn on vacation.”

“It’s a bit of a drive.”  Laurens took his keys out of his pocket and caught himself before he stepped forward and put his hand on his waist.  “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.  Is the point to treat Lafayette to the full American Thanksgiving experience?”

“Yes.  And Martha wanted to meet up with her friends.”

Martha looked up and nodded then went back to her phone.

“There are many things I want to buy,” Lafayette said, “and I’ve never been Black Friday shopping before.”

“What did you do last year?”  Martha asked as they headed down to the garage.  “You were already in the States, weren’t you?”

“I had a very nice dinner with the Washingtons and then spent the weekend,” Lafayette said happily.  “I learned about mulching.”

“…Wow.”  Hamilton stood back while Laurens unlocked his father’s full size car.  “Sounds like fun.”

Martha got into the back with Lafayette before he could and Hamilton glanced around and then got into the front passenger seat.

“It was very educational.”

“I guess you’ve got all that property back in France,” Hamilton allowed.  “Maybe it really will come in handy.”

“Jack should take lessons in agriculture,” Martha said from the backseat.  “He’s going to inherit all of this anyway.”

“Come off it.”  Laurens turned the engine on and looked over his shoulder as the garage door raised.  “If you want a little apartment for yourself you’re welcome to stay.  I’ll even give you one in the barn for privacy.”

“Great.  Thanks.”

“Are you actually planning to come back to live here?”  Hamilton couldn’t refrain from asking.  His fears from the previous day were still nagging at him, even if no longer as loudly.

Laurens made a noise like a scoff.  “No.”

“Maybe let Dad know about that.”

“Maybe mind your own business, Martha.”

“I wouldn’t want to come back either,” Martha said.  “We can just sell the place and split the proceeds.”

“Harry might want it.”

“Harry’s not getting an entire mansion for himself, no matter what he says.  We’re both older than him, we’ve got the final say on that.”

“I’d be all right with selling it all,” Laurens said as they pulled out and then down the long driveway.  “The value would only increase between now and when we’re ready to do that.”  He reached out to adjust the thermostat and leaned a little further over than he needed to, brushing his arm against Hamilton’s as if on accident.

“John,” Hamilton said, suddenly unable to keep quiet or pretend.  The words tumbled out.  “Martha knows about us.”

Laurens snapped his head to look at him and stopped the car with a jerk that sent everyone else flying forward.

“We need to stop telling him things like this while he is driving,” Lafayette complained from the back, rubbing where the seatbelt bit into his neck and trying to get it to unlock.  “I am going to be _strangled_!”

“What did you—”

“ _John_ ,” Hamilton said, more firmly.  He grabbed his hand, holding it in clear view between the two seats.  “Do you think you’re that unreadable?  I didn’t tell her.  She already knew.”  He let go of Laurens’ hand, flinging it down like it was hot iron, like he couldn’t in that moment stand how it was branding him.

Laurens was staring at him with wide eyes.  Hamilton met him with a fragile anger instead of pity.

“Excuse me.”  Martha leaned forward between the seats.  “Jack.  Alexander’s right, I knew.  It’s okay.  I think it’s cool that you brought him home for break.”

“—Brought Lafayette, too,” Laurens managed, turning towards her.

“Thank you very much for that,” Lafayette said, shouldering Martha aside just enough that he could also speak to them.  “Lafayette appreciates.”

“…Does…?”  Laurens’ voice was tight and small and he left the rest of his sentence unsaid, his gaze locked desperately onto Martha’s.

Martha shook her head.  “He’s never said anything, ever.”

Laurens let out a long breath.  He turned away.  “All right.”  He put his hands back on the steering wheel.  They moved forward slowly.

“I thought you were going to come out at Thanksgiving dinner,” Martha said, sitting back.  “That would have been something.”

“It would have been a classic,” Hamilton said, his words nervous and clipped as he watched the dark road unfold in front of them.  “What’s Thanksgiving without a little family drama?”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Martha said.  “It would have been a high bar to beat and I’m planning on setting a record when I show up back from my first semester of college with a _giant_ tattoo.”

“Oh, we almost got those,” Lafayette told her.  “But then they chickened out and I got my ears pierced instead.”

“‘We’ chickened out,” Laurens complained, or tried to complain.  It was a weak attempt and his knuckles were almost white on the steering wheel, his hands still exactly at the nine and three o’clock positions.  “Where’s your boat tattoo?”

“What were you toying with getting, Jack?”

“A sleeve.”

Martha thought it over and nodded approvingly.  “You’d look good with that.  But now’s a horrible time for it.  You have to wait until after the season’s over.”

“That’s what I told them,” Laurens said, getting a little more of a natural tone back to his voice as his pulse settled back into its normal rhythm.  “It’d just end badly right now.”

“Ugh, yeah.  Not that I like to see you get tackled now but I’d be sitting back here and dying on the inside if there was some giant guy slamming up against any fresh work you had done.”

“Bullshit.  You like seeing them knock me around.  You and Harry made a game of it last year.”

“We don’t want you to _actually_ get hurt!  With all the padding you have…  Besides,” she went on, “you kind of ruined that game when you got your shoulder ripped out of the socket and had to get helped off the field.”

“We picked him up from the hospital,” Lafayette informed her.  “I wish I had footage of him then.”

“Don’t you dare,” Laurens warned.

“I said I wished I had it,” Lafayette said, making eye contact with him in the rearview mirror.  “I didn't take any.”

“Was he stoned?”

“Very much so.”

“I can’t take muscle relaxants, either.  I guess it’s a family thing, huh, Jack?”

Hamilton recognized the coaxing tone as his sister tried to reassure him without talking about the problem directly.  _We’re still here, you’re still wanted._ He wished it did something other than stick painfully in his chest.

 

“Oh,” Lafayette said, staring at the crowd already swarming the shopping center.  “Oh, this is very impressive.”

“I thought you knew what you were getting into.”  Laurens had his arms folded, more out of impatience than for warmth in spite of the chill to the air as they walked over.  “This was your idea, remember?  And now we’re stuck here unless Martha can get a ride back.”  She had already split off from them, taking the first opportunity possible to join her friends.

“I’m not complaining,” Lafayette protested.  “I’m just… impressed!”

“ _I’m_ complaining,” Hamilton muttered, just behind them with his arms folded as well, but more for the heat in spite of how his mood was still uncertain.  “There’s coffee here, right?  I want to get something to drink.”

“There’s a food court inside,” Laurens assured him.  He put his hand lightly on Hamilton’s upper back and let it trail down to his waist.

Hamilton glanced up at him.  He was looking past him, at the building ahead, then turned his face down to make almost shy eye-contact.

Hamilton smiled appreciatively.  “Good.”

“It is capitalism at work,” Lafayette said, falling a step back to talk more directly to Hamilton.  “Don’t you like economics?”

“Completely different issue, Lafayette.  There’s capitalism and then there’s the hellscape of retail on Black Friday.  I feel like I should tip anyone unlucky enough to get stuck working here today.”

They stepped into the complex and followed Laurens to the directory nearby.

“Right,” Hamilton said with a drawn out and dramatic sigh, clapping his hands together.  “Where first?  Who are we shopping for?  Ourselves?  Washington?”

“Oh, I got him something in Boston,” Lafayette said abruptly.  “I completely forgot.”  He leaned in past Hamilton to search for the department stores with Laurens.

Laurens tapped one of the names in the listings and they looked at each other.  Lafayette nodded.

“Later?”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” Lafayette agreed.  “It is a big store, correct?  And there are two of us.  Come, Alexander.”  He guided him away, both of them following behind Laurens.  “We need to head across the mall.  We can pick up coffee on the way.”

“I’m getting the giant one,” Hamilton said, gesturing the size between his hands and then ducking his face to his shoulder as he yawned.  “Friggin’…  I need caffeine if I’m getting through this.”

“Oh, that reminds me.”  Lafayette tapped Laurens on the shoulder to make sure that he was paying attention to him as well, “I might have convinced de Ségur to transfer for a semester next year.  That will be nice.  Maybe then I won’t have to join a fraternity.”

“You’ve just got some trans-Atlantic exchange going on,” Hamilton said.  “Are Paris and New York sister cities?”

“ _Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris_ ,” Lafayette said.  “It’s a pity, but I do like Rome.”

“Of course you do.”  Hamilton rolled his eyes.  “If New York and Paris are thick with monuments, Rome must be practically knee-deep in them.”

“Up to the neck,” Lafayette said.  “You should visit sometime.  You would enjoy it.”

“I feel like I should be more of a Republic than an Empire guy,” Hamilton said, spotting a Starbucks and splitting off towards it, correctly assuming that Lafayette would alert Laurens to follow, “for frankly obvious reasons.  And I guess when I really sit down and think about it—like if I actually _had_ to choose—but I do like the glamor of the Roman Empire.  There’s a certain iconographic weight behind it that an intentionally austere republic has a harder time capturing except just to pretend to be above it all.  Which is bull, of course,” he went on as they got in the back of the already very long line.  “They’re not without their imagery, it’s just more subtle.  Or it’s supposed to be more subtle, you ask me it still gets done to friggin’ _death_.”

“Mm.”  Laurens nudged Lafayette behind Hamilton’s back.  He inclined his head towards a glass french press coffee maker.

Lafayette tipped his head at it and then looked back at Laurens, mouthing, “That one?”

Laurens shrugged.

Lafayette slipped out of line to go inspect it.

“…Columns, robes, those stupid…”  Hamilton was still talking and he stopped to gesture laurels up by his head.  “Like those flower crowns, remember?”

“They’re not as flashy as that.”

“Of course not,” Hamilton responded, “they’re supposed to be austere and shit.  Actually a lot of this goes with the empire too, just tone it down enough and we read it as republican.  Lowercase r,” he clarified.

Lafayette got back in line next to Laurens.

“Well?”

“I’ll look at reviews,” Lafayette said, tapping away on his phone.  “But we can always check other places.”

“Lines like this, though,” Laurens complained under his breath.  “Imagine what it’s going to be like in a couple of hours.  Do you need special coffee for it or something?”

“This is the place to get it.”

“If you like the brand.”

“Does he?”

“He picked it, didn’t he?”

“True.”

“Do you know what he drinks?”

“Why would I know?”  Lafayette asked.  “You’re the one who spends the night.”

“What are you getting?”  Laurens asked Hamilton, interrupting his continued listing of imagery.  “Let’s just all order together and save some time.”

“Cold brew is the strongest.”  Hamilton scrutinized the menu.

Laurens frowned and looked back at Lafayette, making a little slashing motion in regards to the french press.  Lafayette mouthed something back at him that he couldn’t quite make out but that might have been, “then what does he want?”

“Fuck it,” Hamilton declared, “I’m going peaberry.  You know about those?  It’s pretty neat,” he continued when Laurens just gave him a distracted and blank look.  “So you know how most coffee beans have that line down the middle?  It’s because they’re actually two.  There’s this mutation that something like two to five percent of all beans in a harvest get where they’re actually just one, so no line.”  He had his thumbs and forefingers together to demonstrate the size of the coffee bean that he was talking about.

“Does it taste different?”

“I have no idea.  Too expensive.”

Laurens half laughed.  “I’ve got a gift card that I never use, I’ll pay for all of us.”

“Score,” Hamilton said, leaning back against his arm and side for a second.  “Thanks, J.”

Laurens smiled, feeling a similar sense of invisibility to what he had felt in Times Square.  It was not quite as easy to hide and the crowd was less guaranteed to be apathetic but it was certainly distracted and it had been five years since he had left Columbia and fallen out of touch with anyone not actual family.  He was, if not quite a tourist, just passing through.

Laurens slipped his arm around Hamilton, pulling him back to where he had been as he collected their orders and placed them, then moved them off to the side, making way for the next customers.

“We should get something to eat at the food court later,” he said.  “There’ll be a bunch of chains that we don’t get up in the city,” he told Lafayette after a minute.  “So there’ll be options for you if you’re still trying to eat your way across America.”

“Do you have anything you recommend?”

“I haven’t been here in a while and I don’t remember what was on the directory.  I’ll let you know when we—”  He stopped talking, doing a double take at the register as another employee came out from the door leading to the back and greeted the barista who had served them with a joke in a clear voice.  He took the first drink and put it down, calling out the name.

“John?”

Laurens stepped forward automatically and they made eye contact.

“Oh.”  His eyes widened briefly in recognition.  “Hey, Jack.  Long time no see.”

Laurens took the drink.  “Francis.”

Behind him Hamilton hit Lafayette only mostly subtly on the arm.  “Francis?”

“Ow,” Lafayette complained, rubbing it.  “Who is Francis?”

“Hold on,” Francis was saying meanwhile and he ducked away to talk briefly to the barista, then came out from behind the counter.  “Did you pay for that.  Are they with you?”  He motioned towards Hamilton and Lafayette.  “I’m refunding you.  My treat.”  Laurens made a noise of protest and he pushed it aside.  “What are—”

Hamilton listened intently but couldn’t get a hold on the words and what they actually meant.

“—friends for?  Are you back in Columbia?”

“…No.  I’m still in New York.”  Laurens glanced at the green apron he was wearing.  Retail, food service.  “Is that new?”  He motioned to his own eyebrow.

Francis mirrored him and touched the metal ball.  “A couple years by now.”  When he drew his hand down he motion brought attention to the small tattoo behind his ear, partially obscured by his dark hair.  He was clean shaven, with a crispness to his jaw and the cut of his neck that had been still developing when he last saw him.

“I didn't know you were working here,” Laurens said.  He adjusted his stance so that he was taller.  “Good for you.”

Francis laughed and it was obvious that the backhanded compliment had missed its mark.  “This is just a part time gig from the summer.  I’m leaving after the holidays.  I’m 1-L now,” he went on by way of explanation, “so I really don’t have time for this sort of thing anymore.  You know what I mean,” he said with a flash of perfect teeth, “How did you do on the LSATs?  To be honest, I was in the top percentile so I thought I would have more leeway, but even so, law school’s so demanding.”

“Right.”  Laurens felt a sudden weight on his chest.

“So, New York City, I guess you decided to stay up there?  Where are you studying now?  Or are you doing an internship?  I remember your father wanted you to come back here to study law.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, then, too proud to lie, “I’m still finishing up my undergrad.”

“Oh.”  His gray eyes widened again and Laurens searched them for the pity or condescension that he could rail against but he couldn’t identify a thing in them.  He could only watch as they got a better grip on who he was.

“I got injured last year,” Laurens explained, trying to use the excuse like a chisel.  Chip away something he could use.  “I decided I wanted to do it for one more to finish the season properly.”

“Right,” Francis said and laughed lightly.  “You were always into football.”  A little fond.  Distant.  Completely unaffected by seeing him out of the blue.  The other employee leaned over and handed him a gift card.  “Thank you, love,” he said lightly and then held it out to Laurens.  “My treat,” he repeated.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I already paid for it.”

Laurens hesitated and Francis took his wrist in one hand and pressed the card into it with the other, running his thumb just briefly over his pulse.  Laurens felt the blood rush to his face and, embarrassed, he wished he could hide it.

“It’s good to see you again, Jack,” Francis said, his tone immaculately friendly and polite.  “I have to get back,” he said as Hamilton and Lafayette’s orders were put out on the counter, “but I hope you and your friends find what you’re looking for.”

He turned back to his work but there was an irreparable tear rent in the anonymity of the crowd.

Hamilton could barely restrain himself until they were outside.  “ _That’s_ Francis?”

“Yeah.”

Laurens’ answer was insufficient for Hamilton and he took a half step in front of him.

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Yes,” Laurens said, short.  “What do you want me to say, Alex?  I didn’t know he would be there.”

“What do you—Don’t snap at me,” Hamilton replied, a little baffled and aware that he was veering dramatically away from an appropriate response, not moving out of his way.  “That?”  He gestured back.  “ _Him_?”  He motioned more violently at the door.  “You didn’t—you still don’t want to tell me—?”

“What the hell did you want me to tell you?”  Laurens asked and Hamilton felt his hackles raise.  “I said we were friends and we’d talk about it later.  Okay?  We’re not getting into this now, are we?”

“…No,” Hamilton said, begrudgingly.  “No.  You’re right.”  The words felt like lead in his mouth.  “Jesus, John,” he muttered over the rim of his cup as they started walking again, “you made it sound like he was _boring_ looking.”  He burned his lips on the coffee.

“What was his tattoo of?”  Lafayette asked behind them.

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Equals sign,” Hamilton said, his answer overlapping with Laurens’.  He motioned with two fingers behind his ear, still obviously salty.  “It was partially obscured, but I’d put money on it.”

Laurens just shrugged once more, uncomfortable at the answer and what it meant about Francis and and how he could practically feel Hamilton swearing silently at him.  “I didn’t know,” he said.  “That’s new.  It’s not a big deal, all right?  Why are you getting so bent out of shape?”  He asked, his own words starting to come a little sharper.

“…Said you were right.”  Hamilton took another drink, burned himself again.  “Later.  Not now.  It’s weird for you to run into your old friends from high school,” he went on, “not for me.  I was just caught off guard.  Back me up, Lafayette.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said immediately.  “We were both very surprised.  We didn’t think you would have been friends with such a very good looking person.  It’s only natural that we are a little jealous.”

“‘We,’” Hamilton said.  “I appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Hamilton rolled his head in a circle, working out the sudden stiffness in his neck.  “All right.  Where are we heading again?”

“Department store,” Lafayette told him.  “There are a couple things on sale that I wanted to look at.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://because-cur-non.tumblr.com/post/161707538502/beep-beep-beep-results-are-in-turns-out-that-the
> 
> Poll closed early because you all maxed out the free account.


	157. Making a List

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comparisons & Admissions & Making Plans

Hamilton groaned.  “You were serious about that?”

Lafayette looked at the tall box next to him, receipt of purchase taped to it already.  “Of course I was.  I told you, I wanted to try it.”

“A sun lamp?  A standing one?  Lafayette, how much does that thing _weigh_?”

“It is heavy,” he admitted.  “But we have John with us.”

“We are not making John carry that.”

“John is not carrying that,” Laurens confirmed, sorting through a rack of towels.  “You can take it out to information and leave it there.  Pick it up later with ID.  Actually, see if you can leave it under Martha’s name.”  He went back to the towels.  “She’ll probably be dropping things off anyway and it’ll be easier to keep it all together.  What do you think about this?”

“Beige?”  Hamilton made a skeptical face, but stayed standing a little closer to him than necessary, coming as near as he could to holding his hand or arm without actually doing so.  “I dunno.  You like it?”

“I just want one that washes well.”

“Wouldn’t darker be better?”

“Black is so stark,” Laurens complained.  “We could just get white and use bleach.”

“I feel like I am overhearing a conversation that is a little too intimate for me,” Lafayette commented, taking a long sip of his drink.  “Would you two like some privacy?”

“Yeah, go take that lamp down so we can get your Christmas shopping taken care of,” Laurens said, only mostly paying attention.  Hamilton laughed and kissed him very quickly on the cheek.  Laurens started and turned to him.

“I like whatever color you like,” Hamilton assured him with an intentionally flirtatious smile, trying to position himself securely as the boyfriend in the midst of everything that was going on.  He laid his hand on the one at the top of the stack closest to him.  “I trust your taste.”

Laurens gave him a confused look, not quite able to put his finger on what was going on.  “Right.”

“Alex, what are those?”  Lafayette pointed.

“Hm?”  Hamilton turned and looked.

“He’s feeling insecure.”  Lafayette tipped both himself and his box against the wall of towels, right next to Laurens, who started again at the movement and the thump.  “We just ran into your old flame, don't you think that is understandable?”

“What—Lafayette, he’s not—”

Lafayette made pointed eye contact and ran his thumb over his own wrist as he pushed off of the wall, snapping himself and the box back upright again just in time for Hamilton to turn around.

“Drier balls in the shape of hedgehogs.  They’re supposed to get your clothes all fluffy.”

“Ah, I have never heard of such a thing,” Lafayette said with false innocence.  “Probably we do not have them back in France.”

“Probably you’ve never seen them because you never had to do your own laundry before hopping a ship to the States.”

“That too,” he said agreeably.  “I think I’ll hold off on taking this to information until you two finish your domestic shopping.  We can take it all down together and I think it doesn’t look as strange if it’s the three of us shopping for bed and bath goods.”

“We’d make a hot poly couple,” Hamilton said.  “Bet I’m the one that convinced you other two boys to get in on it.”

Lafayette made a noise of indignant protest.

“Yeah, fine, okay.  You’re the mastermind, Lafayette.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

“I don’t want to date Lafayette,” Laurens complained.  “That’s weird.”

“Why would you say that to my face, Jacky?”  Lafayette asked, mock hurt.  “I thought we had something special.”

“I told you,” Hamilton said, motioning between them, “I’m the glue that keeps this whole thing running.”

“That’s why we’re buying you pretty things,” Lafayette assured him.

Hamilton laughed.  “Sure.  Buy me an actual bed while you’re at it.  Queen size mattress, I think one of us would still get pushed off on a full.”

“I don’t think we can sneak that back up,” Lafayette said over Hamilton’s head to Laurens, a little puzzled and concerned.

“It’s a joke,” Hamilton said, his attention back to the towels.  “I don’t mind bleaching but that’ll wreck the fabric eventually.”

“Isn’t there a way to do it where that won’t happen?”

“It’ll happen eventually.”

Laurens frowned.

“They’re pretty cheap,” Hamilton said.  “Just get whatever you like, J., I’m not exactly going to be running them on a gentle cycle anyway.”

“I like the burgundy ones,” Lafayette offered.

“You need towels, too?  Maybe there’s some deal when you buy in bulk…”

“I want to look at the clothes,” Lafayette announced.  “Are you two almost done?  Let’s go look at clothes.”

“Sure.”  Laurens grabbed a couple of the original beige towels.  “These are soft,” he explained to Hamilton, who just nodded agreement.  “Did you see anything?”

“Mm, perhaps.”  Lafayette guided them out of the home goods and towards the clothes, a little more awkwardly than normal with the lamp in tow.  “I would like to take a closer look.”

“Got it.”

Hamilton finished off his coffee and looked around for a trashcan.  “I could use another pair of sweats if you see any.  Just got the one pair but now that it’s getting cold out that’s all I’m going to want to sleep in.”

“I can get them for you.”

“Please.”  Hamilton waved Laurens off.  “You don’t need to do that, John.  I can buy my own clothes even if I let you spring for my drink.”  Hamilton couldn’t help but roll his eyes.  “Actually, you didn’t pay for that.  I mean, you offered, that’s good enough.”  He tried to take another drink from his cup, forgetting for a moment that it was empty.  “Shit.  You see a place for me to drop this?  Lafayette, here.”  He took Lafayette’s coffee from him.

“Thank you.”  Lafayette adjusted his grip on the box.

“No problem.  You were gonna spill that all over the store and it’s enough of a madhouse in here already, the employees don’t need to drop what they’re doing to come deal with it.”  He took a sip.  “Pumpkin spice?”

“ _Oui_.”

Hamilton nodded and took a longer drink.  “I know we kind of had this discussion before, but you think I should get a piercing?”

“I like mine,” Lafayette said.  “They have done wonders for my image.”

“Uh-huh.”

A row of winter jackets caught Laurens’ eye and he tapped Lafayette on the shoulder.  “You two keep going.  I’ll catch you later.”

“Where’s he headed?”  Hamilton asked, looking after him as he walked away.  “Hey, John—”

“I don’t know if you could work an eyebrow piercing like Francis can.”

Hamilton swiveled back around.  “Excuse me?”

Lafayette was nodding as if lost in thought to himself.  “It takes a very particular look.”

“I could so work it.”  They were walking further into the clothing section again, away from where Laurens had split off.  “You’re just jealous that _you_ couldn’t.”

“I don’t want one,” Lafayette said lightly.  “I think it might scare Adrienne.”

“Might scare her family more like it.  Why don’t you think I could pull it off?”

“You just don’t…”  Lafayette had to scramble for an answer.  “He has more of a heart-shaped face than you do.”

“Fuckin’ model face is what you mean.  Boy looked like he could have stepped off the cover of _Cosmo_.”

“If I was an agent I would try to sell him to _Vogue_.”

Hamilton wasn’t paying attention.  “My face is more heart-shaped than his.”

Lafayette sighed.  “English is very challenging.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Hamilton motioned the shape in front of him with one finger.  “Oval.  It’s more…”

“Long?”  Lafayette offered.

“That.  And…”  Hamilton made a face and ran his hand back into his hair.  “…I dunno.  What would you rank him, Lafayette?  Out of ten?”

“Where am I?”

“Nine?”

“Really?”  Lafayette perked up.  “Oh, I’m very flattered, thank you.”

“Lafayette,” Hamilton prompted.

“If I am a nine… nine and a half?  I don’t want to be arrogant,” Lafayette explained.  “It never looks good.  But I don’t know what a ten looks like.”

Hamilton took a moody sip of Lafayette’s coffee.

“I don’t know that he is John’s type,” Lafayette offered helpfully.  “He’s very pretty.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes again, harder.  “That’s _exactly_ his type.”

“But I am very pretty,” Lafayette protested, “and we have never had any kind of chemistry.”

“That’s not—Are you being difficult on purpose?  I’m just saying, he thought André was cute, he’s another one in the could-be-a-model club.”

“Oh, André is a model,” Lafayette corrected him, pausing to rifle through a rack of shirts.  “He told me at work.”

Hamilton swore loudly and inappropriately near children.  “Of _course_ he is.”

“He had a Gap ad when he was younger,” Lafayette explained.  “I can find it for you online, if you’d like.  And then there was the band.  Did I forget to tell you about that part?  I can look that up for you too.”

“Later,” Hamilton said, resigned to his fate.  “Too many people on the network in here, I can’t get shit to load.”

“You know he likes you,” Lafayette said, as quietly as he could in the busy store.  “We went over this.  It isn’t a big problem.”

“Who, André?”

“Stop trying to be difficult.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said with resignation.  “I know.”  He half-heartedly moved a couple of hangers with Lafayette.  “It’s just…  Okay, don’t tell John this.”

“Of course not.”

“And this is kinda embarrassing so maybe don’t bring it up to me again later.”

“All right.”

“That was sorta my _thing_ ,” Hamilton said.  “Like, I mean, I’m not an Adonis like he is, but at least I’ve got my own quirky good looks, its endearing, you know?  I like to look good.  It kind of blows that in his list of crushes I’m the ugly one.”

“You’re not unattractive.”

“I know I’m being dramatic, Lafayette, you don’t need to give me a pep talk.”  Hamilton took a half step back and folded his arms, still holding both cups.  “Whatever.  I’ll get over it.  I just hate South Carolina.  No offense.”

“Aren’t we still pretending we do not know about any of this backstory?”

“Right, right.  Dang,” Hamilton said, “it’s hard to keep track of all this shit.”

“I find that a planner helps.”

“Like a real one or an electronic one?”

“Whichever works best for you.”

“I don’t trust the Cloud.  Maybe I should carry something with me wherever I go,” Hamilton went on.  “Like you with that notebook.  Something pocket-sized.”

“It helps me,” Lafayette said lightly. “Would you use a smart watch?”

“I dunno.  Never thought about it.”

Lafayette considered that as Hamilton continued talking.

“Anyway, you’re a genius, remind me that I’ve got a rendezvous when we get back to the city.”

“John has a social engagement as well,” Lafayette commented, moving on to a display of jeans and checking the waists and inseams.  “I feel a little left out.  Maybe I should make plans with André.”

“Who’s John meeting?”

“McHenry.  He was trying to figure out the best time last night.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton put the cups down on the table and joined him in going through the sizes.  “What’re you, thirty… one?”  He looked up and down Lafayette’s legs.  “Two?

“Four.”

“Dang.”  Hamilton whistled.  “That’s good that they’re going to get together, though.”  He moved through the tags on the jeans more quickly now that he knew what he was looking for.  “McHenry’s a nice guy and John needs more friends.  It’s so weird,” he said, picking one pair up to refold it.  “He’s like—he’s _popular_ , but it’s so superficial.”

“It’s not strange to not be very close to all of your friends.  I have many friends in France but I am only close to a handful.”

“I guess it’s the same for me,” Hamilton allowed.  “I got lots of ‘friends’ from student council—Wait,” he backtracked, “maybe that’s a shit example, I kind of piss off a lot of people in there.”

“I like Gouverneur.”

“Yeah, Gouvs is great,” Hamilton agreed.  “He should have come with us.  Take some of the heat off of you, make it easier to tag team in when John’s about to do something stupid.  Not stupid,” he corrected himself, “reckless.  Thoughtless,” he amended again.  “I don’t think you can be reckless without realizing you’re putting yourself into danger in the first place.”

“Thoughtless,” Lafayette agreed, sounding pleased as he found a pair of jeans in the correct size.  He held them out and then up to him to check the fit.

“Anyway, good for John.  I want him to have more actual friends.  Right now it’s just you and me and André, and, I dunno, three seems like we could all be busy at the same time and he’d be left high and dry.”  Hamilton tapped his fingers on the table.  “I got dirt for you,” he said after a moment.  “I guess that should wait until we’re back in New York, too.”

“I look forward to it,” Lafayette said happily.  “It should be a very good conversation.  We should make a day of it,” he said in sudden enthusiasm, slinging the jeans over his arm and turning to Hamilton.  “Yes, I like that!  It has been so long since we did something together!”

“We are literally out on an excursion out of state right now.”

Lafayette gave him a fixed and unamused look.

“…But I take your point.  What did you have in mind?”

“Mm, I do not know.  Something different.  I will think about it.”

“It’s a date, I guess.”

“We would make a very good couple,” Lafayette said cheerfully, moving on to the next rack of clothes.  “I think we would be very handsome together.”

“We’d have a good time,” Hamilton agreed, picking up the cups and following after him.  “Too bad you’re straight.”

“As a ruler,” Lafayette confirmed, making a chopping motion with his hand directly in front of him.  “And already in a committed monogamous relationship.”

“You pushed that envelope,” Hamilton pointed out.  “With girls who weren’t doing much of anything to encourage you.  I bet I could have had you if I wanted you.  Sexy bisexual package like me, how could you resist?”

“I thought you said you don’t like labels.”

“I don’t, I mean, not in theory at least.  Whatever,” he shrugged.  “Not like I’m hurting anyone by applying it, it’s true anyway.”

Lafayette nodded.  “ _Oui_.”  He paused, one hand still on the hangers as he sorted through them.  “Oh, am I the first person you’ve said that to?”

“Uh, I guess.  Not like it’s a surprise, though, this isn’t novel information.”

“But still,” Lafayette insisted.  “I’m touched.”

Hamilton shrugged again, more awkwardly this time and accidentally tried to drink out of the wrong cup.  “You’re welcome.  Besides, it’s all a construct,” he went on, not quite complaining, “this whole endowing it with meaning.  It’s not like it reveals some deep truth about a person.  Wish John could see that,” he added in a mutter.  “Where the hell did he go, anyway?”

“He wanted to look at something.”

“Yeah, I remember.”  Hamilton raised up onto the toes of his converses but couldn’t spot him.  “Shit.  You think I should call him?  I don’t want us to all get separated in this crowd.  I don’t know if he’ll even hear his phone.”

“I’m sure he’s nearby,” Lafayette said.  “He won’t leave the store without us.”

“He might leave this section.”

“He knew we were here.”

“I’m going to text him,” Hamilton decided, shifting both cups to one arm and typing awkwardly on his phone with one hand.  “Just let him know that we’re still in clothing in case he’s looking for us.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Lafayette said, taking out a shirt with the Brooklyn Bridge on it and looking at it quizzically.  “You are out of place.”

“Huh?  Oh.”  Hamilton put his phone away, one cup in each hand again.  “You want to buy it and return it to its natural habitat up north?”

“Perhaps.”  Lafayette checked the size and took it off the rack, draping it over the jeans.  “Let’s go to a candy store after this.  I think I saw one on the way over.”

“Why?”  Hamilton asked.  “There’s all that leftover food back at the house.  I feel bad even eating out for lunch, if I’m being honest.  Seems like a waste.”

“I want to pick something up for Henriette.  She was very upset that I was spending time with John instead of her last night.”

“…Mary Eleanor?”

“ _Oui_.”

“Uh-huh.  So you think the way to appease the kid is to get her hyped up on sugar?  Sounds like you just want to make your own life difficult.”

“I want to be the favorite.”

“I think you already are.”

“Then I want to keep it that way.”

Hamilton spotted a trashcan and nudged Lafayette.  “You want any more of this?  Otherwise I’m tossing it.”

Lafayette waved a hand dismissively and Hamilton split off, draining the rest of it before tossing both cups.

“Shit,” Hamilton said once he was back at his side.  “I should have looked for a present for Mulligan in home goods.  I’m going to double back.  Keep your phone on sound and don’t go too far, will you?”

Hamilton left, heading back the way they had come and walking almost right into Laurens, typing on his phone with a store bag in his hand, just around a pillar.

“John?”

Laurens jumped and guiltily tipped his phone away.  Hamilton felt a shiver of suspicion and fear.

“What’re you doing here?  We were just looking for you.”

“I got your text.”

“Good.  Lafayette’s right over there.”  Hamilton motioned.  “I’m trying to find a present.”

“Right.”  Laurens was still obviously hiding his screen.  “I’ll be with Lafayette.”

Hamilton nodded and walked away.  When he looked back over his shoulder, Laurens hadn’t moved and was on his phone again.

 

> J. Laurens: If you can’t carry the lamp, then you’ll have to come back with us to pick it up because we’ll need your ID.

> M. Laurens: just have him put it under his own name

> M. Laurens: I don’t want to go all the way back with you to information

> J. Laurens: It’s actually for Alex, we’re doing Christmas shopping for him, all right?  He knows about the lamp but the rest is supposed to be a surprise so if you could at least pick that up and put it in the car then he won’t see it.

> M. Laurens: Okay okay fine

> M. Laurens: But jsyk that’s really precious

> J. Laurens: Shut it.

> M. Laurens: #relationshipgoals

 

> A. Hamilton: got a question

> A. Hamilton: no more like got a problem

> A. Hamilton: I really need you to get a move on on operation horses into glue and also do you think my look’s ok?  do I need to spice things up?

> A. Burr: That’s a statement and a question that I don’t know how to answer.

> A. Hamilton: right right laf’s more my guy for fashion advice

> A. Hamilton: you’re nt abad yourself though burr, not my style but you've got a nice clean and classic thing going for yourslef

> A. Burr: “Horses into glue”?

> A. Hamilton: 1776

> A. Hamilton: here a lee there a lee

> A. Hamilton: eveywhere a lee a lee

> A. Hamilton: Not our Lee, but maybe they’re related

> A. Burr: I’m confused.  Are we friends again?

 

“Not if you’re going to keep back-sassing me,” Hamilton muttered, typing as he sorted through cheap soap racks in a bin of discount bathroom items.  “Does he have gunmetal or silver for his sink?  I used to live there, I should remember.”  He picked the brighter one and headed back towards the others.

 

> A. Hamilton: Can you at least get me an ETA on the life-ruining?

> A. Burr: I don’t know what you’re talking about and can’t this wait until we’re both back on campus after break?

 

“Always so…”  Hamilton typed a rapid response back, shoving his phone in his pocket as he caught back up with Laurens and Lafayette.  “So what’s the deal?  Are we still looking around here or are we moving on?  What time are we heading out, by the way?”

“I was talking to Martha and she said she wanted to get lunch here but would probably be ready to go after that.”

Hamilton nodded, feeling a hopeful nudge of relief.  “Martha.  Right, talking to Martha.”

“Is there an electronics store?”  Lafayette asked.  “Can we go there next?”

“Sure.”

“So do you just not have a budget, or…?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette as he   followed him to the line at the register.  Laurens, in spite of his earlier protest, was left to carry the sun lamp.

“Everything is on sale,” Lafayette defended himself.  “It’s just good economics.”

“Yeah, that’s my major not yours, and no, it’s not.  Not unless you’re buying things you’d be getting anyway.  It’s an example of the broken window fallacy,” Hamilton went on, rocking back on his heels as he waited in line next to Lafayette.  “Basically you’ve got a finite amount of money to spend and by sinking it in this you’ve got reduced funds for your other expenses.  The money would still get used in one way or another, you’re just diverting it to pay for glass—or, in this case, jeans and a lamp.  The parable’s…”  Hamilton made a so-so gesture with his hand.  “But you get the idea.  Besides, spending a chunk of money all at one time like this on goods that aren’t actually _representative_ of standard needs or even wants creates wasted capital sunk into investments for which most of the year there isn’t a market.  Causes these spikes in profit when really what would be healthier for the economy would be more rational, spread out spending over an extended period of time, not these cycles of boom and bust.  Malinvestment,” Hamilton added.  “That’s the term for it.”

Lafayette leaned on his shoulder.

“…Course none of this matters to you, you’re filthy rich.”  Hamilton shook him off.  Lafayette just put his arm back on him and Hamilton, resigned, didn’t stop him.

“I’m going to drop this stuff off,” Laurens said, indicating the box and his bag.  “Do you know where information is?”

“We can find it,” Lafayette assured him.

“Call me if it looks like it’s going to really be a while.  Otherwise I’m just going to assume Alex started an anti-capitalist riot.”

“I’m _pro_ -capitalism,” Hamilton complained as Laurens left.  “I’m just anti—Damnit,” he complained, looking up at Lafayette.  “You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he assured him.

Hamilton fell quiet and looked around.  “Hey,” he finally said.  “You see anything for John?”

“I thought you said that Black Friday shopping was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, yeah.  I still hold by that but also I need to get him something for his _birthday_ , not to mention Christmas.”  Hamilton looked around again.  “I thought maybe I could get him some sports memorabilia.  We're in Gamecock country.  I should take advantage.”

“That’s true.  Why don’t you take a look and I will hold the place in line.”  Lafayette took his arm off of him.

“Thanks.”  Hamilton took a couple steps away.  “I’ll be quick.”

“I don’t think you need to worry too much,” Lafayette said, eyeing the line ahead of him as Hamilton split off again.


	158. COCKS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belated Birthday; Candy Shop

“John.”

“Hm?—!”

There was a hand on his shoulder from behind and then all of Hamilton’s weight on him as he pushed himself up off the ground to shove a hat onto his head and over his eyes.

“What—”

“Do you like it?”  Hamilton was already in front of him, grinning broadly as Laurens reached up and felt the brim of a hat.  He pushed it up and out of his face, dark burgundy retreating from his vision.  “Do you?  Happy birthday,” Hamilton said, obviously very pleased with himself.  “You have to wear it now, that’s a Gamecocks hat, I got it special, just for you.  It’s _official_ ,” he added, sounding, if possible, even more smug and enthusiastic.  “I _checked_ ,  I didn’t want to just get you some knockoff by a disreputable bandwagoner.”

“Thank you,” Laurens said, reaching up to the brim again.  Hamilton grabbed his arm and pulled it back down, anticipating that he would take the hat off to look at it.

“It looks good on you.  Doesn’t it look good on him, Lafayette?”

Lafayette was standing next to him, and he nodded, one arm folded across his chest and his other hand in a fist and pressing to his mouth.  “Yes,” he said, with great restraint.  “Very, how do you say, baller.”

Hamilton hit him with the back of his hand and hissed at him to be quiet.

“What’s going on?”

Hamilton almost squawked and grabbed Laurens’ arm again as he tried to lift it.  “No no no no no—”

Laurens reached up with his other hand and took the hat off to continued protest.  He made a face.  The hat did say “University of South Carolina” on it, but it was hidden under the much larger and all-caps, “COCKS” embroidered above it.

“It’s a sports hat!”  Hamilton jumped into a preemptive argument.  “And look at the tag, its an actual brand and everything!”

“I’m not wearing this!”

“It’s your _team_!”

“We’re in public!”

“Oh,” Lafayette commented and nudged Hamilton.  “You made a pun.  Was that intentional?”

“I’m not wearing this,” Laurens repeated again, more firmly.  He saw Hamilton’s face fall and he wavered.  “Well,” he tried again, suddenly not sure of his convictions, “not at the mall, anyway.”

“Will you wear it when you watch the games?”

Laurens gave a small nod, embarrassed by how obviously Hamilton had him wrapped around his little finger.  “Yeah.”

Hamilton perked back up.  “Good enough for me.”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette apologized to Laurens.  “It’s all my fault.  I gave him the rest of my frappuccino and I suggested he look for your present.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said sarcastically.

“You’re welcome.”  Hamilton had chosen to take it as directed towards himself and as genuine.  He very briefly squeezed his hand.

“Don’t ruin the team for him,” Lafayette scolded.

“I’m not,” Hamilton protested.  “I’m just messing with him a little.  It’s all in good fun, right, John?”

“You’re fine,” Laurens assured him as he stashed the hat in Lafayette’s bag.

“See?”  Hamilton sounded triumphant.  “I bet your other friends would have been tempted to get it for you, too,” he told Laurens.  “André or whoever.  McHenry?”  He asked, prodding a little to see what reaction he would get with the name.

Laurens nodded.  “Probably.  There’s always merchandise like this floating around.”

“I had to make sure it wasn't something you already had,” Hamilton said, sounding a little like he was tossing out one of the other arguments he had prepared in case Laurens had needed more convincing to keep it.  “They had shirts and scarves and all that too, but I figured you grew up here, you probably had it all.”

“You saw his wardrobe,” Lafayette pointed out.

Hamilton shushed him again.

“I want to go to the candy store,” Lafayette said.  “And then later the electronics store.  I told Alexander already.”

“Fine.  Are you looking for something for Adrienne?”

“For the other woman in his life,” Hamilton said.

“The yoga instructor?  That other girl you’re friends with?”

“No—”

“Angelica?”

Lafayette tried to explain again but Laurens wasn’t paying attention.

“Or one of her sisters.  Or Mrs. Washington…”

“Mary Eleanor,” Lafayette said with dignity.  “Stop making me out to be a womanizer.”

“You never hit on Mrs. Washington.”

“You don’t know that.”

Lafayette shot Hamilton a glare.  Hamilton shrugged, faux-innocent.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Lafayette said, “as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—”

“We didn't interrupt you.”

Lafayette put both hands on Hamilton’s shoulder and pushed him away.  Hamilton yelped as he was accidentally knocked into a trashcan.

“I want to buy something small for Mary Eleanor, since I have not been able to see her since Thanksgiving dinner.”

“She does really like you,” Laurens said.  “But then, she latches on to people.”

“We’re friends,” Lafayette said.  “And so I should get her something as a token of our friendship.”

“You _shoved_ me,” Hamilton complained, back at Lafayette’s side again.  “What the hell!”

“I’ll buy you something too,” Lafayette promised.

Hamilton crossed his arms.  “You better.  You owe me now.”

Lafayette, thinking back on his and Laurens’ purchases thus far, laughed.  “I do,” he said agreeably.  “What would you like?”

“I dunno.  Are you getting anything?”

“What would you recommend?”

“What didn’t make it across the pond?”  Hamilton asked.  “Jawbreakers?  Pop Rocks?”

“Pop Rocks?”

“Oh, nice,” Hamilton congratulated himself.  “Yeah, we’ll see if we can find some, you’ll have fun with them.  Did you ever do the Mentos and Coke thing?”  He asked Laurens.  “You seem like the sorta guy who'd try that one,” he clarified, “or like… like the sorta guy who’d have friends who would want to try that one.”  Hamilton barely hesitated before pressing on.  “High school friends?  Or, or on the team with you now?”

“Which are you actually trying to get information on?”  Lafayette asked, then in French: “You are not very subtle.”

“I’ve never tried it.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton looked up at the ceiling of the mall, far above them.  “…You wanna, sometime?  Spring, maybe.  We can go down to Central Park.”

“We can get thrown out of Central Park,” Lafayette added.

“Hey, come on, don’t act like you’re such a goody-goody.  You would love to get a stern talking to from some mounted police.”

“Perhaps,” Lafayette agreed.  “It would make for a good story to reminisce about back in France.”

“I told you so.  But if I’m going to get ticketed I’d rather it be for something a little less stupid, so maybe ix-nay on the Central Park.  Who’s got a big enough yard for us to test it out?  Maybe we can convince G-Wash it’s for a science experiment.  Lafayette,” Hamilton went on, “this’s on you.  You’re his favorite _and_ you’re the one still taking classes after next semester.  John and I need to see to our final requirements, but the world’s your oyster.  Sign up for something that’s at least conceivably relevant and we’ll tag along.”

“I’ll talk to Jefferson about it,” Lafayette said.  Hamilton wrinkled his nose but didn’t object.  “—Oh!”  He grabbed Hamilton’s arm, attention caught by a Disney Store.

“…Aw, _seriously_?”  There was a huge crowd, both adults and children, and Hamilton felt his spirits sag.  “That looks like a mess.  Are we—of course, why am I bothering to ask—what are you even looking for from there?”

“A present for Adrienne,” Lafayette and Laurens said in unison.  Lafayette turned and looked at Laurens, very slightly miffed.  “Are you mocking me?”

“I would never.”

Lafayette gave him a level stare, then turned back to the store.  “Regardless.”  He took both of them by the wrists and dragged them into the fray.

“Can’t we just wait outside?”

“Shh, shh, shh.”  Lafayette maneuvered them through the crowd.  “This is supposed to be a bonding experience.  Why would you abandon me?”

“If we leave him he might get trampled to death and we’d have that blood on our hands.”

“I might end up with blood on my hands anyway,” Laurens complained.

“Y’know, John, I’m surprised he got you to sign on to this trip.  I knew you’d hate this sort of thing.”

Laurens glanced up at the ceiling.  “Uh, I like to shop.”

“Yeah, right.  You like to _buy_ things, there’s a difference.”

“John is just doing me a favor,” Lafayette assured both of them, releasing them to sort through a messy table of adult-sized clothing.  “Please don’t send him out on your shopping errands.  What do you think about this?”

Laurens checked his watch while Hamilton offered critique on the shirt.  “We should finish up if we want to get lunch here.  It’s going to be crowded at the food court, too.”

“Shall we split up?”  Lafayette looked up from measuring a blouse for size against (a very resigned and displeased) Hamilton.  “Ah, but I still want to go to the candy store.”

“John,” Hamilton instructed, “you go there and look for some weird American candy for Lafayette.  See if you can get him to eat a bug.”

“I’ll call you,” Lafayette assured Laurens.  “I will think about what I want to give your sister.”

“Text me,” Laurens said, already getting crowded out by the rest of the noise in the store as he took a couple of steps away.

Lafayette shook his head.  “I cannot hear you.  I will text.”

 

“So much for texting.”

“There were too many things to choose between.”

“There were too many things to take pictures of,” Laurens added.  “I felt like a jackass taking pictures of every single item.”

“Yeah, you probably looked real suspicious.  Like you were casing the joint.  You’re lucky they didn’t pat you down to see if you were trying to smuggle out any jellybeans.”

“There are so many flavors,” Lafayette said happily.  “I think I will get one of each.”

“You’re not sending this to Adrienne?”

“Two of each,” Lafayette corrected, “but in two different bags.”

“Don’t you have stuff like this in France?”  Hamilton asked, holding open a plastic bag as Lafayette set about carefully adding one flavor from each container to it.

“Of course.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“I like to think that I am very endearing.  Besides,” Lafayette went on, “I would hate to miss something unique just because I turned up my nose at the whole thing.  Would you like anything from here?”

“They got chocolate covered coffee beans?”

“You really don’t need those.”

“Come on, John.  I know I don’t need them.  Isn’t excess the point of his holiday? Holidays,” Hamilton clarified.  “I mean that in the sense of days assigned special meaning, obviously, not in days without punching a clock.”

“See?  I am just learning about the United States,” Lafayette said as if that settled it.  “ _Merci_ , Alexander.”

“No problem.  I like the watermelon ones,” he said as Lafayette added a single bean.  “Green on the outside, red on the inside.  It’s a nice touch.  I appreciate the little extra bit of artistry there.”

“I will buy a third one and give it to you,” Lafayette said, adding a second.

“Thanks,” Hamilton said, just a little sarcastically.  “Such a generous spender.  How can I ever repay you?”  He looked up as Laurens tapped him on the shoulder with a box of chocolate coffee beans, the receipt in his hand.  “Shit, John, I wasn’t really serious.”

He shrugged.

Hamilton took it from him.  “You want one?  I’ll split it.  Hey, Lafayette, do you want to look around the rest of the store?  I think Laurens and I can handle this order if you don't mind delegating.”

“Not at all.”  Lafayette handed Hamilton the scoop for the set of containers.  “Make sure you get them all.”

“Should we slip in the gross novelty flavors, too?”  Hamilton asked Laurens, pausing in his assigned task to open the box he had given him and offer Laurens the contents.

“That would be mean to do to Adrienne.”

“Probably,” Hamilton agreed, returning to work.  “Okay, you talked me out of it.  I’ll be good.”  He heard the phrase and shied away from it.  “He’s like a kid in a candy shop,” he said, then laughed and called out to Lafayette.  “Hey, Lafayette, do you hear me?  You’re like a kid in a candy shop.”

Lafayette gave him a puzzled look.  “I’m twenty.”

“Ah.”  Hamilton waved his hand.  “Never mind.”

“I’m _twenty_ ,” Lafayette protested, looking at Laurens who just laughed.

“Go look for whatever you wanted to get for Mary Eleanor,” Hamilton said.

“You’re being very rude,” Lafayette said, only pretending that it was not meant to be heard by anyone else as he left.  He looked over his shoulder but the other two weren’t paying attention to him anymore and he rolled his eyes.  “They’re very immature,” he informed the woman next to him.  “I don’t know why I put up with them sometimes.  Ah, there we are.”  Lafayette ran his hands over one another, looking up at a small but colorful display of giant lollipops.  “Round…  Or straight…”  He hesitated before picking one of each and carefully examining the color distribution on them before swapping one of them out for a more even rainbow.  “And, what did Alexander say, Pop Rocks,” he said to himself, turning around and scanning the shelves.  “Are those loose or packaged?”  He pondered a clear plastic container of chocolate rocks.  Better to take his own advice and not risk it, he reasoned, getting another plastic bag for them.  Various packaged hard candies caught his attention as he filled it up and he made a note to grab them as well.  Old Halloween candy marked drastically down in various dramatic flavors, marshmallow and chocolate crosses apparently shipped in for Christmas…  “Nothing for Thanksgiving,” he commented to himself as he tied up the bag and picked out a selection of the seasonal options.  Would Adrienne’s parents be amused or annoyd if he sent them a chocolate nativity scene?  “How strange.”

A shout from the other end of the store caught his attention and he very carefully did not look back to see what Laurens and Hamilton were getting up to, instead giving a pleased noise and gathering up envelopes of Pop Rocks in a variety of flavors, then a very large jawbreaker, just to be on the safe side.

Feeling confident in his selections, Lafayette headed to the check out, grabbing a couple more items along the way for good measure.  He had just put his items down on the counter when, just in front of the register, when he saw a giant milk chocolate turkey in brightly colored foil.  His eyes widened.  Without saying a word he pushed it into his pile and took out his wallet.

“Left, left!”

Lafayette couldn’t help but look over his shoulder at that as he waited for his card to be returned to him.  He heard Laurens cuss—not swear—and some kind of generalized banging.

“I’m very sorry for my friends,” he told the cashier with a pained smile.

The cashier laughed.  “They’re just playing the gumball machine.”  He handed Lafayette his surprisingly heavy bag of purchases.  Lafayette frowned.  Two misunderstandings in about fifteen minutes.  That was frustrating.  Maybe it was the accent?  But then Hamilton had been the one to say the first thing that had thrown him…

Lafayette headed towards the front, resolved to ask what the cashier had meant, and then realized that he did not need to.

Laurens and Hamilton were, in fact, playing with a gumball-in-the-form-of-a-pinball machine located directly outside the entrance.

“You have to get it off the target in the back,” Hamilton was saying, hovering behind Laurens as he worked the arms of the game.

“I _got_ it already,” Laurens complained.

“Not hard enough, come on, John, why do I know how this thing works better than you do, this is your friggin’ home town!”

“We’ve already got one—”

“You’ll probably get a free one,” Hamilton said, raising up onto his toes to see over his hunched shoulders better.  “Then we save a quarter and—”  He grabbed his arm.  “ _Right_!”

Laurens hit the right arm, almost too early in automatic response.  The gumball spun more or less in place and Laurens batted it up and then when it fell back down finally managed to hit it straight towards the back and against the small target, causing a second one to dispense and the arms to stop working, allowing both of them to roll down and out.

“Yes!”  Hamilton punched Laurens on the arm.  “My friggin’ _hero_!”

Laurens laughed, pleased, and handed one to Hamilton, popping the other in his mouth.

“I don’t get one?”  Lafayette asked, mock indignant.

“Y’ nee’ t’ puh out muh,” Hamilton slurred around the gumball before biting into it.

“That’s not true at all,” Lafayette said as they walked away.  “I am _very_ slutty.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed, pushing the wad of gum into his cheek.  “But not with the right people.”  He grinned at Laurens who gave a little embarrassed smile and laugh back.  “John and I were debating over if you’d buy things for your girlfriends in the city as well.  Catch.”  He underhand lobbed him another bag holding the rest of his candy.

“I can share with them,” Lafayette said.

“I told you he thinks of them as his girlfriends,” Laurens said.

“I didn’t mean that!”  Lafayette quickly tried to recover.  “You tricked me!  This is not my first language and you tried to deceive me!”

“I did deceive you,” Hamilton pointed out.

“That’s very dishonorable.”

“You’re very dishonorable.  What about your talk with Adrienne?  Are you still,” Hamilton put on an air, “ _imagining_ them?”

Lafayette turned up his nose at the question.  “A gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

“Dude.”  Hamilton tried and failed to blow a bubble.  “You’re just kissing yourself.”

“Are you saying you have never thought of anyone different while in a relationship with someone else?  Either of you?  —I want to shove my way into the electronics store and then get lunch,” Lafayette said cheerfully before Laurens or Hamilton could see the look on the other’s face.  He put one hand on each of their backs, his purchases swinging and knocking into them.  “Maybe you will help me pick out what I should get, yes?”


	159. Lafayette Eats Chef Salad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Electronics; Lunch

“Have you been to Waffle House yet?”

“No.  I have made pancakes.”

“Not waffles.  Even if they were, not the same anyway.”

“Breakfast for lunch.  That’s always fun.”  Hamilton bounced his weight on the mattress, then looked to Laurens lying on his right.  He took his hand.  “I don’t mind going.  Is there one in the mall?”

“I’m not sure.  I haven’t been here in ages.”

Lafayette stretched his arms up above his head and knocked his knuckles against the wall of the store.  “I am not picky.  I just want something that tastes good and is different and unique.”

Hamilton laughed and reached to his left, having to wiggle a little to get his arm free enough from where it was trapped between them to pat Lafayette on the shoulder.  “Not picky at all.”

“Not at all,” Lafayette agreed, holding his purchases on top of him.  “Too bad I can’t send lunch to Adrienne.”

“Breakfast?  Brunch?”

“It’s just Waffle House,” Laurens said.

“Brunch,” Lafayette confirmed.

“I could go for waffles in bed,” Hamilton said, looking up at the ceiling of the store.  “Shit, this thing is comfortable.”

“John could buy it for you,” Lafayette fake-joked.  “We could ship it back to New York.”

“Hah, yeah, right.  This doesn’t even come in smaller than a queen, where’m I supposed to put it?”

“You said you wanted a queen,” Laurens pointed out.

Hamilton squeezed Laurens’ hand and then let it go.  “In the fake world where we’re a couple, not in real life.  In that world,” Hamilton went on, rocking from side to side to free both his arms again with a grunt and then gesturing in the air above them.  “Oof.  In that world, I’ve also got a bigger apartment, obviously.  And a real kitchen.  Lafayette can cook for us every day.”  He looked at Laurens with a grin.  “We’ll trade off on the other stuff.  John’s good at cleaning,” he told Lafayette, turning his head that way.

“Better than you?”

“I dunno, I just don’t like it.  Besides, I’m plenty good at other stuff.”  He winked dramatically at Lafayette.  “If you know what I mean.”

“I think the entire store knows what you mean,” Laurens said.  He sat up and looked around the crowd.  “Come on, I want to look around and we’re not buying this.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Hamilton followed him off the mattress.  “In that other world we are.  They should let us lie around on it for as long as we like out of respect.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”  Lafayette followed the other two through the store.  “What are we looking for in here again?”

“Beats me,” Hamilton said.  “You think I can afford any of this?  You’re the one who wanted to check it out.”

“Ah, yes.”  Lafayette eyed a display of smart watches.  “Excuse me.”

“Mm?  Shoot.”  Hamilton turned around just in time to see Lafayette split off and disappear behind a family comparing purchases.  “We need a leash for that guy.”

“He’d just drag you around.”

“You could hold it.  You’re a dog person.”  Hamilton laughed.  “Maybe we shouldn’t.  It’d probably just look like a fetish thing.”

“That’s why you think it’s a bad idea…?”

Hamilton shrugged.  He watched as Laurens distractedly read the back of the box for sound canceling headphones.  “Who are you looking at that for?”

Laurens glanced up and answered after a short pause.  “My father.”

Hamilton wrinkled his nose.  “Fun.  You don’t want to do something more classic?  And cheaper?  Like a tie?”

Laurens just gave him a look and went back to the box.  Hamiiton sighed.

“Whatever.  Hey, I’m going to go look for Lafayette.  Are you staying in this area?”

“I might keep moving.”

“Eh, you’re both tall.  We’ll make it work.  I’ll find you.”

As soon as Hamilton left, Laurens checked the price and slipped the box casually under his arm.  He headed towards the next table over.  Maybe finding something for his father here actually would be a good idea.  He considered a display of fitness trackers, not sure if they were intriguing or obnoxious.  He stepped as far off to the side as possible and took his phone out of his pocket.

 

> J. Laurens:  Do you have a fitbit?  Or a generic one?

> J. André: Yeah.  Why?  Are you thinking of getting one?

> J. Laurens:  I was thinking about getting one for my father for Christmas.

> J. André: Oh yeah I like mine.  Would be use it?

> J. André: *he

> J. Laurens: I’m not sure.  But you like it?

> J. André: yeah I thought it was dumb at first but it’s actually pretty cool.  Hold on, Ill link you to my model.

 

Laurens looked at one with more consideration, then automatically checked the color against his wrist.

 

> J. André: Did you get the link?  I don’t wear it all the time but it’s cool

> J. Laurens: Yeah, thanks.  I might get this.

 

Laurens took one of the boxes, hearing Hamilton ask in the back of his mind if he was getting it for his father or for himself.  He didn’t have to decide that right then, he told the imaged voice guiltily.  There was plenty of time still and it might not be a bad idea to test it out himself first anyway and see how it was.

Laurens spotted Lafayette across the store and headed over, catching the tail end of his argument with Hamilton.

“—it’s not like you’re going to wear one on each wrist, so what’s the point?”

“I want to know the time in France.”

“Can’t you set that thing to show multiple times?  I thought it was supposed to be smart.  There are _regular_ watches that can do _that_.”

“Those are just as expensive as this is, so I might as well buy it to match.”

“Not the same brand,” Hamilton pointed out.  “Doesn’t match.  Also cheap watches can do multiple time settings, which you’d know if you weren’t so stinkin’ rich.  John,” he said, turning to Laurens as he stood next to them, “tell him.”

“Why are you buying that?”

“I wanted a second one,” Lafayette said, making pointed eye contact and tipping his head towards Hamilton.

“A—oh.  Right.  Yeah, okay.  That makes sense.”

“Seriously?”  Hamilton looked at him in disbelief.  “Jesus, I should have known better,” he complained.  “Do what you want, I guess, but if I had the money for it I’d at least get the on-brand one.”

Lafayette looked back at Laurens who shook his head.  Lafayette sighed and stepped away from the display.

“You are right.  I will refrain.  Is there an Apple store here?”

“Go when we’re back in the city.”

“That would be easier,” Lafayette agreed.  “All right.  Lunch?”

 

“I don’t get it either,” Laurens said, elbows on the small table at the food court, slightly disappointing sandwich in his hands.  “I don’t think ‘blue raspberry’ is an American thing.”

“Definitely not ‘American,’” Hamilton agreed.  “United States…ian… maybe.  Is there really no word for that in English?”  He asked with a puzzled frown.  “Quick, Lafayette.”

“ _Américain_.”

“That’s the same problem.”

“ _Des États-Unis d’Amérique_.”

“Clunky.”  Hamilton continued to frown, his burger and fries largely forgotten.  “ _Estadounidense_.  It’s partially just linguistic,” he said, “how French versus Spanish makes modifiers.  But I bet it’s partially because you’ve got a whole ocean in between, no need to differentiate between the nation-state and the country, can let it slide in an opposite sort of way than people right _here_ do.”  He let his hand fall on the table for emphasis.  “Rude,” he commented.  “Not you,” he clarified, “you’re fine, whatever.  I’m being rude too,” he added after a beat, picking up a french fry and toying with it.  “Sorry, Haiti.”

“They don’t have an ocean in between,” Lafayette said, poking with steadily more dismayed curiosity through his chef’s salad.

“Nope.  Part of a sea, though.”  Hamilton watched him.  “Same as me.  Not quite.  Different—fewer—political ties.  Different,” he amended, going back to his original word choice.  “Definitely different.  Lafayette, what—”

“There’s so much _cheese_ in this,” Lafayette complained, finally getting frustrated and piling it up on the lid.  “Where’s the salad?”

“Under the meat,” Laurens said with his mouth full.  “And the dressing.  I told you you should have asked to get it on the side.”

“I wanted it authentic,” Lafayette complained, “but this is just ridiculous.”

“Remember when John told you everything would be covered in butter?”

“This isn’t butter,” Lafayette said.  “And, yes, I do remember, you were being very rude and body shaming me.”

“…You don’t know that it’s not butter,” Hamilton muttered, embarrassed.

Laurens snorted.  “Ominous.  That would be the worst advertising campaign.”

“Technically it’s the same thing, pronouns aside.”  Hamilton offered Lafayette a fry from their holder in unspoken apology.  He took it.  “‘Can’t believe,’ ‘don’t know.’  I guess the tone is different.”

“There is ham and turkey and salami,” Lafayette said in exasperation.  “And this is not even _good_ cheese.”

“ _Estadounidense_.”

“ _Oui_.  I was reliant upon the kindness of strangers and you misled me.”

“We’re not strangers,” Hamilton said.

“There was a picture above the register,” Laurens said.  “But that reminds me, tomorrow we should hit up a Waffle House.”

“Is that what it sounds like?”

“Uh…”  Laurens lowered his sandwich.  “Like I said before, it's just a restaurant that serves waffles.  It’s not a house made out of them.”

Lafayette nodded.  “You did not specify that. And that is not as interesting, but I am still on board.”

“Did you really think it might be a literal waffle house?”

“Your country continually surprises me.  You have restaurants where actors dress up as knights and joust for your dinner entertainment.”

Hamilton snorted derisively.  “Yeah, in _Jersey_.”

“We have one in Myrtle Beach.”

Lafayette looked at Laurens in dawning excitement.  “Do you?”

“…We’re not going,” Laurens said.  “You have to buy tickets ahead of time and I’m sure they’re booked since it’s school break.”

“You have a friggin’ Medieval Times here?”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “They’re pretty fun.  I went as a kid.  If I had thought of it I’d have set something up for Lancelot here at least.”

“Can we go to the one in New Jersey?”  Lafayette asked enthusiastically.  “I have never been to New Jersey.  It would be a fun bonding experience.”

“Look at what you did,” Hamilton complained to Laurens.  “Yeah, Lafayette, we can go.  How much does it cost?”

“Like fifty bucks a seat.”  Laurens took a drink of his soda.

“ _Fifty_?”  Hamilton complained again, more seriously this time.  “Look, I don’t say this often, but I’m short, think I can get a kiddie discount?”

“There’s no way you’ll pass for twelve.”

“Fast answer,” Hamilton said.  “I appreciate the vote of confidence in my rugged good looks.”

“You have too many bags under your eyes,” Lafayette jumped in.  “John is right, it would be very unrealistic.”

“Thank you, Lafayette,” Hamilton said dryly, turning his attention back to his food.

“Do we have roles?”  Lafayette asked.  “Are we paupers?”

“I think they give you a crown.”

Lafayette clicked his tongue.  “All right.”

“You know, for most people that’s more exciting.”

“It’s not very realistic.”

“Well, neither would be not dying of dysentery or the plague.”

“A little fantasy does make it more appetizing,” Lafayette agreed.  “I’ll make us reservations once we are back to the city.”  He went back to trying to sort out his salad.  “Are these pieces of bacon and fried onions?”

“They’re those little bits from a can,” Laurens explained.  “Like what was on the green bean casserole.”

Lafayette made a defeated noise and began just eating the whole thing more or less as served.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Hamilton said through a mouthful of burger.  “You got fatty goose liver and snails.  Everyone’s food is weird to someone else.”

“This just isn’t good _cheese_ ,” Lafayette repeated, gesturing with his fork at the pile, not mixed back in.  “It’s so _processed_.  It tastes almost as bad as that kind in the spray can or in those little individual plastic sheets.”

“We should have recommended he get something less fundamentally offensive,” Hamilton agreed, looking across the table at Laurens and nudging him under it with his foot.  “What were we thinking?”

“Hey, Lafayette,” Laurens said with a grin, “we should make it up to you.  We can have a real fancy night.  What do you say we pick up an eight dollar box of fizzy white wine, some hotdog buns, and a packet of Kraft singles?”

Lafayette gave him a wounded look.

Laurens laughed as Hamilton moved his foot up and down over his calf and Hamilton looked between them with a grin.

“ _Très amusant_ ,” Lafayette said, full of strained dignity.  “Please get a hold of yourselves.”

“What, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?”

“I mean with your copious PDA,” Lafayette said.  “Your sister is back to pick us up and no one needs to see their relatives doing such a poor job of restraining themselves.”  He got up as Martha walked up to them, taking her by the arms and giving her a quick kiss on each cheek.  “Did you finish your errands?”

“Just about.  I put all the stuff in the trunk,” she said to Laurens.

“Are you ready to go?  Did you get the…?”  Lafayette asked, making a quick drinking motion while Hamilton was packing up his food.

“Martha,” Laurens explained.  He wrapped up his sandwich and stood as well.  “Let’s head back before we accidentally start a diplomatic incident.”


	160. I Want to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suck It Up; Job Talk

> A. Hamilton: it’s just that even though I'm UP it feels like a crying shame to get out of bed this early you know?

> A. Hamilton: i’m on BREAK and Washington can’t call me in when I'm out of state and these sheets are NICE

> H. Mulligan: whats the thread count?

> A. Hamilton: idk how am i supposed to know that

> H. Mulligan: you said they were nice, boy.  Whats the thread count?

> A. Hamilton: uhhhh hold on

 

Hamilton sat up in bed and tossed the comforter off, then pulled the sheet up, looking for a tag.

 

> A. Hamilton: they say Egyptian

> H. Mulligan: nice

> H. Mulligan: ex-coworker of mine just got back from there with his new flight, said it was nice.  Not that he actually saw out side the hotel since he was scheduled for the next day back too.  Of course I was just at JFK over Thanksgiving so not like I can talk

> A. Hamilton: ha

> A. Hamilton: sucks for you

> H. Mulligan: Yeah yeah.  Watch your tongue

> H. Mulligan: I have it on very good authority that I'm going to be shipping off somewhere sunny at a discount while youre stuck in the wintery north

 

Hamilton yawned and frowned.  He scratched the back of his head.  “The fuck?”

 

> A. Hamilton: What do you mean?

> H. Mulligan: mums the word kid

> H. Mulligan: gotta punch in talk to you later

 

By the time Hamilton finally headed downstairs half the members of the Laurens family were in the kitchen.

“Be careful with that,” Martha said as Hamilton entered the room.  She leaned away from Harry as he ignored her and put his elbows on the table, a deck of cards in his hands.

“It’s easy,” he assured Lafayette.  “Look.  You want to take half in each hand and then you put your thumb and fingers like this…”  He demonstrated slowly how to shuffle the deck together.  “You want to have the cards at an angle.”  He handed the deck across the table to Lafayette.  “You try.”

“Ah, all right…”  Lafayette furrowed his brow as he split the deck and tried to mimic Harry’s finger placement.  “Thumbs on top and—”

The cards split over the table in front of him and Harry laughed.

“You need to hold on to it!”

Laurens stood next to Lafayette and leaned on his chair, bowl of cereal and spoon in his hands.  “That’s what she said.”

Martha snorted.

“Am I interrupting something?  Thanks.”  Hamilton took the bowl Martha offered him.  “What’re we having?”

“Just cereal.  If you want something else I can go ask the kitchen for you.”

“That’s fine,” Hamilton said quickly.  “Thank you.”  He put it on the table and picked up the closest box.  “So any big plans for Saturday?”

“I have to go into town,” Laurens said.  He wiped milk from his mouth onto the back of his hand.  “I forgot to get Jemmy a card and I told him I’d pick him up one of those clear cover folders for his report.”

“Hot,” Hamilton joked, then quickly caught himself, realizing Harry was at the table and looking at him with one eyebrow raised.  “I, uh, I made out with a girl in an office supply store once.”

“Really?”  Harry asked.

“Yeah, why not.”

“Maybe Alex wants to go with you,” Martha suggested, raising her own eyebrows at Laurens.  “There’s not much to do around here anyway.”

“Harry,” Lafayette said, seizing the opportunity to distract him.  “Can you show me how to shuffle these again?”

“Give them to me.”  He put out his hand.

“I’m leaving after breakfast,” Laurens said to Hamilton.  “I just need to change.”

Hamilton glanced at Lafayette and Harry in conversation again.  He hesitated.  _Laurens’ car._   He pushed the thought aside and shrugged.  “All right.  I guess it’ll be good to get out for a while.”

“Dad’s not here today,” Laurens said.  “He’s already at the office.”

“Uh, okay.”  Hamilton wasn’t sure how to answer to that.  He poured cereal.  “That’s fine, John.  Not important to me.”  He looked up, then poured the milk.

Laurens cleared his throat.  “Right.  So I’m going to…”  He trailed off and finished his bowl.

Hamilton took a seat next to Lafayette with his cereal and watched as he practiced shuffling, his own empty bowl pushed off to the side.  “When did you want to leave?  Is there coffee?”

“I’ll get it.”  Laurens picked up Lafayette’s bowl and stacked it on top of his own.  “I’m just going to change and grab the file from his office.”

“Mmhm,” Hamilton answered around the spoon in his mouth.  He took it out with a pop.  “Wait, what?”

“Dad wants me to drop a file off for him.”

“You didn’t say that,” Hamilton complained.  “Was that where you were trying to go with all of that?  I thought you were just being…”  He didn’t finish his thought.  “Not important.  Go get dressed.”

“Can you do the reverse kind too?”  Lafayette asked Harry as Laurens left.  “Where the cards go in the opposite direction?”

“What, like this?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said excitedly.  “Can you teach me that one too?”

“You can probably just sit in the car,” Martha said over the table.  “That’s what I’d do if he was just running something in.”

“Same,” Harry said without looking up.  “Not like you’re missing out on anything interesting.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, not quite sure how to navigate the conversation.  He paused, then took the helm and steered them into different waters.  “Hey, question.  No offense or anything, one brown person to another.  You ever get shit down there?  John made it sound like—”

Harry cut him off with a snort.  “John can’t complain.”

“Harry,” Martha scolded.  “Don’t be a little bitch.”

“Oh, come on,” Harry argued.  “He just looks like Dad, it’s not like anyone ever says anything to him.”

“He doesn’t look like your father.”

Harry looked at him skeptically with eyes more like Henry Laurens’ than his brother’s.

Lafayette slowly tried to shuffle the cards again and did not step in.

“I can see the family resemblance for you, too,” Hamilton said, unable to stop himself and suddenly angry on Laurens’ behalf.  “He’s just…  So he pulls it a little more.  That’s not his fault.”

“I never said it was his fault.”  Harry sounded almost sullen and not quite sure if he was willing to get into an argument with one of Laurens’ friends.  “I just meant that he shouldn’t be complaining about things that aren't his problem anyway.  I’m darker than he is, me and Martha both.”  He ran one hand over the bare wrist on his other arm without thinking about it.  “He’s just got a chip on his shoulder or something, it’s not like people ever tell _him_ to go back to some stupid third-world country.  So if we can deal with it then he can suck it up.”

“ _Harry_ ,” Martha said again.  “ _Jesus_.  What’s your problem?”

“John doesn’t like it,” Hamilton said, trying to hold himself in check.  “He wishes—not that he ever told me this directly, he has pride—that he looked more like you and less like your father.  It’s lonely sometimes without a place to fit into.”

“What does your father think about all of this?”  Lafayette asked.  Hamilton turned to him, having forgotten temporarily that he was there.  “If I may ask.”

“Dad?”  Martha glanced at Harry and then shrugged.  “He doesn’t talk about it.  I think he’s pretty oblivious.  Which I understand,” she added, “it’s not his problem either.”

“You’re his children,” Hamilton started, “kind of _inherently_ his—”

“That’s strange.”  Lafayette cut him off.  “I thought that he was very aware.”

The room fell quiet as Laurens walked back in.

“Here.”  He put the mug down on the table in front of Hamilton.  “I’m going to change.  I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“No problem,” Hamilton said guiltily.  He had forgotten that Laurens hadn’t left properly.  “Shit,” he commented to Lafayette once Laurens was gone again.  “Do you think he heard?”

“It’s fine,” Martha said.  “It’s not like it’s a big deal.”

Hamilton looked at her skeptically.  It had seemed like a big deal before.

Lafayette tried to shuffle again and made a mildly pleased sound with his results.

“I’m going to find John.”  Hamilton stood without touching his coffee.  He left the room.

“…Isn’t he changing?”  Harry asked as soon as Hamilton was out of sight.

Lafayette shushed him and handed back the deck.

In the foyer, Hamilton took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor and knocked on Laurens’ door.  “John?”

It opened a few moments later.  Laurens was half-dressed on the other side.

“Sorry.  Can I come in?”

Laurens stepped aside and then closed the door behind Hamilton.

Hamilton loitered awkwardly by the closet.  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.  “I don’t know what you heard.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”  Laurens sounded a little standoffish but not angry as he sorted through shirts in his drawers.  Hamilton watched his bare back.  “They’re right, anyway.  I don’t have anything to really complain about it.”

“C’mon, John, don’t give me that.”  Hamilton folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, still watching him.  “You know I know it sucks to not fit in anywhere.”

Laurens didn’t respond until after he had pulled a plain white t-shirt on over his head.  “…Yeah.”

“Nuances,” Hamilton said with an overly-emphasized roll of his eyes towards the ceiling.  “They’re completely lost on some people.”

“Harry’s a kid.  He hasn’t figured shit out yet, as much as he likes to think he has.”

“Right.”

“The same with Lafayette.”  Laurens was gathering up his things.  Wallet, keys, sunglasses.  “He thinks he knows my father better than I do.”

“Lafayette thinks he knows everyone better than the rest of us,” Hamilton said, willingly nudging Lafayette under the bus in order to spare himself for the time being.  “I’m thinking he should be a shrink?”

“Don’t you dare tell him that,” Laurens said.  Hamilton was relieved to hear the amusement around the edges of his words.  “He could still switch his major to that and then it’d be all your fault when that’s all we get to hear him talk about for the next…”  He trailed off.

“Two years?”  Hamilton suggested.  “Three?  Not sure how long he’d need to get those credits.”

“Yeah.  Anyway.”  Laurens changed the subject back as he fixed his hair in the mirror, combing product into it and carefully shaping it.  “This isn’t the first time he’s told me about my father.  At least you just bitch about him.”

“I figured only mothers and sisters are off limits,” Hamilton joked.

“Not always sisters.”

“Got it.”

“Doesn’t matter.”  Laurens put the comb down on his dresser and turned around.  “Are you ready to go?”

“I need to get dressed up more,” Hamilton teased, obviously raking his eyes over Laurens’ body.  “You’re outdoing me.”

“Shut up,” Laurens laughed.  “You look more like you’re heading down to the offices than I do.  Did you bring anything that wasn’t a button up?”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got parental immunity or some shit, I don’t know.  I figured it was better to be overdressed than under and besides, you were there when I was packing and you didn't stop me.  Is it true I can just sit in the car?”

“Why not?  I’m just going to run in and out.”

“All right.  Then we can get going.  I was going to have to dig up a tie or something otherwise.”

“I don’t think we have time for _that_.”

Hamilton was caught off guard by the joke and he looked at Laurens in surprise as he opened the door, then grinned.  “No?  Well, Lafayette was suggesting I rethink about how I schedule things, maybe once we’re back in New York I pencil that in?”

“Pervert.”

Hamilton laughed, pleased at how he had managed to turn things around so neatly, as he followed him down the stairs and to the garage.  “Are you worried about making it all fit?  I’m very flexible.  That’s two double entendres for me,” he added.  “Quadruple entendre?  I think I’m winning, is the point.”

“You’re so competitive.  You should pick up a sport.”

“Sex marathon,” Hamilton said immediately and a little louder than Laurens would have preferred, especially with the faint sound of someone running a vacuum somewhere in the house.  He saw the look he shot him and dropped his voice.  “Sorry.  It was a joke, anyway, but that’s my, uh, my fake…?  My fake sport.”

“That hat you got me would work for it.”  Laurens held the door to the garage and Hamilton walked through it and stood near the black sports car.

“Ha, yeah.  We’re taking this one?  Unless you’ve got a third hidden away somewhere.”

Laurens clicked the keys and the lights flashed.  “It’s unlocked.”

Hamilton got in on the passenger side and waited until Laurens was in as well and looking behind him as the garage door lifted.  “Hey, J.?”

Laurens glanced at him, his arm on the back of his chair as he was twisted to see directly out the rear window.  “Yeah?”

Hamilton fiddled with the air conditioner settings.  Suddenly he didn’t know how to ask what he wanted to know.

“Alex?”

He asked an adjacent question.  “How long were you dating Martha Manning?”

Laurens glanced at him in surprise as he finished backing the car out and then turned it around, taking them down the driveway and off the property.  “I guess about a year.  Why?”

“South Carolina.  Can’t help thinking about stuff.  Like that.”  Hamilton adjusted the dials again and put his hands in his lap, running them over one another.  “You took her to prom?”

Laurens was sitting stiffly.  “Yes.  I told you that.”

“I know you did.”  Hamilton looked at the trees out the window.  “I went to prom,” he said abruptly.  “Seems like the sort of thing I’d’ve missed out on, right?  I don’t have any pictures, though.  What the heck is the point of living in the twenty-first century if nothing’s up on social media?”

“Did no one take any pictures?”

“I dunno, I’m sure someone did.”  Hamilton ran one thumb over the other.  “I’m not friends with them.  I guess I should try to look them up.”

“It doesn’t really matter.”

Hamilton looked at him.  “I can’t show you anything though unless I do.”

Laurens shrugged.  “It’s not important.”

Hamilton looked back out the window.  “I guess not.”  He was silent for a minute.  “I don’t really have a good story from it.  Nothing dramatic.  We didn’t have some huge falling out.  She was just an acquaintance and…”  He trailed off, feeling like Laurens wasn’t interested anyway.  “Killer weave,” he added, more to himself than Laurens.  “She looked way hotter than I did.”  He heard Laurens laugh and he looked back.  “What?”

“No way,” Laurens said.  “You with your glasses and ponytail and suit?”  He grinned briefly at him.  “I’m surprised you weren’t prom king.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“I’m not sure.”

Hamilton snorted.  “I’m sorry not all of us can be beautiful.”

“Hey.”

Hamilton looked down, feeling his face heat.  Laurens had put his hand on top of his own.

“I think you’re plenty beautiful.”

“Are you going to teach me to drive?”  Hamilton said, throwing himself headlong into the role and turning his body towards his in the seat, lowering his voice to a purr and drawing Laurens’ hand to his inner thigh.  “Is that the real reason you brought me out here?”

Laurens hadn’t been expecting that and he reddened in spite of how he attempted to sound cool and unaffected.  “Maybe later.”  He put both his hands on the steering wheel.  “I need to get the stuff for Jemmy and drop these papers off.”

“Sure.”  Hamilton paused, then sat facing forward again.  He casually undid the first closed button on his shirt, then looked at Laurens to see if that had gotten any reaction.  Laurens was pointedly watching the road and he sighed.  “First you make fun of me and then you ignore me…”

“I’m not ignoring you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  Hamilton bit his lower lip.  Laurens glanced over at him and noticed.

“Don’t do that.”

“Huh?”

“You’re biting yourself.”

“’S the most action I’m getting out here, I might as well.”  Hamilton stopped and changed subjects.  “So did your mom use Spanish with you guys often?”

“Occasionally.”

“You never studied it in school, though, did you?  Did she not push lessons on you?”

“No.  I told you, I’m not very good.  I don’t remember much.”

“ _Qué lástima_.”

Laurens shot him a glance.  He breathed out harder than strictly necessary and sped the car up a little.  “Yeah.  Do you want to listen to music or something?  Unless the stations changed while I was away none of them are set to country but I’m sure we’ll still catch something you can make fun of on one of the more mainstream ones.”

“Yeah, sure,” Hamilton said reluctantly.  He found the dial for the radio and turned it on.  They rode the rest of the way into town with only the music to fill the silence.

 

“Daddy’s a politician.”

“ _Papa est un politicien._ ”

“ _Papa est un politicien._ ”

“ _Parfait_.”

“ _Merci_.”  Mary Eleanor did not look up from coloring on the large piece of butcher paper.  She was lying on her stomach with her legs kicked up in the air and she swung them as she worked.  “Jemmy is a student and Harry is a student and Martha is a student,” she said.

“ _Ils sont élèves._ ”  Lafayette was sorting the crayons into order by color, picking them out of the box one at a time and rearranging them to make a rainbow gradient.  “ _Et Jacky?_ ”

Mary Eleanor furrowed her brow as she vigorously colored in the green leaves on the tree that took up the entire length of the paper.  “ _Il est élève aussi._ ”

“Jacky is an _étudient_ ,” Lafayette corrected her.  “Because he is at university.”

“Oh.  Why does it matter?”

“I don’t know.”  He put the last of the yellow crayons away.  “That is just how it is.”

Mary Eleanor put out her hand.  “Darker green.”

He passed her an appropriate crayon and she went back to work.

“When Jacky graduates he’s going to be a politician, too.”

“Is he?”

“Yes.  He’s going to help Daddy.”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side, too interested to bother with the French lesson.  “Why do you say that?”

“Because Daddy says so and he’s not going to be around forever,” she said, obviously repeating back language she had already heard used.  “He’s going to get old one day and then Jacky will take over for him.  But until then he’s going to be a lawyer.”  She switched back to the lighter green.  “Do you know what a cardinal is?”

“They work with the pope.”

Mary Eleanor looked up at him with a frown of confusion.  “They’re _birds_.”

“Oh.”

She went back to coloring.  “I’m going to draw a banner and the cardinals can be holding it up.”

“Ah, like for a princess!”

“No,” Mary Eleanor said with dramatic patience, “for Jemmy.  It’s his birthday card.  Don’t you remember anything?”

Lafayette was not at all certain that she had explained what she was doing before starting (or that she hadn’t switched ideas halfway through), but he nodded.  “I see.  My mistake.”

“ _Pas grave._ ”

Lafayette watched her color for a minute and handed her the brown to fill in the trunk and branches.

“Does Jacky want to be a lawyer-politician?”

Mary Eleanor shrugged.  “Yes.”

“What about Martha?  Is she going to do that too?”

“No,” she said as she scrubbed in the bark.

“Why not?”

She shrugged again.

Lafayette tried a different track.  “Did you know that Jacky did not always want to be a politician-lawyer?”

Mary Eleanor stopped for a moment and looked up at him.

“It is true,” he said, encouraged.  “When he was younger he wanted to study medicine.”

“Jemmy likes science.  Pass me the red, please.”

They traded crayons.

“So does John,” Lafayette said, forgetting he wanted to use the nickname to tease him in his absence as well as the order of the words in the combination profession.  “He studied it when he was your sister’s age.  He stopped when he was in college because your father thought that he should learn about politics and the law instead.”

“Does he like it?”

“I think so,” Lafayette said.  “But it was not his first choice.”

“Oh.”

“Jacky is a good artist, too.  Have you ever seen his drawings?”

Mary Eleanor shook her head.  “No.  What does he draw?”

“He likes to draw things from real life.  He won a prize before for his drawings of birds.”

Mary Eleanor looked up halfway through her first carefully drawn cardinal, her mouth open in surprise and her eyes bright.

“They were published in a magazine,” Lafayette told her.  “Did you never see it?”

She shook her head vigorously.

“You should ask your sister,” Lafayette said.  “Maybe she can help you find them.  I’m sure there is a copy of the magazine somewhere in your house.”

“Okay!”

“I am glad that Jacky likes studying law and politics,” Lafayette said, delicately casual, as Mary Eleanor went back to her picture, “but I hope that you decide to study whatever you like the most, not just what you do not hate.  _Comprends-tu_?”

Mary Eleanor nodded.  Her braid fell over her shoulder.  “ _Oui_.  _Marie-Joseph_ ,” she began, getting distracted from her task and starting a new picture off to the side of a mounted knight in the same red crayon, “ _je veux être une chevalière_.”

 

Hamilton slid his seat all the way back and looked around the car in the dim light of the parking garage.  “Friggin’ tiny back here,” he muttered, leaning over and looking at the backseat.  “No wonder Lafayette’s knees were up by his tits.”

He leaned a little further over and tried to imagine how two people might fit comfortably and sideways.  If Laurens was already about as tall as he was now, and after having seen Francis…

“Guy’s not a giant,” Hamilton said under his breath, “but it’s not like he’s _tiny_.  I can’t figure how John’d get back here without accidentally kicking out a window…”

He slowly sat up and then slid the seat forward, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.  Just then Laurens opened the door and got back inside.

“Hey.  Dropped it off with his secretary.  Are you ready to head back?”

“Yeah.  Hey, John?”

“Mm?”  Laurens pulled them out of the parking stall and began to wind them back out through the structure.  What is it?”

“It’s a nice car.  When did you get it?”

“Sixteenth birthday present,” Laurens answered.  “My dad surprised me with it.”

Hamilton nodded wordlessly.

“It’s too crowded in town, but if you want I’ll let you try to drive it once we get back out onto the side roads,” Laurens said with a grin.  “What do you say?”

“…Better not.”  Hamilton tried to sound lighthearted if firm.  “I’d probably wreck something and it’d take me years to pay you back.”


	161. Role Model

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nature Gay

“Freedom fries.”  Hamilton was sitting at the high table where he had met up with Laurens on their first morning in South Carolina.  “Yea or nay?”

Lafayette, across from him with a mug of coffee that Mary Eleanor kept trying to dip her candy in, looked conflicted.

“I mean they cut the word ‘French’ out, but they’re not French to begin with.  And it was for this weird patriotic ethnocentric backlash— _that’s_ your food diplomacy,” he said, putting his own mug down and talking more enthusiastically.  “What did I say before, Coca Cola?  This is—you wanna make notes on this?  Is there already a book specifically looking at this in the context of the US and France in the last century?”

Lafayette was distracted, making shushing noises at Mary Eleanor as she put her hands firmly on his own to pull his mug towards her.  “ _C’est un café au lait,_ _ma cherie_ , it is very bitter and I don't think you will like it.”

“Let the kid caffeinate,” Hamilton said.  “You already gave her hard candy for breakfast two days in a row.”

Lafayette looked a little guilty and turned back to Mary Eleanor.  “We will brush our teeth after this, won’t we, Henriette?”

“Freedom fries, Coke…  It should talk about champagne in the introduction,” Hamilton mused, “give it as a counterpoint and it would be useful to set the whole thing up.  I’d say make it the last chapter, but it’s outside the timeframe.”

“I already put sugar and cream in this,” Lafayette was saying meanwhile.  “I do not need anymore, thank you.”

“Should’ve stuck with coffee black,” Hamilton said, taking a sip of his own unadulterated coffee.  “Kid repellant.  Also don’t lie and tell her it’s bitter, I saw how many spoonfuls of sugar you put in that thing.  I bet it’s all sludge at the bottom.”

Lafayette gave a resigned sigh and handed his mug over to Mary Eleanor.  “Why are you making my life hard?”  He asked Hamilton.

“Sorry.”  Hamilton took another drink.  “You did show her how to dip things into it, though.”

“We were having a lesson on etiquette and culture,” Lafayette protested.

“ _Faire un canard!_ ”

“ _Bien_ ,” Lafayette said fondly to Mary Eleanor, taking his mug back from her.

“You should make croissants,” Hamilton said, taking a bite of a leftover dinner roll from Thanksgiving.  “Not that this house needs any more food in it right now.  Did you see the size of their fridge?”  He asked.  “Seriously.  I think that thing gave _birth_ to mine—”  Hamilton cut himself off as Laurens, trailed by an enthusiastically talking Jemmy, entered the room.  “Good morning.  You guys look… dapper.”

Laurens glanced down at himself.  A plaid shirt and thick jeans tucked into boots.  “We’re going on an excursion.”

Jemmy, dressed like a miniature version of his older brother, even down to the same color plaid, nodded eagerly.  “There’s a forest out back and a stream’s in it and we’re going to go follow it and see if we can find anything cool.”

“Neat.”  Hamilton took another drink from his mug.  “Have fun.  Hey, happy birthday, by the way,” he added.

Jemmy smiled broadly.  “Thank you.”

“Are you excited?”  Lafayette asked, putting his mug down on the table and safely out of Mary Eleanor’s reach.

“Yeah,” Jemmy said, barely managing to restrain himself in an attempt to sound cool.  “I’m twelve now.”

“Ah,” Lafayette said, nodding wisely.  “That is a very good age.  That is how old my girlfriend was when we met.”

Hamilton snorted into his mug.

Laurens nudged Jemmy.  He looked up at him in confusion for a moment, then his eyes widened.

“Oh!  We wanted to know if either of you would like to come with us.”

“On your…”  Hamilton wasn’t sure what to call it.  “Nature ramble?”

“We don’t want to intrude,” Lafayette answered for both of them.  “Besides,” he went on, “your birthday is today and if we go with you we will have no time to wrap your present.”

Hamilton glanced at Lafayette in mild horror.  Lafayette made a reassuring gesture at him without looking away from Jemmy.

Jemmy nodded, more than satisfied with that answer.  “All right.  Jack,” he began, looking up at Laurens again.

“Grab breakfast, take your meds.”  Laurens sat down at the table as Jemmy disappeared into the kitchenette.  “Get two water bottles,” he called after him.  “Last time you drank all of mine!”

“Do we have a present?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette as soon as he felt the coast was clear.  “Because I swear to God, Lafayette, if you John has something and _you_ have something and I don’t—”

“We are sharing,” Lafayette said.  “I saw books on different states at the register yesterday and I bought the one on New York.  It was one of several impulse buys.”

“Where was I?”

“Looking for the hat.”

“Right.”

Jemmy came back out with two metal water bottles and already halfway through a breakfast bar.  “‘et’s go,” he said impatiently.

Laurens took Hamilton’s mug and drained it to a noise of protest.

“J., _seriously_ …”

Laurens stood and shoved him playfully, then took both water bottles from Jemmy, leading the way back out towards the front door.  “Did you bring my backpack out already?”

“It’s by the door with the jackets.”  Jemmy was practically running circles around him.  “Come _on_ , Jack.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”  Laurens crouched on the floor for a second to finish packing the bag, then stood, pulling it on as he did.  “Right.  You think we can find a turtle this time?”

“I don’t think there are any.”  Jemmy pulled his bag on and got the door and stepped out, waiting for Laurens on the front landing.  “I think you never actually found one.”

“I had it as a pet,” Laurens protested as the two of them headed around the building.  “You were old enough to remember it.”

“I dunno.”  Jemmy shrugged.  “You’re really old.”

“Hey, watch it.”

“Did you like being twelve?”  Jemmy asked, doing up his jacket against the cool air and fumbling repeatedly with the zip pull.

“Yeah.”  Laurens stopped walking to let him concentrate on getting it.  “It was a pretty good year, all things considered.  Although,” he added, “Martha was Mary Eleanor’s age and Harry was a toddler, so just think about _that_.”

Jemmy laughed.  He finally got the zipper in properly and pulled it up all the way.  “I bet they were really annoying.”

“Martha wasn’t too bad,” Laurens admitted.  “Harry’s always been a little baby.”

Jemmy grinned, eager to hear gossip about his older siblings even though it wasn’t anything he didn’t already know.  “Was he?”

“Oh, yeah,” Laurens said.  “You’re way easier to get along with.  He was always crying and wanted so much attention.”

“Like Mary Eleanor.”

“She’s got a better attitude than he does.  I swear,” Laurens said, “out of all of you, he’s the only one who ever did the full tantrum, lying on the ground, kicking and screaming in the grocery store.  Mary Eleanor’s gotten put out before and cried but she’s an angel in comparison.”

“What about me?”

Laurens smiled and tossed his arm around Jemmy’s shoulders for a second, pulling him close.  “You’re not bad, kid.”

Jemmy beamed up at him.

“So how’s the school year going?”  Laurens asked as he released him and they kept walking.  “Third grade’s a big year,” he teased.

“ _Sixth_ ,” Jemmy protested.  “You knew that!”

“Sixth grade,” Laurens said, intentionally kicking a small rock ahead of him.  “I liked sixth grade.”

“You were on the middle school’s team,” Jemmy said, able to recite Laurens’ accomplishments as if he was a figure on a trading card.  “Football and baseball.”

“Yeah.  I only did baseball for a couple seasons, though.”

“You liked football more.”

“That’s right.”  Laurens watched as Jemmy kicked at a rock as well, imitating him, and changed the subject.  “So is science still your favorite class?”

“Yeah.  It’s really cool, I like how you can learn how everything works and stuff.”  He kicked the rock again and it got lost in the shrubbery along the side of the house.  “Like, we had a unit, on dinosaurs, and the teacher was telling us about how the old pictures of them are wrong and why people made those mistakes and how we should be thinking about them instead.  She said it was like if you only had the bones of a regular bird like an owl or something and then you didn’t know that there were any feathers so you tried to draw it, what you think it looked like, and you’d end up with something totally different.”

Laurens nodded.  “Very neat.  Not as scary, though.”

“It’s more _accurate_ ,” Jemmy said.  “It doesn’t matter if it’s _scary_.”

“Tell that to Hollywood.”

“Birds can be scary,” Jemmy said after a pause.  “There’s a girl in my class who’s scared of birds.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded.  “Like if they fly at her on the playground or something she screams and throws her arms up over her face, like this.”  He imitated the gesture.

Laurens laughed.  “Bet she didn’t like that science lesson.”

Jemmy considered that.  “They weren’t flying at her,” he finally said.  “And they’re dead.”

“True.”

“She’s okay with lizards,” Jemmy went on as they passed the back of the house and headed across the field towards the nearest of the trees.  “We had a guy come in one day and he brought lizards and snakes with him and we got to hold them and she didn’t mind holding them even though not everyone wanted to.”

“What did he bring?”

“A milk snake,” Jemmy answered, listing the animals promptly.  “And a bearded dragon and a skink and a box turtle and a monitor lizard.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Laurens agreed readily.  “Which was your favorite?”

“I dunno.  Maybe the milk snake.  Do you know that they look almost exactly like coral snakes but they’re not venomous?  You can tell them apart by what the order of their stripes are and if you have a hard time remembering, there’s a poem.  ‘Red on yellow kills a fellow.  Red on black, venom lack.’”  Jemmy looked up at him, eager for approval.

“That’s an important one,” Laurens said, nodding.  “Definitely good to remember.”

“I had already heard it,” Jemmy bragged.  “I read it somewhere.”

“Yeah?  Where?”

“I don’t remember.”

Laurens grinned and shook his head.  “You’re just like Alex,” he told him.  “You’re always learning new things.  That’s good,” he clarified.  “You should keep it up.”

“Science was your favorite subject, right?”

“When I was in grade school.”

“But not anymore?”

Laurens thought of the courses he had taken in college, of the one science class.  “No.”

“Why’d you stop liking it?”

“I still like it,” Laurens corrected him.  “I just like other things too.  Like politics and law.”

“ _I_ like it,” Jemmy declared.  “That’s what I’m going to study when I go to college.”

“You might change your mind,” Laurens warned.  “Don’t lock yourself in.”  He lost the rock he had managed to kick until then and put his hands in his pockets.

“Why did you change your mind?”

Laurens hesitated.  “I realized there were better career opportunities if I went into law.”

Jemmy thought about that and nodded.

“…So what’s your least favorite class?”  Laurens asked.  “An actual class, not something like Phys Ed.”

Jemmy shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I like school.”

“Even though they gave you homework over break?”

“That was mean,” Jemmy agreed, pulling a face.  “Who _does_ that?”

Laurens laughed and bent down, picking a thin branch off the ground and breaking off the few twigs on it.  “Your favorite science teacher, that’s who.”

“She’s just my regular teacher,” Jemmy protested.  “She teaches all the main subjects.”

“Same idea.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Laurens whipped the branch in the air in front of them as they passed between the first of the trees.  “I used to play soldiers out here.  I bet the fort we dug out is still here somewhere.”

“Can we find it?”

“I thought we were headed down to the stream, kid.  Thought you wanted to go looking for animals.”

“Did you know that you’re not supposed to pick turtles up by their shells?”  Jemmy asked, distracted and eager.  “That’s because their spines are fused to them so you’re actually going to hurt them if you do it that way.  You’re supposed to support them underneath instead.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “I told you, I had one as a pet.  You really don’t remember?”

“No.”

Laurens frowned.  “Well, I did.”

“What happened to it?”

“It ran away.”

Jemmy laughed.  “How does a turtle run away?”

“Hey, they’re not as slow as people think.  We had it in a tank out back and were letting it walk around in the yard and I guess we all just got distracted.”

“That’s dumb.”

“A little,” Laurens conceded.  “There’s got to be pictures somewhere of you with it.  I’ll look later and prove it to you.”

“I’d like a snake,” Jemmy said.  “A big one.”  He drew his arms out.  “I’d bring it to school for a presentation and show it to everyone.  I’d let people hold it.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens asked, already knowing the question would encourage him on.

“Yeah, and—some snakes eat birds, did you know that?”

The shift back to a previous point caught Laurens almost off guard, but he nodded and whipped the stick in the air again, enjoying the sound.

“I did.  They’re carnivores.”

“I thought they only ate mice and stuff.  Because they can’t fly so how can they hunt birds?  But cats eat birds too,” he reasoned, “so it makes sense.”

“They eat the eggs.”

“They can eat actual live birds, too.  That’s what the guy from the nature center told us.  Sometimes the really big ones even hunt, like, deer and pigs and stuff.”  Jemmy fell silent, following a half step behind his brother through the woods.  “Did you know where Guam is?”

“Where?”

“It’s an island in Micronesia, which is in the Western Pacific.  It’s between Australia and Japan.”

“That’s pretty far away.  Did you learn about it in class, too?”

Jemmy nodded.  “They used to have a lot of birds but then people introduced the brown tree snake and it ate all of them.  But that’s not really true,” he went on, “because there are still some birds in cages and stuff.  People just say that there aren’t any more because that’s easier and it’s kind of true because most of them are dead but if you go to the airport there’s a group of scientists there who are studying them and they have some in an enclosure and they’re trying to breed them.”

“That’s cool,” Laurens said.  “I didn't know that.”

Jemmy beamed.  “The girl in my class—”

“The one who doesn't like birds?”  Laurens interrupted as he pushed a leafy branch out of his way.

“Right!  She said that she wanted to live somewhere without them but then when the guy told us about Guam she said that it was sad that they were mostly all eaten by the snakes.”

“That’s good that she doesn’t actually want to kill them all.”

“No, she doesn’t want to hurt them,” Jemmy said.  “She’s just afraid of them.”

They walked in silence for a minute.  The only sounds were of their footsteps on the overgrown path and the forest around them.

“What’s it like to have a girlfriend?”

Laurens had been thinking absently about how the trees on the property were still more heavily foliaged than he had expected and wondering when the leaves would start to fall en masse and Jemmy’s question hit him like a physical blow.

“What?”  Heart in his throat, terror in his eyes.

Jemmy made an embarrassed and self-explanatory noise behind him.

“Do you like your classmate?”  Laurens managed to ask, not turning back to look at him.

“Yeah.  I think so?  Maybe.”

“She sounds nice.”

“I like talking to her.  And we have fun together when the teacher partners us up.”

“That’s good.  That’s important.”

Laurens could hear the uncertainty in Jemmy’s voice when he spoke again.

“How do I know if she likes me?”

The anxiety Laurens had felt was pushed away by a sudden protective anger.  “Of course she’ll like you back.  If she doesn’t then she’s not worth your time.  You’re smart.”  He looked back at Jemmy finally, seeing him holding the straps of his backpack uncertainly, his narrow frame not yet filling out his clothes and seeming smaller under his thick curls.  “Good looking.”  Jemmy seemed skeptical so he continued.  “Yeah, come on, you look just like I did at your age.  Are you going to insult me too, now?”

Jemmy cracked a grin and Laurens went on, pretending to be offended even though they both knew he was teasing.

“Are you laughing at me?  Those’re fighting words, kid!”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Yeah, but I saw it in your eyes.  You’re thinking, ‘man, I’m so much better looking than Jack ever was.  He’s deluding himself if he thinks he was ever as hot as I am.’”

Jemmy laughed, sounding very young, and Laurens smiled in relief.

“C’mere, you little jerk.”  He stepped closer and slung his arm across his shoulders again.  “If you keep sass-talking me I’m gonna give you a noogie.”

Jemmy protested and squirmed away, still laughing, and Laurens pushed the side of his head lightly.

“‘How do I know if she likes me?’”  He rolled his eyes dramatically and kept walking, now staying at Jemmy’s side even though it meant scraping up against plant life along the side of the path.

“I think she’s really pretty,” Jemmy said shyly.

“You should talk to my friend André,” Laurens said.  “He’s all about girls, I bet he’d have all kinds of tips for you.”

“Are they good tips?”

“Not really.”  Laurens hit a boulder with the stick as they passed it.  It snapped with a loud crack and he discarded it.  “But the guy’s got determination, I have to give him that.  And he’s got a girlfriend right now, so I guess sometimes they do work.”

“Do you have any tips?”

Laurens glanced down.  Jemmy was watching him earnestly.  He looked forward again.  “Do your friends like her?”

“I guess.”

“See if you can do a group thing with her.  Maybe you and your friends and she and her friends can all go to the movies or something.”

“Is that what you used to do?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Yeah.”

Jemmy picked a yellowing leaf off a branch as they passed and attempted to toss it ahead of them but it just fluttered up and down.  “You don’t have a girlfriend.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I don’t want one.  You don’t have to have one if you don’t want one.”

“Oh.”

Laurens felt his chest tight, his heart stretched thin between the different versions of what he could tell him.

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try if you like her,” he said.  “You should. And you should let me know how it goes.  I do like someone,” he added.  “But I don’t think Dad would approve and I don’t—right now I don’t want to deal with that.”

“Oh.”

Laurens looked down, his heart racing.  Jemmy was considering this with the same casual curiosity as a lesson at school.

“Do you think Dad’ll be mad at me?”

“No,” Laurens said quickly.  “No, no I don’t.  You don’t need to worry about that, okay?  This is not—you’re fine, kid.”  Jemmy looked up at him unsure and he doubled down on his protest.  “Trust me, okay?  This is not about you at all.  It’s just a—it’s just a thing between us.  You’re good.  In fact,” he continued, “I bet you anything he’ll be really excited for you.”

Jemmy smiled.  Laurens breathed deeply with relief.

“Okay,” Jemmy said.  “Thanks.”

“You should show me a picture of her later,” Laurens said.  “After we get back to the house.”

“Okay,” Jemmy said, more enthusiastically.  “I have pictures from when we went to the water park.”

“Great.”

“Can we maybe trade?”  Jemmy asked tentatively.  “Like, if I show you then can you show me the girl you like too?”

There was a fleeting moment where Laurens considered agreeing and then showing him a picture of someone else.  Peggy.  He had a feeling without really being able to back it up with any proof that she would be willing to go along with it, especially if he told her that it was already done.

“I—”  His pride caught hard, like a bone in his throat, like the barbs on an arrow that would tear flesh if pulled out backwards.  “He’s not a girl.”  The world felt very small suddenly, just the two of them in a little patch of forest that didn’t extend beyond the trees currently in sight.  “I like Alexander.  I’m dating him.  He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh.”  A pause while he digested this new information.  “Okay.  Is that why he and Lafayette are visiting?”

Laurens felt a rush of nervous relief as the world stretched back to its normal dimensions.  “Yeah.  Well, and because Lafayette’s trying to visit all fifty states.”

“He should go to the Grand Canyon,” Jemmy said.  “I learned in school that the whole thing was made by erosion and if you look down you can see the river at the bottom still that carved it all.”

Laurens grinned at him and ruffled his curly hair in lieu of pulling him close.  “Know-it-all.  When we get back you should tell Lafayette that.  I bet you know more about it than he does and you should see how excited he gets talking about the United States.”


	162. Heteronormative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea Party; Carpe Diem; Support

“South Carolina was the eighth state and the first battle of the Civil War was in South Carolina at Fort Sumpter and it was the first state to leave the rest of them and South Carolina is named after King Charles I.”

Hamilton adjusted his seat on the carpeted floor of Mary Eleanor’s room.  “Very educational.”

Mary Eleanor carefully poured three cups of real tea into real chinaware, a gold fabric crown resting on top of her long hair.  “I know.”

Lafayette flicked his—probably real—blue silk cape over his shoulder with an exaggeratedly dismissive noise.  “ _England_.”

“He was also the king of Ireland and Scotland.”

“Oh, that makes it better,” Hamilton joked awkwardly.  “I’m pretty sure I’m part Scottish,” he explained to Lafayette.

“Are you from France too?”  Mary Eleanor asked.

“Me?”  Hamilton fiddled with the costume brooch pinned to his shirt collar.  “Nah.  I’m from the Caribbean.  It’s down south, below Florida.”

“I know where it is,” Mary Eleanor said, sounding a little offended.

Hamilton laughed.  “I’m sorry.”

“Martha showed me,” Mary Eleanor said.  “In her atlas.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton grinned and lifted his teacup to his mouth, taking a careful sip.  “Why did that come up?”

Mary Eleanor gave him a look as if she was judging him for not seeing the most obvious thing.  “Because of the postcard.”

Hamilton had been about to crack some joke to Lafayette but he abruptly remembered Martha in the car having just picked them up from the train station and mentioning the postcard and he realized what had made him so nervous.  “Oh, right,” he said as casually as possible.  “I forgot about that.  Did Martha read it to you?”

“No.”  Mary Eleanor took a leftover slice of Thanksgiving pie off of the silver serving tray on the tea cart parked next to them and handed it to Lafayette.  “Jemmy read it to all of us.”

Hamilton felt the blood rush from his head.

Lafayette looked between them with concern.  “It did not say anything bad, did it?  John would not write anything bad.”

“He said that he and Alexander went to Vermont to see the leaves because Alexander is from the Caribbean and he had never seen them before,” Mary Eleanor said.

“It wasn’t bad,” Hamilton said.  “But,” he went on, ignoring Mary Eleanor and talking directly to Lafayette, “in context, with everything else.  Henry Laruens isn’t stupid.  You don’t think he hasn’t—?”

“He didn’t say anything to me.”

“You spent time with him before dinner.”

Lafayette nodded uncomfortably.

“Shit.  _Shit_ …”

“That’s a bad word,” Mary Eleanor scolded.

“Sorry.”

“Mary Eleanor,” Lafayette said promptly, “this tea is delicious.  There is lavender in here, isn’t there?  Did you grow it yourself?”

“It’s from Provence.”

“Provence,” he corrected her pronunciation and looked at his cup, impressed in spite of himself and the situation.

“That’s in France,” Mary Eleanor told Hamilton.

“I know—Lafayette,” Hamilton protested.

Lafayette shrugged, a little helplessly.  “I don’t know.  It is done.  We are about to leave anyway.  Maybe we won’t even see him again.”

“Daddy is going to drive you to the train station,” Mary Eleanor piped up.  “I heard him telling his secretary on the phone.”

Hamilton groaned.

“Ah.”  Lafayette laughed nervously.  “Well then.  Alexander, help me think of more things to talk to him about, I used up many already.”

There was a knock on the closed door and Mary Eleanor jumped up and ran to the door.  “Sandwiches!  It’s the sand—Oh.”  Henry Laurens was on the other side of the door.  “Hi, Daddy.”

He knelt down to talk to her face to face.  “And what are you all doing in here?”

“We’re having a conference,” she informed him, motioning to the tea party behind her.  “It’s very important.”

“Oh, I see,” he said indulgently, reaching forward and nudging her cheek with his closed hand.

She giggled and grabbed his arm, tugging him lightly forward.  “Come to our meeting!  You can be the guest speaker.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, standing but letting her keep his hand.  “I was hoping I’d find you here,” he said, looking past her.  Hamilton realized with a start that he was looking at him, not at Lafayette.  “We didn't get the chance to talk,” he said as Mary Eleanor took her place at the low table again.  “Alexander. Do you have a few minutes?”

Hamilton nodded, his mouth dry.  He stood and handed the brooch to Lafayette.  “Sure.”  He followed Henry Laurens out of the room and closed the door quietly behind them.  “So, uh.  What’s up?”  Why stand on formality when he was surely in deep shit anyway?

“Jack’s very close with you, isn’t he?”  Henry Laurens asked as he led him downstairs.

“Yeah, uh, yeah, you could say that.”

“He talks about you a lot.”

Hamilton winced internally.  Damnit, John.  “Does he?”

“Yes.  Practically every time I speak to him, as much as he tries to keep me out of his life.”

“He’s a good friend,” Hamilton said, trying to find his footing.

“How did you two meet?”

“Through Lafayette.  Mostly.  I had class with him before but we didn’t…”

“You didn’t become close until you were assigned to Lafayette?”

“Right.”  Hamilton nodded.  “For his first semester on exchange, the school partnered me with him.  Lafayette’s real smart,” he said, trying to change the subject.  “His English skills have really—”

“Forgive me,” Henry Laurens said, cutting him off and bringing him back to the original subject as they reached the bottom of the stairs and he motioned him into the living room.  “You take your coffee black, don’t you?”  Two cups already sat on the table between the sofa and chairs.

Hamilton felt his heart sink.  “Yeah.”  Trapped.

“I thought so.  I’m the same.”  He sat in one of the chairs and Hamilton sat on the couch, just far enough away that he felt like he could almost breathe.  “If it’s a good blend then sugar and cream just dilutes it.  It’s too fussy.”  He didn’t pick up his cup but he motioned Hamilton towards his.  “Please.”

Hamilton picked it up and held it in his hands in front of him.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “What did you want to see me about?”

“I just wanted to get to know you a little better.  You and Jack seem to spend a lot of time together.  He took you up to New England, the two of you traveled together in France…  It sounds almost like he spends more time with you these days than with his old friends.”

Hamilton couldn’t bring himself to take a drink.  “I don’t know about that.”

“That’s just the impression I get from talking to him.  I am his father,” Henry Laurens said, “I can’t help but be interested in his life, even if he won’t tell me all of it.  You’ll understand when you have children of your own someday.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“Mm.”  Henry Laurens picked up his mug and took a sip.  “Don’t mind me.  I’m getting ahead of myself there.  Maybe you plan on remaining a bachelor forever.  That’s not a bad life, either.”

“No,” Hamilton said, not stopping to think. “I don’t want that.”

“Oh?”  Henry Laurens was watching him with keen interest.  “A family man?”

“Yes.  I…”  Hamilton hesitated, then figured that just like he had looked Henry Laurens up before, he had probably done the same to him.  “I never had a really stable home life.  My father was never around and my mother died when I was young.  I bounced around a while.  I’d like something a little more secure.”

Henry Laurens’ coffee was back on the table and he was watching him behind folded hands.

Hamilton met his gaze steadily.  “I’ve worked very hard to make that possible.  As John probably told you, I’m going to graduate this spring, a year early.  I’ve earned my 4.0.  I’m,” he stumbled over his sentence.  “It gets very hectic working for Washington on top of it all, plus student council.  I’m between planners,” he joked.  “Just about wore mine out.  You know how it goes.  But like I told you before, I don’t mind the work.”  He watched as Henry Laurens nodded and then pushed a little further.  “I’m going to internship with Philip Schuyler.  He’s already offered me a position with his firm once I get my degree.”

That earned him a flicker of surprise.

“Schuyler?”

“Yes.”  Firm.

Henry Laurens reached forward and picked up his cup again.  He took a drink.  “Philip is a good lawyer.  I’ve never worked in New York and I don’t have many contacts up there, but I’ve heard good things about him.”

Hamilton nodded.  “I met him through his daughter.  I was having dinner with them while John was playing in Boston.”

The surprise on Henry Laurens’ face deepened into sustained interest.  “Did you?  Is she a classmate of yours?”

“Eliza.  Yes.”

Henry Laurens nodded again.  “The Schuylers are a good family,” he said.  “I’ve never heard a bad word spoken against them.  You picked your friends well.”

“I have a knack for that,” Hamilton said, not entirely sure if he was cracking a very dry joke or not.

Henry Laurens laughed.  “Ah, Eliza…  That’s a pretty name.”

“Yes.”

“Are you two…?”

“I…”  The words caught in his throat.  “No.  I’m not dating her.  Like I said before.”

“Why not?  Call me old fashioned, but if a girl brings a young man home to her parents for dinner it means she thinks highly of him.”

Hamilton closed his eyes against what Henry Laurens was saying.  “It wouldn’t work out.”

“Why not?”  He asked again.  Hamilton didn’t answer and the silence grew.  Henry Laurens eventually sighed sympathetically and leaned forward a little.  “Let me tell you something.  When I met my Eleanor—”  Hamilton’s eyes snapped open.  “—she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life and I was afraid to commit to her, too, even though I knew she liked me.”

Hamilton nodded, too startled to react otherwise.

“She was wonderful,” Henry Laurens went on with a distant fond smile.  “Beautiful, like I said.  Smart.  Charming.  From a good family.  Does she sound like anyone you know?”

Hamilton nodded again.

“I was nervous about things becoming serious with her,” he said, “especially when I let myself think about what it would be like to start a family with her.  The disadvantage our children would have, from circumstances wholly beyond their control, condemned just because of our love.  I never looked at it as marrying down,” he said, “but there is a limit to what I can do for my children, even with everything I have to offer them.  Power and money cannot change their biological inheritance.”

“It can mitigate it.”

Henry Laurens looked mildly surprised at Hamilton’s interjection, but he just smiled and nodded.  “Yes.  That it can.”

“You do a lot for John.”  Hamilton was finding his voice again.  “You buy him things.  I know that when he spends his money it’s really yours.  You taught him how to speak.”

“Jack is a very intelligent boy.”  Henry Laurens sighed again, more sadly this time.  “I want the world for him.”

Hamilton just stopped himself from agreeing.

“I had no idea how I could tell our future children that they were born with targets on their backs because of the color of their skin,” Henry Laurens went on.  “I thought it would be too selfish of me to dare to bring them into this world.”  He took a slow drink.  “And yet,” he continued, “I did.”

Hamilton couldn’t help himself.  “Why?”

“I loved her,” he said simply.  “And that is reason enough to act and learn how to deal with the consequences.”

Neither of them said anything for several minutes.  Hamilton finally took a drink from his cup, the coffee now lukewarm.

“I’m sorry,” Hamilton finally said, finding that he meant it.  “About your wife.”

Henry Laurens put down his near-empty cup.  “Thank you.”

“John hardly talks about her.”

“It was very hard on him.  On all of us.”

“My mother,” Hamilton started tentatively, “when she died, it was very sudden.  Yellow fever.  Very sudden.  I was sick, too, I don’t remember a lot of the details.  John,” he tried, “I can tell how much they loved each other.”

“You should call up your Eliza,” Henry Laurens said.  “Once you are back in the city.  We’re only in this world for a short period of time.  Don’t waste it worrying that the future you see with her couldn’t possibly be as good as you imagine it.”

 

“Were you dating him when you went to Vermont?”

Laurens grinned, both a little nervous and thrilled.  “Yeah.”

“Have you kissed him yet?”

Laurens laughed.  “Yes.”

Jemmy looked impressed.

“All right,” Laurens said as they approached the front door to the house.  “Do you remember what we agreed on?”

“This is our secret,” Jemmy replied.  “So don’t tell anyone.”

“Right.”  Laurens paused.  “Actually, I guess Martha’s okay.”

“Okay.  But not dad.”

“That’s right.”  Laurens gave Jemmy his fist to bump before opening the door.  “Hello?”  He called.  “We’re back!”

“Jack,” Henry Laurens said, coming into view from the living room.  “And Jemmy.”  He checked his watch.  “I think we just have time to have your early birthday lunch before I have to take the boys back to the train station.”

Hamilton stepped quietly out behind Henry Laurens.

“I’m going to wash up first,” Laurens said, looking between Hamilton and his father in mild surprise and concern.  He clapped Jemmy on the shoulder.  “He insisted we head all the way downstream to where it splits.  I’m going to…”  He motioned towards the stairs, looking questioningly at Hamilton again.

“I should check my email,” Hamilton said, taking the cue and making an excuse to follow after him.  “Excuse me,” he said to Henry Laurens.

Jemmy passed him, eagerly talking to his father about all the things they had seen, and Hamilton followed Laurens upstairs.

“What was that about?”  Laurens asked quietly once they were out of earshot.

“Don’t worry,” Hamilton said.

Laurens was surprised by how calm he sounded.

“It’s fine.  He just wanted to talk.”  Laurens gave him a skeptical look and Hamilton shrugged.  “It’s fine.”

“Just a couple more hours and we’ll be on the train back North.”

Hamilton smiled.  “Yeah.”

“Where’s Lafayette?”

“Probably Narnia by now.”  He motioned towards Mary Eleanor’s room.

“Got it.”  Laurens hesitated where they had to split off.  “You’re really okay?”

Hamilton nodded.  “I’m serious, John.  It was—he was fine.”

Laurens breathed out slowly in relief.  “Good.  I’m going to shower quickly.”

“I’ll meet you back downstairs.”

Laurens headed to his room and by the time he opened the door he was grinning secretly to himself.  He took his phone out and sent a message.

 

> J. Laurens: I told my brother

> J. André: Which?  Jemmy?

 

The response had come quickly and Laurens texted as he striped his outer layers off and headed in just jeans and a tank to his bathroom.

 

> J. Laurens: Yeah.

 

André replied with a “Congratulations” that triggered an explosion of confetti on his screen and his grin broadened.  Congratulations.


	163. We Need to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

“You’ll have to come back sometime,” Henry Laurens was saying as he drove them back to the train station.  “Are you sure you’ll be able to manage all of your luggage on the train?  We can always mail some of it to you.”

“We’ll be fine,” Lafayette said in the back of the SUV, his bag on the seat between him and Hamilton and the bulk of their purchases in the trunk behind them.  “Won’t we?”  He asked Hamilton.

“I think we can manage.”  Hamilton was holding three large tupperware containers of Thanksgiving leftovers in his lap, neatly labeled with their names.  “Thank you for the food,” he added.

“Thank you,” Lafayette agreed.

“You’re welcome.”  Henry Laurens said, then glanced at his son in the front passenger seat.  “Jack, make sure you invite your friends back for Christmas break,” he instructed.

“Right.”  Laurens smiled and then twisted to talk to the other two.  “You guys should come back in December.”

“I think I will be going to France for Christmas,” Lafayette said.  “I think Adrienne would be very disappointed if I did not.”

“Alex?”

“Yes,” Lafayette assured him.  “He is a very polite boy and will consider your invitation.”

The car pulled into the station.  Henry Laurens brought it to a stop in the loading zone right where Martha had picked them up at the start of the week.

“Jack,” he instructed, “get the luggage from the trunk.”

“Yessir.”

Lafayette got out of the car a moment after Laurens, pulling his bag over his shoulder and slamming the door.  Hamilton shifted the food to the seat next to him and was about to get out as well when Henry Laurens turned to face him.

“Alexander.”

Hamilton froze.  The tone had been uncomfortably serious.

“I wanted to thank you again before you left.”

Hamilton nodded.  He had to force himself to maintain eye contact.

“Jack… cares a lot for you.  I’m not blind.  He’s always had a tendency to get very attached to certain of his friends.  Thank you for not being hard on him.”  Henry Laurens took a finely bound leather scheduler out of the compartment on the driver’s side door and put it into Hamilton’s hands.  “A gift.  To mark my gratitude.”

Hamilton felt the buttery leather and uncreased spine as he turned it over and then opened it automatically.  Several hundred dollars were pressed between the cover and the front page.  His eyes widened and he looked back up at Henry Laurens.

“I—”

Henry Laurens pressed the book closed and left one hand on top of Hamilton’s, keeping him from passing it back.  “A gift,” he repeated.  Desperation lurked under the serene façade.  “Jack’s told me enough.  I know you could use the money.”

Outside Hamilton could hear Laurens talking to Lafayette as he maneuvered the sunlamp out of the trunk and onto the sidewalk.  He must have already gotten the smaller items that had been in front of it.  In a moment he would be finished and—

“Alex?”  Laurens knocked on the window.  His voice was muffled through the door.  “Come on, we have to go.”

“I can’t take this.”  Hamilton’s voice was just above a panicked whisper.  “I’m sorry.”

“For all you’ve done for Jack.”  Henry Laurens had dropped his voice as well and was talking more rapidly.  “I’ve seen how he looks at you.  At the dinner at the start of the semester.  Over Thanksgiving.  I know that must have been very awkward for you.  The way he talked to you at the table.  He can’t help but talk about you.  He can’t help himself.  And you’ve been very kind to him.  You’ve had to handle all of it.  That can’t have been easy.  And you stayed his friend through all of it, in spite of how uncomfortable it must have been.”

“Sir,” Hamilton tried, hoping to get his attention with the title even though it felt awkward on his tongue.

Henry Laurens shook his head and pressed the scheduler more firmly into his hands.  “For your trouble.  Thank you.”  When Hamilton opened his mouth again to protest, Henry Laurens added, “Go after the girl.”

Before Hamilton could say anything else, Laurens opened the door from the outside.

“Hey,” he protested.  “Alex, we need to get going.”

“My apologies,” Henry Laurens said.  “I was just saying farewell.  It was nice meeting you, Alexander Hamilton.”

Laurens was already leaning over him to get the food and Hamilton climbed out of the car, still in shock.

Laurens said his goodbyes to his father over his shoulder and then the door closed and the car drove away and Laurens said, “here,” and handed him his bag and ticket and he took the food again so Laurens could carry the lamp and Lafayette could balance the rest of it precariously.

“John,” Hamilton tried as they made their way through the station and to the correct track.  Their train was already waiting and he got on and deposited his things, then turned back to help Laurens with the lamp.  “John,” he repeated, the name a little strained as he helped him lift it up onto the luggage racks by the entrance.  “We need to talk.”

“About what?  Do you want to just hold onto this?”  Laurens took the box with the chess set and jacket from Lafayette.

Hamilton made an impatient and frustrated gesture.  “Sure.  Bring it.”  He took a step closer, then back towards the seat he had chosen.

Laurens followed him and put the box down on the table next to the food.  “We should play.”

“ _John_.”

“I don’t mean right now.  Sorry.  What’s up?”

About a third of the spaces in the car were taken.  Lafayette sat at the table with their things.

“Lafayette,” Hamilton said, “can you give us some privacy?”

Lafayette made a complaining noise and motioned around them.  When that didn’t get him permission to sit with them he huffed and took his laptop to the row of seats in front of them.

“Alexander?”

“Sit down.”

Laurens did so, taking the spot facing backwards and next to the window.  Hamilton sat next to him, feeling just a little like he had chosen that seat so that Laurens would be forced to stay put.

“Alexander?”  Laurens repeated, sounding concerned.  “What’s wrong?”

“It’s about your father.”

“My father?”

“It’s…  Don’t freak out, okay?”

“Alexander.”

Hamilton took a deep breath.  “Your father knows you like me—he thinks _I’m_ straight,” he elaborated, “but he knows about _you_.”

He had expected Laurens to panic but instead there was a flicker of fear in his eyes followed quickly by confusion and obvious, frustrating disbelief.

“What do you mean?  He knows but he thinks you’re straight?”

“He’s got it half right.”  Hamilton put one hand on his chest and motioned with the other towards Laurens.  “He’s a little—he knows we’re close but he thinks—you know how people thought I was doing Lafayette?  It’s like that, except he’s assuming that I’m the hetero one, not you.”

“My father thinks I’m hooking up with Lafayette?”

“No.”  Hamilton started over, trying not to sound frustrated.  “Your father knows that you like me.”

“Why does he think that?”  Laurens was starting to sound more anxious now that the shock was wearing off.

“Because he’s _seen_ you.”  Hamilton couldn’t keep the emphasis out of his voice.  He took Laurens’ hand and felt him try not to pull away.  It cut deep and he let him go.  “He’s seen you, J.”  He kept talking instead.  “At the trustee dinner, at Thanksgiving.  Remember when he came downstairs for breakfast our first morning here?”

“That’s ridiculous.  If he saw something then why wouldn’t he think _you_ were…”  Laurens couldn’t bring himself to finish.  Not in public and not with his heart quickening.  “That doesn’t make any sense.  You’re mistaken.”

“I’m not, J.  He gave me this.”  Hamilton put his hand on the leather book next to the food.

“So?”

“He said it was a—he thinks I’m just putting up with it, that I don’t know how to let you down easy.”

“That’s insane.”

“There’s five hundred dollars in there,” Hamilton dropped his voice to a loud whisper.

“You took money from him?”  Laurens, by contrast, raised his.

“I tried to give it back but he wouldn’t take it and then you opened the goddamn door!”  Hamilton, immediately defensive, matched him in volume.  “I didn’t know what to do, no one ever bribed me to keep my mouth shut before!”  He grabbed Laurens’ hand again and this time Laurens did pull away.

“If you recognize something as a bribe you just don’t take it!  Fuck.”  Laurens put the same hand over his mouth.  “He thinks you’re just _pitying_ me?  And all because he saw us—sitting together?”

“You’re not as smooth as you think you are.”  Hamilton could feel himself snapping, his hands balled into fists so that he couldn’t reach for him and get hurt again.  “Martha knew about Francis, maybe your father did too.”

Laurens froze.  “What about Francis?”

“She told me about your letters.  Don’t just sit there like an idiot, acting like there’s nothing more to that story than what you thought was convenient to share.  I know you weren’t telling me everything.”

“Did she say that?”

“I read them!”

A heavy silence hung in the air around them, then the train lurched and began to pull out of the station.

“You went through my things?”  The question was low and dangerous like a cornered animal.

Hamilton drew himself up in order to better meet Laurens’ angry look with one of wounded scorn.

“How else was I supposed to find anything out?  You didn’t even say anything after we ran into him on Friday.”

“Had you looked at them before that?”

“Does it matter?”

“When did you look at them?”

“When were you planning on telling me about him?”

Both their voices were raising again and Laurens had his body twisted in his seat to face Hamilton directly.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?  You don’t go through people’s things!  That was private, it didn't _concern_ you!”

“That’s right,” Hamilton shot back, “it didn’t concern me, nothing in your life concerns me.  I just lift right out.  That’s why you’ve got a free fucking pass to not tell me anything!”

“What do you want me to do?”  Laurens felt his chest twist with frustration.  “It’s done, it’s in the past, let it go!”

“How can I let it go when I’m the one who had to dig it up in the first place?  You lied to me, John!”

The name cut him and he turned his face sharply to the window.  “Bullshit.  I never lied.”

“What the hell would you call it, then?  You didn’t—look at me, _look at me_ , you asshole—”

Laurens turned angrily back.

“—I’m not a violent person, John, but I swear to God if you tune me out this time—You made me feel like shit for being with other people before you, do you realize what a hypocrite you were being?  _Look_ at me,” Hamilton repeated when Laurens started to turn away again.  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I see two options here.  Either you were in two relationships before me and didn’t think I was important enough to know about them even though I asked, or you’re a slut like me and a fucking hypocrite for acting like you could take some imagined moral high ground.  You wanna tell me which of those it is?  Because neither’s making you look particularly good and I think I’m pretty fucking justified in being this _pissed_ that the only way I get you to give me even half an answer is by yelling at you on a goddamn train!”

Hamilton could see Laurens throw up a wall before, he thought, Laurens himself even realized that was what he was doing.  The fire in Laurens’ eyes turned to ice and his voice, still harsh, became distant as he tried to pull them back to an earlier part of their argument.

“You had no right to go through my things.”

“This is just like when we were in France, John,” Hamilton said, unable to take a different angle and just meeting him with more anger and hurt, “you don’t tell me _shit_ about your life and then you act like you have the right to dictate mine!  You’re not your father and I’m not you, I’m not going to bend over and let you get away with shit like this!”

“Are you trying to punish me?  Do you think you can do that?  Who do you think you are?”

“I’m your goddamn boyfriend!”  Hamilton was very close to outright shouting.  “And if you don’t see the problem with what you’ve been doing then there’s something wrong with you!”

Laurens looked away coldly and intentionally and Hamilton put his hand on his shoulder and tried to yank him back.

“Don’t do that, John, don’t just ignore me and hope that I’ll drop it.  You’re a fucking ass, you know that?  You know I hate it when you do that, you think you’ll be able to keep getting away with that?”

Laurens responded with a deliberately stoney silence.

Hamilton looked at him with incredulity on his face.  “Is that it?  Is that _all_?”  Without getting up he shoved the heavy box towards Laurens with a burst of adrenaline and rage.  “Fuck off, John.”

“Don’t forget your money.”

Hamilton raised his middle finger.  “Keep it.”  His voice was a hiss and shaking with anger.  “Let’s call it payment for all the times I fu—”

He snapped his mouth shut when Lafayette put his hand on his shoulder.

He put his hands on the table and leaned over it, talking to both of them in lowered but sharp tones.

“This is very very rude.  You are sitting here either in silence or speaking with your indoor voices and words until you learn if you are breaking up or working this out.”

Hamilton glared at Laurens and then up at Lafayette, not telling him how he could make that statement more conversationally fluid.

“I don’t have anything else to say,” Laurens said.  Then, immediately contradicting himself, he went on, “I can’t believe you read those.  Did also you go through my phone and laptop?”

“Why?  You keeping his dirty pictures, too?”

There were a few moments of silence, marked only by the sound of the train.

“Fine,” Hamilton said.  “So you don’t trust me anymore.  Got it.  What do you want to do?  You wanna drag this out all the way back out of the damn liminal space that was South Carolina?  ‘Cause I don’t.”

Laurens didn’t respond, just watched him in sullen silence.

“Lay it out,” Hamilton said.  “Go on.  Make your case.  You’re planning on law school, aren’t you?  You’ve taken more classes than I have, take a shot at me.”

“You didn’t have permission to go through my things.”  Laurens had his arms folded even as he focused on a spot in the air above the table.  “You should have asked.”

“I did ask.  I asked about Francis.  I asked about your past more generally.  You know you never told me shit about your mother, either, you said you would in Columbia but you never did.  I heard more about her from your _father_ than—”

“Why were you asking my father about her?”

“I didn’t,” Hamilton snapped.  “But at least he thought enough of me to offer it.”

“Can’t we do this when we have a little more privacy?”

“That’s a fine word,” Hamilton said.  “‘Privacy.’  Yeah, you’re all about your privacy, John, aren’t you?  Bet this is killing you, having to air all your dirty laundry in public.”

“Shut up.”

“No, you know what, I’ve shut up plenty for you.  You wanted to do this the proper way, you should have taken the opportunity when I handed it to you.  No,” Hamilton went on, “I didn’t ask you for permission to read your shit.  You know why?  Because I knew you’d deny that anything existed at all and that if I wanted to learn anything I’d have to look for myself.  That’s how it always is, John, you want anything out of life you have to do it for yourself.  You know when I learned that?  Back before _my_ mother died, when we were always half a paycheck from starving on the street, so you can take that fucking sob story of yours and _shove_ it.”

Laurens looked momentarily cowed and Hamilton continued with barely a pause for breath, unable to regulate his volume or language.

“Don’t think I’m not sympathetic, John, because I am.  Since you don’t trust me, ask Lafayette.  I feel real bad.  But at some point you gotta crawl out of your own ass and take responsibility for yourself and your actions.  I didn’t get to fucking New York by sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I got it by working every goddamn day of my life because I didn't have the privilege of believing that someone would hand me anything!  I could’ve—don’t you dare lecture me about not thinking fast enough to give that money back to your father, okay?  It’s pocket change to him!  To _you_!  I had to sit in that gilded house for a week, I’m sorry if I looked at the cash and half my mind saw it as a roof over my head.”  The different arguments were getting tangled together and Hamilton knew it.  He made a noise of frustration and put his elbows down hard on the table, pressing the bases of his hands to his eyes, and swore incoherently.

“I wish you’d’ve just told me, John,” he said after a few seconds.  “About any of it.  How hard would that have been?”

“It would’ve been easy.  You’re right.  It’s not hard at all.”  The words were formed and spoken individually, each falling onto the table with less effort than it sounded like they should have for something so cutting.

“Then why can’t you just _do_ it?”  Hamilton still had his eyes covered.  “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know.”  Even more of an edge.  “I guess there’s just something wrong with me.”

Hamilton would have looked up even without the nudge from Lafayette.  Laurens had his hands balled in fists on the table and he was staring at them, not seeing anything beyond them anymore unless it was how to twist both of their words into a blade and fall upon it.

“You’re right,” he said.  “I should have told you about Francis.  I fucked him,” he said, and that was a lie, they hadn’t ever gotten to that point, but the lie was painful and he saw the surprise and hurt in Hamilton’s eyes without even looking up at his face.  “I lied to you.  Of course my father and sister knew.  My mother probably did too.  I didn’t tell her,” he said, his words getting more truthful as they hardened against himself instead of Hamilton.  “I didn’t want her to think—”

“John,” Lafayette said, trying to break his flow of consciousness.

“—She was dying anyway,” he went on, his sentence diverted but not stopped.  “Sick all the time.  Not as bad as your mother,” he said.  Bitter.  “She had it easy—”

“John,” Lafayette repeated.

“—Just didn’t want her to die knowing she’d given birth to a—”

Lafayette backhanded him.

“Do _not_ speak badly about your mother like that,” he scolded him, “not when she is not here to defend herself.”

Laurens had turned his head slightly with the hit and was unresponsive again, his whole body tense.

“And you,” Lafayette said to Hamilton, “don’t you bring her into it either.  It’s unfair.”

“Didn’t.”  Hamilton slouched down a little in his seat, folding his arms over his chest and failing to glare in any convincing way at Laurens.  “…Go on.”

Lafayette breathed out slowly.  “All right.  I am leaving you two now.  Lay out your laundry.  I am setting you a time limit.  You do not need to like each other particularly much by the time this train stops in New York City.  But you need to be on the same page about whether you are still wanting to be with one another and then we can go from there.  Like adults.  All right?”  No one said anything, so Lafayette sat down again in his seat in the row behind them.

“I can’t believe they all knew,” Laurens said after nearly ten minutes in which the only sounds was the rustling of other passengers going through bags, turning pages, typing.  “I’m such an idiot for not noticing.”

“John.”  Hamilton’s voice was softer if still clearly frustrated.  “Not everything is about you.  I know it’s hard, but take your blinders off.”  He reached across the table and took both of Laurens’ hands.  Laurens had been watching the blur of trees and fields outside his window and he turned his gaze to his hands in Hamilton’s.

“You’re so—John, he’s right.  Okay?  This…”  Hamilton indicated the totality of their situation with a roll of his head.  “…It can’t work like this.”

Laurens nodded.

“God.”  Hamilton dropped Laurens’ hands.  “I’m so _angry_ with you, John.”  He put his face back in his palms and let the world streak past them outside.


	164. Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Longest Train Ride Ever

Lafayette looked up from the book he had borrowed from Hamilton’s bag as the train pulled into the station.  The sun was bright outside and his stomach growled at the thought of getting off and tracking down lunch.  He could hear Hamilton talking quietly behind him.  He checked his watch and got up.

“Is it going to stay here for a little while?”  He asked the woman across the aisle from him.  “Is it stopping for a few minutes?”

Properly reassured, he stepped over to the other table.  “I’m going to see if I can find something.  Would you like anything?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton gave a tired look at the leftovers on the table and rubbed his temples.  “Do you have your phone?  Call me and let me know what you find.”

“Are you going to pay?  You’ve actually got cash for once.”

Hamilton glared daggers at Laurens and took out his wallet, handing Lafayette a couple of ones without looking at him.  “Seriously?”  He asked Laurens as Lafayette left.  “You really think this is the time?”

Laurens half-shrugged and tipped his head away.  Engaging in anything more than clipped barbs weighed too much.  “Whatever.”

“Take the money,” Hamilton said, for what sounded like the tenth time.  “Just take the _Goddamn_ money.”

“You said you needed it.”

“What do you care if I need it?”  Hamilton pushed the book at him and Laurens shoved it back.  “I managed just fine on my own.  I don’t need either of you to be my sugar daddy.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Just take it and donate it or something.  I don’t care.  I can’t use this now, you ruined it.”

“You’re always bitching about how expensive things are.  Maybe if you didn’t eat out three meals a day like right now you’d actually—”

“I don’t always eat out, besides, where am I supposed to cook anything?  I don’t have a stove, asshole.”

“Mulligan’s apartment has a high turnover, you could stay with him.”

“I don’t want his charity—”

“It’s not charity if he’s offering it as a friend and you’d be paying him rent anyway.”  Laurens pressed his eyes shut and made an attempt to rally.  “You’re too proud to admit that you didn’t actually get to where you are today all on your own.  I’m not the only one who owes a debt to people, Alexander, you didn’t get off that island all by yourself.”

“What do you know about that?”

“Plenty,” Laurens said, comforting blank darkness around each spoken word, “because you’re not as special as you like to think you are sometimes.”

“Well, the same goes for you.  Do you really think you’re the only homosexual on the entire planet?”  Hamilton picked his language to mock him, then turned more serious and frustrated when he didn’t get a reaction.  “You need to reach out to people if you don’t feel comfortable talking to, I don’t know, _me_ about it.  Ask your coach.  He’s a good resource.  Hit him up, ask him if he knows anyone you can—”

“I’m not talking to him.”  Laurens could see the words written out in his mind as he looked blankly at his hands on the table.  They traced themselves out letter by letter and he wondered whose handwriting they were in.

“—run some of your shit past, because you’re clearly not doing a good job of handling it or of finding someone to talk to on your own—”

“I already talked to James,” Laurens said with a little more emotion, feeling distant irritation at how condescending Hamilton was starting to sound.

Hamilton stopped short.  “McHenry?”

“Yes.”

“You’re seeing him again after we get back, right?”

No response.

“J.?”

“Yes.”

“I think you should.”

Another silence.

Hamilton made a frustrated noise.  “What do you want from me?  I’m talking to you, I’m _asking_ you things, just like you said.  I told you doing so wasn’t going to go anywhere.  Can you at least _try_?  I’m not gonna—what are you even afraid of?  That’s what this is, right?  You’re afraid of something.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Help me out, John.  If it’s not you then what’s wrong with me?”  A pleading note crept into his voice.  “If you’re not afraid of something then what is the problem?”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me,” Hamilton protested.  “I don’t—Do you know what this looks like, from my end?”  He put his hands palms up on the table and spread them.  “It looks like I’m a placeholder.  Like I’m just here until you decide you’re finished with this phase of yours and want to get back on the straight and narrow or at least back to your comfortably wealthy life.  I know you’re—you’re better than that, J.”  He was pleading a little more audibly now.  “I want to know that,” he amended.  “I never seriously asked you to come out to your father or anyone else.  I know it’s hard for you and it’s not my business, but…  Don’t you think it’s a little my business?  At least when you’ve got this pattern of getting into relationships and hiding them and then ending them and burying them as deeply as possible?”

Laurens watched the strokes of the invisible pen trace themselves over his skin.  That had been a question; it necessitated an answer.

“Two hardly counts as a pattern.”

Hamilton raised his hand in the air and touched himself on the chest with the other one.  “ _Three_.”

“I told my friends.  My family knows.”

Hamilton was aware that they were talking past one another but he couldn’t stop his mind from spinning in circles long enough to connect the two trains of thought and he couldn’t help the outburst.  “They only know because you fucked up!”

Laurens looked up at that.  His words had sent the flash of fear that Hamilton knew had to be hiding somewhere racing across his eyes.  He tried to chase after it.

“You didn’t even mean to tell them, John, it was a mistake.  You let—you let me pretend to date Lafayette first and you didn’t tell any of your family members, either, they just pieced it together.”

“Shut up.”

“It doesn’t count as some fucking act of courage if you just tripped into it—”

“I told Jemmy,” Laurens said abruptly as the dissociative veil was yanked aside by a rush of adrenaline.  “And fuck you if you think I should get disowned to make you to feel more comfortable!”

“Five hundred dollars to pay me off does sound a lot like getting disowned, John, I’m sorry, I don’t know how I missed that—”

“He’s ashamed of me!”  Laurens was half-shouting.  “Can’t you _see_ that?  That’s why he’s trying to give you hush money, this is how he deals with people, he just pays them off to get them to go away!  If you had put up more resistance he would have increased the amount.  I can’t—no one’s ever needed you to be anything,” he continued angrily, his heart trying to tear itself to pieces against the inside of his chest and salt suddenly stinging in his eyes, “so I can’t expect you to understand.  Everything you do is already breaking expectations, you just show up to class and it’s more than anyone ever thought you'd achieve, but he needs me to be this perfect son and I can’t _do_ it.”  His voice cracked at the end of the sentence and he forced himself to ignore it.  “I can’t—I’m not who he needs me to be and it’s _great_ , waking up every day knowing that I’m actively trying to become someone that will hurt him and throwing away everything he’s given me.  I wish I had nothing.  I wish I had never had any of it!”  He slammed the base of his hand clumsily onto the table on the third to last word and then jerked it back towards his body in a belated attempt to regain control, his arm and shoulders seizing.

Most people in the car had left and an uncomfortable tense silence hung in the air.  The door to the car opened and Lafayette, headphones on and the beat of his music very dimly audible, walked in.

“This is for you,” he said, handing Hamilton a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  “I didn’t know if we trusted their perishables.”

Hamilton unwrapped it without saying a word and handed half back to Lafayette.  “I’m not hungry.”

Lafayette made a noise of protest and then, when Hamilton didn’t take it back, held it out to Laurens.  “John?”

Laurens turned his whole body away.

Lafayette looked between the two of them.  “So how is it going?”

“Are you saying that you want to trade?”  Hamilton asked Laurens, his voice shaking slightly.  “Seriously?  Stop and think for a minute, John.  You want to _trade_?”

“No.”

“You sure made it sound that way.  How self-involved are you?  Don’t you think that maybe it’s hard for me, too?  That maybe moving to New York to get a fresh start was easier for you than it was for me?”

Laurens had a sudden strong memory of sitting with André at a bar and telling him that Hamilton had moved to the city without knowing anyone and how brave he thought that made him and he felt for a second like he couldn't breathe.

“I don’t have the same kind of safety net you do, John,” Hamilton said, his words stretched thin.  “If people are surprised I’ve come this far, all that means is that the odds have been stacked against me for so long they everyone thought I’d’ve given up a long time ago.  You realize it’s not actually a compliment when people say they don’t know how I’ve done it or that they wouldn’t have been able to themselves.  It’s a condemnation, it’s a foot in the grave.  It means that I have to kill myself to be exceptional in order to matter, that if I’m not driving myself into the ground then I’m doing something wrong and I’m going to just get sucked under anyway.”  Hamilton was sounding more frantic.  Lafayette put his hand on his shoulder and he shrugged him off, unable to stand the touch.  “It’s not a secret that I hate this, John.  I hate how out of place I feel, how I’m always trying to catch up.”

“I know.”  Controlled.  Pre-written.

“Then what are you—”

“I’m sorry,” Laurens said.  And then, again, like he wasn’t sure he said it the first time, “I’m sorry.”

“Do you actually believe any of that?”

Hamilton felt each second pass like a kick to the gut before Laurens spoke again.

“I just… hate… how when I wake up, it’s to the knowledge that I’m letting him down.”

“So let him down.  Do you even want to be who he wants you to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t not know.  Do you want to or not?”

“I don’t know.”

Lafayette looked between them again, then sat in his row behind them.

“I don’t get it,” Hamilton said, stumbling into an area beyond frustrated.  “What do you mean, you don’t know?  How can you just _not know_?”

Some announcement about the departure must have been made because more people began to filter back into the car.

“You don’t like to talk about the hurricane.”  Laurens’ train of thought was jumping from one tangentially related topic to another.

“Not exactly relevant on a day to day basis, is it?”

“I hate thinking about it,” Laurens said, meaning something besides the storm.  “Everything was on top of itself.  Francis and I, we weren’t—that was never going to be anything.  I never slept with him,” he added after another pause.  “I lied earlier.”

Hamilton breathed out slowly and tried to gather his remaining shreds of patience.

“I hate him.”

“No you don’t.”

“I almost do.”

“But you don’t.”

“I didn't want anyone to know,” Laurens said.  He closed his eyes against the words and had to form them out of the heavy shadows.  “My mother was sick.  She passed just after graduation.  I didn’t want to disappoint her.”

“You’re not a disappointment.”

Laurens gave the saddest laugh.

 The train started up again and they pulled out of the station. 

“Were you still seeing Francis when you were dating Martha?”  Hamilton asked abruptly.

Laurens nodded, too tired to speak.

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  “Lemme see if I got this straight.  You didn’t tell me about two previous sexual partners—”

“I didn’t sleep with Francis.”

“—and you were actually cheating on one of them with the other.  So you wanna get that apology for me notarized, or what?  You practically called me a whore to my face, John.  I had a bunch of partners, but I didn’t try to keep anyone a dirty secret from the rest of them and they didn’t overlap without consent.  Were you thinking you could do that with me, too?  It doesn’t count if no one else knows?  It doesn’t count because it’s _wrong_?  If you’re not ready to be in an actual relationship, John, then I wish you’d’ve told me that from the start and letten me go off and have fun in France at least.”

“‘Let.’”

Hamilton twisted in his seat.  “ _Really_ not the time, Lafayette.”

Lafayette went back to eating his sandwich quietly.

“You’re so jealous of me even looking at other people sometimes, like you can’t trust me to keep it in my pants—I mean, I—If I had wanted to cheat on you, John, I would have, okay?  I didn’t do anything because I knew—especially since you had already accused me of—”

“…When are you talking about?”  Laurens asked.  He was sitting up straight again.

“…In general.”  The sudden immediacy to Hamilton’s anxiety betrayed the lie.

“When are you talking about?”  Laurens asked again, more aggressively.

Hamilton paused.  He ran over what he was about to say in his mind.  “Nothing happened.  I told you I went to Eliza’s for dinner.  After that we went up to her room, she was showing me pictures from when they were kids…”  Hamilton pressed his eyes closed, starting to lose track of what he was going to say behind all of what he wanted to.  “…It’s just hard to know that I could have all of that and to have to say no…”

“Because of me,” Laurens said in a tone that was angled to cut both himself and Hamilton.

“J.,” Hamilton began.

“If dating me is such a burden,” Laurens said, hurt and blinded by it, “then maybe Lafayette is right and we should just end it before we get back to the city.  That way you can call her up and let her know you’re free before she starts seriously seeing anyone else.”

“—Fine!”  Hamilton stood up, his head spinning in disbelief as he was unable to prevent the words from spilling out, his hands on the table and his lunch forgotten as the situation spiraled out of his control.  “If that’s what you want, then fine!  I’ll do that and you can go fuck yourself!”

Lafayette got up as well.  “Alexander—”

“Don’t start, Lafayette, you heard him.  If he thinks it’s not worth it then I don’t want to stay in a dead-end relationship constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I don’t need this.  I’m done.”  He shoved the box on the table towards Laurens once more.  “If you don’t want it, I’ll pay the postage back to Columbia myself.”  He stormed away, dropping down into a free seat at the far end of the car and turning towards the window to fume in silence.


	165. Take Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talk It Out

Several hours later Lafayette slid into the seat opposite Hamilton.  “Alexander.”

Hamilton was typing on his phone and did not look up.

“Alexander,” Lafayette tried again.  Still no response.  Lafayette sighed and put his hand out.  “Give me your phone,” he said as if talking to a small child or a dog.

“No.”

“Give it.”

“Piss off.”

Lafayette took the phone out of his hands and put it face-down on the table between them.  Hamilton scowled at him.

“You’re not actually breaking up with John.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not, because if you were you wouldn’t be sulking at the opposite end of the train car.”

Hamilton looked sullenly out the window.

“You would be devastated,” Lafayette said, his voice quiet.  “You’re angry and you’re trying to force his hand.  John doesn’t know that you’re bluffing.”

“I don’t want to date him if he keeps lying to me.”

“He doesn’t know what the rules for this are,” Lafayette said patiently.  “He thinks you’ve made up your mind for good.  He thinks there is nothing left for him to do.  He tried and maybe he didn’t try as well as he could have but the point is that he failed and it’s done and he’s not able to come crawling after you when it’s already finished.”

Hamilton leaned to the side in his seat, craning his neck to look across the car.  He could only see part of Laurens’ shoulder from where he was and he sat back properly.  “I meant what I said.”

“I think he’ll talk to you now,” Lafayette said.  “You should try again.”

“I’m not gaining anything by this,” Hamilton argued, stubborn.

“You have other options.  If you get off this train without him then you can call Eliza,” Lafayette said, ticking off on his fingers as he talked.  “She may be talking to James McHenry but we both know you could call her and that chances are good that door is still open.  You could go out with your other friends and see if you can meet someone new.  Or you could stew for a few weeks and then get back together with John.  You don’t really want to break up with him if that’s still an option you are holding on to,” Lafayette said, pleading just a little.  “Go apologize and sulk while you are still with him.”

“Why does it matter to you so much?”  Hamilton asked after a long moment.  “John can do all those—well, he can go find someone else, too.  Maybe André’ll be willing to branch out, he’s always on the market and he’s, like, the one person John ever told me he thought was cute.  Probably only because he was complaining about my looking at him at the time,” he added.  “Typical.”

“Oh, please,” Lafayette said with slight exasperation.  “We both know John.  How do you think he will react when his one attempt at a visible relationship with someone he actually cares about is dashed over a fight about his family and past?  Do you think he’ll actually take the healthy path of continuing to figure his issues out?  You have had a very long time to come to terms with your sexuality.”

“I had to deal with other shit too, you know,” Hamilton interjected.

“He’s still struggling with it.  It’s really only been a few months.  I like John.  He is my friend.”

“Give me my phone back.”

“No.”  Neither of them actually moved to take it.

After a beat Hamilton made an irritated noise and drummed his fingers on the table, leaning on it and resting his face in his hand.  “He’s a grown up.  I’m not supposed to be babysitting him.  Neither are you, you know.  He needs to deal with his shit himself.”

“I told you—”

“He knows more than you’re giving him credit for.”

“He might know,” Lafayette said, “at some point, in theory, but he doesn't right now.  He can’t see it.”

“He’s self-centered.”

“That’s true.”

“I feel like I’m always the one trying to fix things.”

Lafayette decided against pointing out that he often had outside help.  “You’re stronger than he is.”

Hamilton scoffed.

“You know what I mean,” Lafayette said gently but firmly.  “You know how to get back on your feet.”

“Then that’s something he needs to learn.”

“Again, true.”

“There’s no time for that like the present.”

“You’re being cruel,” Lafayette said.  Hamilton flinched away a little from the word.  “I didn’t think you would like to be someone like that.”

Hamilton closed his eyes against him for a moment.

“I never said it was fair to you, but if you let things stand like this he won’t make any effort to fix things.  This didn’t need to get this far.  You didn’t intend for it to get this far.”

“I intended for him to maybe finally tell me the truth.”

“Anger is often a secondary emotion.  You need to look for what’s underneath it.”

Hamilton took his hair down without saying anything.  He combed it out with his fingers and then put it back up.  He stood.  “I’m not happy with you,” he said.  “Just for the record.”

“That’s fine.”  Lafayette handed him his phone back.  “Congratulations,” he told him right before he walked away.  “You won.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes without looking back and walked across the car to take a seat across from Laurens.  He was sitting with both his elbows propped up on the table, staring vacantly into middle-distance.  He didn’t acknowledge Hamilton’s presence.

Hamilton put both his hands on the table.  The slight noise didn’t get a reaction, so he cleared his throat.  Still nothing.  Laurens didn’t even look at him.

He waited in silence as they streaked past the industrial outskirts of a city.  The sun was setting outside and the glare through the window was strong.  He turned words over in his head, sorting through them individually and setting some aside for later.

The sun slowly sank behind warehouses and then flashed back into view as the tracks curved away.

Hamilton pulled the box in front of him.  He opened and closed one of the cardboard flaps.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” he said, looking down at the box.  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “I’m sorry you feel like she would be disappointed in you.  That has to be hard.”  Hamilton continued after a slight pause in which Laurens still didn’t react.  “I’m sorry about your father, too.  He’s got it all wrong, you know.  I’m not just humoring you, J.”

He glanced up.  Laurens still hadn’t acknowledged his presence.

“Hey.”  Hamilton was starting to sound concerned.  He looked around but Lafayette was still at the other table and facing the wrong direction.  “Hey, J.  J., I’m—Well, I’m not really sorry for yelling to be honest but I’m not breaking up with you, okay?  Not today, anyway, gotta save something for when you join the GOP and ditch me to go out with Jefferson to celebrate.”

Laurens finally blinked slowly and shook his head back and forth.

“That was a joke, obviously.  I’m gonna try again from the top, because I’m not apologizing for everything.  I am sorry I went through your things and then didn’t even tell you about it right away.  There, that’s my apology.  I should’ve asked you upfront first.  I didn’t because I was anticipating your giving some non-answer if you weren’t bringing it up on your own and I wanted to actually know.  I wish you’d tell me things, J.  I don’t care if you don’t want to talk to your dad about it.  I just want…  I don’t want to feel like you’re trying to keep me cordoned off from everything else.  I want to be an actual part of your life.”

Laurens moved one of his hands stiffly up to his shoulder and rubbed mechanically at it.  “I know.”

Hamilton refrained from asking if that was really true.  “So…  So what I am saying, J., is that I was angry and hurt and, I dunno, wanted to get a reaction.”

“What did you want?”  His words were a little distant.

“What do you think?  I’m tired of always being the one to fix things, John, regardless of if I’m the one who fucked up or not.  I want to make this work better.  Lafayette—I’m annoyed with Lafayette, don’t get me started—he said we’ve got to decide if we’re going to make this work or not.  I like you a lot, J.  I just wanted you to agree that you’d meet me halfway.”

“I can’t talk to him about anything.”

Hamilton hesitated, then nodded.  He put his hands in his lap.  “Yeah.  I get that.  You don’t need to, anyway, not really.  I mean…”  He shrugged.  “It’s done.”

Laurens nodded.  “It’s done.”

“So…”

“If you say that it’s done does that mean you’ll stop bringing him up?”

“I don’t always.”

“And stop complaining about him.”

“I’ll try.”

“Alex.”

“I said I’d try.  I’ll try hard but if he does something really—”

“Alex.”

Hamilton stopped talking.

“Just don’t bring him up.  I don’t want to hear about it from you.”

Hamilton sighed.  “Okay.  I can do that.”

“He’s my father, Alexander, not yours.  I know he’s not perfect but he’s trying to do what’s best for all of us.  It’s been hard for him too.  And it shouldn't matter if I tell him every detail of my life.  You’re the one who said that he told you that he knew about things, so why should I have to talk to him about it?”

“I told you and you didn't want to believe me,” Hamilton said.  “And he still doesn’t really know what he’s talking about at all.”

“So?”  Laurens was sounding more grounded but also a little hotter than he had since earlier in their argument.  “I don’t get why it matters to you at all.  You don’t like him anyway, you never liked him.  My talking to him won’t change that.  And if he already knows about me then why—”

“I don’t—Sorry.”  Hamilton interrupted and then cut himself off.  “Sorry.”  He bit his lip.  “Keep going.”

“…Why does it matter to you if he in particular knows?  I told everyone else.  I’m willing to be with you in public.  Why does it matter if I talk to him?”

“It just…”  Hamilton ran a hand up over his hair.  “It seems to me that if you can’t talk to him about it then you must be ashamed of dating me.  I know you’re saying that you feel like he wouldn’t accept you, but if you weren’t willing to test the waters there before then it was like you were prioritizing his being unchallenged over our relationship.  And if he knows now—I mean, he’s fucking awkward about it, but he wasn’t exactly cutting you off, J.—then your still wanting to hide it, it just…  You know?  I think he’d be okay with it.  I think he’s just uncomfortable and doesn’t know what to do.”

Laurens was quiet for a minute.  “I thought you hated him.”

“I don’t agree with him on a lot of things.  I don’t know.  Maybe I misjudged him.”

Laurens frowned and looked out the window.

“John?  Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

Hamilton watched him for few seconds.  “…Beating a dead horse.  I won’t say anything else, cross my heart.”

“Francis and I…”  Laurens started.  He hesitated, then powered through.  “We only did hand stuff.  That’s why…  It didn’t really count.”

“I guess.”

“He, uh, we did oral once.  After, after we had already stopped talking to each other otherwise.  Less than a month before my mother died.”  The last sentence was quieter.  “We were in the same grade.  When I was in middle school we started…”  He trailed off.

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  “Got it.  That’s not that weird, you know.”

“We never told anyone.  None of our friends knew.”

“What did you do?”

“I just said—”

“No, no.”  Hamilton cut him off quickly.  “I mean besides that.  You must’ve done other stuff together.  What did you like to do with him?  You mentioned going out into your guys’ woods, look for stuff…”

“Yeah.  I don’t know, just regular kid stuff.  We liked to play war and things like that.”

Hamilton nodded.

“When we got older we had fewer interests in common.  He didn’t play on any of my teams.  We were in different friend groups.  There wasn’t really much…  Nothing ever would have lasted.  Friday was the first time I saw him since graduation.”

“Awkward.”

Laurens winced a little.  “Yeah.”

“So, honestly, John, is there anyone else you did shit with?  I told you before, it’s not that I’m going to be jealous of you or hold it against you.  I just don’t like having the rug pulled out from underneath me.”

“No,” Laurens said honestly.  “That’s it.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton leaned back.

Much to Laurens’ relief, he sounded like he had accepted his answer.

“Thank you for telling me.  No, really,” he said when Laurens gave an embarrassed shrug.  “Thank you.  I didn’t realize how close that all was to your mother.  Now I know and,” he shrugged himself, “now maybe I understand a little better.  I can make less of an ass out of myself.  Win-win.”

“Francis is already in his first year of law school.”

Hamilton had to take a moment to catch up to the new train of thought.  “Whatever, people go at things in different ways, yeah?  Besides, it’ll be cooler when you get into school in New York.  Way better than Columbia,” he declared, stretching his legs out under the table.  His feet knocked against Laurens’.  “Sorry.”

Laurens didn’t answer.

Hamilton huffed a little and slumped down in his seat, his feet now kicking against the bottom of Laurens’ chair.  “This is a frickin’ long train ride.”

“You don’t have to sit here.”

“What, and get Lafayette on my case again?”

Laurens shot him an irritated look.

“I read your shit right after Thanksgiving,” Hamilton said.  “Since you asked earlier.  So, yeah, I had seen them when we ran into Francis.  He’s way over-groomed to be working retail,” he complained pettily.  “It’s stupid.”

“Why do you care?  It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m just saying it’s stupid.  He’s a barista at a strip mall, not one of André’s backup dancers.”

Laurens gave him a long suspicious look.

“…What?”

“…Are you jealous?”

Hamilton scoffed.  “Of what?  I’m just glad I got out of retail when I did.  Fuck Black Friday, I’m not jealous of anyone stuck working it.”

Laurens privately decided to ask Lafayette about it later.  They had been at the mall for hours.  Hamilton had to have bitched about it to him while he wasn’t listening.  He saw Hamilton watching him, knew he was tracking the plans he was making, and made no effort to hide them.  Instead he put his chin in his hand and turned his head away with an aloof shrug of his shoulders.  This was an argument he felt more comfortable having.

“You’re an ass,” Hamilton muttered, folding his arms on the table and putting his head down on them.  “I still love you but you’re a complete ass.”

Laurens breathed out slowly, the response he wanted to give costing too much energy.  He closed his eyes with his face to the window as if asleep.


	166. Oblivious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Platonic Coffee Date

John checked the time on his watch and looked around the atrium of the dormitory.  No one was late yet but he felt strangely nervous as he stood there, trying not to look self-conscious.

“Thanks.”

The voice caught his attention and turned to the door as McHenry entered, nodding to the person holding it for him and adjusting the beanie—aqua with a complementary pink stripe—on his head.

“Hey.”  Laurens raised his hand and crossed over.  “Where did you want to go?”

“Coffee, yeah?  I know a place nearby.”

“Sure.”  He put his hands in his pockets as they left the building.  The air was sharp and cold against his face and what was exposed of his neck, especially in contrast to the weather in Columbia.  “So how was your break?”

“It was fine.”  McHenry tried to fix his beanie again, then frowned and took it off.  “Nice to see my parents again.”  He turned it over, looking for the seam, hesitated, then put it back on.  “Yours sounded more dramatic?”

“I guess.”  Laurens walked a few paces.  “Alexander broke up with me.”

McHenry gave him a startled look.  “Really?  I’m sorry.  Are you okay?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I guess so.  He took it back, so it doesn’t matter.”

McHenry sounded confused.  “He took it back?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens couldn’t help but still sound a little dejected.  “It was stupid.”

“What happened?”

“We got into a fight on the train back.”  Laurens, unknowingly imitating how Hamilton would tell the story, mimicked the movement of the train with one hand, then put it back in his pocket.  “He found out I dated some other guy in high school and hadn’t told him about it and got pissed about that and my not talking to my father.”

“Got it.”

“…Which is stupid,” Laurens continued, with a sudden burst of heat, “because apparently he’s known all along anyway.”

McHenry winced sympathetically.  “Ouch.”

A few students were approaching them and Laurens automatically quieted and changed the topic.  “Yeah.  So where are we going?”

“It’s actually a bookstore,” McHenry explained, easily moving with the conversation.  “But there’s a loft area with a cafe.  It’s nice.  Quiet.  More, uh,” he gestured leadingly.  “You know?”

“Private?”

“Yeah, not just that, though.  Anyway, it’s pretty nondescript.  I go there a lot, take people sometimes.”

Laurens nodded.  “All right.”

McHenry glanced at him, as if trying to read something in his expression.  When Laurens looked at him he turned his face forward again.

“Anyway,” he repeated.

“Did you finish your paper?”

“Yes,” McHenry said, latching on to the new topic gratefully.  “I still need to print it for this afternoon but it’s done.  Hopefully it will be okay, I didn’t have one of the books I wanted to reference with me, so I was doing it off of memory and I’m only mostly sure it’s accurate.  Even if I bomb it I should still get a B in this class, so it doesn't really matter.”

“What class is it?”

McHenry went into an explanation as Laurens took the moment to appreciate what it was like to talk about class with someone other than Hamilton or Lafayette.  Listening to McHenry complain about his professor and her grading style was so much more relatable than when the other two did it.  By the time he had finished going over everything they had walked off campus and to a small bookstore Laurens vaguely recognized having passed by before.  One look at the fliers and interlocking female symbols tacked by the register clued him in on why McHenry had suggested it.  He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and glanced back towards the door, double checking if he had passed anyone he knew on the way in.  _Okay,_ he thought to himself with a mental roll of the eyes a moment later, _it’s a little late to worry if anything you do looks gay._

“It’s this way.”  McHenry led him across the small storefront to a staircase in the back, wedged in behind a row of journals.  They climbed to the second floor and went to the counter behind which a relatively small menu was written on a blackboard.  “What do you want?  I got it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve got a stamp card.”

Laurens relented, not really sure enough of his surroundings or the situation in general to argue.  “Uh, Americano is fine.”

“One Americano and one Vienna.”  McHenry paid and then looked around.  “The corner, maybe?”

“Sure.”

They went and sat at the small booth, Laurens on the bench and McHenry in the chair opposite him.

“So,” McHenry started, scooting his chair with his coat over the back of it in closer, “what happened with Alexander?”

“Uh…”  Laurens looked around again and ran his hands over one another in his lap.  “I dunno.  It was a mess.  The whole trip,” he clarified.  “I guess Lafayette enjoyed himself.  It turns out my sister already knew I was dating Alex.”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No.”  Just a little bitter.

“Yikes.  How did you find out?”

“She told him and he told me.”

“That’s weird, why not just tell you herself?”

“I don’t know.”

“Family,” McHenry said sympathetically.  “What about the rest of them?”

“I told Jemmy before I left,” Laurens said.  “He’s twelve yesterday.”

“Happy Birthday.”

Laurens hesitated.  “I haven’t spoken to any of them since I left.  I guess I should call later, but…  Maybe I can time it for when my dad isn’t home.”

“Yeah, what’s the deal there?  If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I’m not sure.”  Laurens stopped as the waiter brought them their drinks, then started again once he left.  “He was talking to Alexander on the last day and then when he dropped us off at the train station he apparently told him that—he thinks we’re not dating, but that I like him, I guess.  He thinks he’s just taking pity on me and not telling me to piss off.  Alex didn’t correct him.  I don’t know what I’d rather he have said.”

McHenry winced.  “Awkward.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s what you guys were fighting about?”

“More or less.  He found out that I’d…”  Laurens hesitated.  “We weren’t dating.  But there was a guy when I was in high school.”

“Got it.  Secret?”

“Yeah.”

McHenry nodded.

“My sister knew about him, too,” Laurens admitted after a pause.  He put his hands on either side of his mug.  “She told him.”

“That’s not cool.”

Laurens shrugged.  “I was mad because he read some old shit that I still had boxed up somewhere from back then and Alexander was angry that I never told him about it even though I hadn’t even seen the guy since graduation and that I haven’t told my father.  About dating him,” Laurens clarified, “not about the guy from high school.”

“Got it.”  McHenry took a careful sip of his drink.  “I’m sorry.”

Laurens shrugged moodily.

“So are you guys more or less okay now?”

“I don’t know.”  Laurens looked over McHenry’s shoulder at the cafe as he talked.  “I’m still angry with him.  It’s none of his business what I tell my father and,” he went on, sounding a little more upset, “he knows I’m—you know, it’s not a secret, so I think he needs to back off.”

McHenry nodded again.  “Is it that he feels left out or something?”  He asked carefully.

“Something like that.  He said he feels like I’m not prioritizing him.  I just don’t want to talk to my father,” Laurens said.  “I don’t know why it’s such a big deal.  Alex doesn’t even _like_ him,” he went on, “or he didn’t.  He was acting on the train like he thought my father would be okay with it.  He’s so…”  Laurens made a frustrated noise.  “For someone so smart, he’s so easy to win over sometimes.  I don’t get it.  You know he does this with his boss, too?  He swings between ‘I hate all the extra work he’s giving me, he’s being such an asshole’ and ‘look at what I’m getting out of this, look how much he likes me.’  He’s been bitching for ages how much he doesn’t like my father and then after meeting him he’s telling me how I’ve got him all wrong.”

“That’s annoying.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens wished his coffee was cool enough to drink.  “I got him to agree to drop it at least.  He said he wouldn’t bring it up again.”

“That’s something.”

Laurens nodded, a little sullenly, and tapped his fingers on the outside of his mug.  “Can I ask you something?”  He said after half a minute of silence.  “You said that…  When you told your parents you were dating a guy…?”

McHenry laughed awkwardly.  “Uh, yeah.”  He dipped his finger into the collar of his shirt and tugged at it.  “I mean, that really wasn’t the same thing.  That was more of a ‘you’re fourteen, are we sure you’re really old enough to date’ sort of thing.  Not that we ever did anything,” he went on.  “It was just way too uncomfortable, even if I didn’t know why.”  He saw in Laurens’ face that he wasn’t following along and he elaborated.  “You know.”  He motioned at his chest.  “You said you dated a girl before.  I mean, I don’t really know everything you guys did, but imagine if someone was doing that to you instead.  It’s weird.”

“I…”  Laurens felt slightly hurt.  Weird?

McHenry paused.  “You know.”  He repeated the same gesture.  Laurens leaned very slightly away.  McHenry’s eyes widened.  “Oh, uh, _fuck_.”

The expletive was emphatic enough that normally Laurens would have laughed.

“Sorry, John, I thought—”  McHenry took his hat off and held it between his hands in front of him.  “I don’t _talk_ about it but I thought you had put it together.  I mean, I didn’t say anything directly but then especially with the dumb pride hat today…”  He stretched the material into more of a rectangle.  “I, uh, I’m trans.”

Laurens stared at the beanie, everything clicking into place with sudden clarity.  

Neither of them spoke.  Behind McHenry the store employee running the cafe paged through a newspaper as the silence grew.

“…I thought you just liked the colors.”

McHenry gave him an incredulous look and put the hat down on the table with a laugh.  “You…  You thought I liked the colors?”

“I don’t know.”  Laurens felt his face starting to burn.  “ _I_ like the colors!  Sorry,” he managed, changing tracks.  “Uh, so did the rest of it—When you actually told your parents…?”

“Oh, yeah, that was awkward.”

Laurens was almost guilty over how relieved he felt.  “It was?”

“At first.  I was pretty young.  They didn’t think I knew what I was talking about.”  He gave another short laugh.  “ _They_ didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Laurens nodded.  He took a careful drink of his coffee.  “And now?”

“They got used to it.”

“That’s good.”

“It made it easier for me.  Uh, financially, too.”

Laurens searched his mind for all the reasons why money might be important and nodded again.  “That makes sense.”

McHenry took a drink.  Laurens watched the whipped cream on top slant towards him.

“Sorry,” he said.  “For being a moron, and if I ever said anything…”

McHenry shook his head.  “You’re fine.”

“Okay.”

They were both quiet for another minute.

“You know,” Laurens said, slowly, like he was inching out onto ice and wasn’t sure if it would hold, “my first—boyfriend—we broke up in part because he got mad and called my prom date a transvestite.”  He had been watching McHenry closely for the visual cues of where the line in their conversation might be, but McHenry just snorted into his drink.

“No offense, but are you sure he didn’t break up with you because you were taking someone else to prom?”

Laurens started to laugh, feeling tension leave his body.  Some of it was the anxiety of their conversation but some was old and embedded in a way that had made it so that he hadn’t even realized it was there.  “Yeah,” he admitted, still laughing, “that was probably more of it.”

“Okay, so you dated an asshole,” McHenry said, settling into the conversation.  “Was he at least cute?”

“Francis?”  Laurens found that he could give his name as well as his title.  “He’s very attractive.”

“Figures.”

“God,” Laurens said with another short laugh, “he was such an asshole.  So was I.”

“Like attracts like.”

“Oh, come on.”  Laurens was grinning even as he protested.  He had never had a conversation like this with McHenry or as openly on a topic like this with anyone.  There had been glimpses of what it might be like with Hamilton or Lafayette but the reality of how close they were to him had always made him second-guess and rein himself in.  There was a distance here that helped.  “Francis was always more pretentious than I was.  Arrogant.  It didn’t help that he knew exactly how smart he was.”

“So do you have a type?”  McHenry teased.  “Alexander’s really smart too, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens’s grin softened fondly in spite of himself.  “He’s an ass, too.  Not in the same way.”

“That’s good.”

“You know,” Laurens started.  He took a slow drink.  “My father actually likes him.”

“Really?  That’s good too.”

“He thinks he’s very kind for humoring his gay son.”  It came out a little less than bitter.

McHenry winced.  “That’s not as good.”

Laurens shrugged and looked away.

“…But he likes him?  Maybe he’ll come around.”

“I don’t know.”  Laurens felt the next words heavy on his tongue and he swallowed them.

“People are so weird,” McHenry said after another long pause.  “I’m sorry about your father.  If you ever want to talk about it…”

Laurens shrugged the suggestion off.  “It went better than I expected,” he admitted.  “I always—I figured that he didn’t know and that when I told him he’d straight up disown me.  So that’s better,” he said, trying and failing to sound upbeat.

“‘Better’ is a relative term.  He doesn’t know that Alexander told you, right?”

Laurens shook his head.  “And I’m not telling him.”

“I don’t blame you.”  McHenry took another drink.  “So are you and Alexander on a break or what?”

Laurens shook his head again, slower.  “I don’t know.  I haven’t spoken to him since getting back.  I stayed at the dorm last night.”  He didn’t bother hiding that that was an unusual occurrence.

“Are you waiting for him to apologize better or something?”

Laurens looked down into his mug moodily.  “Or something.”

They fell into silence again.

“I told him about Eliza,” Laurens finally said.  “He already knew.”

McHenry’s face reddened.  “Yeah?”

“She told him before break.”

“Oh.  That’s okay,” he said, obviously embarrassed in spite of himself.  “It’s not—That’s okay.”

“He thinks she likes you.”  Laurens managed to get the words out softer.

McHenry perked up.  “Really?  Did he say…?”

Laurens shook his head.  “I can give you his number, if you want,” he said after a pause.  “And Lafayette.”

“I don’t want to just bother him out of the blue.”

“It’s fine.  They both like talking.  They won’t think anything of it.”

McHenry hesitated, then took his phone out and handed it over.  “If you don’t mind.”

Laurens was already adding them in.  “It’s not a big deal.  Alexander wants me to talk to you more anyway.  He’ll be real thrilled.”

McHenry snorted.  “He thinks you need a queer playdate.”

“Ha.  Something like that.”  Laurens paused, uncertain.  “Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.”

“Am I the only one here that you’ve told?”

“Nah.  Coach knows.  Admin.  I actually have a small scholarship from their diversity outreach program.  Tallmadge knows, too.”

“Of course he does,” Laurens said with mild exasperation before he could stop himself.

McHenry laughed.  “I know, right?  That asshole knew you liked guys too, you know.”

Laurens had been about to take another drink and he was glad the cup was not yet to his mouth or he would have choked on it.  “What?”

“He didn’t say anything to me about you by name, I just,” McHenry gestured sheepishly, “I kind of figured.”

“You figured…”

“If you weren’t it’s not like I would have been surprised about that either,” McHenry said quickly.  “I just—You know,” he said, “it’s just that you look for people who might understand.”

Laurens nodded slowly, feeling his pulse calm down.  “I got it.  And Tallmadge…?”

McHenry shrugged.  “I think he just likes people watching.”


	167. Peace Offering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vocabulary Lesson; Tradesies

“I am so inflexible,” Lafayette complained to Aglae.  He was lying on his back on the yoga mat, his arms stretched up above his head.  “Taking a week off was an awful idea.”

“You should have kept up with it in Virginia.”

“South Carolina,” he corrected her.

“What’s the difference?”  She was lying next to him, both of them staring up at the ceiling in the emptying room.

“They’re very different,” Lafayette protested.  “John is from South Carolina and Thomas is from Virginia.”

Aglae shrugged.

“I’ve been to eight more states now,” Lafayette informed her happily.  “Even if I didn’t get out and walk around in them.”

“That doesn’t count.  It doesn’t count if you were just passing through.”

“It does too.”

“Does not.  I’ve been in the air above a bunch of different states between my home and New York and I don’t count them.”

“But I was on the ground.”

“It still doesn’t count.”  Adelaide crouched next to them with her arms wrapped around her bent knees.  “Are you two going to get up?  I’m leaving soon and there’s another class coming in.”

“Sorry.”  Lafayette sat up.

“Sorry,” Aglae echoed.

Lafayette got off his mat and started to roll it up.  “Adelaide,” he said, “are you free?  I missed all of my New York friends and Aglae and I were going to get lunch.”

“You should join us,” Aglae enthused.  She got to her feet, her mat rolled up and in her arms.  “It’ll be fun.  We’re going to this Tibetan place.”

“For brunch?”

“That is the correct time, yes?”  Lafayette checked his watch.

“I have to go to work, Gilbert.  My other job,” she said, anticipating his counterpoint.  “I still need to go in.”

“Ah, well.  Some other time?”

“Of course,” she agreed.  “I need to hear what happened over your break between the two train rides.”

Lafayette laughed nervously.  “Yes, I did mostly only tell you about those.  The one down was very boring and the one up was very dramatic.”

“What happened on the way back?”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, turning back to Aglae, “that’s right, I did not tell you.  This is perfect, now we have something to discuss over brunch.  My two best friends here broke up, but it is… it is mostly okay now.  I will fill you in," he assured her as the three of them left the room.

“We’re not your best friends?”  Aglae teased, linking arms with him and leaning in.  “How could you possibly _say_ that?”

“Ah…”  Lafayette smiled nervously, realizing his mistake.  “No, no, I am…  I am thinking in French,” he tried to explain.  “It is, sadly, a gendered language and the word, _amis_ , is masculine.”

“It’s also all-encompassing,” Adelaide pointed out, much to his dismay.  “You could have meant it to mean your best friends of all genders in the United States.”

“No, no,” Lafayette backtracked further.  “I would have—You two are my best _amies_ , with the additional ‘e’ to make it feminine.  You are both… my favorite women…”  He smiled in what he hoped was a winning fashion.

“Shall we forgive him?”  Adelaide asked Aglae.  “Or shall we make him squirm?”

“Please forgive me,” Lafayette said.  “I missed both of you very much.”

“Did you bring us anything?”

“Oh!”  Lafayette stopped walking abruptly at the top of the stairs to the front room, causing Aglae to almost trip into him.  He swung his bag off his free arm and started to dig clumsily through it.  “I have candy for you!  You can both eat sugar, correct?  It has lots of it.”  He triumphantly pulled out two small ziplocks made out of the selection of candy he had purchased at Black Friday.  “There should be a little of everything in there.”

“I was just kidding,” Aglae said as she took her bag, “but thank you!”

“Thank you,” Adelaide said as well.  “You didn’t have to do this.”

“But of course.  You are both my best friends,” Lafayette said grandly.

Adelaide laughed.  “Why do I get the feeling that you have too many best friends to count?”

“I can count all of them.  I am a little pickier than that.”  They crossed the room and stepped out onto the street.  “We are walking in the same direction as you, I think.”

“How do you know where Adelaide works?”

“He showed up at my office before,” Adelaide said, a little wryly.  “I swear, making friends with Gilbert is like suddenly finding yourself the part-time owner of a very intelligent but very enthusiastic dog.”

“Woof.”

“Ohh my God,” Aglae said, putting her hand to her mouth in mock horror.  “I can just _see_ you as a furry.  I bet you have a suit and everything.”

Lafayette looked puzzled.  “What is a furry?”

Adelaide carefully bit her lower lip and looked up at the buildings around them.

“…Seriously?”  Aglae turned red.  She let go of Lafayette’s arm in embarrassment.  “Do they not have those in France?”

“I am sure they exist in both France and Senegal,” Lafayette assured her, putting his arm over her shoulders.  “Adelaide and I are just too sheltered to know what they are.  Isn't that right, Adelaide?”

“Adelaide should turn here,” she said, opting to take a slightly different way to work.  “We’ll figure out another time.”

“Of course,” Lafayette said cheerfully and waved goodbye as she split off from them.  “If you don’t want to tell me,” he said to Aglae, “I will just ask Peggy when we are at the apartment after brunch.”

“Don’t do that,” Aglae pleaded quickly, grabbing his arm again with both hands.  “Just ask one of your friends.”

“Peggy is my friend,” Lafayette said.  “We are very good friends.”

Aglae whined and Lafayette laughed.

“I am just joking,” he informed her lightly.  “If it is that important to you then I will wait to ask Alexander when I see him next.  I am sure he will be very upset if he does not get to break the news to me anyway.”

“Is he coming over to help move boxes?”

“I…”  Lafayette opened his mouth to respond and then closed it, puzzled.  “…I don’t know.  I haven’t spoken to him since we got back from South Carolina.”

 

“What up.”  Hamilton dropped into the empty seat next to Burr at the table in the group work section of the library.  “Got a present for you.”  He pulled  a manilla envelope out of his backpack and put it in front of Burr.  “Merry Christmas.”

“It’s a little early.”

“I went Black Friday shopping in South Carolina.  You can open that now,” Hamilton went on.  “I’m not going to stand on ceremony and insist you hold off until December.”

“Thank you.”  Burr opened the envelope.  A few sheets of paper were stapled together.

“I went in early this morning and made scans,” Hamilton said.  “Take a look.  I think that’s everything on the investigation.  Everything I could find, anyway, might be more on some server I don’t have access to, but that should be the gist of it.  Check the dates.  Looks like it’s just an anonymous complaint filed, some back and forth on how to handle it—that was in an email chain, I just copied it onto the bottom of that first one—, then just the one meeting to discuss it before it got shut down.  You have Jefferson to thank for that one,” Hamilton reminded him as Burr gave a short derisive snort.  “Whoever was the notetaker for that whole thing was pretty concise but I think you can get the tone.  Department head,” he went on, leaning over to point out the names on the paper as Burr turned the pages, “Washington, this guy’s HR, this one I had to do a search on but she’s with the university’s legal team.”

Burr flipped to the back page and then returned to the first.  “Why was Jefferson—”

“Why’s Jefferson involved with this?”  Hamilton nodded.  “I had that same question, didn’t think about it until I was pulling everything up, didn’t make any sense.  I got the rest of it, department’s going to be involved, human resources, legal, got it, that all seems standard.  Jefferson doesn’t even have tenure yet, like, what the hell.  Turns out—and get this—he was originally hired as a faculty/student liaison guy basically right after getting his doctorate.  He was supposed to do all that behind the scenes office shit, then, I dunno, funding, I guess.  People get shuffled around like that sometimes.”  He shrugged.  “That’s why he’s been bouncing between departments too.  I think, at least,” he added.  “Maybe just no one wants him.”

Burr nodded slowly.  “Thank you, Alexander.”

Hamilton paused.  “So we’re in agreement that I got you this because you wanted it, right?  You’re not going to…?”

“I won’t show anyone.  Besides, you did contact me about it in writing, as much as I would have preferred to keep it all off the record.”

Hamilton was a little skeptical but he nodded.  “Just don’t let it get spread around.  I don’t really want to get kicked out just before graduation.”

“I feel the same way.”

“Right.”  Hamilton drummed his fingers on the table.  “So—”

“Let me tell you something interesting I heard about Charles Lee.”

“—are you still in contact with Dr. Bartow?”

Burr had been reaching for his notebook and he stopped, looking back at Hamilton in surprise.

“Sorry,” Hamilton said, putting his hands up. “Just wondering.  Don’t know why you’d want any of that if not to show her.  I mean, that’d mean that you were lying just now, but it’s not like it’s in her best interests to leak it around either, especially since things kind of quietly resolved themselves, but…”

Burr picked up his notebook and nodded without making eye contact.  “Yes.  What I was going to say was that I heard something you might find interesting.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton fidgeted in his seat, pulling his bag into his lap and toying with the zipper.  “Hey, question.”

“Yes?”

“You like paper or digital better?”

“Excuse me?”

“For note taking.  No, for scheduling.  I know paper is better for notes, more muscle memory, makes recall easier.  For scheduling, I mean.  See, my problem is I’m having a hard time keeping track of things this semester.  You know that meeting I missed earlier?  Case in point.  Paper you got muscle memory like I said, but digital you can sync it all and that’s got it’s own obvious benefits.”

“Why don’t you write things down and then set yourself notifications electronically?”  Burr looked confused by the turn the conversation had taken.

“Two steps.  I’d kind of like to just go one or the other.  Is that what you do, though?  Do you find that you really need both or the system breaks down?”

“I tend not to miss my engagements,” Burr said dryly.  “And I’d rather not experiment to see which is the crucial step.”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

Burr waited a beat and was about to begin talking again when Hamilton spoke.

“I just got a new planner, starts with January.  I forget to write things down sometimes.  So it’s not like that would actually help when the problem is putting it down in the first place.”

“Alexander.”

“Right, sorry.”

Burr waited a moment again to be fully sure that he was not about to be interrupted once more, then opened his notebook.  “Even between my friends and I, there was not too much to be found out.  I met with John André at the language center on the last day of class before break and he told me the most interesting thing I’ve heard.”

Hamilton was fiddling with the bag’s zipper again and didn’t look up.  “Mm?”

“…All right.”  Burr sighed.  He pushed his notebook to the side.  “What’s wrong?”

Hamilton looked up.  “What?  Nothing.  Nothing’s wrong.”

“Please.  I was your only friend your first year here.  We may not have spoken much recently but I still know you and you are being painfully obvious.”

“Nothing,” Hamilton said again, a little sullenly.

“You aren’t listening to me and I don’t want to have to repeat this all again when you call me up at four in the morning.”

“I’d text.  And you only care because you wanted to do a dramatic reveal and I’m shitting on your plans.”  Hamilton leaned forward on the table, stretching his arms out across it and putting his forehead to the wood.  “You’re pretty transparent, too.”

“Alexander.”

“John and I are fighting.  I don’t like it.  Also it makes all of _this_ ,” he turned one of his hands palm up with an expressive wave, “pretty dang pointless.”

“It’s only pointless if you’re breaking up.  Are you breaking up?”

“I don’t know.”  A long pause.  “I’m hungry.”

“Then go buy something.”

“That was a lie, I’m not actually hungry.  I didn’t sleep last night and then I went through my boss’ email and papers at four in the morning, I feel too shitty to be hungry, I just haven’t eaten since I had half a sandwich on the train yesterday and I think I should eat.”  Hamilton paused again.  “I don’t actually feel _that_ shitty, I’m just trying to distract both of us from this conversation.  I’ve still got leftovers in the fridge anyway.”

“I don’t have to tell you if you don’t want to hear it.”

“No, I do.”

Burr waited patiently.

“I just want to talk about this first?”

Burr sighed.  “All right.  Get it off your chest.”

“Can we get coffee?”

“No.”

“Make it more of a thing.”

“That’s why not.”

“Got it.”  Hamilton turned his hand back down to the table and drummed all his fingers on the wood surface.  “So here’s the tl;dr.  John didn’t tell me about the girl he dated in high school and then I find out he didn’t tell me about his super-secret boyfriend either, and he’s kept all these raunchy letters from him and shit.  I read them,” he added, “please don’t lecture me.”  When Burr didn’t say anything he continued.  “Also he won’t talk to his father about how we’re dating but turns out the honorable congressman already knew he was into the d anyway and gave me five hundred dollars for not dropping him like it’s hot and still being his friend regardless.”

“Five hundred?”

“Don’t make a crack about how I probably appreciated the cash.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Thank you.”  Hamilton made a long frustrated noise.  “Anyway.  I told John on the train back about—well, about that last part at first, and then about the rest of it—and then we got into this huge blow up and I kind of dumped him?  But I didn’t mean it and we sort of made up but he’s still really pissed at me and—and I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I just…  I just want it to be easier.”

Burr gave a short laugh and Hamilton looked up, putting his chin on the table.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just can’t believe I heard you say that.  Since when have you ever wanted to do anything the easy way?”

“Ha.”  Hamilton smiled.  “Yeah.  Okay.”

“So you fought.”

“I think we’re still fighting.”

Burr shrugged fluidly.  The words slid off of him in so natural a way that Hamilton had to admit to being jealous of.  “Does that make you like Lee any more than you had before?”

“No.  Guy’s a jerk.”

“Then there’s no real problem.  Here,” Burr clarified before Hamilton could say anything.  “Now.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right.  I’d want to screw him over either way.”

“Good.  Now stop getting us sidetracked.  I have class at nine.”

“Right, right.  Sorry.  I’ll be good.”  Hamilton made a motion like he was zipping his lips shut.  “Mmhmm?”  He gestured for him to go on.

“Thank you.”  Burr picked up his notebook and flipped pages until he found what he wanted.

Hamilton leaned over to look.  Brief paragraphs of text marched down the page, each blocked off by a successive date.  “Is this your diary?”

Burr tipped it away from him and gave him an unamused look.

“…Sorry.  Shhh.”

“As I said, I made an appointment with John André last Friday.  It’s very easy to get him to talk, that was a good suggestion.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But that said, he really only told me two things that were at all relevant.  I made a note of them anyway, thinking that you might find them of interest.”  Burr paused to make sure that Hamilton wasn’t going to interrupt him.  “There is an online betting pool on how well the team does and apparently several of them have been following along.  André was very pleased to tell me just how favorable their odds of winning their remaining games this season are, according to their online fans.”

“I saw that,” Hamilton said.  “Thought about putting money on them but the payoff sucks because the only games they have remaining are against teams they’re heavily favored to beat.  Didn’t seem worth it, what with the fee to play and all.  What’s the next one?”

“He also said that Charles Lee introduced him to his girlfriend.”

“That’s _it_?”  Hamilton groaned and sunk his face back down onto the table.  He put his hands in his hair.  “I risk my neck for you and _that’s_ all you’ve got?”

“Your nemesis just hasn’t said much to irritate people.  All André had to tell me about him personally was that he can be a little brash and difficult to work with.”

“‘A little brash’…”  Hamilton muttered.  “Friggin’ André.”

“I’m sure he didn’t want to speak poorly of him to a relative stranger.”

“Yeah, yeah.  You know he was in a boy band?  Lafayette showed me the tapes.”

“No,” Burr said delicately, “I did not.”

“Well now you do.  That’s my revenge on him for being such a shitty mark.  Jeez.”

“I’m glad that is all taken care of,” Burr said with finality.  “Now.  Are we done?”

“No,” Hamilton said, sitting up again.  “No, not at all.  You owe me, Burr.  I thought you had something good and I put the footwork in.  I’m still due my dirt.”

“Alexander,” Burr said with faint exasperation, “I cannot perform miracles.  If there is nothing there, then there is nothing there.  Unless you want to, say, let it be known in certain circles what kinds of things he was saying about John…”

“No,” Hamilton said again, quicker.  “No.  No, I don’t want—no.  Okay.”  He frowned, putting his fist to his mouth.  “Let me think.”

Burr began to pack up.

“Okay, just—just keep trying.  I know there’s gotta be something out there a little more interesting than this.  You’re still taking French, it’s coming up on the end of the semester, go talk to André a couple more times, see if you can get anything good out of him.”

“Alexander—”

“I’ll get you something else,” he went on insistently.  “What, what do you want?  Her performance reviews?  Your sealed letters of recommendation?  What?  There’s gotta be something, Aaron.”

Burr visibly hesitated.

“No,” he finally said.  “No.  There’s nothing more I want from you right now.”

Hamilton felt his heart sink.

“…But I’ll accept a rain check.”

Hamilton nodded vigorously, not missing that Burr had not needed to extend the olive branch or how sympathetically he had offered it.  “A favor in the future.”

Burr nodded as well.  “A rain check.”  He stood.  He pulled his bag over his shoulder and held out his hand.  “Shall I text you when I get an appointment at the language center?”

Hamilton got up as well and shook it.  “Please.”


	168. Making Nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving In

“You really don’t have to come,” Laurens said, looking back and forth between the address on his phone and the street sign just coming into legible view up ahead.  “It’s really fine.”

“I don’t have class until this afternoon,” McHenry said, following after him.  “And, besides, maybe they’ve got a printer.”

“I was right, this is it.”  Laurens motioned across the street.  “Just down there.”

“Right, right.  I knew it looked familiar around here.”

Laurens glanced at him.  “You’re from the city, aren't you?  Born and raised?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“Nothing.”  Laurens put his phone away as they crossed the street.  “I just always figured wooing the family was a Southern thing to do.”

“Hey,” McHenry protested.  “I don’t mind helping Peggy move in.  It’s just being nice.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything…”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate your help,” Laurens said, grinning and finding himself pleased to be the one on this end of the conversation.  He patted him on the back.  “And she’s very close to her sisters.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s a very smart thing to do.  It’s exactly the sort of thing I would have suggested if you had asked.”

“Right, because you’re such a ladies’ man.”

“Ooh, burn.”  Peggy was standing outside the building with several large boxes and a suitcase.  “I like you already,” she informed McHenry.  “I’ll assign you the lighter box.”  She kicked at one of them to indicate it.  “You guys are just in time.  I got everything into and out of the cab myself but then I realized I can’t really get it all upstairs in one go and I don’t want to leave it all out on the street.”  She keyed them in.  “It works!”  She announced, holding the door and still obviously delighted at the fact.

McHenry laughed and picked up the box marked “bedding” that she had pointed out to him.  Laurens took one of the others with a grunt.

“Jesus.  What’s in this?”

“Bricks.”  Peggy pointed the way inside and to the elevator.  “I packed them special just for you.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said sarcastically.  “I appreciate it.”

“I thought you would.”

“Is this all you’re bringing?”  McHenry asked.

“For right now.”  Peggy almost hesitated but kept going.  “I thought I could just get more stuff in December if I wanted.  And the room isn’t that large, so I wanted to see what it would look like with just this…”

“Got it.”

“You guys are welcome to stay for a while if you want.  I don’t need your help to unpack and Herc said I could use the tv and console if I wanted,” she said as they went inside.  “Eliza’s still up there for another hour,” she called after them.  “Just knock!”

“‘Just knock,’” Laurens muttered, adjusting the box as they got into the elevator.  “You’re doing the knocking.”

“Did she say that Eliza’s here?”  McHenry was trying to get a better look at his reflection in the metallic panelling on the inside of the elevator.  “Is my hair okay?”

Laurens looked at him skeptically.  “It’s so short.  Can it even get messed up?”

“Yes.”

“It’s fine.”

McHenry continued to scrutinize himself.  Laurens looked him over with situational curiosity.  Several inches taller than Hamilton, with brown skin a little cooler and lighter than Tench's and dense black hair kept cropped short and close.  McHenry shifted the box to one arm and his hip, balancing it against the wall, and took off his beanie.  He ran his hand through his hair to make sure it was all lying evenly and kept the beanie in his hand when he shifted the box back.

“I thought about getting a part line shaved in,” he told Laurens nervously.

Laurens bit back a laugh.

The elevator doors opened and Laurens led the way to the apartment.  The door opened before either of them could knock.

“Thank you for helping,” Eliza said, stepping to the side so they could enter.  “Here, let me show you to Peggy’s room.  She didn’t say both of you were coming,” she went on, talking and looking back over her shoulder.  Laurens watched McHenry take in the way she walked and how her black hair flipped from one side of her back to the other.

“McHenry was with me when Peggy messaged me,” he told her.  “He was kind enough to volunteer.”

“I was free,” McHenry said, obviously embarrassed.  “It’s nothing.”

“It’s very generous of you,” Eliza told him, holding open the door to Peggy’s new and mostly empty room.  “You can just drop the boxes anywhere in here.  I’m coming back later to help her unpack.”

The buzzer went off and Eliza hurried back out, leaving Laurens and McHenry to follow her.

“Hello?  Peggy?”

“ _Bonjour_!”

“Lafayette?”

“I am here and Aglae is here,” Lafayette said over the speaker.  “We are taking the last of the things up with your sister so tell the other two please that they do not need to come down.”

Eliza laughed.  “All right.”

The line cut.

“Would you like something to drink?”  Eliza asked.  “We went to the grocery store first.”

“I’m fine,” Laurens said.  McHenry nodded agreement.

“Do you know if I can print a paper here?  It’s for class this afternoon.”

“Oh…  I think I saw something…”

McHenry followed Eliza back through the apartment, still holding his hat bunched up in his hand and the two of them talking about their shared class.  Laurens watched, feeling if not quite out of place then at least adjacent to it all.  He wasn’t sure he preferred it.  It was more unstable somehow than simply knowing that he didn’t belong.  He took off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door.  He stayed there until he heard voices in the hall and let in the others.

“Thank you,” Lafayette said cheerfully around the next largest of the boxes.  “Here.”  He pushed it into Laurens’ arms and took the suitcase from Peggy.  “Lead the way,” he told her.  “How was your coffee date?”  He asked Laurens as they crossed the apartment again.  “Did you have a good time?”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“I know that.  I am using a turn of phrase.  What is a furry?”

Laurens choked on his words and put the box down heavily just inside Peggy’s doorway.  He looked at Lafayette.  “What?”

Lafayette was standing with his pen and notepad at the ready, an innocent look on his face.  “What is a furry?”

Aglae took Peggy’s arm and dragged her from the room.

“Jacky?”

“Don’t call me that here.  It’s just a person who likes anthropomorphic animals.  They make…”  Laurens gestured vaguely.  “Costumes or drawings of what they’d look like as one sometimes.”

Lafayette wrote that all down.  “You know quite a lot about this.”

“First of all, it’s not that uncommon a word or concept.  Second of all, one of my friends is into it.”

It was Lafayette’s turn to look startled.  “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Which?”

“I’m not telling you.  You’re just going to make fun of him.”

“No I won’t,” Lafayette promised.  “I’m just curious.”

“Why would you want to know if not to tease him about it?”

“Maybe I am deciding to go through a phase.”  Lafayette chased after Laurens as he ignored him and walked back out into the main room.  “He and I could be like two weasels in a barrel!”

Peggy looked up from getting the printer to work.  “Is that a thing?”

“You could fit two of them in there.”

“You could fit a lot more of them in there, but it doesn’t make it a thing.”

“One of John’s friends is a furry,” Lafayette announced.  “And he won’t tell me who it is.”

Eliza sighed.  “It’s Alex, isn’t it?”

Next to her Peggy squeaked and put her hand to her mouth to stifle her laugh.

“It cannot be Alex,” Lafayette said.  “He’s far too transparent, I would have found that out a long time ago.”

“Oh, speaking of Alex,” Eliza said, taking out her phone and checking the time on it.  “He just texted me to say he’s almost here.  I forgot to tell him that we didn’t need his help anymore.  I figured it didn’t matter, we could all just hang out for a bit.”

When neither Laurens nor Lafayette answered Eliza looked up.  Laurens saw the genuine surprise and confusion in her face as they made eye contact.  Hamilton hadn’t told her.  The realization didn’t quite lift his spirits, instead he felt faintly bitter that he had unknowingly assumed that she knew just as much if not more than he did.  Guilt made him turn his face but not before he saw her read the different beats of emotion on it.

“Um,” Peggy said, breaking the silence and looking between Laurens and Eliza.  “We don’t really need him.  I don’t need any of your help anymore, actually.  If you’ve all got stuff to do then you can go.”  She put her hand on Eliza’s arm and held it, indicating that she was to stay.  “Thanks for coming out here, though.”

The buzzer rang.

“I’ll get it,” Eliza said.  She broke out of her grip and went to answer it.  “Hello?”

“Hey.”  It was Hamilton.  “Lemme in, I’m here to lift things and whatever.”

“I meant to text you,” Eliza said, “John and Lafayette beat you here and brought friends.”

There was a pause.  “Oh.  Well, whatever.  If I’m not needed then I can head back.”

“It’s fine,” Eliza said.  “You can come up.  We’re just going to hang out here for a while.”

A pause.  “Nah.  I got stuff to do.  I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Eliza looked back at Laurens, who was facing deliberately away.

“Do you have drinks?”  Laurens asked Peggy.  “I am thirsty after all.”

“I’ll see you later,” Eliza assured Hamilton over the intercom.  “Do you want to get dinner with Angelica and me tonight?  I’ll call you.”

“Yeah, sure.  Sounds good.  Let me know when, I’ll be on campus.”

“Um, there are glasses somewhere…”

Laurens followed Peggy around the kitchen as she opened and closed cabinets.  “Thanks.”

“So are you guys fighting or did you break up?”

“Peggy,” Eliza scolded from the other room.

“You were just going to ask Alexander later anyway,” Peggy said.  “I’m cutting to the chase.”

Instead of arguing, Eliza stepped into the entryway to the kitchen to better listen.

“He can do what he wants.  He doesn’t need to ask my permission,” Laurens said, both answering and avoiding the question entirely.  He took a plastic tumbler from Peggy and filled it in the sink.  “Not like that’s not already the case.”

“…Fight?”  Peggy asked Eliza, who shrugged and motioned encouragingly for her to go on.  She turned back to Laurens.  “So what’re you fighting about?  Is it anything interesting?”

“Is this about his going through your things?”  Eliza asked when Laurens didn’t answer.  “I told him he shouldn’t have done that.”

“He told you about that?”  Laurens asked, angry.  “When?”

Eliza looked surprised.  “Over break.  I said he should have talked to you instead.”

Laurens swore, only mostly under his breath, and put the tumbler down in the sink.  “Great.  Who else did he talk to before me?  Did he say anything to you?”  He rounded on Lafayette, who looked guiltily up at the ceiling.  “You knew and you didn’t say anything to me?  Were you ever going to?  Or were you going to let me keep going under the illusion that I had at least a little privacy?  No wonder you felt like it was your place to jump in on the train” he said, his voice raising as he took several steps towards him.  “Why wouldn’t it be?  You had been involved from the start, you needed to see it through to the end.  Christ.”  He swore again, then turned to the door.  “Why don’t you have dinner with Alexander tonight, too?”  Laurens cut off Lafayette’s protest.  “I don’t want to see either of you for a while.”  He left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

“John,” Lafayette said as the door closed in his face.  “I was only trying to help!  He is so dramatic,” he complained, guilt written clearly on his face, as he turned back to the others.

“…He forgot his jacket,” Peggy said abruptly.

“Peggy,” Eliza began, “wait—”

Without listening to her, she grabbed it and hurried out the door.

Laurens was still in the stairwell when he heard quick footsteps behind him.

“Wait!  Your jacket!”

He stopped.  Peggy ran up to him and handed it to him, out of breath.

“Here.”

He took it.  She didn’t let go.

“I think they’re wrong,” she said, making firm eye contact.  “Lafayette and my sister.”

“They didn’t do anything,” Laurens said sharply.  “I’m mad at Alexander and he dragged them into it.”

“You’re mad at them, too, and I don’t blame you.  Eliza’s different because she’s not _your_ friend even if she pretends that she is sometimes but he should have said something to you or…  Or at least not made it so obvious that he was picking sides.”

She let go of his jacket and he put it on without looking at her.

They stood there in silence for a beat after he was dressed.

“That’s all,” Peggy finally said.  “I just wanted to tell you.  I’d be pissed too if I were you.”

Laurens put his hands in his pockets.  “It’s just…”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“Yeah.”

“Anyway.  I should get back.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said.  He took a step down.  “For the jacket.”

Peggy nodded.  “Anytime.”


	169. At Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chaperone; You Can't Sit with Us

“Oh, wow, you guys really went for it, didn’t you?”  Aglae leaned out of the fridge to look back at Eliza and Peggy.  “Where did you get the label maker?”

Eliza shrugged and Peggy pointed at her above her head.

“What is a label maker?”

“It’s this thing that prints little stickers you can put on things,” McHenry explained, a little distracted as he maneuvered his car around Lafayette’s on the television in front of them.  “You can, uh, you can write whatever you want on them.”

“Why is there a label maker?  What was being labeled?”  Lafayette leaned to the side, far into McHenry’s personal space, as if that would let him make the sharp turn more easily.

“We were marking the food I got,” Peggy said, getting up off the couch and going to look into the fridge with Aglae.  “That way everyone will know which containers are mine.”

“We also labeled some of the things that are for sharing,” Eliza added.  “There’re two trays of jell-o in the back, one with water and one with vodka.”

“Angelica helped.”

“She did.”

“Why do you have a label maker?”  Lafayette asked as he straightened back up, his eyes still locked on the screen.

“Eliza is going to be a Pinterest mom.”

“Peggy,” Eliza protested.

“Oh, just like Adrienne,” Lafayette said.  “Maybe you two can start a blog.”

“Or a zine,” Peggy offered from the kitchen as she and Aglae dug through the fridge for a snack.  “She also drew a smily face on the string cheese bag.”  They moved back with two sticks of cheese and closed the door.

“It says it is for sharing,” Aglae piped up.

“I like this,” Lafayette said happily as he sped into his final lap in first place.  “This is so nice.  We should all live together all the time.”

“We don’t live together any of the time.”

“I know,” he said to McHenry, “I was saying that we should.”

“Got it.”

“I don’t want to live with boys,” Aglae complained.

Lafayette and McHenry made overlapping noises of protest.

“I don’t,” she insisted.  “You hog the bathroom and are too noisy.”

“I don’t hog the bathroom,” Lafayette said.  “I am very good at sharing space.”

“And I’m not that loud.”

“I hated living with my brother.”

“That’s different,” Lafayette said with a nod to McHenry who wasn’t looking at him.  “That’s your own sibling.”

“Where are you from?”  McHenry asked as he sat back a little, resigning himself to a less than stellar place.

“Iowa.”

“Fly-over country.”

She wrinkled her nose at him.

“The German belt,” Peggy said.

“Oh, like Coach.  Although technically he’s got a property in New Jersey,” McHenry went on, “so as a native New Yorker I have to say that’s much worse.”

Eliza laughed and he turned back over his shoulder as he finally crossed the finish line to grin at her.

“Are there any other games?”  Lafayette asked, getting to his feet and stretching.  “Or more controllers?”

McHenry offered Eliza his and she declined it with a shake of her head.

“I dunno.”  Peggy peeled off a long strand of cheese.  “I just moved in, remember?”

“Does he have Pokémon?”

“That’s a handheld,” McHenry said, stretching out his legs in front of him.  He leaned forward and then sat back, putting his hand over his beanie on the ground behind him.

“Duh.  Not Pokémon Snap, though.  We should play that.”

Lafayette looked back at Peggy.  “That was before your time.”

“That was before all of our’s.”

“Isn’t that a one-player?”  McHenry asked.  “Am I thinking of the wrong thing?”

“We could trade.”

“I have to go soon,” Eliza said, checking the small silver watch on her wrist.  “I don’t have any of my things for class with me.”

“You can share my book if you want.”

Peggy dramatically rolled her eyes at Aglae, as if the offer was an over the top display of affection.  “I thought you were going to help me unpack.”

“I was,” Eliza said, getting up off the couch and checking her purse, “but then everyone else came over and you got distracted telling us all about the boy in your class who had to spend one weekend last month in the hospital.”

“He put a packed bowl in his pocket and cracked it,” Peggy protested.  “He _inhaled_ _glass_!  I had to share!  Besides, James liked it!”

“‘Liked’ is a strong word,” McHenry said.

“…James thought it was interesting!  He said he had never read about anyone who actually needed to go to the hospital for anything like that!”

“Usually it’s a small enough amount that your body can handle it on its own,” McHenry said.  “I just…  That must have been a lot of glass.”

“It was,” Peggy said almost proudly.  “He showed us the crack in it after class.”

“Peggy,” Eliza scolded.

“He did.”

“Cool,” Aglae said.

Eliza made an exasperated noise and closed her bag.  “I’m heading back.”

“I can come with you,” McHenry said.  He got up, hat in hand, and stretched his arms out behind his back.  “Not, uh,” he caught himself and tried to clarify, “not back to your place.  I need to go back to the dorm.”

“Oh, are you living on campus too?”  Lafayette asked.  “Are you not in the fraternity with your friends?”

“No.”  McHenry shook his head.  “I’m in the honors dorm.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette considered that.  “Is that hard to get into?  Why are John and I not in it?”

“It’s by the medical school.  Not everyone who qualifies to stay there wants to.”

“I’ll head towards campus with you,” Eliza said.

“Me too.”  Lafayette turned off the game system and the television.  “I would like to take a look at these honors dorms.  I don’t know where I will be staying next year,” he explained.  “It will be very lonely without John.  Do you have a roommate?”

“Uh…”

Lafayette put his arm over McHenry’s shoulders.  “We will discuss it on the way.”  He offered Eliza his arm with exaggerated gallantry.  “Let’s walk.”

 

“No,” Hamilton said, untouched plate of cafeteria spaghetti in front of him, “I’m not apologizing to him again.  Fuck that,” he added, picking up his fork for the fourth time and toying with it.  “I already told him I should have asked him first.  I’m not sorry I read his shit, so I’m not apologizing.”

“You shouldn’t have read it.”

“I heard you the first time,” Hamilton complained, “back in South Carolina.  Remember?  We had this conversation.”

“Well?”  Eliza asked.  “Did your way of handling it help things?”

Hamilton glared at his plate.

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“No.”

“You miss him,” Eliza answered for him.  “Alex, I know you’re hurt that he lied about his past and I’m not suggesting you forget about all of that, but can’t you see that you’re behaving irrationally?”

“What are you trying to get from him?”  Angelica asked, taking a sip of water from its reusable metal bottle.  “You didn’t break up with him.”

“Yes I did, then Lafayette made us get back together.”

“So you didn’t really.  At this point in time you are still together.”

Hamilton shrugged moodily, not liking how the unspoken alternative made his heart race.  “I’ve been on my own before.  All my life.  I don’t need to stay with him.”

“No one said you did.”

“Well, I don’t.  I can find someone else.  Guy or girl.  Non-binary, don’t think I ever dated someone who fell in there, that might be nice, maybe they’d be less with the biphobia.  You know he made me feel like such _shit_ for sleeping around?”  He turned the conversation against Laurens instead.  “Jealous of everyone I talked to.”

Hamilton wasn’t paying attention and missed the look that passed between Eliza and Angelica.

“Moody little bitch.”

“Do you want to still date him?”  Angelica asked.

Hamilton didn’t answer.

“Alex,” Eliza said.  “You clearly still have feelings for him.  You wouldn’t be so upset if you didn’t.  I’m not saying that he doesn’t have his own issues to work on but you won’t even be able to have that conversation with him if you don’t apologize first for going through his things.  How can you expect him to listen to you if he doesn’t know that you agree that was inappropriate?”

“And don’t tell him you’re sorry he is upset,” Angelica warned.

Hamilton snorted.

“It’s only Monday,” Eliza said, reaching across the table and putting her hand on his wrist.  “If you need to take another day or two to cool off, then why don't you just send him a message to tell him that?  You can tell him you need some space to gather yourself back together because he hurt you as well, but you’d like to speak with him later in the week.  Does that sound good?  You need to make up with him.”

“Why?”  He finally took a bite of his dinner.  “So maybe I’m single now.  Maybe I shouldn’t get back together with him.  Maybe you should be happy about that.”

“Maybe,” Eliza said, her words turning abruptly hot and her cheeks starting to flush, “you are being a complete jackass.”  She pushed back her chair and took her tray to be cleared, leaving Hamilton staring, surprised and guilty, at her back, her black ponytail swinging sharply over her ice blue windbreaker.

“O for two,” he said with a weak attempt at humor to Angelica.

She met him with a stoney gaze and stood.  “Congratulations,” she told him bluntly.  “You have invented a new kind of stupid.”  She left, following after her sister.

Hamilton slouched down in his seat.  He could see some of Laurens’ teammates—Tallmadge, Grayson, Lee—eating across the room.  Laurens was not with them.

Hamilton hesitated, deliberating, then took his bag and tray over to them.

“Hey.”  He approached Tallmadge, the one he had the most contact with in the past.  “I lost my dinner guests.  Mind if I sit here for a while?”

Tallmadge looked surprised but not uncomfortable to see him, Hamilton noted with relief, and he nodded and motioned to the empty chair across from him and next to Lee.  “Sure, go ahead.  How was break?”

“Long.”  Hamilton took the seat.  “Did not get as much work done as I had hoped.  You?”  He started eating.

“Finally got all the cabbage smell out of my hair but I think my shirt’s pretty stained from the mud.”

Hamilton wondered if it was worth asking.  “How about you?”

Lee shrugged noncommittally.  “It was fine.  Better than school, anyway.”

“Fair enough.”  Hamilton poked at the blandly boiled vegetables on the side of his plate.  “So.”  He took a gamble.  “You hear from John?”

Lee gave him a quizzical look.  “Laurens or André?”

“Laurens.  Haven’t spoken to him since I got back.”

“Did something happen?”  Tallmadge asked.  “You guys are still…?”

“Oh yeah, yeah.  Actually,” Hamilton said, watching Lee out of the corner of his eye and adopting a teasing tone, “don’t tell him, but I was hoping to get to use that birthday present you guys got him again sometime.  You know, with the…”  He made a suggestive noise.

Tallmadge laughed, a little embarrassed.  “I’m glad it went over well.”

“Real well,” Hamilton assured him.  “So not to be incredibly inappropriate, but thanks for getting it.”

“Which part?”  Grayson asked through a mouthful of bread.  “Rope or lube?”

“It was tape,” Hamilton corrected him.

“I thought they said it was rope.”

“Trust me,” Hamilton said, “it was tape.”

“He’d know better than you,” Lee said to Grayson.  “Moron.”

“Hey, I’m just asking.”

Hamilton took another bite and frowned, disappointed to have not gotten a reaction.  “So, Lee, is it true that you hooked André up with his girlfriend?”

Lee looked at him suspiciously, then shrugged and nodded.  “Yes.  I met her at a dinner her house was throwing.  Why?”

“Friend mentioned it to me.  Thought it was interesting.  You only know girls, or you know any guys you could send his way?”

Lee snorted.  “Sorry.  It’s not exactly something I usually go around doing.  I just happened to know a girl who I thought he’d hit it off with.”

“Didn’t you hook him up with Peggy Shippen last year too?”  Grayson asked.  He opened a package of cookies and offered it around the table.  “Thanks for that, by the way.”

Lee made a face at him.  “Hey, I didn’t think that was going to turn into a whole big thing.  I figured they’d go out for a semester, not that it would devolve into this on again off again thing all through the following spring and summer.”

“They were off most of the summer.”

“They weren’t on campus with each other.”

“True.”

“Whatever,” Grayson said.  “I shouldn’t be sarcastic.”  He turned on a smile and got up, reaching across the table to pat Lee on the shoulder.  “Thanks for setting him up with people.  No, really.”  He sat back down.  “We’d be doing way shittier if he wasn’t on his game.  I should get someone to invest in us,” he joked.  “Or just do it myself and not make a big deal out of it.  I know it’s technically not allowed but it’s not like I’ve got any actual control over what ends up happening more than the rest of you.  Well,” he considered Hamilton, “you aside.  No,” he corrected himself.  “I take that back.  You’re Laurens’ Peggy.  I like you.  Have another cookie.”  He offered them to him again.

Hamilton laughed awkwardly at the joke and took one.  “Hot.”

“Hey,” Grayson said, “I’m serious.  Mostly.  He’s not as easy to screw up as André but he’s definitely been more on top of things since you came along.”

“I came into some money,” Hamilton said without really thinking about it, not quite sure if he was just hurting himself by bringing it up or not and why he felt the need to do that, “maybe I should put it on you guys winning.  Grayson,” he joked, “want me to put something down for you, too?”

“Nah,” Grayson said, shaking his head.  “I was kidding before.  I don’t want to jinx it.”

“You believe in stuff like that?”  Lee asked.

“No,” Grayson said with an embarrassed half-grimace.  “But why risk it, you know?”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Hamilton said.  “Maybe I will do it.  Hey, Lee.”  He turned back to him.  “What was the name of the site again?  That one you guys were passing around the other week.”

“There are a bunch of them,” Tallmadge said as Lee unlocked his phone.

“Yeah, but this was the one with the best payoff.  If he’s serious about it…”

Hamilton watched him type.  The website autofilled to a different team and Lee had to back out quickly.  “Here.”  He showed him the screen but didn’t hand his phone over.

Hamilton memorized the site.  “Thanks.  Who was the other team?”

“Are you cheating on us?”  Tallmadge teased.  “Traitor.”

“I was checking up on some other rankings,” Lee snapped.  He put his phone away.  “Cool it.”

“Hey, hey.”  Tallmadge put one hand up.  “Calm down, Lee.”

“What team?”  Hamilton asked again.  “Is someone favored to win over you guys now?  Rent’s expensive in this city,” he went on, feeling guilty over how he might be affecting their chances.  “Should I take a gamble on someone else instead?”

“The odds are still in our favor, although it narrowed over the last week.  I’d guess that we’re headed to championships though, since we’ve had a good season so far and we should be able to take the last two teams we’re up against.”

“The way it got scrambled this year we got over the real hurdles early,” Tallmadge explained for Hamilton’s benefit.  “That’s part of the reason why there’s all this talk about championships even though the season’s not over and technically it could still blow wide open.”

“Got it.”

“How much do you have to put down?”  Lee asked.

“Five hundred.”

“I’d hedge your bets if I were you.  Put just as much as you can on us so that you’ll break even if we win and put the rest on Monmouth, just in case.”

“Monmouth?”  Hamilton recognized the name as the one Lee’s browser had initially loaded to.

“They’re the ones we’re projected to play against, right?”  Grayson asked, reaching automatically for his own phone.  “I haven’t been keeping on top of it.”

“How could you not be?”

“I forgot, okay?”

“Monmouth is the one we were playing when Laurens dislocated his shoulder,” Tallmadge reminded Hamilton.

Hamilton felt his heart drop into his stomach abruptly.  “Oh,” he said, trying to sound casual.  “Them.”

“‘Break even.’”  Tallmadge laughed.  “What kind of advice is that?  He’s an economics major,” he said, motioning at Hamilton.  “Shouldn’t he know to at least aim for a slight profit, even if he doesn’t want to risk too much?”

Hamilton forced himself to laugh as well.  “I’ll look into it,” he promised Lee without meaning it and not sure how to get from where the conversation had drifted back to something potentially useful.  “Thanks for the tip.”


	170. Get Some Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can I Come Over?

“Can I crash at your place tonight?”

André looked up in surprise from the drawing he was working on in the near-empty studio.  “Of course.  What’s wrong with the dorm?”

“Nothing.”  Laurens sat next to him, putting his hands self-consciously on the table.  “I just can’t breathe there.  It’s too noisy.”

André tipped his head to the side.  His black bangs brushed across his face.  “Okay.”

“I just need to get out.”

“Okay,” André said again.  “I understand.”

It sounded like he actually did and somehow that seemed to make the weight of the building around them feel all the more real.  Laurens was painfully aware of the various classes still in session and all the people in them.  He remembered his shoulder and felt like he was himself somehow dislocated and the thought made him angry all over again.

“Do you want to go now?” André closed his pad of paper carefully.  “I can work on this back at the apartment.”

“I want a drink.”  It was half a joke.

“Okay,” André said, “I’ve got that too.  We can do one of those wine and paint things.”

“We’re not thirty year old mothers.”

“Speak for yourself.”

That startled a laugh out of him and André grinned encouragingly.  “That tree guy is on Netflix.”

“I’ll pass.  I have reading to do.”

“Responsible.”  André finished packing up his things and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.  “If we head back now then we can order something for dinner and it won’t arrive stupidly late.  I’m thinking Thai?  Or Filipino.  There’s this place I keep getting ads for and I don't know what a bangus is but I want one.”

Laurens ran automatically through the different kinds of food he had gotten with Hamilton and found nothing like that on his list.  “Sounds good.”  He stood.  “Thanks.”

“No problem.  So…”  André glanced at him once they had left the room and were in the deserted hallway, their voices and footsteps echoing slightly as they made their way towards the stairwell that would take them back up to the ground level.  “You want to talk about it?  I don’t have my phone, it’s not like I can tell anyone about it.”

Laurens evaded the question.  “What happened to your phone?”

André heaved a sigh.  “Okay, so, like, I was trying to upgrade to a better plan and it was supposed to go fine but in doing so they ended up saying that I was suddenly a new customer so I lost all my old carry-over perks from when my dad first got the whole thing set up.  It’s stupid.  My mom got real pissed and yelled at customer service but they wouldn’t do anything about it so she _canceled_ my plan and moved all of us over to a new carrier, except because it’s before the contract ran out the old one is holding the numbers hostage and won’t release them for up to ninety days.”

“Really?”  Laurens was startled out of his own problems enough to respond.

André nodded emphatically.  “Really!  I mean, technically we could just pay to get them to release them early but she’s—my mom—she’s so angry at them she’s refusing to do it and with my luck they’re going to be so backed up from the holiday rush or whatever that they’ll actually take until the end of February.”  He fished in his pocket.  “I’ve got this thing.”  He held up a cheap, early 2000’s Nokia.  “All it can do is call.  Uh, provided you’re in the right part of the country.  It’s my grandma’s,” he explained.  “She’s letting me borrow it.”

“What’s she doing meanwhile?”

“She has a landline, it’s okay.”  They headed up the stairs.  “Anyway, reception sucks and the only numbers in it are mine and my sister’s and my parents’.  And I think her pharmacy,” he added, “but I don't want to call them to check.”

Laurens didn’t respond as they made their way out of the rest of the building.  He squinted against the sun when they stepped outside and  watched as students made their way across campus against the cold.

“Did you tell your father about Alexander?”

“No.”  Laurens answered without looking at him as they kept walking.  His tone made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it yet.

André nodded and dug a pair of gloves out of his coat pocket.  He put them on.  “Hey, can you do the written critique on my piece?  I know I didn’t ask you and the semester is ending but I still need someone to do the one page whatever.  I’m pretty sure it can be complete bs.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll do yours for you if you’d like.”  André finished getting his gloves on and flexed his fingers inside them.

“That’d be good, thanks.”

“So how’re they coming along?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I’ve got things that could technically work for the different criteria but nothing tying it all together.  I really need to work on them more.”

“Yeah, me too.  Maybe we can do that back at my place?”

“Sure.  I’ve kind of given up on getting it to work right.  They’ll just be disjoint I guess.”

André made a motion towards his pocket like he was going to take his phone out again, then caught himself.  “I can’t even text anyone,” André joked sadly.  “I don’t know anyone’s number.  It’s just good I can order food online.”

They headed towards André’s station.

“You’ve met my father,” Laurens said abruptly.

“Yeah,” André agreed.  “Like, a half-dozen times.  Why?”

Laurens shook his head, wondering what his father had thought about André.  Had he been talking about a girlfriend the first time they were introduced to each other?

“You’ve never met my parents in person,” André said.  “I feel a little bad now.”

“It’s fine.  Your parents travel more.”

“That’s true.  My sister’s more fun than they are, anyway.  I don’t know if you’d really get along with her,” he admitted.  “Just because she’s a lot younger, I mean.  But she’s pretty cool.  She’s psychic, you know.”

Laurens gave him a confused look and André grinned, a little embarrassed.

“Well, I don’t know.  She’s really good, though, it’s kind of spooky.”

“Does she see the future or something?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t always remember.”

Laurens wasn’t able to keep from looking at him skeptically.

“…It’s just that it’s in dreams,” André said quickly.  “I know it sounds dumb.  I mean, it’s probably just deja vu or whatever.  But she’s told me things sometimes, like she said that she knew I was going to move to New York before I even applied to school here, like it was back when I was in tenth grade, I hadn’t even looked into going here yet.”

“She told you that before you moved?”

“No, that one she told me after.  But…”  André hesitated.  “I don’t know, you know how sometimes you just have a really close connection with someone?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I guess.”

“She just seems to know things that happen to me before they occur.  I get messages from her sometimes asking if I’m okay and when I check the timestamp it’s right during or right before something bad happened.”

“Huh.”

“She never sends those when I’m okay.  Like, oh, okay, she messaged me on Halloween, and when I checked it would  have been right when you caught Margaret with that guy.”

“It’s a little weird to hear you calling her that,” Laurens said, not sure what to do with the rest of their conversation.  They climbed down the steps into the station.  “You never did that before.”

“I guess not.”  André swiped himself through the turnstile.  “It’s not important.”

Laurens could hear in his voice that he didn’t want to be pressed on it and changed the topic.  “The one good thing about going home was that I got my car back,” he said instead.  “At least I got to drive a little.”

“You can borrow my car if you want.”

“It’s not the same.”  Laurens hesitated, not sure if he should take him up on it like he had mentioned to Hamilton once.

“If you change your mind.”

“Okay.”  That was open ended and Laurens could leave it at that.  Maybe later.  “…Why didn’t you drive to campus?”

“I dunno.  I didn’t feel like it this morning.  I have the parking pass, though,” André said with a shrug.  “But traffic’s a pain and it’s not super worth it.”

“Right, got it.  What else did you want to get for dinner?”

“I guess we should pick out a few more things.  I can do it back at the apartment or I can borrow your phone?”

Laurens handed André his phone and he pulled up the delivery site and then the appropriate menu while he still had reception.  “Thanks.  Pork adobo, I guess.  Pancit?”

“What’s that?”

André showed him the screen.  “Rice noodles.  Do you want anything else?  I figure we’ll share.”

“Empanadas,” Laurens said as soon as he saw them on the menu.

“Good call.  Let’s see if I can place it now…”  André focused on the phone as he walked, automatically stepping out of the way of a group of lost looking tourists without even glancing up.  “Shoot, what’s my credit card number…”

“You can autofill mine if you want.”

“Thanks.  I’ll pay you back.”

Laurens shrugged.  “You’re letting me stay.”

“Not a big deal.  No one’s using the other bedroom, anyway.”

“Why didn’t you just make that a study or something?”

“My parents wanted a bed in there for if they ever came to visit.  They did,” he added, “right after I moved in.”

Laurens stepped in front of him to head down the stairs to their platform.  “Did your sister come with them?”

“No.  She doesn’t like flying and besides she had to get ready for school.”

“Lafayette hates it too.”

“Yeah.”  André didn’t say anything while they waited for the train, both of them listening to their own thoughts and the sounds of the station around them.  “Hey.  What did Lafayette do?”  André asked after the train had pulled up and they had boarded a mostly empty car near the back.  Laurens shot him a look and André added quickly, “I mean, I just assume that he did.  Like, why bother coming over instead of just staying at your place?  I know you said it’s loud,” he went on.  “I believe you.  He likes to hear himself talk.  But, like, you never really had a problem with it before.”

Laurens tipped his head to the side and ran his hand over the back of his neck.  “We’re just…  I’m mad at him.”

“Really mad?”

Laurens put his hand back down and looked at him and André clarified with an awkward laugh.

“It’s just that I like working with him.  I want to know if I need to change my mind.”

“It’s fine.  I just don't want to be around him tonight.”

“Got it.”

“He’s just being a dick,” Laurens went on, obviously annoyed.  “It’s just—”  He bit back the rest of the sentence, then pushed through with a burst of anger.  “He was my friend first.  He might have met both of us around the same time, but he’s always roomed with me and it’s bull that he’s picking Alex over me.  He does this all the time,” he added.  “He’s always siding with him or trying to convince me to do things because he wanted me to.  They talk to each other about me, too, they don’t even keep it a secret.”

“They’re friends too…”  André started, then trailed off quickly at the irritated look Laurens fixed on him.

“It’s just bullshit.”  Laurens fell silent when the doors of the car opened and let a flood of people into the car.  He adjusted his bag further under his seat and didn’t speak.  There was no need to drag everyone else into it.

“…I guess Lafayette just likes to talk,” André said as they neared the stop they needed.  “I don’t think he means anything by it.”

Laurens shrugged, eyes fixed on middle distance straight ahead.

“I know he likes you, too.  He talks about you a lot.  He kept talking about your trip home for break.”

“What did he say?”

“That he wanted to meet everyone, especially your younger brother.”

“Jemmy?”

“Yeah.  He was also worried about how you and Alex would be.”

Laurens laughed grimly.

“Your father makes me mad anxious sometimes,” André added abruptly as they pulled into the station.  People around them stood and pressed out the door and Laurens looked at him, startled.  It was too noisy to ask what he meant so they filed out and headed out of the station.

“What do you mean?”

“Huh?”  André looked back at him on the escalator.  “About your dad?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged uncomfortably.  “I just wonder—It’s just awkward sometimes.  Maybe it’s just me.”

“You didn’t have to come to dinner.”

“No, no,” André said quickly.  “That’s not what I mean.  It’s not that I think he doesn’t like me or anything, It’s just—He seems like he’s kind of prying sometimes?  I don’t really know what you’re okay with him knowing.  You know?”

All the repetition and the sinking feeling in his stomach aside, Laurens shook his head.

They got off the escalator and followed the crowd out onto the street.

“…It’s probably all in my head.”

“What do you mean?”  Laurens pressed.

“Do you like him?”  André asked instead, catching him off guard.  “I know he’s your father so that’s different but do you guys get along?  Because sometimes you talk about him like he’s this great guy and then you turn around and say things to me or in front of him and it just doesn’t line up.  Sorry,” he said, “I know it’s not really my place.  You don’t have to answer me.”

Laurens felt a knot in his throat that he hadn’t expected, even when he realized where André was going.

“He’s my father.”

“I know.  Sorry.”

“Alexander didn’t get it either,” Laurens said, finding a direction to channel his confused jumble of emotions in.  “He wouldn’t stop bitching about him.  He didn’t even want to hear that I was meeting him with you in Boston.  My father’s a good person, okay?  He’s just from a different time but he’s not bad.”

“Okay,” André said.  He lifted his hand in brief greeting to the doorman of his building.  “I got it.”

“I’m not upset with him,” Laurens went on.  “So drop it,” he said, lurching unsteadily from general dissatisfaction to a not entirely successful attempt at anger.  “All right?”

“I said I got it.  He’s your dad, not mine.”

Laurens felt shame pricking at him over his words as they rode up in the elevator to André’s apartment.  He was unable to keep silent for more than a few stories.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.  Long day.”

The doors opened and they got out.  André unlocked his own door and put his bag down next to the couch.

“Make yourself comfortable.  Did you still want something to drink?”

“Water.  I’ll get it later.  Thanks.”

“There should be ice in the freezer.  Do you still want to work on stuff?”

Laurens put his bag down next to André’s.  “I should.”

“God, me too.  Do you think he meant it about everything being due in class the week before the semester ends?”  André dropped to his knees and took his things out, settling down on one end of the coffee table they had sat around after the trustee dinner.  Laurens followed suit, taking his place opposite him.

André quietly turned to a work in progress and sorted through his pencil case for the one he wanted.  He tested the point of one with his finger.

“Did something happen after you talked to your brother?”

Laurens was already working on an unfinished drawing and made a noncommittal noise without raising his head.  André sighed and settled into his work as well.  The sound of his pencil on the paper and the way the floor creaked as he leaned back to frown at the image and then bent over it again all felt like hands rubbing Laurens’ hair up the wrong way.  The soft noises of the building around them—the whirr of the central heating, the hum of the refrigerator—seemed amplified.  They made his spine crawl.

Laurens turned to a new page.

“I dunno.”  André was watching his work instead of him, but he was only fixing blocked in shading rather than anything requiring more thought.  “It just seemed to me like you were really happy about talking with your brother.  You know?  So I was wondering what changed.”

“Can you guess?  I gave it away already.”

“You and Alex fought about your father?”

The pencil was moving across the paper with bold, heavy strokes.  “Yes.”

“And Lafayette is siding with him.”

“He hit me.”

“The fuck?”

“I deserved it a little.”

“Still.  Guess that’s better than the other way.  You’d probably knock him to the floor.”

“It was a stupid idea to take them back home.”

“Not one of your best,” André agreed.

Laurens cracked a fleeting smile and didn’t say anything else for a few minutes.  “It’s too loud at the dorms,” he finally said, reiterating his initial point.  “I can’t stand the noise today.  It was too loud at Mulligan’s when I went to help this girl I know move in, and it was too loud on the subway.  I can’t get a moment’s peace.”

“Oh, I have earplugs,” André said after a beat.  “You should try them.  I used to wear them sometimes when—”  He was cut off by his stomach growling.  “Shit, I’m starved.  Can I check the wait time on your phone?”

Laurens passed it over and heard André swear again and launch into an apologetic complaint about how the order had never sent.  He sat back a little and looked at the page in front of him, at the rough sketch of two hands ripping into the paper.  Instead of turning the page to one of his actual pieces or a clean sheet like he knew he should, he saw the image in his mind, intentionally unrefined, and turned his attention to pulling it out of the paper.


	171. La/milton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art Project; Sudoku and Laundry

“When I was in Korea,” André said, their dirty dishes and takeout boxes on the dark wood floor of his living room, “the school I was going to didn’t really have a football team.”

“‘Didn’t really’?”

“I mean, we played it in phys ed, but it’s not like all the other schools in the area had teams so there was no point.  Plus, there weren’t that many international students so I don’t think we would’ve even been able to fill a team roster, really.  I didn’t get to actually play until I was back in the states in high school.  I’m jealous, is what I’m saying.”  He got distracted setting up a tray of watercolors.  “I think it’s cool that you played in middle school too.”  He got up and crossed into the kitchen, his footsteps muffed by his socks.

“It was fun,” Laurens agreed.  He raised his voice a little to be heard over the running water from the sink.  “It’s not like you needed the experience, though.  You made it onto the team right away.”

“I’d say it was luck but I’m not very lucky.”  André walked back to the table, carefully carrying a tumbler of water.  A little splashed on the floor and he paused to rub at it with his foot.  “Uh, all of this aside.”  He indicated the expensive apartment with a twirling motion of one finger on his free hand.

“That wasn’t you.”

“My parents.”

“They’re not you.”

“Yeah, but still.  I know I’m lucky there, that’s all I’m saying.”

Laurens looked around them, at the designer furniture and unusually spacious living quarters.  He couldn't help but compare it to his own family home, then to the estates they had visited in France, then, with slight reluctance, to what he imagined the Schuylers’ home to look like.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “Same.”

“Alexander said it was hard for him to come to New York,” he said.

“Yeah?”  André sat back down at the table.  He wet one of his brushes.  “Because of the expense, or?”

“He had to come here on his own and he didn't have money, not really.  I don’t know why he didn’t set something up with the school first for housing.”

“Maybe it was too expensive.”

“Maybe.”  Laurens was skeptical.  “He does this thing,” he said, “where he takes everything to an extreme.  He’ll walk it back if you call him on it.”

“What do you mean?”  André was starting to put color on the page.  “Can you give me an example?”

“Like with Peggy—Margaret.”

André looked up in surprise.  “What did he say about her?”

Laurens wished he hadn’t blanked on everything besides her and his father.  “After you guys broke up,” he said, treading carefully, “we were talking about her and I said that I didn’t like what she did.”

“Right.”

“And he…”  Laurens frowned and looked down at the drawings he had carefully detached from the pad and was arranging on the floor in front of him.  “I’m trying to remember exactly what he said.  He told me that I shouldn’t blame her because she was backed into a corner and didn’t know how to end things with you, or something like that.  He said it better than I’m doing now.”

André had lifted his brush from the paper and he didn’t put it back down.

“I think he’s wrong.  She screwed up, so fuck her.”

André brushed hair out of his face.  “Yeah,” he finally said.  “I wish she hadn’t done that.  I don’t know.  It would’ve been nice if we could have…”  He trailed off.

Laurens waited a moment to see if he was going to keep talking on his own.  “Do you still like her?”  He asked.

André put his brush back to the paper.

Laurens leaned back against the chair behind him.

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes.

“It would’ve been nice if she at least didn’t have to make that all so public,” Laurens finally said.  “Like, shit.  Bare minimum, that’s a low bar.”  His phone went off and he picked it up off the table, then muted it.

“Wrong number?”

“Lafayette.  He talks a lot.  I don’t want to deal with it.”

André dipped his brush in the water.  “Does he know you’re here?”

“No.  I’ll text him later.  You really don’t mind if I stay here, right?”

“It’s totally fine.  I’ve got the space.”

“I’m surprised you’re not having Mina over.”

André laughed uncomfortably.  “No, we, uh, no.  Hey,” he said, obviously eager for a quick topic change in a way that Laurens found almost funny, “did Lee message you over break about fundraising?”

Laurens gave him a confused look.  “No.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have it all set up yet.  He said he was thinking about putting a thing together to raise some money.”

“For what?”

André shrugged.  “I didn’t really talk to him about it, he just wanted to know if I’d chip in.”

“Is it for a team thing?  Or charity?”

“I’m not sure.  It sounded like funding for some group event.  It’s coming up on the end of the semester and since he’s captain I guess he wanted to throw something together for everyone.”

“I see.”

“I’m sure you’ll hear about it later,” André said, sensing the change in tone.  “I think he was just asking me individually but there’ll be some group email eventually.”

“I think he’s an ass,” Laurens said, unable to help himself.  He unlocked his phone to message Lafayette.

“Oh, definitely,” André agreed eagerly.  “It’s not like I’d want to actually hang out with him.  If he had asked,” he said jokingly, “I’d be like, ‘man, sorry, my place is completely full up, my whole family is in town visiting and we’ve got negative space.’”

Laurens laughed, reassured by the pretend lie and hit send.  “How many people could you even fit in here?”

“All my immediate family,” André said, “although my parents would take the other bed and I’d probably have to give up mine for someone.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Right.  I’ve got a sofa, and I guess I could push a couple chairs together…”

“Too bad this isn’t carpet,” Laurens said with a rap of his knuckles on the floor.

“Yeah, guess who’d get stuck sleeping on that.”  André pointed dramatically at himself.

“Lee.”

André laughed.  “Yeah, out in the hall, maybe.  I told him-slash-you, we’re totally jam-packed in here.”

“It’s a really nice place,” Laurens said, looking around again.  “Are you planning on staying here next year?”

“After graduation?”  André shook his head.  “I mean, my parents bought the apartment, so it’ll definitely still be an option.  I’d like to come back to the city, but I’m probably going to travel for a while.  My dad really wants me to go to Europe and get some experience there.  He says it’d be a good way to really get fluent and I could work under him.  You?”

Laurens shrugged as he got up and went to the kitchen.  “I like New York.”

“Do you want to stay?”

“Yeah.  I think so.  I don’t know what I’ll be able to do.  We’ll see.”

“Does your father want you to go back down south?”

“For the summer at least.  I don’t have anything lined up, though.”

“If you want to stay here you should find something,” André said.  “Then when he asks you can show him that you already have a plan.  That’ll be better, right?  It’ll look like you’ve put thought into it and aren’t just doing something on a whim.”

“That’s true.”  Laurens opened the fridge and moved aside a bag of organic produce.  “You don’t mind if I take a beer, right?”

“Go for it.  I offered earlier for a reason.”

“Thanks.”  He took out a bottle and got an opener from the drawer by the sink.  “I like New York,” he reiterated.  “I don’t think I could live in a smaller city again.”

“That's fair.  I mean, Columbia and DC aren’t that small, though.”

“I guess.”

“Well,” André joked, “if you need an apartment…”

“This place?”  Laurens took his seat across from him again and put the bottle down on the table, picking up his pencil and slowly fixing a line on a sketch, drawing it along the curve of Hamilton’s bare neck.  “I don’t know.  Something like this, maybe.”

André watched him work.  “Were you thinking of living with Alexander?”  
One side of Laurens’ mouth slipped up into a smile.  “Maybe.”  He tried and failed to sound serious.

“You should call him,” André said.  “I’ll lend you my phone,” he joked.

“Later.”  Laurens turned the drawing he was touching up ninety degrees.  “I’m not…  I don’t know.  I’m still kind of mad at him.”

“You can be angry with him and still call him.”

“I don’t want to wreck it.”  Laurens drew a little more.  “He’s pretty pissed at me, too.”

“Are those him?”  André rose to his knees to get a better look.

“Yeah.”  Laurens ran a hand up into his hair, a little embarrassed.  “It’s not what I had been working on—I tried to do a portrait of him a couple times but neither really—Well, _he_ really liked this first one but I don’t know.  It looks like him I guess, but it’s a little embarrassing.  I tried again later and I couldn’t really get it to work right, so then I switched to Lafayette and it’s _fine_ ,” he said, sounding frustrated, “but I don’t really like it.  I was figuring I’d turn it in anyway but nothing goes, like I was saying.  It’s driving me nuts.”

“I like these,” André said, motioning from the sketches of Hamilton that Laurens had done of him at night in his apartment, to the portrait he had done in the dorm, to a messy collection of character studies obviously taken from a vidchat, to the sketch Laurens had done of his own hands.

“They’re really rough.”

“Well, yeah.”  André tipped his head from side to side as he looked at them.  “You could neaten up that one you’re working on already,” he said.  “I kind of like that other one being messy.  I dunno.  I think you could make it work if it’s not one of your main things.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed.  “But, uh…”  He slid the full-body portrait a little more into view.  “I know you can’t _see_ anything but it’s pretty obvious…”

“Maybe you can put pants on him.”

“Maybe.”  Laurens sounded skeptical.

“Maybe I should tell Alexander to come over so you can finish these up.”

Laurens put his pencil down and took a drink.  “Yeah, right.”

“It’d be productive.”

“When I’m not going to just fight with him,” Laurens said.  “I’ll get him to sit for me then.”

 

“Don’t go to bed angry,” Mulligan said, sitting with Hamilton at the laundromat.  “That’s one of the cardinal rules of dating.  You’re not very good at this.”

“Who died and made you Ask Abby?”

“Probably some chick named Abigail.”  Mulligan gave a frustrated sigh and handed Hamilton his sudoku and pen.  “Here.”

“On it.”

“And you learn things,” Mulligan said.  “I’m not judging you, not really.  You’re just experiencing some growing pains moving into a more serious relationship and actually having to deal with shit like family and plans for the future.”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, not looking up from the paper, “I’m perfectly fine talking about all that stuff, he’s the one who’s stonewalling me.”

“I was talking about the two of you as a couple, you moron.  You’re not always a single entity anymore, Hamilton, hate to break it to you.”

Hamilton made a face and scribbled out one of Mulligan’s numbers.  “Your math’s suspect.”

“With what I’m saying or on the page?”

“Both.”

Mulligan shrugged.  “You know I’m right.  It sucks, doesn’t it?”

“You suck.”

“I love you too.”  Mulligan bent over the page.  “Huh.  Thanks.”  He took it back to a noise of protest.  “Go move your stuff into the drier.”

Hamilton got up as Mulligan kept talking.

“Jolexander.  Jalexander?”

He looked back at him over his shoulder as he pulled his bedding out.  “What are you doing?”

“Bad math.  Lamilton.”

Hamilton wrinkled his nose.  “Can you not?”

“Nope.  Haurens.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes, ignoring how he was starting to blush.  “I’m going to do the same thing back to you.”

“Good luck, Elizabeth and Hercules are hard to blend.”

“Beth…cules.”

“Cute.”  Hercules checked his watch.  “I’ve got another seven minutes before mine comes out.  And you wouldn’t have asked me to come be your laundry buddy if you weren’t upset about all this and if you’re upset you know I’m going to try to fix it.”

“Well it’s done,” Hamilton said, shoving the last of his bedding into the drier.  “We fought.”

“That’s fine,” Mulligan said.  “Healthy, even, provided you’re going somewhere with it.  But your friend was right, you need to make sure you’re both on the same wavelength.  He knows you’re not actually broken up, right?  You know you’re not broken up?”

“We talked about this on the train,” Hamilton said, sitting back down next to him.  “Chill.”

“I just don’t want you to accidentally get cheated on.”

“I’m not in a friggin’ sitcom.”

“You’d probably piss off the producers and get fired.”

“Hey…  Three goes there.”

“Stop that.”  Mulligan put a three on the page anyway.  “How’d you know that, anyway?  I’m not working on that column yet.”

“I can see it.”  Hamilton put his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees.  “You’re not just telling me to call him and apologize.”

“Nah.  I know you.  It wouldn’t be genuine and that’d just make it worse.”

Hamilton watched as Mulligan carefully wrote in another number.

“You need to do things on your own time, that’s just how it is.  That’s okay.  As long as he knows that you’re working your way there and he’s on board.”

“He hasn’t talked to me, either.  He could’ve said something when I called up to your place.”

“Sorry I missed you.  Peggy’s been doing well, though, you can tell her sisters that when they inevitably ask.”

Hamilton winced behind his hands  “Yeah…  I’m not sure they’re talking to me, either.”

Mulligan glanced up at him.  “What’d you do?”

“I kind of asked Eliza if I could be her sloppy seconds.”

“You really are a moron,” Mulligan proclaimed, looking back at the puzzle.  “I swear to God.”

“I have class with Angelica tomorrow,” Hamilton said.  “I’ll try to…  I dunno.  Something.”

“You’re running quickly out of people who’ll put up with your ass.”

“You still like me.”

“Yeah, fortunately for you I’m not going anywhere.  Except literally, I’m only in the city half the time these days, so you should really branch out.”

“I’ve still got friends on campus.  Gouverneur.  And I’m talking to Burr again.”

“That’s good.  You could use someone with a level head.  What did he say about all of this?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “We didn’t really talk about it.”

“Figures.  All right, what’s your plan, champ?  How much longer before you’re done sulking and ready to make amends and move forward?”

“He needs to fix stuff too.”

“I never said he didn’t.”

“I just don’t know why it’s all my job to fix it,” Hamilton complained.  “Lafayette insisted I be the one to talk to him on the train, too.”

“Wasn’t that after you broke up with him?”

Hamilton scoffed.

“Look,” Mulligan said patiently, putting down his sudoku.  “Clearly he’s got his own shit that he needs to work on if you’re going to actually stay together.  But I’m not talking to him, dumbass, I’m talking to you.  What are you going to do?  If you want, I’ll go to campus and yell at him too.”

“Thanks,” Hamilton said a little sarcastically as he took the sudoku back from Mulligan to finish it up.  “I think I’m good.”


	172. Fun & Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanging Out; Texting

“So which sister’s the psychic?”  Laurens asked as he took a drink then put the glass bottle down on the small wood and gilt trim bar cart.  It stood suitably far enough away from the pool table in what could have otherwise been a third bedroom and he watched as the four was hit directly into the corner pocket.  “Nice shot.”

“Thanks.”  André circled the table, looking for his next shot.  “Hannah.”

“Which one’s that?”

“She’s the next oldest.”  André sunk another ball and walked around the table in the opposite direction.  “I know it sounds lame.”

Laurens shrugged, not really caring enough to either believe him or call him on it.  “It’s not like you’re saying that she can fly.”

“I guess.”  André’s third shot failed to sink anything and he stepped back.  “Your turn.”

“Finally.”  Laurens lined up his cue.  “I don’t even want to think about how much work it must have been to get this thing up here.”

André laughed awkwardly.  “It probably took a whole bunch of guys,” he admitted.  “I wasn’t around while they furnished it.”

“Maybe I should get an apartment in the city,” Laurens said, missing his shot and taking another drink instead.  “I don’t need it as fancy as this, but something with a gym in the building would be nice.  Only one bedroom.”

“What if someone wants to visit?”

“Like who?”  Laurens watched as André took his shot.

“I don’t know.  Your sister?”

“Martha?  I guess.”

“I know your dad’s stressful, but wouldn’t it be nice if she could visit?  She’s going to graduate soon anyway, I’m sure she’d like—shit—somewhere to go for break.”  André stepped away from the table again to let Laurens take his turn.

“Yeah.  She really doesn’t want to go to school here,” Laurens said.  “I asked.  I thought, I don’t know, I thought it’d be nice if she was here.  Don’t tell her I said that.”

“Of course not.”

“She probably hates me a little.  We fight all the time.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t.”

Laurens shrugged, falling quiet.  He sunk the ball he was aiming at and lined up another.

“Siblings are just like that.  You know?”

“She’s nicer than I am,” Laurens said.  He moved away from the table and took another drink, finishing off the bottle.  “She’s hard, but she had to grow up quickly.  Even after our mother…  It’s not like our father’s ever around.  And I’m here.  And I don’t want to be down there.  She doesn’t, either, even New York is too close.  I don’t know.  I feel like if she was here I could pay her back some.”

André nodded, the game momentarily forgotten.

Laurens ran a hand through his hair with a sigh.  “I really should have known that she already knew.  She’s smart and we grew up together.  She was always underfoot.  And…”  He hesitated.  “I guess, for people her age, it’s not really… as big a deal.  Necessarily.”

“Yeah,” André agreed readily.  “That’s true.”  When Laurens didn’t say anything, he added, “Maybe she’s psychic, too.”

Laurens gave a startled laugh at the absurdity.

“Or, okay, not a psychic.  An empath?  Something.  What I mean is maybe it’s not so much that you did anything as much as she could just tell because she could read you.”

“No,” Laurens laughed.  “I think it was just me.”

“Oh.  Well, that’s okay, too.”

“Yeah, I know.”  Laurens sorted through the other items on the bar cart, his empty bottle decidedly out of place.

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can mix you something if you’d like.”

“Did this all come with the apartment too?”

“Yeah, it was just part of the set up.  They initially got it so my dad would have a place to stay when he’s in the city on business, but he ended up not using it as much as he thought he would.”

“Wild,” Laurens said, responding more like how Hamilton would than how he really felt about it.  “I like these glasses,” he added, picking a tumbler and looking at it.  Light refracted along its golden rim and shone through the glass.

“I’ll get you a set when you get your own place as a housewarming present.”

“I’d rather have something more practical.  Like normal glasses.  I’d break these if they were for daily use.”

“You can buy that stuff on your own,” André said.  “Or your dad would just get it for you.  I’d want to get you something cool.”

Laurens felt a flash of insecurity.  “I don’t know if he’d pay for it.”

“Why not?  He basically pays for everything like that now, right?”

“Yeah.”  He tried and failed to push the nagging anxiety away.  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said, “I’m not getting a place just yet.”

“You have to make up with Alexander first.”

Laurens laughed, but he could hear how painfully nervous it was.

“Sorry,” André said, misreading why he was uncomfortable, “I’ll stop pushing that at you.  Is it still my turn?”

“I think so.”

“My bad.”  He turned his attention back to the table.  “Did you know that the Chinese invented billiards?”

“Did they really?”

“No idea.”  He narrowly avoided sinking the eight ball.  “Sounds plausible though, right?  They invented everything.  Except for when Korea actually got to it first.”

“So who invented the boy band?”  Laurens lined up his shot.

“Definitely Korea.”  André watched him take it and nodded as one of the balls went in.  “Nice.  Anyway, they perfected it even if they didn’t technically invent it.”

“You’re just biased.”

“Man,” André said, suddenly sounding more genuine and less like he was making small talk just for the sake of it, “that was rough.  I’m just glad I got out of it.  If I have kids I’m steering them away from show business.”

“That bad?”

“I had next to zero control over my own image,” he complained.  “Not my clothes, not my makeup—”

Laurens snorted in an attempt to keep from laughing.

“—not my hair.  A little after I debuted they made me grow it out,” André went on, motioning the length down to his shoulders.  “And then they made me put a braid in it.”  He tugged at the hair just above his ear.  “Right here.  Then they made me bleach it and cut all of it off except for the braid.  It was so _stupid_.”

“No football and a bad haircut,” Laurens said, sympathetic but obviously amused.  “What a burden.”

“Shut up,” André said without any bite.  “At least that was before there were really any pictures.”

“You should go as yourself for Halloween next year.”

“Fat chance.”  André checked a second glass and then his mixer.  “Do you like Moscow mules?  I got ginger beer the other day out of curiosity and it’s only okay but I think it’d be good with the vodka.”

“Go ahead.”  Laurens watched as André poured the vodka into the small mixer and took it back out into the kitchen to get the rest of the ingredients.  “Okay, if not yourself, how about Lafayette?”  He heard André laugh from the other room.  “I know he changed his hair, but I think if you dyed yours purple you’d make it more obvious.”

“I bet I could get something temporary,” André said.  “Chalk, maybe?  And a notebook.”

“And a phone,” Laurens added.  “It’s an easy costume.”

“You’re easier,” André said.  “Blue shoes, blue sling, get into a fight in the restroom.”

“Hey, that was for your benefit,” Laurens protested as André walked back in.  He held out the two glasses for André to pour their drinks into.

“Doesn’t matter, it makes for a good costume.  Cheers.”

Laurens took a drink, feeling for a moment like the two of them were actual adults, in control of their own destinies, buoyed up by their expensive surroundings and the taste of something more mature than cheap beer.  He walked away from the pool table, the remnants of their game forgotten.

“You know what,” he said, standing in the doorway to the rest of the apartment, “screw what my father thinks.  I don’t need him, anyway.”  He took another drink while André watched.  “So he thinks I’m an embarrassment, I don’t care.  It doesn’t matter.  I’m all the way up here.  He can’t touch me,” he said with a flourish of bravado.  “I’m out of his reach.”

“Totally,” André agreed too quickly for him to have really absorbed what he was saying.  “Stick it to him.  You don’t need him.”

The word “need” struck him and threw him back off balance.

“Yeah,” Laurens said and changed the topic.  “I’ve lost track of this game.  Do you want to do something else?”

“I can get the Wii set up,” André suggested, motioning with a nod of his head back out towards the living room. “Do you want to pick something?”

“Sure,” Laurens said, eager to have a fresh distraction.  “That sounds good.”

 

Hamilton sat at his desk, just at the edge of his seat.  He tapped his hand on the empty space in front of him that would normally hold his laptop or book.  He had no work out, too distracted by a sense that he was forgetting or missing something.  He could feel it like an itch at the back of his mind and he rolled his head forward, hoping he could shake it free.  No luck.  He pushed his hands up into his hairline and rested his elbows on the desk with an exaggerated noise of frustration.

“Mulligan’s at work,” he said, running through his list of people.  “Lafayette I’m still kind of pissed at, Angelica’s mad at me, Eliza’s mad at me, Burr told me that if I spam him again he’s blocking my number and I think that’s a bluff but I’m not really in a position to call him on it.  I guess I could call Gouverneur.”

He didn’t get up.

“I need more friends.”

 

“Yeah,” André agreed.  “It’s weird but I’m still kicking your ass.”

“You keep putting me to sleep,” Laurens complained.  “Of course you’re winning.”

“You also picked the game,” André said, standing and leaning forward a little to see the screen better as he maneuvered Jigglypuff from one platform to another.  “ _I_ wanted to play Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.”

“I’ve played—shit.  I’ve played that before.  My kid brother has a copy of that.  It sucks.”

“Jemmy?”

“Yeah.”

“How is he?”

“Stop trying to distract me, you’re already kicking my ass,” Laurens complained.  He answered the question anyway.  “He’s good.  Really liking his classes, as usual.  Oh,” he said, remembering suddenly, “do you think it’d be okay if I gave him your number?  He had questions about how to talk to this girl that he likes.”

André laughed.  “Yeah, that’s fine.  Why doesn’t he just talk to you, though?”

Laurens shrugged uncomfortably.  “I don’t know girls.”

“I don’t think that matters.  You’re still in a relationship.  Clearly something’s working out for you, and you’re his brother after all.  I’ll talk to him if you’d like but I’d think he’d rather hear it all from you.”

Laurens was silent for a moment.  “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.  “I just figured it wasn’t the same.”

“People are people.”  The timer ran out and the announcer pronounced André the winner.  He punched Laurens on the arm triumphantly.  “And you suck at this.”

“You were playing with one of the unlockable characters,” Laurens complained.  “Those are always better.”

“Ness maybe, not Jigglypuff.  If you want to see, you play as it next time.  I’ll even switch so there aren’t two of us on the screen.  I can be Samus.”

“That’s okay,” Laurens said quickly.  “I just needed a warm up.”  He put his controller down on the arm of the couch and picked up his drink from the table.  “Right,” he said after taking a drink and dramatically wiping his mouth off on his sleeve.  “I’m ready.  Teams this time?”  He picked his controller back up.

“Sure.”  André set it up.  “Random setting?”

Laurens nodded.

“You know who sucks at this?”  André asked.  The timer counted down and they both scrambled to beat on the coms.  “McHenry.”

Laurens felt a small nervous rush.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  André was only paying half attention as he talked.  “I was playing teams once with the two of us against Tallmadge and Tench and we got our asses kicked so hard.”

“That’s not really a fair combination,” Laurens said, “they play together all the time.”

“He fell to his own death three times.”

André started to laugh and Laurens glanced over, unwilling to take his attention off the screen for more than a second.

“Sorry.”  He was grinning and Laurens could see that the alcohol was making his face flush and probably encouraging whatever he was about to say.  “Sorry,” he repeated, breaking a capsule and treating Laurens to the vaguely menacing sight of Jigglypuff with a baseball bat.  “Can you imagine Coach playing this?”

Laurens snorted.

“Do you think he’d be good?”

Laurens was about to answer in the negative, then he remembered the mention of parties that he had heard at the Washingtons’.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.  “Maybe he’d be surprisingly good.”

“I bet he’d play as DK.”

The comment and the casual way André tossed it out caught Laurens off guard and he laughed, almost falling off the ledge himself.

“What?”  André was grinning at him.  “He would.”

“That doesn’t make it any less funny.”

“No,” André agreed happily.  “In fact I think it makes it better.”

“Alex would suck at this,” Laurens said without thinking about it.  “He’s got shit coordination.”  He realized what door he had opened a moment too late and tensed, waiting for André’s reaction.

“Yeah?”

Could have been worse.  Left him room to slip away.

“Yeah.”  Laurens knocked one of the coms off into the distance.  “I guess he never played as a kid.”

“Makes sense.”

Laurens shrugged, remembering this time with discomfort how Hamilton had pleaded with him to think of how difficult moving to New York had been.

“Maybe we could just do weighted teams,” André suggested.  “You and him versus me and McHenry.”

“We could take you.”

“You said he was bad.”

“Yeah,” Laurens allowed, “but I’m not.”

“You’re no Jigglypuff.”

“No one ever made me bleach and cut my hair, either.”

“I was a minor,” André complained.  “And under contract.  I should get a pass on all of that.”

“I’m surprised your parents were on board.”

“They pulled me out of it when it got to be too much,” André said.  “They were going to be spending more time in the US at that point, anyway, and they wanted me to have more of a normal—shoot—” He died on screen and had to regenerate.  “A more normal childhood or whatever.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

Laurens didn’t say anything else until the round had finished.  “Do you think,” he began tentatively, “that I shouldn’t have invited Alexander back home over break?”

“What do you mean?”  The next round began and André immediately hit pause.  He looked at him.  The red in his cheeks was just disarming enough that Laurens was willing to explain himself.

“He had a really hard time,” Laurens said, “the whole thing about my father aside.  He said that just being there was difficult for him and, I don’t know.”  He looked back at the television without unpausing the game.  “I wasn’t very attentive to that, I guess.”

“Did he tell you all of this?”

“Yeah, on the ride back.”

“I don’t know.  I mean, it’s a good thing that you wanted to include him, right?”

“You’re right,” Laurens said, feeling his temperature raise a little with the heat of his voice.  “You’re right.  He was bitching about how I wasn’t including him in anything and you’re right, I was.  I didn't have to invite him at all but I did.”

“You totally were,” André agreed with an overly enthusiastic nod. His bangs fell into his face and he brushed them away with his hand.

“Maybe he needs to include _me_ in more stuff.”

“He could take you to the student council meetings.”

“I went to one of those for him,” Laurens admitted.  He lowered his hand and tapped the controller against his leg.  “And I visit him at work all the time.  I guess he can’t really take me around St. Croix.”

“Man,” André said with slightly inebriated sympathy.  “That’s uneven.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed.  He hesitated again, not sure which way André had meant it.

“…Unpause?”

“Right.  Sorry.”

“No problem.”  André started the game again.  “If it was me,” he said as they played, “I’d call him.  Like, since you said that I’m good enough at relationship advice that I should talk to your brother.”  He flashed a grin at Laurens.  “I’d call him.  Even if I was mad.  Especially, I guess, because I wouldn’t want to do something stupid just because I was pissed.  But I’m not really like you,” he went on.  “I get lonely.  You’re better at being alone.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed, but it rang a little hollow.  “That’s true.”

 

> A. Hamilton: Nights like this, it’s too cold.  I never had nights like this before, not saying that this is necessarily worse

> A. Hamilton: I know, I know, you’re thinking how could I say that, I complain about this all the time.  But, you know, nothing’s leaking and I’ve got plenty of food in the fridge, so things could really be worse.  Plus my bed might be small but at least it’s my own.

> A. Hamilton: You didn’t have to go anywhere you didn’t know, right?  They never stuck you somewhere you hadn’t already been.  That’s lucky, I’m glad for you.  Even my cousin’s, I didn’t really know that place.  It wasn’t like I had ever spent much time there.  I never spent the night before.

> A. Hamilton: They let me take a bag.  Guess I was supposed to be grateful.

> A. Hamilton: Sorry.  It’s hella late.  Please tell me you put me on mute or something, I know you’ve got morning class.

> A. Burr: It’s fine.

 

Hamilton sat up straight at his desk, not having expected a response, especially after not having gotten anything since he first started messaging him.

 

> A. Hamilton: Hey, you’re up!  Lots of work for tomorrow?

> A. Burr: I was out.  Just getting back now.

Hamilton snorted to himself, amused.

 

> A. Hamilton: Nice.

> A. Hamilton: I don’t know what I was going on about

> A. Burr: It’s fine, Alexander.

> A. Hamilton: I figured you’d understand, I guess

 

He stared at his phone for a long while, then plugged it in.  The room seemed smaller and he wasn’t sure if it was comforting or alienating.

 

> A. Hamilton: I’m going to bed.  Night Burr

 

He paused, then added:

 

> A. Hamilton: Thanks


	173. Onwards and Upwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vacation Break Up; Share with the Class; Adulting

“You broke up with her?”

Laurens heard Humphreys ask the question before he could see who he was posing it to and looked at André automatically before realizing it couldn’t have been him.

“That sucks.  I thought you were really looking forward to seeing her.”

They rounded the corner and to his surprise saw that he was talking to Tench, fresh from the airport.

“Yeah.”  Tench, still in obvious travel clothing, everything a little mismatched and smelling of airport and cab, shrugged.  He was sitting on the bench nearest his own locker with his bag at his feet and his legs spread.  “I dunno.”

“Wait.”  Laurens put his own bag down for a second while he put in the combination on his lock.  “What happened?”

Tench drummed his fingers on his knee and looked moodily across the room.  “It went…  You ever know all of a sudden that something’s not going to work?”

Laurens nodded, more to encourage him to go on than out of real understanding.

“I got from the airport to where I was staying and went to meet her for dinner.  She was going to take me to her host family’s home.”

Laurens opened his locker and shoved his bag inside, then pulled his shoes off, balancing with one hand on the row of metal doors, to take off his sweatpants, athletic shorts already on underneath.  “Yeah?”

“…I don’t know,” Tench said, sounding honest and confused and frustrated.  “When she introduced me to them…  She’s just so _white_ ,” he said with a little hurt outburst.  “It was like she thought that she had grown up there and I was seeing it all for the first time.”

Humphreys nodded sympathetically and patted him on the shoulder.  Laurens put his shoes back on.  “Sorry,” he said.  “So you just ended it then?”

“Nah, I waited until the end of break.  Tench shrugged again, defeated.  “I knew, but…  I didn’t know I knew?  Or I just didn't want to waste the entire trip,” he said in an attempt at humor.

Laurens kicked the tip of his shoe lightly against the base of the lockers, trying to get it on properly.  “Did you at least have fun?”

Humphreys gave a short and derisive laugh.

“I ate out a lot.  I found stuff for my relatives.  It’s just,” he paused for a second, “I kept thinking—It was like, why am I even in this?  She’s not even _here_ , and why should I put everything else on hold when she’s not—There are better girls here,” he finished, unwilling to elaborate further.

“That’s true,” Humphreys said.  “Hey, I saw your videos.  The one with the monkey stealing the ice cream.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Laurens said.  “I downloaded SnapChat just so I could see your stuff.”

Tench snorted.  “SnapChat?  Come on, Laurens, I know you’re old, but…  I stopped using that ages ago.”

“When I first heard you guys talking,” Laurens said, changing the subject and glad to have gotten something like a laugh out of him even if it was at his own expense, “and just heard that you had broken up with someone, I figured you were André.”

“I was _right_ next to you,” André protested.  “How could it have been me?”

“It does sound like something I’d be saying about you,” Humphreys agreed.

“I’m not even upset.”  André tossed his bag dejectedly against the lower lockers.  “You’re all only half wrong anyway.  Mina's probably breaking up with me since I haven’t been able to contact her for days,” he went on with slightly more heat, “because I’m switching carriers and they locked me out of my phone until further notice.”

Humphreys nodded sympathetically.  “Man.”

“Whatever,” Tench told him, “you don’t need her.  Come on, you barely even started dating.  How much did you even know about her?”

André didn't respond at first, just staring straight ahead at his closed locker.  “I know,” he finally said.  “But…  Sometimes you just see someone and you know they’re someone special.”

Laurens looked at the other two, expecting to see exasperation.  To his surprise Tench was looking at André and considering his words carefully.

“Yeah,” he said, turning and then getting up and putting his hands on his hips as he stretched out his neck.  “Fair enough.”

Laurens looked at Humphreys but he was kneeling on the ground, adjusting the tongue on his shoe.

He stood up and clapped Tench on the shoulder.  “Sucks.  I’m sorry about your break.”

“Eh.”  Tench shrugged and sighed.  “It’s okay.”  He stood.  “I need to change before I miss a day _and_ am late for practice.  Hey,” he said to Laurens, “can you ask your boyfriend if he’s heard anything about work for next semester?  I need to beef up my resume.”

Laurens, recognizing and feeling guilty about his sudden irritation, forced himself not to snap at him for using language he didn’t know would anger him.  He focused on scrambling his lock.  “Doesn’t your fraternity do networking?”

“Yeah, but I’ve been noticing that a lot of things prefer if you have had prior office experience and all the entry-level stuff is shittier than I’d like.”

“You have to start somewhere.”

“I am,” Tench said.  “I’m starting with you.  Can you just ask him for me?”

“I don’t know when I’m seeing him.”  Laurens moved away from his locker, unable to further rationalize standing in front of it.  “Haven’t spoken to him in a while.”

He caught a glimpse of Tench shooting one of the other two startled and apologetic look and he felt shame burning his cheeks that he had let as much slip as he had.

“Did something happen?”  Humphreys asked.

“I just haven’t spoken to him.  That’s all.”

“Yeah, but—”

“That’s all,” Laurens repeated.  He put his hand on the back of his neck and rolled his head, trying to work himself back into a calmer frame of mind.  “Text him yourself if you want to know what he’s heard.  I’ll give you his number after practice.”

“All right,” Tench agreed.  “Thanks.”

 

“Hey—Oh, come on!  Angelica!”

Hamilton reached towards her and let his arm fall limply across the back of her usual chair as she walked past it with her books in her arms to another seat on the other side of the half-full classroom.

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?  I didn’t even say anything!”

Her eyes flashed as she rounded on him.  Hamilton had the distinct memory of reading somewhere that if a wild animal showed its teeth it meant you needed to back up and fast.

“You didn't _say_ anything?”

“Today,” Hamilton tried to quickly backpedal, nervously aware of the other eyes on them.  “I didn’t say anything today—”

“My _sister_ ,” Angelica steamrollered over him, putting her books down heavily on the half-desk and by contrast seeming to gain force from her audience, “is not some _silver medal_ for you to console yourself with.  You do not get yourself into trouble with your relationship and then express your gratitude towards her trying to help you by suggesting she should be so lucky as to have you deign to be with her.”

“I didn’t mean that—”

“Do you know what, Alexander?  I don’t care what you meant.  You need to pull your head out of your ass and start paying attention to the people you’re hurting.  Are you so stupid that you think you are the only person in this world on whom any of this is difficult?  It is not always easy for her to help you and yet she does so without complaint and without asking you to even pull your own weight in return.  Tell me, Alexander, if you’re such a catch, what have you done to make it an even partnership?  Let’s _pretend_ ,” she went on, “that you were free or my sister was the sort of person who would be willing to cheapen herself by cutting in where she was not welcome.  What on earth do you have to offer her?  Your brilliant insight into human nature?  Your eagerness to put in the emotional labor over issues that do not immediately concern you?  When was the last time that you actually listened to her speak?  You can’t even pay attention when you ask for her help.  Do you think she stands at the ready, waiting to address your concerns without any hopes or fears of her own?”

Hamilton thought for a split second of raising his own voice in return and telling Angelica about the night in Eliza’s room, but it struck him that being able to toss that out as an example off of the cuff would only prove her point.

“You’re delusional if you think you deserve my sister or if you think she is so weak-willed as to come _crawling_ to your heels.”

Hamilton sank down in his seat, guilty and cowed and trying not to follow his instincts into making it all worse.  “Well, I didn’t mean _that_.”

“You’re thoughtless and self-centered,” Angelica snapped.  “Even more so if you think a mere admission of negligence will put things right between any of us.”

“Angelica,” Hamilton tried, picking his things up and standing.  “Look—”

Just then the classroom door opened energetically.

“How’re we all doing?”  Jefferson was already talking as he entered.  “Hamilton,” he went on, “leaving already?  We’re only just back from break, you can’t be tired of school yet.  Sit down.”

Hamilton bit his lip to keep from making a smart remark and kept looking across the room at Angelica.

“Hamilton,” Jefferson repeated, putting his bag down on the table by the podium at the front and his tone getting more obviously pointed.  “Can I help you with something?”

“He’s fine,” Angelica said after a long moment in which Hamilton refused to answer.

“Is this about all that yelling I could hear out in the hall?  Y’all need an adult to mediate your little squabble?”

“I’m fine, too,” Angelica said with great aloofness.  “Thank you.”

Hamilton sat down reluctantly, finally prying his eyes off of Angelica.  He was treated to a last glimpse of her arranging her materials on her half-desk.

“Are they fine?”  Jefferson asked the rest of the room.  “Well, I had a lovely break,” he said, checking his watch against the clock on the wall.  “Missus and I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner, I got to practice my violin…”  He opened his bag and took out the chocolate turkey from Lafayette.  “…I’m thinking I should write something for it,” he added, peeling back the tinfoil and taking its head off with one bite.  “Holiday season’s upon us.  Maybe I can come up with something catchy and festive and make a fast buck.  What’d y’all think?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” Angelica said, apparently determined to prove that the argument had left no impression on her or her mood.  “It’s lovely to have a few hobbies outside of work.  It makes one better rounded.”

Hamilton audibly scoffed.

Jefferson made an amused sound around his chocolate turkey.  “No extracurriculars for you, Hamilton?  I thought I remembered something about you being on that student council.”

“That’s not a hobby.”

“Fair enough.”  He put the turkey down.  “Anyway, where are my manners?  I shouldn’t be just eating in front of y’all without offering you something.”  He took a large pyrex container out of his bag and walked it over to the student closest to him as the clock indicated it was time to start class.  “Pass that around, will you, darling?  Those’re sweet potato biscuits.  My wife made them for Thanksgiving dinner and we had some left over so I thought I’d bring them in for all y’all.”

 

“Do you know what I do not understand?”

“What?”  Mulligan grunted as he worked the fridge out from where it was wedged between the wall and the counter.  “Shit, they really don’t want you to get this thing out, do they?  You’d think some genius would put one on wheels, make a fortune.”

“They both so obviously miss each other, yet they will not talk to one another.”

“I assume you mean Alexander and the other one.”

“John.”

“Right.”  The word was strained as Mulligan finally slid the fridge all the way out.

“Do you need help?”  Lafayette looked up from where he was splayed over the couch.

“I wish.  I think two bodies in here would just make it more of a tangled mess.”

“All right.”

“Anyway, back to your earlier question.  I can’t speak for John, but Alex's way too proud for that sort of thing.  You gotta let him soak in it, he’ll come around once he’s forgotten that he was trying to make a point.”

“And when will that be?  I miss the way things were.”

“I dunno.  Give it a couple more days, I don’t think he can hold out a whole week.  Less if his other friends are too busy for him.  He gets lonely, you know?  It’s not like he actually wants to go at it alone.”

“I am the same way.  I need human companionship.”

“No?”  Mulligan asked with a hint of sarcasm.  “I never would have guessed.”

“It’s true.”

“I’ll be hanged.  Did you come over looking for your yoga friend?”

“Yes.  I thought she might be with Peggy.”

“Your psych friend.”

“That’s right,” Lafayette confirmed.  “We sit together in class.”

“I gotta say,” Mulligan began, having worked the fridge out and at enough of an angle that he could unplug it and squat down to look at the wiring, “I admire all of you for sticking with all the bullshit of school and doing it all in one sitting.  I couldn’t do it.  Got my high school degree and went into the business of making money.  I did an apprenticeship,” he paused, distracted by the task at hand, “worked for a tailor.  I was basically doing all the work there myself.  It was enjoyable.  I was good at it.  I wanted to get out of the state, though, you know, see a little more of the world.  That’s why I switched to the airport.”

Lafayette was sitting up properly on the sofa to listen.  “As a flight attendant?”

“Yeah.  It’s interesting work, real interesting.  You get to see—I got to see a lot of places I never would have been able to otherwise.  Met a lot of people.  Alexander, for instance.  The hours are hell, though, it’s not the sort of thing most people can do longterm.”

“Are you one of the ones who can?”

“Me?”  Mulligan snorted.  “Nah.  I need a base in the city, especially moving forward.  It’s hard to make a relationship work when you’re constantly flying in and out and I’m getting too old for that kind of wear.  I’m gonna—don’t tell Alex, I was going to spring it on him as a surprise, I like seeing him freak out and he’s so over the top talented that it’d make  me a little nervous knowing he’s watching me aim for this—I’m gonna get a promotion that’d let me stay mostly at JFK, more managerial shit.  They wouldn’t have me flying off every few days and I’d still get the friends and family perks.  Nice pay raise, too,” he added, mostly to himself.  “I’ve been taking night classes.  I’m technically not supposed to be eligible until I get the two-year at least, but they know me and they like me and as long as I’m in good standing or whatever they’re waiving it and letting me get an early start.  That’s the thing,” he said, sitting back on his heels and wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.  “It always helps to get on good terms with people.  You never know what doors it’ll open.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette agreed.

“I’m preaching to the choir,” Mulligan said.  “You already know that.”

“Maybe you should tell Alexander.”

Mulligan laughed.  “Probably.  I’ll wait until it’s all finalized first.  I don’t want to jinx anything.”

“No,” Lafayette agreed, leaning forward and rapping on the coffee table.  “I will keep my lips sealed.”


	174. Interlude de Lafayette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A New York Apartment, Four Friends Are Just Hanging Out

“I miss my friends,” Lafayette complained sadly, dipping a french fry into his milkshake and then eating it.  He offered them across the coffee table in the apartment to Peggy and Aglae and then, as a matter of politeness, to Adrienne on his laptop.  “It is very lonely without them.”

“Yeah, you’re all alone,” Peggy said, just a little sarcastically, before popping the fry into her mouth.

“You know what I mean.  It was so tense and awkward around John and now both he and Alexander are shunning me because they are upset with each other.  I am caught in the middle.  It is shit.  Oh, also,” he said in a lighter tone as he changed topics, “I am thinking that I should get a tablet?  Do any of you have any suggestions?”

“What do you want it for?”

“Taking Adrienne places.  The laptop is so heavy but the picture on my phone is too small to be realistic.  I was going to get the iPad because I like the rose gold but I thought I should at least ask first.”

“Millennial pink,” Agale corrected him.

“Is that the same?  I thought they were different.”

“You guys should dye your hair that next,” Peggy said.  “You managed to pull off lavender and this is even more trendy so you’re all set.”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side, considering that, then looked at Adrienne.  “What do you think?”

“Rose gold and millennial pink are not the same color.”

“Really?”

“She’s studying art,” Peggy told Aglae.  “And she makes clothes.  She probably knows.”

“Do you sell it?”

“It’s just for class,” Adrienne deflected, sounding embarrassed.  “Or costumes.”

“She’s very very good,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.  “She’s going to be a famous fashion designer.”

“I want to do more period work,” Adrienne said, not stumbling over the name.  “I like it a lot.”

“Maybe you could work for shows,” Peggy said.  “That’s what Beth does.”

“Beth?”

“Hercules’ girlfriend,” she explained to Aglae.  “She was here at Halloween.  You remember her,” she went on when she was greeted with a blank stare.  “She was a shepherdess or something like that.  Thirty-something.  Kind of bigger.  Her breasts were _all_ out.”

“Ohh, her.”

“She does costuming,” Peggy reiterated.  “Like for the off-Broadway stuff.  I talked to her for about five minutes and asked.”

“Adrienne met her too,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.  “Didn’t you?”

“Just briefly.”

Lafayette frowned.  “Who was she talking to if not us?”

“Probably Herc’s friends.”

“We’re his friends.”  Lafayette motioned between himself and Peggy.

“We’re not his friends,” Peggy said.  “You’re his friend's friend and I’m his friend’s friend’s sister.”

“You’re his roommate,” Aglae pointed out, leaning closer to nudge her shoulder with her own.

Peggy brightened up.  “That’s true.  Maybe I’m his friend and Lafayette is just some random.”

“Hey!"

Adrienne laughed and tried to hide it with a polite cough when Lafayette looked at her, wounded.

“He and I talked earlier today,” Lafayette said.  “While I was waiting for you to get back.  It was a good talk.  We are definitely friends.”

“You’re my friend,” Peggy assured him.  “And this is my apartment too now so I’m allowed to have you over.”

“I _know_ that,” Lafayette complained.  “But I want to be _his_ friend too.”

“You told me that Alexander said that he likes you,” Adrienne reminded him.

“He did.  He told me that before Halloween,” Lafayette said, “so therefore I was his friend first.”  He paused.  “I forget now what we were actually talking about.”

“I think you could work millennial pink better than rose gold,” Aglae said, looking at swatches on her phone.  “It’s dustier.”

“Is it too cool?”  Lafayette offered her the fries again.  “Too cool will be a problem.”

“Nah.”  She showed it to him and then to the others.  “What do you think?”

“It’ll work,” Peggy said.  “I don’t know where you’d find dye like that, though.”

“I can go to a salon.”

“That’s expensive.  I was going to offer to do it for you.”

“It takes a very long time,” Adrienne cut in.  “When we did the purple it took all day.”

“Oh, wait.”  Peggy dug around in her purse.  “I have a lipstick in that color.  It was a free sample,” she explained.  “I was going to give it to Angelica but I forgot and I think it’s still in here…”  She held it up to an excited noise from Adrienne.

“I have the same one!”

“Really?”

“I feel left out,” Lafayette said to Aglae.  “They are bonding without us.”

“Give me your hand.”  Peggy reached across the table and took his arm, watching the color on the underside of his wrist.  “There.  What do you think?”

“Will it look like that on his hair?”

Lafayette held his wrist up to his hairline and looked questioningly at the others.  “Yes?  No?”

“I think you should do something,” Aglae said, “and then not say anything about it to your roommate and act like it’s old news when he finally shows up again.”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, I do like that idea.”

“Yes!”  Peggy was saying excitedly to the phone as Adrienne held up an identical tube of lipstick.  “That’s it!”

“This is nice,” Lafayette said.  “I like all of you, even if my other two friends are off being dramatic.  We should spend more time together.  And,” he added, “none of you have kicked me out of your office once normal business hours started.”  He studied the color on his wrist.  “I think I will do it,” he announced.  “Adrienne, will your relatives hate it if I come home for the holidays in pink?  Will I get uninvited from church?”

“Of course not.”

“Good,” Lafayette said, sounding just slightly less than convincing.  “I would hate to cause such a scene that my going would be completely out of the question.”

“So you’re definitely not going back into the Laurens family clusterfuck?”  Peggy asked.  “You told Adrienne about that mess, right?”

“Of course I did.”  Lafayette sounded mildly offended.  “I tell her everything.”

“You’re just like Eliza,” Peggy said with a not-ill intentioned roll of her eyes.  “She can’t keep _anything_ a secret.  She told Angelica and me all about their vacation,” she said to Aglae.  “She was having us read along while Alexander was texting her.”

Agale giggled.

“I’m not that bad,” Lafayette protested.  “Adrienne, tell her.”

“He shouldn’t have hit John,” Adrienne told the other two.  “I told him that that was not nice.”

“He was going to say things that he would have regretted,” Lafayette argued.  “You cannot take words back once you speak them.  Even if they exist in his mind it is better to not have them spoken aloud.”

“What was he going to say?”  Aglae asked, curious.

“Violence is never the answer,” Adrienne cut back in quickly.  “You should know better than that.”

“Violence is sometimes the answer,” Lafayette said, equally quick to jump on the change of topic.  “Like if I were trying to prevent a mugging.  Then it would be a very good answer.”

“You were not, were you?”

“Ah, that is not the question, you said ‘never,’ you did not say ‘what were you doing right there on the train, Gilbert.’”

“Hey,” Peggy interrupted, stealing another of his fries.  “Does she even know what ‘mugging’ means?”

“A very good question,” Lafayette said enthusiastically.  “Dearheart, do you know what ‘mugging’ means?”

“It’s like aggressively robbing someone.”

“Why are we talking about this, again?”

“I have no idea,” Lafayette told Aglae.  “Please, let’s move on and away from all of this, it is just bringing back such bad memories.”

“Were you mugged?”

“No,” Lafayette said, “but I am very irresponsible with money.  It’s really very fortunate that I am so well off.”

“Lucky.”

Lafayette nodded.  “That’s exactly what I said.”

Aglae scoffed and looked away.

On the screen Adrienne made a small exasperated gesture at Lafayette.

“…Would you like anything from France?”  He asked, at odds for what to say to her.  “Since I am going to dye my hair and go back.”

Adrienne sighed and shook her head.  Lafayette mouthed helplessly at her.

“Make him bring you something ridiculous,” Peggy said.  “He brought Alexander this giant ceramic cat.”

“I’ll think about it,” Aglae said.  “But I want something really good,” she warned.

“It will be spectacular,” Lafayette assured her hurriedly.  “Much better than the trinkets from South Carolina.”

“You brought her something and not me?”  Peggy asked.  “I thought you said we were friends!”

Lafayette laughed nervously.  “Ah…  Yes…”

“Are you very worried about your final exam?”  Adrienne asked.  Lafayette gave her a relieved and grateful look.  “Gilbert said that it is going to be on all of the material from your class.”

“I guess so,” Peggy said reluctantly.  “We’re going to study together, though.”  She looked to Lafayette for reassurance and he nodded.  “So it should be okay.”

“We can review every night during stop week,” Lafayette said.  “Oh, it will be fun!  We can make it into an event.  I will come over here or you can come to my dorm and we can have coffee and listen to that very obnoxious alpha wave studying music.”

“Do we have to?”

“It will be fun,” he repeated.  “I like to study with other people, but Alex is too stressful and John prefers to work on his own unless he’s only pretending to work and actually trying to make out with his boyfriend.  And in that case I am not invited anyway.”  He sighed and took the last french fry.  “I miss them.”

“You still have us.”

“You’re not as dumb and loud.”

“You said that Hercules said that they’d make up soon.”

“He said that Alexander would be ready to make up soon,” Lafayette corrected.  “I am just very impatient.  I had hoped they would work out their issues on the train.  Maybe I was too optimistic.”

“Probably, since they just yelled a lot and agreed not to murder one another.”

“Oh, another good reason to resort to violence,” Lafayette said.  “Preventing worse violence.”

Adrienne gave him a blatantly unamused look.

“…Maybe I should go to the salon now,” Lafayette said, aware that he had turned the conversation against him again all on his own.  “Perhaps I need to stop talking for a bit.”

“We’ll finish talking about it later.”

Lafayette wondered if that was meant to be reassuring or threatening.  Surely Adrienne had meant it the former, he told himself, trying to ignore the sneaking suspicion that she was capable of both at the same time.  He realized the other three were waiting for his response and smiled with what he hoped was disarming charm.

“This evening,” he said.  “After I have been made more beautiful and we have time to really roll up our sleeves and get dirty.”

“Maybe I should change my look, too,” Aglae said, pulling her softly curling hair over her shoulder and lazily braiding it.  “I’ve had it this length and color for _ages_.”

“What would you do?”  Lafayette asked her.  “Pink ombre?”  He sounded hopeful.

Aglae frowned in consideration.

“Get an undercut,” Peggy suggested.

“No way.”  Aglae laughed.  “You get an undercut.”

“Get a bowl cut.”

“Adrienne, do you do hair, too?  Did you really do Lafayette’s before?”  Aglae asked, escaping from the conversation.

“Yes.  It took all day, though.”

“Mine would be a lot faster.”  Aglae ran her fingers through her braid, undoing it quickly.  “It would probably only take an hour or two.  It’s too bad that you’re not here to help.”

“I can help,” Peggy said with sudden enthusiasm.  “We can do it in the bathroom or the kitchen, they’ve both got sinks.”

“Okay,” Aglae said, standing excitedly.  “There’s a little drugstore down the street.  I can run down and pick something up!”

“Use the kitchen sink,” Adrienne suggested nervously.  “It’s metal.”

“Why does that matter?  The bathroom one is lower so it’ll be easier to dunk her head under.”

“It’ll be less, ah, for the color to become stuck.”  Adrienne fumbled over her English.  She looked to Lafayette for help.

“The bathroom one might get stained,” he translated for Peggy.

“Oh.  Yeah, okay, that would be bad the first week I move in.  You go get the dye,” she told Aglae, who was already getting dressed to go back out, “and I’ll drag in a stool or throw a towel over the chair or something, just to be safe.”

“I want to help,” Lafayette said.  “I feel left out.  The rest of you have jobs.”

“Adrienne’s supervising,” Peggy explained to Aglae before she could ask.

“Got it.  Okay, um…”  She put her finger to her mouth and thought.  “You can keep us entertained.  And you can come with me to the store!”

“All right,” Lafayette agreed, getting up as well and putting his jacket back on.  “Adrienne, will you be all right here?  We will be right back,” he assured her as Aglae took him by the arm and led him out the door.  “Peace out!”

“‘Peace out’?”  She giggled, walking him to the elevator.  “Okay, Grandpa.”

“What is wrong with that?”  Lafayette asked, confused.  “Did I say it wrong?”

“You said it right, except that no one says that anymore.  Where did you hear that?”

“It was in a book that my friend gave me.”

“Well your friend is reading some truly _ancient_ stuff.”

“Ah, it is very old fashioned?  Like fine wine?”  Lafayette asked hopefully.

“More like my dad’s old tux with the velvet lapels.”

“Alexander wants velvet to come back into fashion,” Lafayette said as they got into the elevator.  “He said that he wished you could still wear velvet suits.”

“You could, you’d just look really weird.”

“I think he still wanted to look fashionable.”

“Good luck to Alexander.”

“He needs it,” Lafayette said with a sigh as the elevator doors opened again.  “But that is too depressing to rehash again.  Tell me something nicer.  How are you and Peggy?”

“Um.”  Aglae visibly blushed.  “We’re fine?”

“No, no, no.”  Lafayette tipped them both to the side so that she was forced to lean into him as they walked out of the building.  “Tell me more.  I am a gossip hound.  Is that a dated term as well?”

“I don’t know?  Probably.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yeah, she’s fun.  A lot more fun than my ex.  And, I don’t know, we’re having fun.”

“That is very descriptive.  Did you see her for Thanksgiving?”

“No.”

“When are you going to meet her family?”

“Jeez, Lafayette,” Aglae complained.  “I don’t know.  Calm down, okay?”

Lafayette was quiet for a moment as he tried to think of questions that might fall under the category of ‘fun.’  
“Is she a good kisser?”

Aglae busied herself with smoothing out Lafayette’s jacket sleeve.  “We only kissed on Halloween and I was kind of drunk.”

“Halloween is a more romantic holiday than Thanksgiving,” Lafayette remarked.  “No.  Sensual?”

Aglae shrugged awkwardly.

“Sexual,” Lafayette said decidedly.  “That is more accurate.  I had such a good Halloween night.”

“Ew.”  She pulled away from him dramatically, then leaned back towards him once he slung his arm over her shoulders.

“You had a very good night too, no?”

“A lady does not kiss and tell.”

Lafayette frowned.  “But you already did?”

Aglae opened her mouth to retort, then realized her mistake and swore.  “—Shit.”

“You should tell me more,” Lafayette said, “so that the one thing will not stand out as much.  Have you been going on many cute dates?”

“We got food a couple of times and I came over today.”

“That is not very much.  Do you need help being romantic?”  Lafayette asked.  “I am very good at that.”

“No,” Aglae said.  “I mean, I…  No.  I know how to be romantic,” she went on with a little extra emphasis.  “I mean, literally it was sort of my job.  I got stuff for knowing how to be cute.  I’m very cute.”

“You are very cute,” Lafayette agreed.  “If we were both single and free I would have tried to date you.”

“Aw!”  She patted his arm with a giggle.  “That’s very flattering.  I think you’re very cute, too.”

“I know I am.”

“It’s good that we both know,” Aglae said.  “It’s better this way.”

“I agree.”

“So,” Lafayette said, directing the conversation back the way he wanted, “is it that Peggy is not as romantic as you are used to?”

“Basically,” Aglae admitted.  “I don’t want to do all the… stuff.”

Lafayette gave her a confused look.  That didn’t seem right, given how she had reacted before, but…  “The stuff?”  He made a hand gesture that earned him a short shriek and slap on the arm.

“ _No_!”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette protested, “I didn’t know!”

“ _God_.”  Aglae tightened her grip on his arm, curling her body alongside his to make room for a man passing them on the sidewalk.  Lafayette frowned and looked down at her hands, noting the length of her fingernails and how they would be stabbing him if he was dressed for warmer weather.  “I just meant that I don’t know how to _ask_ her to do things but I’d like it if she would sometimes.”

“Ahh,” Lafayette said with a nod.  “You miss being wooed.”

“Seriously, you talk like my grandpa.”

“I can help,” Lafayette told her.  “You know that I am good at that sort of thing.  You and I,” he went on, “we are very similar in some ways.  It’s true,” he said when she did not immediately agree.  “We both like people, we like to please people.  We like attention.  We like to be flattered a little and to be flirted with.  We just like to come at that one from two different angles.”

“Mm,” Aglae said, squeezing his arm in acknowledgement.  “That’s true.”

“It is a very fun game.”

“It is.”

“I’ll tell Peggy that she needs to learn to play it with you.”

“Don’t be weird about it,” Aglae warned him.  “If you say anything stupid I won’t talk to you for a month.”

“Don’t worry,” Lafayette reassured her.  “Oh, this is so nice,” he said as they entered the small storefront.  He untangled himself from her and crouched to pet the cat that stretched and trotted over to him.  “I’ve missed having non-ridiculous relationship problems to help with.  It’s so much more relaxing.”  He stood up.  “Now.”  He clapped his hands together.  “To the beauty aisle, yes?  I am still going to go to the salon later but you need to buy dye and I need to find you a nail file.”


	175. Das Aktionsprogramm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good Life Choices (non-sarcastic)

“You’re doing what?”  Hamilton had his phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he sorted through books in a far corner of the library while talking to Lafayette.  “No, I heard you the first time, that was meant to convey incredulity.  Which is stupid,” he went on, “because I was there when you went purple so I should have seen this coming.”

He crouched down, tracing his finger over the spines of the books on the bottom row as he searched for the call number he needed.

“Office.  I’ll be there until dinner, I don’t know.  I’m not exactly in a rush to get home.  It’s not like anyone’s waiting up for me.  No,” he said, “don’t come over, I don’t have anywhere for you to sleep and it’s not like it’s more comfortable than your place.  I’m just having a shit week, that’s all.  No, not John.”  He took out the book he needed halfway and rocked it.  “Hey.  Did you talk to Angelica since last night?”  He pulled the book out the rest of the way and stood.  “Never mind.  Look, if you do, tell her I’m sorry or something.  Okay?”

Hamilton took a step back from the shelf.

“Anyway, I gotta go. Catch you later.”

He turned around but didn’t put his phone away, scrolling aimlessly instead through his text messages as he walked back towards the stairs.  He stopped, closed his eyes momentarily, then began to type as he descended.

 

> A. Hamilton: Hey

> A. Hamilton: Lafayette said something about a new look

 

Laurens was standing in the hall to the basement classroom he took drawing in, staring at the phone in his hand.  The two innocuous messages seemed suddenly like the most overwhelming thing he could possibly be faced with. 

He turned and walked away without looking back or letting himself think too hard about where he was going until he was already across campus and climbing the stairs to one of the sets of faculty offices.  His heart was in his throat when he knocked on the door.

Ben Walker opened it, clipboard in hand.  “Laurens?”

Laurens nodded silently, not making eye contact.  “Is Coach here?”

“He just stepped out.  Do you want to wait here?  He should be back any minute.”

“Yeah.”  He was still looking over Walker’s shoulder and into the empty room.

Walker let him in and loitered by the door.  “I was about to run to a meeting.  Do you mind waiting here by yourself?”  When Laurens shook his head he continued.  “Thanks.  I’ll let Friedrich know you’re here to see him.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said a moment after he left.  He sat, very self-conscious, in the chair in front of the desk and stared without absorbing anything at the papers and books before him.

“Laurens?”

Laurens turned.  Von Steuben was filling the doorway behind him.

“Sir.”  Laurens started to stand but stopped when he motioned him back down and walked past him.

“You wanted to speak to me?”  Von Steuben began to sort through papers on his desk.  “Did something happen?”

This time Laurens answered the question.  “My father gave my boyfriend five hundred dollars because he thought I was harassing him and wanted him to keep it quiet.”

Von Steuben looked up at him and paused for a second, then he went back to his work, not making eye contact and casually asking, “He did?  Did he tell him it was for that?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Basically.”

“What happened to the money?”

“Alexander took it.”

“Did he feel pressured into taking it?”

“I guess.”

Von Steuben clicked his tongue disapprovingly.  “Did he tell you that he did that?”

“My father?”  Laurens shook his head.  “Alexander told me after it happened.  We…”  He hesitated.  “We fought.  About the money and my father and…”  He felt a lump forming in his throat.  “Everything.”

Laurens heard von Steuben sit behind his desk, the swivel chair creaking.  He heard him open and close a drawer and put the materials he had gathered away inside.

“Everything?”

“This guy I messed around with in high school, I never told him about him and he was upset about it.  He wants me to talk to my father but I can’t—We fought about my mother, too, I never—I don’t know if she ever knew.  I was angry and I yelled at him about his past, too, I don’t really remember what all I said, but…”  Laurens looked up abruptly, feeling his face, to his embarrassment, hot.  “He could’ve had a girlfriend if he wasn’t dating me.”

“Did he tell you he wanted to be with someone else?”

“No,” Laurens said, feeling frantic and exhausted.  “But there’s a girl he likes and he said he almost did something with her but didn’t because we were already dating and he didn’t want—I get so _jealous_ when he’s with girls,” Laurens admitted, changing topics suddenly.  “He thinks I don’t trust him but we both know he’s making the stupid choice, staying with me.  How can I trust him when he’s smart enough to know better?”

“Your father was being cruel,” von Steuben said without addressing the rest of it.  “I thought he would have problems but I did not think he would be so bad to you.”

“He means well,” Laurens said immediately.  “He was trying to look out for me.”

“He thought the only way you could have a relationship with him was if it was coerced.  That does not show much faith in you.  Or in Alexander,” he added as Laurens looked away.  “He thinks he is just as closed minded as he is, and too weak to stand up for himself.”

“He was trying to help,” Laurens said again. “If he was right…”

Von Steuben held up a hand to cut him off.  “I have seen many parents, Laurens.  Many that you would point to as being worse.  It does not excuse him.”

Laurens felt something inside him start to crumble and he pushed back against it.  “I love him.”

“Of course you do.  He is your father, after all.”

“I’m not angry with him.  He wanted to help me.  I just wish he didn’t need to.”

“Laurens.”  Von Steuben leaned forward at his desk.  “He doesn’t.”

Laurens stared down at his hands folded tightly in his lap.  They swam before his eyes.

Von Steuben waited for a beat and then sat back.  “Well?  What happened next?  Did you and Alexander work things out?”

Laurens shrugged wordlessly.  He was grateful that von Steuben did not speak and gave him the time he needed to find his voice.  “We only broke up for an hour.”

“You are good now?  He should support you in dealing with your father.”

“I’m angry with him,” Laurens admitted.  “We haven’t seen each other since Sunday.”

Von Steuben sighed again and muttered something in German that Laurens faintly recognized as exasperated.

“Well.  Not all relationships last.  That is the nature of things.”

“I don’t want to break up with him.”

“No?”

Laurens shook his head.

“Even so.  Sometimes it is for the best.”

“I don’t want to break up with him,” Laurens repeated.  “I just…  I don’t want to talk to him again yet.”  He braced himself to be told that he was being immature.

“All right.”

Laurens blinked in surprise and looked up.

“That is good.  Don’t speak with him until you have both cooled down and some things have been given the time to heal.  You are an adult, you will know when you are ready to see him again.”

Laurens nodded wordlessly.

“You know what I am like,” von Steuben said, “I lose my temper a lot.  It is a problem.  I could not be both openly gay and promoted in the German army—Oh, this was years ago,” he said with a casual brush of his hand through the air.  “Things have changed since then, but at the time there was no question of my making officer.  Nothing mattered, education, ability, nothing.  I was gay, of course, and too proud and enjoying myself too much to hide it properly.”

He looked off into the distance fondly and Laurens shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Sir?”

“Ah, yes.”  Von Steuben came back to the present.  “Berlin was a wonderful city.”  He cleared his throat.  “I left because I could not control my temper.  Sometimes we say things that we do not entirely mean.  Or at least we say them in ways that are less than diplomatic.”

“You left?”

“Was forced to leave.”  He shrugged very disaffectedly.  “Things happen.  But they are in the past and it is not always so bad that they were put out in the open because then we know better what we are dealing with and can make a plan to go from there.”

Laurens nodded.

“What is your plan to do about your father?”

Laurens shook his head again and turned his face back down.

“You have to correct him sometime.”

“I can’t.”

“Laurens,” von Steuben said with unusual gentleness.  “I know it is hard.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Laurens repeated.  His hands were folded tightly together.  “He’ll be so upset,” he said, his voice small.

“Do you have control over your own bank account?”

Laurens looked up at him, horrified.

“It may be best to get your finances fully into your own hands if they are not already.  You are over twenty-one.  You do not need his signature on anything.  Are your siblings supportive?  Do you feel like they would be safe with him?”

“Of course,” Laurens said immediately, still reeling.  Throwing out the possibility of being disowned in the heat of an argument was very different from having it presented so matter of factly to him.  “They’re fine.  He’s not violent or anything.  My sister’s about to graduate anyway and they’re—”  He remembered Jemmy excitedly telling him about his classes and his voice caught in his throat.  “I can’t leave them,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“It is best to prepare for the worst,” von Steuben said just as if they were talking about an upcoming game instead.  “I told you before that if you needed anything to speak to me.  I have experience with doing this from before you were born, I will help you sort out anything that comes up.  But your siblings know?”

“Martha—My sister does,” Laurens said.  “She already did and just never told anyone.  And I told one of my younger brothers.  He didn’t care.”

“That’s good.  If it is not a problem for them then hopefully nothing will come of any of this and your father just needs a little guidance of his own.”

“I don’t know if he would take it.”

“Parents can come around.  I don’t know your father well.”  Von Steuben looked at Laurens critically, weighing what he had to say.  “But,” he finally went on, “I can tell that he sees a lot of himself in you.  That could work either to your benefit or against you.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have class today?  You are welcome to stay here.  If you have nothing to work on I can always find something for you to do.”

“…I’m supposed to be in class right now,” Laurens admitted.

Von Steuben made a noise that Laurens hoped was amused.

“Which?”

“Art.”

“I will give you a letter.  You can tell your professor that I needed you for an emergency meeting.”

“I think it’s okay.”

“I will give it to you anyway, just in case.”  Von Steuben was already writing it.

“Thank you.”  Laurens hesitated.  “I talked to—someone about this already.  A friend.”

“From here?”

“Yes.”  Laurens paused again, struggling with the sense of betrayal but also wanting to explain.  “It was McHenry.”

He had been watching his fingers twist in his lap and he looked up guiltily.  Von Steuben did not look surprised at all and, encouraged, he continued.

“He told his parents when he was in high school and he said that they’re fine with it.  They didn’t even understand at first.  It’s not like they were also gay or something.  He said they didn’t understand what he meant but they still…”  He felt his throat getting tight and he forced out the words.  “He said it was different for him.”  He was silent for a beat.  “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Family matters,” von Steuben said simply.  He handed Laurens the note.  “What would you like to do?”

Laurens turned over the idea of calling Hamilton in his mind but his pride stuck in his throat where his voice was still unsteady and he compromised.  “Can I stay here until practice?”

Von Steuben smiled.  “Of course.”


	176. The Longest Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette Is Bored and Lonely; Screw Up

“I wish things were back to normal,” Lafayette said, holding his phone up above his head as he lay on his back on his bed, his hair awkwardly bleached light but not yet colored.  “Adrienne, did I make a terrible mistake?”

“They were going to fight about it one way or the other,” Adrienne said, dipping in and out of the frame as she tidied on her end.  “You tried to help.”

“I _did_!”

“I still think you made it worse by hitting him.”

Lafayette scoffed and then looked embarrassed and guilty when she stopped in her cleaning to give him a disapproving look.

“I will not do it again?”

“Good.”  She returned to her task.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have left them to it,” he went on.  “I should have sat at the table with them and supervised more closely.”

“I don’t think they would have liked that.”

“I could have taken one of them aside?  I could have gotten them to talk about it later.”

“I think that once it boiled over there was no stopping it.”  Adrienne had bent down to put something away and now she straightened up and wiped her wrist over her brow.  “Is there an English phrase about that?”

“‘A watched…’  No.”  Lafayette frowned.  “I don’t know.”

“I can ask my teacher tomorrow.”

“No, no, don’t tell me.  I’ll figure it out.  I want to figure it out.”

Adrienne laughed and went back to tidying.  “I feel bad for both of them,” she said after a minute.

“Yes,” Lafayette agreed eagerly.  “Me too.”

“John has a lot on his plate right now.  It’s not easy when your family isn’t supportive.  But at the same time, it wasn’t right that he didn’t talk to Alexander.”

“Do you think I should put them in contact with one another?”  Lafayette asked.  “I could trick them into being in the same place at the same time.”

“Didn’t you say that Alexander came over to the apartment at the same time that you were there with John?”

“Maybe that was too soon.  Maybe this has been enough time.”

“That was just yesterday.”

“I just want them to be friends again,” Lafayette said with a sigh.  “No, I want them to be happily dating again but I am willing to settle.  They are still dating,” he amended quickly, “but…  _Happily_.”

“Maybe you should stop meddling.”

“I cannot do that.  It is against my nature.”

“You could talk to each of them individually,” Adrienne suggested, “to get a sense of where they are.  Then you will know if they are ready to be put in contact with one another again.”

“That is a good idea,” Lafayette agreed.  “I should bring you with me.  It will be so much easier if you listen in than if I have to try to tell you all of it after the fact.  I don’t think they will mind,” he said.  “Well, Alexander at least probably won’t, and I just won’t tell John—”  He faltered at how obviously uneasy she looked.  “I can talk to John on my own.”

“You should probably speak to both of them privately.  Maybe you can talk to John tonight.”

“I thought he would be here now, actually.”  Lafayette checked the time.  “Do I have his schedule wrong?  That vacation thew me all off.”

“No,” Adrienne agreed, “he’s usually here by now.”

“He might be with his other friends.  I can take you over to talk to Alexander, though.”  He sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed.  “Do you mind going on an excursion?”

“To his apartment?”

“No, to the office.  I’ll talk to him there and we can have dinner with Washington once I’m finished.”

 

“Shi—shoot.”  Hamilton caught himself and bit his lip to keep himself from swearing in front of his boss.  “Shoot.  Uh.”  He looked up from the handwritten notes he was halfway through typing up.  “Uh, Dr. Washington?  Would you rather have your Wednesday meeting Wednesday or Thursday?”

Washington looked at him from the other side of his desk.  Hamilton was sitting in front of it, using the space to type.  “Wednesday,” Washington said.  “Hence the name.”

“Yeah, I know that, but I thought that maybe if you’d prefer it to be on _Thursday_ …”  Hamilton smiled nervously.

“I would prefer Wednesday.  Thursday afternoon I’m going to be upstate.”

“…It’s just that I just now realized that I kind of set everything up for Thursday.”  He laughed, even more nervously.  “I reserved the room and set up the catering with the bistro on Monday,” he explained, “but for Thursday.  It just hit me.  You know how it is, you’re working on something totally different and then all of a sudden…”  He trailed off.  “I can try to fix it.”

“Do,” Washington said.  “Or there will be five of us crammed into my office without even any coffee to keep people from complaining.”

Hamilton almost pointed out that he knew how to make coffee at least but decided quickly that it was in his best interest not to do so.

“On it.  Let me just…”  He went back to transcribing.  “I don't know why I said Thursday,” he said to himself.  “Swear I was thinking Wednesday.”

“How was your vacation?”  Washington asked after half a minute of silence broken only by the sound of typing.

Hamilton scowled.  “Long.”

Washington raised a brow.  “Usually that is not such a bad thing.”

“Yeah, well, usually I don’t get so thrown off my game that I flip the days of the week.”  Hamilton stood.  “I’m going to call from the office line.”  He left his laptop on the desk and went out into the front, still talking.  “I should still be able to catch someone.  I’m thinking I call about the conference room first.  I’m pretty sure if I just say that it’s for the president himself then they’ll rearrange everything, I just feel like a jerk for having to pull that when it was stupidly last minute in the first place.  But them first, then the bistro, they’ve probably made the scones already anyway…”  He stopped talking again as Lafayette walked in, already taking his coat off and hanging it over his arm.  He spoke while staring openly at his hair.  “Here to see fake dad?”

“I’m here to see you,” Lafayette said brightly, stepping right past him and behind the front desk to sit in his office chair.  “I missed you, _mon cher_.”

“You should’ve at least borrowed a hat before you went out.  You’re trying to suck up to me.  What do you want?”

“I just wanted to talk,” Lafayette said, looking at him with wide innocent eyes.  “We hardly ever talk anymore.  Also don’t be so judgmental, I think I am quite working this.”

Hamilton made a skeptical face.  “I’m at the office and we talk all the time.”

“What are you doing?”

“Fixing a stupid scheduling error.  I need that phone.”  He reached over him to take it and dialed, mentally rolling his eyes at how he knew the number by heart.  “Hello?  This is the office of Dr. Washington calling about the conference room we requested for Thursday.”

Lafayette sat quietly while Hamilton talked to the receptionist on the other end.  He pulled out his own phone and went back to messaging Adrienne as he waited, looking up briefly when Hamilton ended the call and then going back to texting when he made the second one.

“Got it.”  Hamilton put the phone down.  “Thank God, frankly, that was going to be a nightmare.  What’s up?”

“How have you been?”

“Stressed.  Screwed some shit up and had to fix it, tons of notes I didn't type up and put in properly because I was sick the last week of class and never got around to it and didn’t think to take them with me over break.  And I have a library book coming up on due that I can’t find in my hole of an apartment.  I didn’t disinfect it, either.  If I reinfect myself that’ll be the icing on top of the shit cake.  Why?”

“We were gone a week,” Lafayette said.  “I think that is long enough to kill anything that was there.”

“You know science isn’t my strong suit.  Did John send you to feel me out?”  Hamilton asked with sudden aggression.  “Because you can tell him to piss off.”

“John did not send me,” Lafayette said, surprised enough that Hamilton knew he was telling the truth.  “…Did you want him to have sent me?”

“No.”  Hamilton leaned on the desk, not sure why the answer had him feeling so hurt.

“…What was that phrase?”  Lafayette asked.  “‘Feel you out’?”

“It’s not dirty,” Hamilton told him.  “Don’t get too excited.”

“Still.”  Lafayette wrote it down.  He considered asking him for help coming up with another phrase for a moment but then decided against it.  “So you are still a little upset with him?”

Hamilton fixed him with a look.  Lafayette rallied and asked further.

“Just a little bit?”

“We’re fine,” Hamilton said.  “You don’t need to work yourself into apoplexy over this.”

“I thought you had not even spoken to one another?”

“We talked plenty on the train, remember?”

“Are you taking a break from one another?  Are you going to with the kissing and making up?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, leaving it unclear which he meant.  “Look, if you’re here just to reenact the Spanish Inquisition then can I pencil you in for later?  I’m very busy.”

“Does John know that you are on a break from each other?”

“Considering he hasn’t exactly been beating down my door or filling up my inbox,” Hamilton said sarcastically, “I’d have to say so.”

“It is just so _weird_ ,” Lafayette complained, rotating plaintively from side to side in the chair.  “You two were the foundation upon which all other relationships were built!”

“You were dating Adrienne for years before I even met John, a fact which you mention at every possible point.”

“Adrienne and I think you should talk to him,” Lafayette tried.

“Adrienne and you need to mind your own business.”

Lafayette pushed the chair back.  It slowly bumped into the wall behind him.  “Do you miss him at all?”

“No.”  The word was heavy in his mouth.  “You know, he said a lot of shit to me too,” Hamilton shot abruptly.  “It’s not all my fault.”

“I did not say that it was.”

“Yeah, well.  Well.”

“Is John busy at this hour?”  Lafayette asked after a beat, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt to check his watch.  “I thought he was free.”

“He is.”  Hamilton tried to ignore how immediately and confidently he could answer that.  “Maybe you missed him.”

“Maybe.  I was at the dorm until just a few minutes ago when I walked over.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Don’t ask me.  Look,” he went on, “I tried to contact him, okay?  If he wanted to talk to me he could have responded.”

“You did?”

Hamilton looked away, trying to ignore how surprised Lafayette sounded and how admitting he had tried to reach out and been summarily ignored filled him with a sick sense of dread.

“I could not do it,” Lafayette said.  “I could not ignore Adrienne this long.”

“So John isn’t not you or Adrienne.  He’s not as co-dependent as you two.”

Lafayette sighed.  “ _C’est la vie_.”

“Does that even make sense in this context?”

“Sayings are very difficult.”

“Look,” Hamilton said, too on edge to finish the conversation.  “I need to get back to work.  I’m behind on stuff, remember?”  He moved towards Washington’s office and Lafayette got up and eagerly followed him.  “…Of course you’re coming with me.  Come on, I can type while you two gossip.”

“It won’t be long,” Lafayette assured him as they entered the office proper.  “We are going out to dinner.”

“Good for you.”

“Would you like to come?”  Lafayette asked.  “Can Alexander come with us?”  He addressed the second question to Washington.  “It has been a very long week and I think we could all do with some good food.”  He stood next to Hamilton and put his hand on his shoulder.

“You don't need to take me along,” Hamilton said.  “Besides, I’m not dressed for it.”

“Neither am I,” Lafayette pointed out.  “Can we get something, how do you say, comfort food?”

“Of course,” Washington said, gathering his things and putting on his coat.  “I know a few places nearby in case you boys want to get back to work.”

Hamilton had the sense that suggestion was for his benefit and he was torn between annoyed and begrudging gratitude.  He had to lean towards the latter at the sight of Lafayette nodding enthusiastically at him.

“All right, I guess I can spare an hour.”

“Good.”  Washington held the door for the other two.  “Shall we invite John as well?”

Lafayette made a frantic x with his arms behind Hamilton’s back.

“We don’t know where he is,” Hamilton said, grabbing his stuff and cramming it all into his bag without looking up.  “So he can suck it.  You snooze, you lose.”

“Are you two all right?”

“Peachy-keen.”  Hamilton straightened up with his coat and scarf on.  “Not broken up, that’s for sure.  Can we drop it and talk about something more interesting and fun?  I was reading the Wikipedia page on communicable diseases last night.”

“Why were you doing that?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”  They headed out into the hall, Hamilton talking to Lafayette.  “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Lafayette repeated to a mildly disapproving noise from Washington.  “You are always the best role model.”


	177. Free Hit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afterdinner; I Miss Your Face

“Look,” Hamilton said as he walked back through campus with Lafayette, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate being taken along for dinner but that place served a palate cleanser of corn sherbet with caviar in a glorified soup spoon and I don’t know how we ended up there when the prompt was ‘comfort food.’  Anything deconstructed is not comforting.  I’m just glad I did laundry yesterday, at least I had a clean button up on, and your hair’s seen better days so between the two of us Washington had the parts for one well-dressed guest.”  He clumsily took his phone out of his coat pocket and checked it.  “He still never got back to me.”

“He’s probably busy,” Lafayette assured him.  “I will talk to him.”

“I don’t want you to talk to him.  I want him to talk to me.”

“I thought you said that you did not miss him?”

Hamilton scowled at him and put his phone away.

“I will talk to him,” Lafayette repeated.  “This is all just…”  He waved his hand.  “I can fix it.  I have seen things like this before.  I watched all of Full House in middle school.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s very good language practice.  I have watched many shows.  All in the Family, Rockford Files, Blackish…”

“One of those things is not like the others.”

“Rockford Files is not a sitcom,” Lafayette agreed.  “But it was very educational.”

“Not really what I meant, but okay.”  Hamilton put his gloved hands in his pockets.  “I guess that makes sense.  Your English _is_ very good.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette said, genuinely pleased.  “I try very hard.  Adrienne and I watch episodes of things sometimes when we vid chat.  It’s nice to have shared interests.”

“I can hear you looping back to the one topic I really don’t want to discuss, Lafayette.”

“My apologies.”  Lafayette paused to think.  “I thought there was going to be a new season of Friends,” he said.  “I was very disappointed to find out it was a hoax.  Did you hear about that?”

“No.  Never watched it.”

“It takes place in New York!”

“So do a lot of them.  Do you watch all of them?”

“At least in part.”

“God,” Hamilton said, “I’ll never understand how you have the time for all of your hobbies.”

“I’m magic and also I only work a handful of hours a week.”

“That’s probably it.”  Hamilton slouched his shoulder a little.  “If you could talk to him.  I know you said I won,” he went on, “on the train.  But I gotta say, if this is winning then I hate to think what losing is like.  Talk to him, yeah?  Tell him, I dunno.  Tell him I miss him.”

 

> G. Lafayette: Hello

> G. Lafayette: Where are you?

> G. Lafayette: I miss your face

> G. Lafayette: If you come back to the dorm soon can you pick up a paper for me?

> G. Lafayette: I want it printed

 

“Can you not send me a dozen messages in a row?”  Laurens closed the door to their room behind him.  “Seriously.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, looking up from his bed, one of Laurens’ knit hats crammed down over his hair.  “You _are_ alive.  Did you bring me anything?”

“No.”  Laurens dropped his bag on the floor and lay on his own bed, eyes closed.  “Went out with some of the guys.”  Now that he was lying down his words were more obviously drifting very slightly into one another.

“Are you very drunk?  Don’t you have homework to do?”

“Did it before practice.  Get off my case.”

Lafayette got up and sat on the side of Laurens’ bed.  “I missed you.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t see you earlier today.  Where were you?”

“I had a meeting with Coach.”

“Oh.  About what?”

Laurens shrugged and opened his eyes.  He noted the half-finished dye job and didn’t react.  He scooted backwards so he could lean against the side of his desk.  “Nothing.  I was just talking to him.”

“Oh, about your father and Alexander?”

“I thought you’d have liked having the room to yourself.”

“I did, thank you, that was very considerate.  In the future please let me know when I can expect it so I do not worry.”  When Laurens just reached behind him for the cord of his phone charger, Lafayette continued.  “I spoke with Alexander today.”

“I don’t care about him,” Laurens said, less than convincingly.

“He misses you,” Lafayette said.  “His tell is that he gets so irritable.”

“He’s always a little bitch.”  Laurens pushed away the stab of guilt and unaware of how Hamilton had called him something very similar the previous day.  “If he misses me so much then he can find me and apologize.”

“I thought he did that on the train?”

“Hardly. I want,” Laurens got his phone plugged in and stood, walking away from his bed and Lafayette towards his closet.  He took off and hung up his jacket.  “…I don’t know.  I want him to not be such an asshole or to at least own up to it.  He’s acting like nothing happened and he didn’t do anything wrong.”  He paused, then started to change for bed.  “He was jealous of Francis?”

“Very,” Lafayette affirmed.  “He thought he was much better looking than he was.”

Laurens snorted.  “He’s so vain.”

“And competitive.”

“Alexander was very frustrated that you wouldn’t talk to him,” Lafayette said cautiously.  “I don’t think your turning him the cold shoulder now is helping matters.”

“‘Giving.’”

“Thank you.”

“Maybe I’d talk to him more,” Laurens said, his voice muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head, “if he wasn’t such a jerk.”

Lafayette looked up at the ceiling to avoid disagreeing.

“He texted me.  Did he tell you that?”

“Yes.”

If he actually came to talk to me,” Laurens said with false-casualness, “in person, and apologized, it’s not like I’d turn him away.”

Lafayette perked up.  “Oh?”

“…If he’d just…  I don’t know.”

“If he’d just…?”  Lafayette prompted.

“I was just tired by the time we got back to New York,” Laurens said after a long pause, sounding appropriately exhausted.  “I wasn’t really angry with him.  I’m pretty pissed now,” he added.  “If he’d just said he wanted me to come over or something I probably would have.”

“Maybe it was better that you had some room to breathe.”

“Didn’t do any good.”  Laurens resisted the urge to look across the room at his phone.  “McHenry thinks he crossed a line.”

“James?  Oh,” Lafayette paused, frowning.  “Do I call him ‘McHenry’ because I know him through you or ‘James’ because that is what the others call him?  ‘McHenry,’” he said decisively, “because that is how I knew him first and you are my roommate so it makes sense.  But ‘James’ when I am with Angelica and the others.  Please go on,” he said, that all cleared up.  “He thinks Alexander crossed a line?”

“By reading my things.  He didn’t want to apologize for that, I could tell.  He hedged it.”

“Lawyers,” Lafayette agreed.

Laurens gave him a less than amused look.

“Please go on?”

Laurens sighed and sat back down on his bed next to Lafayette.  “He did apologize,” he admitted.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I’m being too stubborn.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, grabbing onto it a little too enthusiastically.  “You are both being very stubborn.  He reached out to you, yes?  You should respond.  It is rude not to.  You need to make up with one another properly, I will even vacate this room if you want it for that purpose.”

Laurens put his hand on his shoulder and rolled it while he thought.

“John?”

“He’s the one who made this all worse than it needed to be in the first place.  If he hadn’t gone through my shit then it’d just be ‘John, who was that guy, why didn’t you tell me it was such a big deal,’ ‘John, I hate your father except maybe now I don’t and being conflicted about it is making me even more of a pain in the ass.’”

“You’re not making it any better,” Lafayette pointed out.  “Don’t you think it is a good thing that he messaged you?  He misses you.  You know this is not the sort of thing that he likes, so you should not be petty about it or you will see how large this can actually blow up.”

Laurens didn’t respond for a while.  “I’d ask if you ever fought with Adrienne,” he finally said, “but we both know I should be asking her instead.”

Lafayette laughed nervously.  “We don’t fight.  We are both, how do you say, very laid back people.”

Laurens laughed as well, a little drunkenly and a little tiredly, and pushed him.  “You hit me,” he said, somewhat abruptly and more dangerously than the tone implied.  “You’re an asshole, too.”

Lafayette caught the hidden tension and turned immediately apologetic.  “I was afraid of what you were going to say.  You don’t need to paint your mother with that brush.”

“…Yeah.”

“You can hit me if you would like,” Lafayette said, managing to not sound nervous in the slightest.  “You don’t even need to tell me when.”

“I’m not going to hit you.”

“Good, good, don’t tell me.  Lull me into a false sense of security.”

“Lafayette, I’m not hitting you.”

“It’s one free hit,” Lafayette assured him, patting him on the shoulder.  “If you ever change your mind.  I will not stop you or be upset.”

Laurens shook his head slowly.  “You’re something else, you know that?”

“I try.”

“I bet Adrienne has wanted to hit you before.  Maybe I’ll give my pass to her.”

Lafayette smiled at him, not sure if it was coming off as genuine or skittish.  “If you wish.  But don’t tell me if you do.”

“Got it.”  Laurens sighed and stood.  “I’m going to shower.  But…”  He hesitated again.  “I really want to talk to him about—about some things.  I think I needed to…”  He trailed off.  “I need to shower.  You can yell at me if I don’t message him before I go to bed.  I just need a few minutes to figure out how I want to say it.”

“All right,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, standing as well and handing Laurens his towel and shower supplies, eager to accelerate the process.  “Do not worry.  If I forget then you or Adrienne can hit me a second time.”

 

Hamilton sat on the floor of his apartment, his mattress folded up next to him and his laptop glowing in the dark room in front of him, wedged in between a couple of books and a half-emptied and then forgotten about box of tissues.  He had his legs drawn up in front of him and he was typing around them, slowly pecking at the keys and unable to really concentrate on his work.  He clicked over to the messenger program.

 

> A. Hamilton: Hey

> A. Hamilton: What’s up?

 

He waited with growing antsy impatience until the screen showed that someone was typing.  Unable to hold back any longer he sent off a new volley of messages, more casually composed than the last time.

 

> A. Hamilton: it’s the middle of the night, why are you awake?

> A. Hamilton: dont ask why i’m awake, we all know that i’m up at odd hours

> A. Hamilton: i thought you were supposed to be the one with all the smart life choices?

> A. Hamilton: also i made coffee like an hour ago

 

The typing on the other end stopped and then started up again.  A message came through.

 

> A. Burr: What is it?

> A. Hamilton: I can’t sleep, just like you.

 

Hamilton crossed his legs and pulled his laptop forward, so it was leaning up against them and half in his lap.

 

> A. Hamilton: im sorry I was kind of a dick to you over breakfast that one time

> A. Hamilton: when Lafayette’s gf was visiting

> A. Hamilton: Now you go!

> A. Burr: Is this truth or dare?  Are we at a slumber party?

> A. Hamilton: No board games or popcorn.  youre a pretty shitty host burr, if I was the one hosting I’d have gotten snacks fr us.

> A. Burr: I think you are the one hosting, Alexander.

> A. Burr: You contacted me, not the other way around.

> A. Hamilton: …yeah ok true

 

A message alert appeared on Hamilton’s screen and he automatically swiped it away before realizing a split second later that it had been a response from Laurens.

 

> J. Laurens: Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier.  It’s been a really busy day.  I saw your message and then some stuff came up and I wasn’t free until practice and we went out after, so I only just got back now.  I don’t know if this is the best place to get into all of it so sorry if it doesn’t make a lot of sense or if you need me to explain it better.  I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said and I’ve been trying to talk to people more.

 

Hamilton’s eyes opened wide as he continued to read through the message and he winced, alone in his room.

“At least he did what I said and talked to his coach,” he muttered, typing.

 

> A. Hamilton: Jesus, J.

> A. Hamilton: Are you okay?

 

In the silence that followed, Hamilton could see with perfect clarity how Laurens leaned against the wall behind his bed and tried not to break, how he closed his eyes carefully, the pulse in his throat.

 

> J. Laurens: Yeah, enough.

> A. Hamilton: You want to vid chat?

> J. Laurens: No, sorry

> J. Laurens: I’m going to bed in a minute

> A. Hamilton: hey no problem

> A. Hamilton: I should go to sleep too

 

He impulsively added:

 

> A. Hamilton: its not the same without you here bitching about how hard the floor is

 

Hamilton could see him typing and then deleting what he had several times over.

 

> A. Hamilton: Anyway, I need to turn in.  I’m going to try meet a friend for breakfast in the morning

> A. Hamilton: are you free later?

> J. Laurens: Yeah.

> J. Laurens: I need to talk to you and I’d rather not do it over text


	178. Get in the Weeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Hamilton & Burr; ...Team Lafayette & Jefferson?

“Put the three on the four,” Burr said with a glance at the cards on Hamilton’s side of the table in the cafeteria.  “You’re too distracted, Alexander.”

“It’s a hard game,” Hamilton complained, tapping his foot on the floor and not able to pay full attention.  “I’m still learning.”

“It’s glorified solitaire.”

“It’s—shit.”  Hamilton drew back his hand as Burr beat him to putting a card on the stack he was going for.  “It’s complicated.”

“It’s very simple,” Burr said, getting another card down, “unless your mind is too preoccupied.”

“You know I’m not good with this zen bullcrap.  Remember when you had me go to that meditation thing with you?”

“To be fair, Alexander,” Burr said, now on a run, “that was mostly to meet some other students.  You spent most of the one class you attended chatting up the girl next to you.”

“Thought the guy leading it was cute too,” Hamilton said, finally getting a card down and then starting to cycle through his deck again.  “Except he was like thirty.  That’s too old for me still.”  He glanced up at Burr.  “No offense meant, to each his own.”

Burr laughed humorlessly, a sound that Hamilton had long learned to distinguish from his rarer genuine laughter.  “To each his own indeed.  You never told me you liked the instructor.”

“Yes I did.  I so did.  I said class made me thirsty.”

Burr gave him a very dry look across the table.

Hamilton grinned, a little sheepishly.  “So I wasn’t very clear about that.”

“I assumed you were just making a pun about the other students.”

“Yeah, well.  Yeah.  Them too.  But also him.  Just so you know.”

“Why weren’t you clearer then?”

“I dunno.”  Hamilton shrugged.  He stole a glance around them but didn’t see anyone he was keeping an eye out for.  “I didn’t feel comfortable tossing all of that out there, I guess.  Unprompted, at least.  Maybe if you were macking on one of our guy teachers instead…”

“I’m surprised,” Burr said lightly, “that you are willing to admit that.  You like to act as if you came into this world with skin of iron fully formed.”

“What?”  Hamilton fronted with false cheerfulness.  “Is that not true?”

“You’re so transparent, Alexander.”

“‘You’re so transparent, Alexander,’” Hamilton repeated back in a mocking tone.

Burr laughed, this time honestly.

“You don’t get to make fun of me for this,” Hamilton told him as Burr won and they reshuffled their decks.  “You went along with that rumor that I was dating Lafayette, remember?”

“‘Dating’ is a strong word for it,” Burr said.  “And I went along with many rumors about you.  I also pretended to believe that you were so lecherous you’d gotten a feral tom cat named after you.  I was not picking and choosing for the ones that in retrospect make me look like the worst person.”

“I’m not offended,” Hamilton said.  “Besides, I used to make anal jokes about you during meetings.”

Burr looked up again, obviously less than amused.

Hamilton grinned nervously.  “With Gouverneur.”

“Of course.”

“Sometimes Lafayette.  By text.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“So we’re even, is what I’m saying.”  They both began to deal out cards and set up for a new game.  “You know what,” Hamilton said as he flipped cards, “we should make an alliance.  A super-pac!”

“It’s not a super-pac if there are only two of us.”

“A mini-pac!  Come on, Burr,” Hamilton wheedled, “we work well together, when we’re not at each other’s throats.  I’ve got some good ideas, I could use your support.”  He looked at him hopefully.

Burr shook his head slowly and began to play, going through the remaining cards in his hand and making runs on the table.

Hamilton smiled, recognizing that he was winning, and joined in.

“All right,” Burr said after another couple of minutes.  “I’ll listen to you.  It’s the least I can do.”

“Great,” Hamilton enthused.  “I’ve got a whole spiel planned already about why you should back my shit and what I’ll do for you in return and it’s nicer than whatever bear trap I’m afraid I’m going to walk into later today.  I told you how John ended that conversation last night, right?  ’We need to talk.’”  He shuddered.  “That’s always a good one.”

“It might not be bad.”

“He said he’s been talking to other people.  About us, no doubt.  And now, ‘we need to talk.’  God,” he said, a little plaintively, “I really miss him.”

“I thought you were angry at him.”

“I am.  Or was.  Am?  I don’t know.  I’m still upset with him, I just want to be upset with him while lying on top of him?”

“That was very poetic.  You should tell him that.”

“Thanks.  And I don’t want to just sound like an idiot.”

“I thought you would have been used to that by now.”

The jab caught Hamilton off guard and he let out a short burst of laughter.

“It’s not like you to be this skittish.  I’ve never known you to be fearful.  You have to know that you’re blowing this out of proportion.  From what you’ve said and the little I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t seem like the most eloquent.  If he was as upset as you said, then odds are that he didn’t even realize how he was coming off.”

“I just…  It makes me nervous, you know, the thought that he could just leave.  And he can, there’s nothing holding him back from it.”  Hamilton shook his head, breathing out slowly.  “If I’m the one who goes first then that’s my choice,” he went on.  “I’m the one getting hurt, but at least I’m getting hurt on my own terms.”

“But right now you’re hurting yourself preemptively,” Burr pointed out patiently.  “He is, after all, still dating you.”

“He is, isn’t he?”  The question came out only half rhetorical.  Hamilton drummed his fingers on the table, the card game long forgotten.  “You know, Lafayette told me to sulk after we made up.”

“Lafayette’s a smart man.”

“Not that smart, I’ve been sulking and it’s been like we’ve been broken up anyway.  He should’ve been clearer with his instructions.”  Hamilton shook his head again.  “I need a gesture,” he said.  “Just in case.  Something that says ‘please take me back’ without ceding any of my remaining dignity and that doesn't imply too strongly that I was actually in the wrong.”

“Try flowers.  Roses are always popular.”

“Ha, yeah right, you just want to see him get offended and throw the bouquet in my face right in the middle of the…”  Hamilton put his hand to his mouth, tapping his lower lip with one finger.  “Actually,” he said slowly.  He stood up, pushing the chair out with a scrape behind him.  “I gotta go.  Thanks for the game and the chat, but I need to make a call.”

 

“Did you find the turkey I left for you in your mailbox?”

“The chocolate one?”  Jefferson laughed, sounding faintly annoyed.  “Yes, I did.  Thank you, that was too kind of you.”

“I thought of you when I saw it.”  Lafayette sat in front of his desk, his bag in his lap.  “I knew that I had to buy it for you.”

“Again,” Jefferson said dryly, “you’re too kind.  Did you enjoy South Carolina?”

“It was very interesting,” Lafayette said, “but not very relaxing.”

“Pity.”  Jefferson turned a fancy wooden pen over between long fingers.  “Relationship drama?”  Lafayette nodded.  “Not yours, I hope.”

“No, Adrienne and I are quite well.”

“Alexander and John?  I heard Alexander get into a little spat before class,” Jefferson explained, continuing to twirl the pen.  “Figured he was probably on the rocks with his boyfriend, judging by how that all went down.”

“They will be okay,” Lafayette said decidedly.  “I have talked to them, they are both just very dramatic sometimes.”

“Unlike the present company,” Jefferson said with an amused smile.

“Of course.  Did you have a good vacation?”

“I did.  Martha and I made plans for winter break,” Jefferson went on.  “We’ve been doing well financially and what with the promotion and all, we decided we’d take a little second honeymoon out in Hawaii.”  He said the name as a drawl.

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “That is in the United States as well.”

“Yes, of course it is.”

“No, no, it is just that I am trying to visit all the states,” Lafayette explained.  “That is very exciting for you.”

“Is that so?  You should fly out as well, bring your girlfriend.”  Jefferson extended the invitation without thinking about it either way.  “It’d be an experience.”

“It’s so far,” Lafayette said, a little wistfully.  “I don’t know.”

“There’s a direct flight,” Jefferson said, “or if you’d rather stop along the way I’m sure you can get off in California or Washington, something like that.  Arizona.  Break it up.”

“I should be visiting France,” Lafayette said.  “And John’s father invited us back to South Carolina again.”

“Did he?  The trip went that well, did it?  In spite of all the drama.”

“Oh, yes,” Lafayette said.  “I made such good friends with his baby sister.  She is seven.  I told Adrienne already,” he went on, leaning forward and taking a more conspiratorial tone, “but I had always assumed that I would do better with a son than a daughter and she proved me wrong.  I cannot wait to have daughters with her.  I am completely in love with little girls.”

Jefferson laughed.  “That’s not quite how you’d word that in English,” he told him.  “I understand what you mean, but you’ll want to watch your language around people.”

Lafayette puzzled over what he had said.

“I didn’t know you wanted children already,” Jefferson went on.  “You’re still so young.”

“It is better to have children young,” Lafayette said.  “I want to have time to enjoy their company.”

“You’re so sentimental,” Jefferson said with an amused shake of his head.  “I hope your friends appreciate it.”

“They do.”  Lafayette took a pack of vending machine nuts out of his bag and opened it.

“I’m glad to hear that your trip went well enough,” Jefferson said, leaning forward to take a peanut when Lafayette offered him.  “Thank you.  To tell the truth, I thought it was going to be an absolute shit show for all of you.”

“Really?”  Lafayette tipped his head to the side.  “Oh, because we would be back in South Carolina where John’s father might bring up his old girlfriend.  He did do that,” he said.  But he didn’t show us the picture.”

“That,” Jefferson said, “but also just because of John bringing Alexander home.  His father’s all honey sometimes but he’s not an idiot.  I thought of saying something beforehand.  You should tell your friend to watch himself around him.  If he’s anywhere as obvious about his predilections around his father as he is on campus he’s just going to encourage him to say something about is.”

Lafayette ate a couple more nuts.  When he spoke again, it was with a declarative statement rather than a question.  “When I asked you not to mention anything, you already knew that he knew.”

Jefferson gave a short laugh.  “At the risk of sounding like a complete ass, yes.  I used to work in similar circles, I told you that.  Out in DC, before I jumped over to academia, I earned my keep by lobbying with all those fat cats.  Like I told you before, in a perfect world I’d find myself back there someday, but with a task a little closer to my heart and not doing other peoples’ busywork.  But you should have heard him going on while John was coming of age, so to speak.  ‘My son isn’t interested in girls yet,’ like he was bragging.  ‘Jack spends all his time on his studies and athletics, he’s going to make varsity a whole year before his peers.’”  Jefferson laughed.  “You could just tell that he was having to struggle to convince himself as John moved further into his teenage years.  I’d call it funny,” he added, “if it wasn’t so pathetically transparent that he was coming to a different conclusion privately and having to put lipstick on a pig, to use the turn of phrase.”

“I don’t like that,” Lafayette said carefully.

“I wouldn’t either,” Jefferson said glibly.  “He should’ve just owned up to it.  There were ways he could have spun it if he was so concerned about his political prospects.  Played the role of the old-fashioned but loving father.  Hate the sin, not the sinner.  Would’ve gotten both sides, if you ask me.  Won over some new voters by proving to them how _liberal_ he is, the real lesser of all the evils down there, while keeping his hold on his old ones through his emphasis on his narrative as a family man who just wants to help his poor son.  John could’ve been the political prop he was looking for come every election season, not some hidden family secret.  That’s the problem with secrets,” Jefferson went on, his tone getting a little darker, “half the time they’ll only fuck you over if you let someone else expose them.  It takes real genius to know how to use them to your advantage because human instinct tends to be to shy away from them.  If you want my advice,” he said, “learn how to distinguish the two kinds, those that you can potentially martyr yourself with and those that no good can come of.  Don’t waste your capital on burying the first group.  You gotta save it for the ones with actual teeth.”

Lafayette rolled up the top of the bag and put it in his backpack.  “I wouldn’t be able to differentiate like that.  I’m not very good at politics.  I think I’m just too much of an idealist.”

“That could be.  That’s not the worst thing, especially if you have friends who’ll get down in the mud for you.”

Lafayette nodded.  “They’re all _much_ better at it than I am.  Ah, I am sorry for leaving so quickly _._   I need to go over a little paperwork for tutoring before my appointment at the salon.  I’m glad I was able to meet with you.”

“Any time,” Jefferson said.  “Thank you for the chocolate.”

Lafayette left, on his phone to Adrienne as soon as the door was closed behind him.


	179. Working Across the Aisle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Isn't Really Friendship but at Least It's Amiable

“WhatsApp,” Tench listed off as he walked with Laurens across campus towards the gym that afternoon.  “Facebook, but really only to talk to my family.  I used to like Vine.  Tallmadge and I had some great vines.  You saw the one of us and the shopping cart in Central Park, right?  Line,” he went on, “and Secret.”

“Secret?”

“Sometimes.  Tallmadge showed me that one.”  Tench shrugged.  “It’s anonymous.  He has fun tracking down who posted what of the more obvious stuff, like things that are obviously put up from classes we’re in, shit like that.”

“Of course he does.”

“Hey, it’s spy training.  Or it’s going to get him on some black list before he even has his interview.”  Tench squinted and put his hand up over his eyes as they turned a corner and the setting sun blinded them.

Laurens flinched away from the light as well and didn’t recognize the silhouette approaching him until after it spoke.

“Are you going to dinner?”

Laurens could tell that Tench had started next to him.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to subtly angle them so the sun was blocked enough that he could actually see Eliza’s face.  “I don’t know where Alexander is, though.”

“That’s all right,” she said, turning back to the couple of girls that she had been walking with, one of them in the same varsity jacket as her.  “We’re getting dinner too.  You two should join us.”

“I don’t know where McHenry is either,” Laurens started but was cut off by Tench nudging him to be quiet.

“Don’t listen to him, he’s just trying to be polite.  Of course we’ll join you.  Are you all on the same team?”

“Only the two of us play soccer together,” Eliza said, linking arms with the girl next to her with close-cropped hair and a matching jacket.  “These are my friends,” she told both girls, indicating Tench and Laurens.  “I think we’re still early enough to find a big table, don’t you?”

Laurens remembered what Peggy had said and held his tongue.  Eliza sounded a little too sure of herself for him to call her out on anything.

“This is Sam,” Eliza said, motioning to the girl whose arm she had as they started walking again.  “And that’s Kitty.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Laurens said automatically, then was thrown slightly off guard when Sam freed herself from Eliza and presented him with her hand to shake.  He tried to recover before she could notice.  He shook her hand.  “John Laurens.  This is Tench, Tench Tilghman.”

“Samson.”  She corrected Eliza’s introduction.

“Got it.”

“Sam’s our number one midfielder,” Eliza said.  She was keeping a half-pace ahead of them and Laurens had the distinct impression that she was keeping guard and making sure none of them broke off.  “Kitty’s in class with us,” she added.

“What class?”  Tench asked, speeding up slightly so he could walk alongside her.

“If you’re looking for Alexander…”  Laurens tried again, talking over Tench.

“No,” Eliza said with a distant pleasantness that seemed to hide daggers, “I don’t need him for anything.  _But_ since you mentioned him, could you tell him for me that if he’s really interested in working for my father this summer he should let him know?  He was asking after him.”

“Your father?”

“At his law firm.”

Laurens nodded, filing that away.  “Right.  I’ll pass that along.”

“Thank you.”

“…Why don’t you just talk to him yourself?”  Laurens couldn’t help the question.  “You two text all the time.  He’s always on his phone with you or Angelica.”

“I’m angry with him,” Eliza said with a straightforwardness that Laurens hadn’t expected.  “If you’re not speaking properly yet either, you can tell Lafayette to tell him that I’ll gladly accept his apology.”

Kitty, at her side, nodded in blanket agreement.

“What did he do?”  Tench asked.

Eliza smiled winningly and put her hand briefly on his arm as she deflected.  “Oh, it’s not important.  He’s just being an idiot yesterday.  He has a knack for that sometimes.”

“That’s true.”  Laurens couldn’t help himself again.  “He’s been all over that lately.”

“Vacation?”  Tench asked to confirm.

Laurens shrugged.  “Yeah.  Well, mostly after.  Thanksgiving went okay.”

“John,” Eliza said, not quite chiding him and not quite defending Hamilton, “you should have seen the texts he was sending over break.  I’ve never seen him so jumpy.”

“You haven’t known him that long.”

Eliza’s smile turned a little bitter.  “You do know him better than I do.  I bet there’s nothing he could do that would surprise you.”

“He’s done a lot to surprise me.”

“Oh?”

“He’s—”  Laurens realized he was caught suddenly between two very different answers.  He drew back, considering the situation and audience.  “—Well,” he compromised with a self-conscious shrug, “I didn’t think he’d go this long without talking to either of us.  Simultaneously, even.”

Tench snorted.  “Buddy, I get that you’re pissed at him but frankly we’re all a little surprised you let him go this long.”

“Let him stew,” Kitty said, her conversational tone an almost grating uptalk as she directed her comments more towards Eliza than the rest of them.  “Some bridges need to be burned.”

“I’m not burning any bridges,” Laurens said, finding himself suddenly angry and forcibly holding himself in check.  “With Alex or with anyone else.”

Kitty looked surprised for a moment and Laurens saw her glance at Eliza as if checking an answer.  Eliza looked suddenly sympathetic and Laurens could hear the line of inquiry before she posed it and he braced himself to defend against it.

“Have you talked to him at all?”

Laurens hated how understanding she sounded.  He hated that she, in spite of her acknowledged anger with Hamilton and the distance between all three of them, sounded like she would be the first to bend if it meant smoothing things out between the other two.  He wished, for a moment, that she actually was his friend because then he could tell her to shove it and maybe it would come off as him acknowledging that it was an unfair and bad idea to ask her to do any of the lifting instead of just as him being a petulant child.

“Yes,” he said instead of any of the rest of that.  ‘Yes’ was the closest he could get to conveying it.  “I did, actually.”

“Really?”  Tench looked surprised and a little bit Laurens wanted to push him into the nearest tree.

“Last night.  We’re going to meet up later.”

Tench nodded.  “Nice.  I broke up with my girlfriend over break,” Tench added after a brief uncomfortable silence, and Laurens breathed a sigh of relief as Eliza turned to him instead.  “Burned that bridge straight into the ground.”

“What happened?”

Tench launched into an explanation, met with the appropriate responses from the other three, and Laurens took his phone out of his pocket.  There were no messages and he put it away.

He looked up.  Eliza was watching him.

“I was checking the time.”

“What time is it?”

Laurens hated that he had to take his phone out again to answer that.  “Five thirty.”  He hesitated.  “The job…  Did your father offer it to him when he went to your place for dinner?”

“They talked a bit about his summer plans.”  Eliza left her friends with Tench and fell back to walk alongside him.  “It wasn’t a formal offer, he just told him that if he was interested in getting some experience he would see if there was a place for him.”

It took a real effort to not ask about the conversation she and Hamilton had had in private.  He wondered if she could tell that he was trying desperately to think about anything else.  “Do you think there would be a second spot open?”

Eliza gave him such a startled look that Laurens realized she had been wary about their conversation before.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “Forget it.”

“No,” she said quickly.  “John, I’m sure if he doesn’t have room for two people he’ll know someone who needs some help in the office.  It’s just secretarial work for the most part,” she went on, “I’ve done it for him as well.  If things shake out well you might get your feet wet a little doing research for cases and that sort of thing, but it’s really mostly going to be just digitizing his records and keeping things organized.  It’s nothing glamorous.”

Laurens half-shrugged awkwardly.  “You have to start somewhere, right?”

She smiled at him perfectly genuinely for the first time in, he realized guiltily, several weeks.  “That’s true.  And I’m sure you’ve done similar work for your father, right?  So you’re familiar with how it all goes.  Do you want me to send you his email?”

Laurens shook his head.  “I can get it from Alexander.”

Eliza’s smile curved up just a little more.  She nodded.  “Good.”

“Good,” Laurens agreed, not sure if that was an appropriate response or not.  “Look,” he said, trying not to let the pauses in their conversation stretch on too long, “look, this is—about Alexander, I’m sorry if I…”

He waited, hopeful that she would cut him off.  She didn’t and he sighed and continued.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been an asshole.”  He was unable to maintain her gaze after he saw the flicker of surprise on her face, and he looked away, over her shoulder.  “I know the two of you are close.  Maybe not now,” he half-joked to an appreciative chuckle.  “But, I mean, in general.  I’m glad he has friends.”

“I know.”  Eliza took his hand.

Laurens gave her such a startled look that she let go of him and he felt his face turn red in embarrassment.

“I get jealous too,” she said with a kind of soothing clarity that he hadn’t even known that he wished he could achieve.  “Sometimes it’s hard when people you like have other relationships.  Don’t ever tell Peggy this,” she said teasingly, “but when she was little I hated the thought that she would make friends that were all her own.  Angelica is my older sister,” she explained, “so she always had things that belonged to just her.  But it was different with Peggy and that was hard.”  She took her hair out of her ponytail as they walked and shook it out, the tie briefly in her mouth before she put it back up.  “So I understand what you mean.”

Laurens realized that she had deliberately chosen a less-obvious example to give him and that she had no intention of opening the door to her own room and showing him even the shadow of her and Hamilton inside.

“I have younger siblings, too,” he said, not sure what he was doing other than taking her lead.

“That’s _different_ ,” Eliza insisted with a friendly flash of a smile.  “You’re the _oldest_.  If you want to talk about younger siblings, you should really talk to Angelica, she’ll understand _all_ of your complaints about us.”

“I don’t think you and Peggy are the same as four of them, two of them _boys_ , all of them ages seven to seventeen.”

“I don’t know, we were terrors.”

“Did you ever lock her in a closet?”

Eliza tried to keep a straight face but failed and snorted behind her hand.

Laurens watched her suspiciously as she was unable to regain control.  “…You did that to Peggy, didn’t you?”

“ _No_ ,” Eliza insisted.  “…It was the attic.”

“That’s awful.”

“We were just outside the door the whole time!”

“I should talk to Peggy about the two of you instead.”

“She was _fine_ ,” Eliza protested, still struggling to sound appropriately serious.  “You can ask her about it!”

“I will.”  Laurens was distracted by a vibrating message alert from his phone.  He took it out of his pocket automatically and then glanced in embarrassment at Eliza.  She shook her head and put one hand up to indicate that he should go ahead, then looked politely away.

 

> A. Hamilton: Can you meet me at the station before my place?  Any time after six.

> J. Laurens: I’m getting dinner right now.  I’ll text you when I’m done and we can meet up

 

He saw Hamilton typing.

 

> A. Hamilton: cool, cool

> A. Hamilton: Hey I’m sorry I need to know

> A. Hamilton: Can you tell me what you need to talk to me about?  Is it just rehashing what you’ve been up to?

> J. Laurens: Yeah, pretty much.

 

Laurens paused, then added, still feeling embarrassed but hopeful:

 

> J. Laurens: Probably can be there in about an hour.  I missed you.

 

He was gratified to see the response come back immediately.

 

> A. Hamilton: Great!  See you then, J.

 

He put his phone away.

“Was that Peggy?  Are you telling on me already?”

Laurens shook his head and tried to answer without feeling like doing so was making the situation more awkward.  “Alexander.”

“I see.”

Laurens hesitated, then asked quickly before he lost his nerve, “What does he say about me?  I know he talks to you about me.”

“Oh, John.”

Laurens regretted the question immediately at the soft reassuring sympathy in her voice.

“He doesn’t say anything bad about you, not really.”

Laurens could feel his face burning and he looked forward at the others walking ahead of them.  “I was just wondering.”

Eliza nodded.  “I’d wonder, too.”


	180. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *And It Feels so Good

Laurens saw Hamilton standing nervously just outside the turnstiles at the station they had agreed to meet at.  He still had his school bag on over his coat and was holding a single yellow rose awkwardly at his side.

“Hey,” Hamilton said once Laurens approached him.  He raised his free hand in greeting, then seemingly remembered his peace offering and held it out instead.  “Couldn’t get jessamine.  Not short notice, I texted you before I went down—anyway.”  He cut himself off, realizing that his excuses just made his gesture seem more half-assed.  “The color’s right.”  He flashed a self-conscious grin.  “It seemed more romantic in my head and I thought it’d be a nice touch just in case you were doing ‘we need to talk’ like ‘we maybe need to break this off,’ thought of it before you clarified.”  Hamilton kept going before Laurens could respond.  “I’m sorry for reading your stuff without permission.  And for being up in your face about your father.”

Laurens nodded.

“I hate this,” Hamilton pleaded, suddenly taking his hand.  “Look, okay, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry I fake broke up with you.  I didn’t mean to.  Let’s be done with this, okay?”

Laurens started to nod, then slowly shook his head instead.  “I’m still mad at you.”

Hamilton just stared at him.

Laurens took his hand back and put it deliberately in his pocket.

“So…”  Hamilton started and then stopped.  He took a step back, towards a rundown kiosk selling magazines and tabloids, not so much to move further away from Laurens as to get out of the ebb and flow of people.  “So what are you saying?  Do you actually want to…?”

Laurens stayed where he was and let the crowd part around him.  Hamilton had the brief memory of high tide breaking on a rock.

“J.?”

Laurens looked up at the low ceiling.  The long light overhead was dirty and littered with insects.  “J.,” he said, repeating the name as if he had never heard it before.

“You need to talk to me,” Hamilton said, working to keep his voice steady and his body still.  Pride worked to his benefit and he leaned on it.  “I don’t know what you are saying.”

“I’m not sure either,” Laurens admitted after a pause.  “I think…  I’m off balance without you.  A lot’s happened.  I don’t know where I stand anymore.  I missed you.”

Hamilton shifted his weight from foot to foot and then took a shot.  “You said you wanted to talk about it.  Do you still want to talk about it?”

Laurens hesitated and then nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Can I take your hand now?”

Laurens removed it from his pocket and took Hamilton’s in answer.

“Home?”

Laurens nodded again.  “Yeah.”  He looked at him and started laughing, not bothering to hold it back or cover his mouth.

Hamilton was clearly caught off guard.  “What?”

“You couldn’t even spring for a half-dozen?  This is the most pathetic apology bouquet ever.”

Hamilton hit him, his hand still holding the flower.  “They didn’t have a good selection!  You don't get to scare me like that and then criticize my present!”

“How much did that even _cost_ you?  Three dollars?  You could have just bought me a burger instead.”

“Is that what it takes to win you back?  I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Laurens raised his brow at him.  “Next time?”

“…Not that I’m planning anything.  Come on, you know what I meant.”  Hamilton frowned and swore, moving his grip to feel where he had weakened the stem up at the top.  “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed, not paying attention to any of that.  “I do.”

“Shit,” Hamilton repeated, the rose starting to droop.  “You don’t want that burger now, do you?”

“I just had dinner.”  Laurens glanced him over.  “Did you break it already?”

“Defective.”  Hamilton tossed it into a trashcan as they left the station and shifted his grip to Laurens’ arm.  “Sorry.  About being a jerk, I mean.  I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” Laurens put his hands back in his pockets against a sudden cold gust as Hamilton did the same and hunched against it.

“Damn,” Hamilton complained.  “Good thing we're so close.”

Laurens paused, then snorted as he tried to hold back another laugh. “You're so cute,” he teased.  “Standing all alone out here with your single sad flower.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.  “It worked, didn't it?”

“The apology worked,” Laurens corrected him, then added, “...and, like I said, I missed you.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton grinned.  “Feel free to elaborate there, J.”

“Everyone else kept pissing me off,” Laurens said.  “So, you know, I might as well have you around to be pissed off with me.”

“I heard that having mutual _dislikes_ actually makes for a stronger relationship than having shared likes,” Hamilton said.  “Don't know if that's actually true or not but I'm willing to roll with it.  Who are we mad at, J.?  It's a bonding activity.”

“You.”

“Ouch.”

“Me,” Laurens conceded to an appreciate laugh from Hamilton.  “Kind of Lafayette but I'm over it.”

“‘We’re’ over it.”

“Maybe still Eliza.”

“Ooh, yeah, that's no good.”  Hamilton grimaced.  “I should have kept the rose bit for her, bet she would have found that charming.  Not that, uh, not that I'm interested in giving her flowers or anything,” he added quickly.  “Just, you know, they're mad at me too.  Her and Angelica.”

“I know.  I talked to her.”

Hamilton winced again.  “Excellent.  Well, you know there's no way I'm cheating on you, then,” he said in an attempt at a joke.  “No one else has your extremely low standards.”

Laurens stopped on the sidewalk and put his hand on his face, tipping it up.  He kissed him slowly.

After several seconds, Hamilton pulled away.  “What was that for?”

“Needed to shut you up,” Laurens said simply.

“Oh.”

“I just…"  Laurens ran his hand over the back of his head uncomfortably.  “Like I said, I really need to talk to you about stuff,” he said.  “Later."

“Tonight later?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”  Hamilton guided them towards his apartment.  “Is it serious?”

Laurens made a non-committal noise.

“...Well, whatever it is, we can figure it out.  Right?  Hey,” Hamilton said, perking up a little.  “Okay I know we’re still mad at both of us, but pause to high five?  We fought before because, let’s be real, we’re both assholes, but we never _fought_ -fought.  Not like this anyway.  Not like a whole fight with, like, a chorus and a refrain.  Different character arcs.  Congratulations,” he said brightly, stepping away from Laurens and offering his hand.  “We survived!”

Laurens felt a smile spreading over his face in spite of everything.  “Yeah,” he agreed, slapping his hand.  “Congratulations."

“To a worthy competitor,” Hamilton teased, turning the high five into a mock-serious handshake.  “I’m honored to have played with you.”

“Aren't we on the same side?”

“Only for the actual games.  We’re allowed to scrimmage against each other.”

“Ah.”

“So what’s the schedule?”  Hamilton nudged Laurens towards his building.  “Do you have work to do?  Are we putting on a movie and chilling?  I can be hands off,” he added.  “Or on.  Whichever.  I just,” he paused, trying to sort out his words, “I just want to be close to you again.”

Laurens leaned down and kissed his temple.  “Missed you too.”

“Everyone’s sucking up to me this week,” Hamilton said with a grin as he dug his key out of his pocket.  “Either that or telling me where I can shove it.  It’s some real whiplash, J.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens kissed him again and then ducked a little lower to nip at his earlobe.

Hamilton laughed, delighted.  “Maybe I should turn that one around, tell _you_ where to shove it.”

“Let’s go with a less violent verb.”

“Mm, if you insist.”  They were making their way up the stairs, both already starting to undo their outer layers.  Laurens braced himself with one hand against the wall to undo the laces to his shoes as Hamilton got the door.

“In,” Hamilton said, pushing the door open and yanking off his coat.  He took Laurens’ hand and tugged him into the apartment.  “In, in.”

“You are so pushy,” Laurens said.  “Don’t you have any patience?”

“What patience?  J.,  it’s been practically three weeks.”

Laurens stopped short, frowning as Hamilton pulled on his arm again.  “No way.”

“This week’s been a wash up to this point,” Hamilton said, “and it’s _Wednesday_.  Last week we did it once when you got back from Boston on Saturday, I remember that, I’m counting that, but once we got to South Carolina the most that happened was my rubbing one out for you on Thanksgiving.  That was a week ago and I gotta point out, J., didn’t exactly do much for me.  The week _before_ that I was dying a slow death and, you know, not that I don’t like jerking you off in the shower but I just had that one Saturday to tide me over.”

“It has been a long time,” Laurens admitted.  “I didn’t realize.”

“A _long_ time,” Hamilton emphasized, hastily making the bed.  “We need to rectify it.  Like, for health reasons.”

“‘Health reasons’?”  Laurens went into the bathroom and opened the drawer, getting out lube and a condom.

“Yeah, you know, night vision blindness.  Hair loss.  Whatever.”

Laurens could hear by his voice that he was stripping, the muffled sound quickly followed up by his clothes flying into the narrow hall outside the bathroom.

“You’re so horny.”

“Three weeks, J.”

The lights cut as Laurens got undressed and he put his hand out automatically to make sure he was clear of the desk as he headed back towards the bed as his eyes adjusted.

“You got it?”

“Yeah.” He saw Hamilton standing in front of him, practically vibrating with anticipation.

“Night blindness,” Hamilton said, the joke almost breathless.  “What’d I tell you?”  He kissed him slowly, as if savoring him, then melted against him with his arms around his shoulders and his hands in his hair.

Laurens moaned low into the kiss, feeling himself already reacting to it.  A slight flush came to his cheeks and he pushed his tongue carefully into his mouth.  “I missed you.”

“You said that.”

Laurens could tell from Hamilton’s voice that he felt just as suddenly caught up in it all as he did.

“I know.  It’s true, though.”

“Well, if it’s true…”  Hamilton kissed him again with more intensity.  He backed them towards the mattress and urged Laurens down onto it, lying next to him with his arms still around him and his mouth still on his.

Laurens wrapped his arms around Hamilton’s waist, moving one hand up over his back and feeling every inch of his skin, soft and warm.  Somehow their legs had become intertwined.

“Imagine, mm…”  Hamilton cut himself off to kiss Laurens again, unable to restrain himself.  “Imagine—”  His words were broken up by their pressing their lips together.  “—What would it be like—if this was even—longer—”

Laurens’ laugh tripped over itself into the kiss.  “Why would I want to do that?”

“I’m just—saying.  I already feel like—”  Hamilton’s breath caught and he ducked his head down to bite and then suck on Laurens’ neck.  He gave up any attempt at conversation, instead untangling one of his arms and sliding his hand between Laurens’ legs, where he wrapped it around his cock.

Laurens groaned against the side of his head and Hamilton moved his hand slowly over him, continuing to tease his skin on his neck with his mouth.

“Alexander…”

A shiver ran through Hamilton’s body.  “God, yes.”  He bit him again, earning himself a short noise from Laurens, then moved his hand faster, focusing on drawing the orgasm out of him as quickly as possible.

Laurens pushed away.

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.  “John…”

Laurens kissed him, then pulled away again when Hamilton put his hand back on him.  “You were just complaining that you’ve been missing out,” he said.  “You’re doing this all wrong.”

“Can’t help it.  You can go twice, right?”

Laurens kissed him once more, then gave him an almost-playful push.  “Turn over.”

“Back?”

Laurens weighed his options.  “Side?”

“Sure.”  Hamilton lay down.  “You want to—mn…”  His question was cut short by Laurens lifting his leg and running one hand down his inner thigh.  He moved his fingers up and back and pushed lightly against him without trying to enter as Hamilton shut his eyes and pulled his pillow into a more comfortable position.

Laurens gently kissed the skin where Hamilton’s neck met his shoulder and moved his hand forward to cup and hold his sac.  Hamilton whined impatiently and encouragingly and tipped his hips towards the touch.

With his one free hand Laurens managed to open the lube and when he moved away from him briefly it was only to return his hand slick and almost completely frictionless as he toyed with his balls and Hamilton jerked then leaned into him.

“More?”

“‘Course.”  Hamilton felt his heart pounding already.  “Don’t stop that, though.”

Two fingers pushed up against him and his breath caught.

“Yes…”

Laurens resisted the urge to wrap his arm around him and just take him fully and instead slowly pressed into him, waiting until Hamilton was starting to twist uncomfortably before going further.

“J.,” Hamilton managed when he still was only in a couple of centimeters, “I know it’s—been a while but you’re not gonna—break me, come _on_.”

Laurens laughed, a little embarrassed, against his shoulder, and slid both fingers in the rest of the way to a low needy moan.

Hamilton ducked his head down against the pillow, one hand gripping the side of the futon.  “Yes, J., more…”

“More?”

“ _Please_ …”

Laurens moved his hand back and forth, encouraged by Hamilton’s repeated insistences and his own cock, pressing hard against him.

“John,” Hamilton said, the name ending with a needy whine.  “If you don’t hurry up…”

“You’re going to come?”  Laurens teased, nipping at his ear.

“No,” Hamilton said, twisting his neck towards him.  “I’m gonna roll over and fuck you myself.”

Laurens laughed, caught completely off guard, but the threat made his cock twitch and he was unable to stop himself from pressing and rubbing slightly against him.

Hamilton made a self-satisfied noise and reached behind him to squeeze Laurens’ shoulder.  “Yeah, you like the sound of that, don’t you?  You want me to lose all patience and turn the tables on you?  I could—ah—”  He stopped abruptly as Laurens took his hand away.  He shivered in anticipation as he waited for him to replace it with his cock.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Heat rushed through him as Laurens pushed back into him, unable to help himself and biting his shoulder as well as he did so with a low hungry noise.

“Y-yes…”  Hamilton tipped his head away as best he could.  “Mark me.  J.”

Laurens bit him again, harder, and Hamilton gasped, grabbing his arm tightly when he wrapped it across his chest.

He thrust shallowly into him, unable to push into him very hard or far with the angle, and suddenly frustrated about that.  He didn’t realize he had made a noise in protest until he felt Hamilton stifle a laugh.

“H-hey.”  His voice was shaking slightly, something else he had not expected.  “It’s not that funny.”

“Beg to differ.”

Laurens bit him again.

Hamilton pressed his lips together tightly to keep from breaking the mood.

“You’re lucky I love you,” Laurens said, low in his hair and ear.

“Mm.”  Hamilton suddenly no longer had to fight the urge to laugh at him.  “Just for that?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“Not just for that.”

Laurens was smiling against the back of his neck, Hamilton’s hair tangled over his eyes.  “Yeah?”

“Dumbass.  Finish what you started.”

“Sorry.”  Laurens nipped his skin again—Hamilton had the fleeting sense that he was trying to eat him alive to make up for the recent distance between them—then turned his attention back to the task at hand, using his free hand to stroke him in time with his thrusts.  The way that Hamilton rocked his hips with him and clung to his arm pushed him quickly towards the brink.

“J…”

“W-wait.”  Laurens pulled away, recognizing the tone in his voice.  “Not yet.”

“ _J_ …”

Laurens moved up on the mattress, his cock pressing up against his lower back, focusing on leaving a dark bruise on his neck, feeling Hamilton’s pulse under his lips.  He enlarged the mark, moving towards the front so that it would be visible the following day, hearing his own blood pounding in his ears as Hamilton reached up with one hand and ran it over the back of his head.

“Yes…”

He could feel the word and he was filled with a confused rush of affection and desire.

“J.,” Hamilton repeated, obviously pleading.

“I missed you.”  The words came out lower and more needy than Laurens had intended and Hamilton gave a soft moan.

“Please…”

“I missed you.”

Hamilton half-laughed, distracted and disoriented.  “Missed you too, J.”

Laurens nuzzled the back of his neck and tightened his hold on him, one arm firmly across his chest.  Hamilton moved his hand down to it, feeling the solid muscle and the heat radiating off of him.  He arched back against him, encouraging him back down with a short tug.

“Fuck me.  J…”

Laurens gave in, sliding a few inches down his body and pressing his face to his back before pushing back into him.  Hamilton gasped and moaned encouragingly.

“God, _yes_ —”

Laurens closed his eyes tightly, torn between losing himself in the moment and prolonging it.  Hamilton made a needy sound and Laurens picked up the pace.

“John,” Hamilton breathed, his heart racing and his head spinning as it became impossible for him to think of anything outside Laurens’ cock and hand.

Laurens bit back a whimper, feeling a drop of sweat run down from his brow line across his face.

“Please,” Hamilton said.  “J, p-please…”  He opened his mouth in a silent groan as Laurens thrust into him again and he dug his fingers into his arm, his hips jerking forward as he came.

The sudden tension and obvious release tripped Laurens over the line as well and he pressed his face harder into Hamilton’s back with a long low moan, tightening his grip on him even further.

Hamilton felt his breath catch and leave his body and then he took in a loud and shaking gasp, his pulse beating in his face and hands and cock.

“D-damn.”

He shook his head and let Laurens continue to hold him.

“Damn.”

He shook his head again to clear it.  It didn’t help, but he managed to roll over with a grin and slip his arms around Laurens’ neck.  He kissed him languidly, trailing it off by gently taking his lip into his mouth and sucking on it.

“Hey.”  He cocked his leg around one of Laurens’.  “Tiger.”

Laurens gave a breathless and faintly exhausted laugh.  “Hey.”

“Don’t get up yet,” Hamilton instructed him, kissing him again.  “Stay here.  With me.”

“All right.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton shut his eyes and tucked his face into his neck.  “I missed you.”

“Think you said something about that,” Laurens said, still sounding a little distracted.

“Maybe.”

“I love you.”

“Mm,” Hamilton said again, smiling against his skin.  “Love you too.”

Laurens felt himself falling into unconsciousness.  He mumbled a response but it was incoherent and he couldn’t stay awake long enough to correct himself.


	181. Contingency Planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midnight

“Why does it bother you that I dated Francis?”

Hamilton looked up at Laurens, the blankets around his bare waist and his hair wet as he wrung it out into a towel.  “What?”

“Lafayette said you were jealous of Francis.”

“Friggin’ Lafayette.”

“I’m not dating Francis.”

“Obviously.”

“We aren’t even on good terms anymore.”

Hamilton looked back down, focusing on getting the water out of his hair.  “He’s just hot, okay?  I was, I dunno, I was all keyed up on break and seeing him didn’t help.”

“You’re better looking than he is.”

Hamilton snorted.

“Really.”

“Yeah, okay.  You don’t need to try to placate me, John.”

Laurens was quiet a moment, thinking.

“You’ve got a bigger dick than he does.”

Hamilton laughed.  “All right, I’ll take it.  Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, J.?”

“No.”  Laurens was sitting next to him in just underwear and a shirt.  He made his hands into fists and put them in his lap.  “You read my message earlier.”

“About talking to your coach.  Yeah, I did.  Good for you, that was a smart thing to do.”

Laurens shrugged it off.  “Do you think I should do what he says?”

“What, get your own bank account and switch all your bills to your name?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you really worried he’ll be that petty?”

Laurens shrugged again and ran one thumb under the fingers of that hand, one after the other.  “He scared me a little.”

“Your coach.”

“Yeah.  He knows what he’s talking about, I guess, but if—I don’t know, he’d notice.  It’d be obvious that something was up.”

“Look,” Hamilton said after a moment.  “Not to sound completely cold and calculating here, but if it were me—and this is just me, you don’t have to go with it—”  He put his towel down and took Laurens’ hand.  “I wouldn’t say shit until after graduation.”

Laurens looked at him in surprise.  “You’d wait?”

“Completely out of character, right?”  Hamilton gave a half-laugh.  “I’m not really saying I’d be able to, but I’d _try_.  Just avoid the guy.  Avoid putting yourself in that situation.  Avoid—everything.  Until you can afford not to.”  A beat passed.  “I’d probably fuck it all up horribly,” Hamilton admitted.  “Get about two weeks before exploding at him and putting it all out in the open anyway.”  He squeezed his hand.  “It’s your call, J.  I think making sure you can stand on your own is a good idea and you might as well get him to pay for everything he was going to already anyway.  Tuition’s expensive.”

Laurens nodded.

Hamilton leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.  “Hey.  Whatever you decide, you know I’ve got your back, right?  I remember what we said.  I’m not to say anything about your father but, J…”  He kissed him again.  “You need help figuring shit out, I’m here.”

Laurens put his hand on his lower back, just above the sheet.  “Thanks,” he said, a little awkwardly.  “I don’t know.”

“Second semester,” Hamilton said.  “You can probably make whatever arrangements you want before that because I doubt he’ll really get pissy at you trying to be more independent or whatever, but let him pay for your last semester before you potentially start shit.”

“I don’t want to start anything,” Laurens said.  His voice was quiet.

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, “I know.”  He paused and then stood, wrapping the towel around his waist and heading to the bathroom to get dressed.  “You said your coach thought he might just be acting out but would be okay with everything anyway.  Relationship shit aside, he did like me.”  He sounded almost bitter.

“Hah.  Yeah, that’s true.”

“I’m good at sucking up sometimes, I guess.”  Hamilton made an effort to make his words lighter.  “I gotta remember that.  And hope that no one holds me to it because I don't think I can consciously keep that up for more than a couple minutes.”

“We should time you.  Lafayette probably needs a new game.”

“Ha ha,” Hamilton said sarcastically.  “Let’s not, I don’t need both of you watching me make an ass out of myself and steadily inching closer to harakiri.”  He came back out of the bathroom in a pair of boxers and a tank.  “I’ve got your clothes here somewhere.  I washed them.  Thanks for letting me borrow your sweater.”

“Keep it.”

“John,” Hamilton started.

Laurens cut him off.  “It looks better on you than it does on me.  Besides, I hardly ever wear that one.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton was already pulling it out of his clean laundry.  He put it on.  “If you’re sure.”

“Take it in apology.”

“One busted flower and a used sweater.  We’re so romantic.”

“We could be worse.”  Laurens said.  “Look,” he went on after a stab of guilt, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about any of that.  When you asked I should’ve owned up to it.  I was ashamed about it and that’s—not your problem.”

“You don’t have anything to be ashamed about, J.  So you had a fuckbuddy in high school, big deal.  Not like you’re the first person to do that.  Not even like that made you gay or anything so it doesn’t matter.”

“I thought that nobody knew.  I used to think that if I stopped I could use it as a bargaining chip with the universe.  I know it doesn’t make sense,” Laurens said with a finality that made it clear that they could leave unspoken what he would have tried to barter for.  “I don’t know.  Kids are stupid.”

“Speak for yourself, I was…  Nah,” Hamilton agreed, “I was stupid too.”  He crossed the room again, this time to stare into the fridge.  “Lot of leftovers in here.  Don’t know what I want.  Not sure if I’m actually hungry or what.”

“I’m not ashamed of you, though.”

Hamilton glanced at him over his shoulder, catching the reference to what he had just said.  “I’m glad.”

“Really.”

“I believe you, J.  If you didn’t want to be seen with me in public, then we’d have a real problem.  You’ve gotten a lot more open about that, I appreciate it.  It hasn’t always been easy for me, either, you know.  I like you a lot but—it’s been a change.”

Laurens frowned.  He hadn’t thought of it quite like that, not with the calm seriousness with which Hamilton said it.

“…Not a bad change,” Hamilton added, sensing his unease and looking back at him again.  “Just, you know.  You get it.”

Laurens nodded.

“You didn’t always help,” Hamilton went on.  “You were kind of a jerk about things sometimes.  Like, dude, don’t be a dick about my liking girls, you’re better than that.”

“Sorry,” Laurens apologized.  He twisted the sheet between his hands, suddenly not sure what to do with them.

“It’s okay, I’m very forgiving.  More forgiving than I am decisive right now, damn.”  Hamilton crouched and sorted through the various containers on a lower shelf.  “I mean, it’s all out there now, we both know all there is to know, just about.  I’m still cool with you, J.  It can all be a non-issue and we can move on.”

“Lafayette wants you to take the sun lamp too,” Laurens said, remembering it suddenly.  “He decided he doesn’t want it.”

“All right.  I guess I could use more light in here.  Might be better than having to turn on the overhead all the time.  How much was it?”

“He’s not going to take your money.”

“Yeah, I know.  I just feel bad.”

“You’re helping him out,” Laurens fibbed.  “It was an impulse buy on his part, just take it so it won’t be cluttering up our place.”

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  He stood and closed the fridge without taking anything out.  “That makes sense, I guess.  Tell him thank you for me if you see him first.”

“I will.”  Laurens watched as Hamilton sat down next to him again and he took his hand, pulling them both down and Hamilton onto his chest.  “If my father isn’t okay with it…”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton propped himself up and brushed his own hair out of his face.

Laurens was looking up at the ceiling.  “…I don’t know what I’d do,” he finally admitted.

“Live with me,” Hamilton answered promptly.  “Dip into your savings and get a job in the city.  Let Lafayette buy you a few pity-meals and try not to take it out on your friends or get any new creative injuries as a method of compensation.  I like you in one piece.”  He tapped his hand on his chest.

Laurens didn’t smile at the joke and Hamilton tried again.

“It’ll work out, J.  One way or another.  And you’ve got your friends and you’ve got me.  We all like you.”

“You know,” Laurens said slowly and thoughtfully, “you’re right, you’re good at sucking up.”

Hamilton shoved him.  “You’re changing the topic, J.”

“Sorry.  Lie back down.”

Hamilton settled in with his head on his chest.  Laurens put his arms around him.

“It’s just hard,” Laurens finally said.

“Yeah.  It is.  You want to talk to your sister?  Maybe she’d have a better sense of how he’d react.”

“Not really.”

“But…?”

“But maybe I should,” Laurens said.  “That’s hard too.”

“I like Martha,” Hamilton declared.  “She was my favorite of all the Laurens siblings.”

“Hey…”

“Present company excluded, of course.”

“Why are you allowed to pick favorites?  You get bent out of shape if I even try to tell you which of your shirts I like.”

“You wanted to trash one of my favorite ones.  I’m not trying to throw out your brother.”

“I should hope not.”

“It’d be Harry,” Hamilton clarified.  “If only because I think I’d be the next thing down the trash chute if I went with Jemmy.”

“Can we stop ranking my siblings?”

“I guess I’m not allowed to do that unless I’m actually family.”  Hamilton reached over and pulled the blankets on top of both of them.  “Does marriage count or only by blood?  I think you should call Martha was the point,” he went on, “she’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“Later.”

“Yeah, not right now, obviously.”

Laurens tightened his grip on him momentarily, then released him and stretched his arms out over his head, one at a time.  “This—weekend, maybe.”

“That's coming up. Tomorrow’s already Thursday.  Actually, what time is it?  It might be Thursday now.”

“Don’t check the time.”

“Did you tell Lafayette you were staying over?”

“No.”

“Shoot.  You think we should let him know?”

“I’m sure he won’t even notice,” Laurens lied, not wanting him to get up.  He put his arms around him again.  “Besides, he’d probably just be thrilled to get the place to himself.”

“I guess, but if a distressed Frenchman shows up here at three in the morning angry that neither of us have been answering his texts…”

“He won’t,” Laurens assured him.  “Stop worrying.”

“Stop talking about Lafayette, you mean.  Haven’t we had this conversation before?  I should tell him that’s how distracting he is.  We just made up and yet we’re spending our precious time together talking about him.”

Laurens nuzzled the top of Hamilton’s head and he fell silent.

“He told me before that he was disappointed in me,” Laurens said quietly after a few minutes had passed.  “My father.  That’s why I worry about it.  If you had heard how he sounded, Alex…”

“I’ve disappointed a lot of people,” Hamilton said.  “My father’s out there, somewhere, glad not to be burdened with me.  I know it hurts.  But, J., you can’t change him.  Only he can do that.  He’s gotta take that upon himself and I hope he’s enough of a man to do it.  God knows my father isn’t.  It’s not your job.  It _can’t_ be your job.”

“I know.”

Hamilton slipped one hand up to stroke the side of his neck.  “It’s okay that it hurts.  We can work past it.”

Laurens felt the slightest smile play on his lips in spite of it all.  “If you say so.”

“I do,” Hamilton assured him.  “You gotta trust me, J.”

“All right,” Laurens said, closing his eyes and relishing the touch.  “I do.”


	182. Three's a Crowd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette Found Them

Hamilton woke with a start and sat up with a violent jerk to someone hitting his buzzer repeatedly.  “ _Son_ of a—”

He stumbled out of bed, catching his foot under Laurens’ stomach and causing him to give a half-awake grunt of pain as he tripped over him.

“Sorry, fuck, hold on.”  He slammed his hand down on the intercom.  “Hello?”

“Answer your phone!”

“It’s not ringing,” Hamilton said automatically, still disoriented.  “…Is it?”  He turned back in the dark to Laurens who had meanwhile pulled the blanket over his head and rolled away.

“I have been trying to contact you all night!”

Hamilton yawned.  “Lafayette?  Fuck, let me just…”  He hit the button to let him in and flinched away from the speaker as Lafayette continued to talk.

“Is John with you?  I cannot get in contact with him?”

“Yeah, inside voices, Lafayette.”

“‘Yes’ he is with you or ‘yes’ be quiet?”

“He’s here, okay?  Come up.”

There was a pause and then a stream of French profanity.

Hamilton took his hand off of the intercom and unlocked his door.  He turned on the overhead light and walked back across the room to collapse on the mattress, half on top of Laurens.

“Y’ said he’d be f’ne w’th it.”  His voice was muffled into the bedding.

Laurens made a long suffering noise and curled tighter into himself.

Hamilton could hear footsteps coming up the stairs and he got up with a groan, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and putting his glasses on from the desk.  He was just putting his hair back up when the door slammed open.

“ _You_.”  Lafayette stood dramatically in the doorway, his chest visibly rising and falling from the exertion of the stairs and staring at the mattress.

“John’s here,” Hamilton said through a yawn.  He gestured towards Laurens.

“I know he’s here,” Lafayette said, closing the door behind him with a slam and crossing the room in a couple quick strides.  He yanked the blankets off of him.  “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t coming back?  I was worried!”

“I don’t stay at the dorm every night,” Laurens complained as he finally sat up, his hair tangled.  “I wasn’t there Monday either.”

“I know,” Lafayette said, “you were with André.  And you were kind enough to let me know about that, if belatedly.  I couldn’t get a hold of either of you and I was afraid something had happened!”

“What would have happened?”  Laurens sounded irritated.  He kept the blankets in his lap.  “It’s not like I don’t know my way around.  I’m a big boy, Lafayette, I can take care of myself.”

“I am taking back my free hit,” Lafayette told him angrily.  “You can’t have it anymore.”

“Free hit?”

“I’m allowed to punch him one time,” Laurens explained.  Hamilton, leaning on the desk, nodded.

“ _Was_ allowed.  _Was_.”  Lafayette turned between the two of them quickly.  “He’s not allowed to anymore because we are even now, he has taken years off of my life.”

“That’s rude.  I was missing too,” Hamilton said.

“You’re often hard to get in contact with.  I assumed you were busy with work.”

“He texts me while he’s working.”

Lafayette looked at Laurens, newly wounded.  “He does?  He won’t respond to me.”

“You spam me,” Hamilton complained, giving up on motioning frantically at Laurens to keep quiet and just leaning into it.  “John has a normal conversation, you once sent me fifteen pictures of a dog.”

Laurens snorted.

“I do not _spam_ you,” Lafayette protested.  “John.  John, tell your boyfriend that I do not—Oh.”  He stopped abruptly and looked back at Hamilton.  He raised one finger and shook it at him.  “You two made up?”

“Uh.”  Hamilton rubbed at the side of his face.  “Duh.”

Lafayette pushed him out of the way and sunk down in his chair, running his hands over his eyes.  “ _Merde_.” 

Hamilton patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.  “You okay?”

“I need something to drink.”

“I’ll get a mug.”  Laurens got up and went to grab one from the organized clutter by the fridge.  “Water okay?”

“Please.”

“What time is it?”  He took a university mug to the bathroom sink to fill it, trying and failing to shake the half-asleep fog from his head.

“Three in the morning.”

“Gross,” Hamilton commented.  “If you’re up at this hour it should be because you haven’t gone to bed yet, not because you were woken up.”

“I’m happy that you two have kissed and made up,” Lafayette said, taking the mug from Laurens and politely not letting his eyes travel below his waist.  “And also that you put some clothes back on before turning in for the night.”

“Oh, come on.  This isn’t that bad.  Besides, it’s too cold to sleep naked.”

“Did you tell Alex about the lamp?”  Lafayette asked over the rim of the mug.

“Yeah.”  Laurens yawned into the back of his arm.  “He said he’d take it off your hands.”

“Thank you,” Lafayette told Hamilton.  “You’re doing me a great favor.”

“You’re welcome?  You owe me, I guess.”

“I like your glasses.”

Hamilton grimaced and fiddled with them.  “I didn’t expect company.”

“I finished getting my hair dyed while you were both busy,” Lafayette told them.  He tipped his head forward to show off the silvery pink color on his tied back hair.  “I think I really should let this grow out on its own.  All of the chemicals are very harsh on it.”

“Yeah, you don’t want some tangled brittle mess.”  Hamilton ran his hand over it carefully, taking the end of one the curls and turning it over between his fingers.  “Seriously, why don’t you just get, like, a friggin’ weave?”

“I have a _lot_ of money and time.”

“And your point?”

“And very good genes that I want to take advantage of.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever.  It still feels pretty healthy at least.  How long is the color supposed to last?”

“A long time.  The two of you are not allowed to fight until it’s out.”

“I don’t think that’ll hold up in court.”

"I don’t care.”

“Fair enough.”  Hamilton leaned forward and kissed Laurens lightly on the mouth with a smile.  Laurens felt himself blush slightly and he turned away.

“Come on,” Hamilton teased, putting his hand on his arm. “He’s seen us kiss before.”

“He’s seen a lot more than that,” Lafayette confirmed.  Hamilton pushed him away with a shushing noise.

“I know,” Laurens said.  He took Hamilton’s hand and squeezed it briefly.  “Lafayette, are you staying here?”

“Please.”

“Right.”  He stepped away, finding his pants on the floor and putting them back on.  
“I am not interrupting anything, am I?”  Lafayette asked.

“Just sleep,” Hamilton said.  “And would you leave if you were?”

“Only if you were very literally in the middle of doing the deed.”

Hamilton gave Laurens a thoughtful once-over.

“I’m good.”

“Guess not.”

Lafayette took a long drink.  “Where in the West do you think I should go?”

“Western United States?”  Hamilton lay back down on the bed and wrapped his arms around his pillow, propping his chin on it.  “I dunno.  Why?”

“I am thinking about a new itinerary.  Do you have any suggestions?  John, your brother mentioned the Grand Canyon.  Do you agree?”

“Sure.”  Laurens lay down next to Hamilton on his side with another, longer yawn, and draped his arm over him, tucking his face next to his shoulder and closing his eyes.  “Why not.”

Hamilton smiled and shifted his weight in order to free one arm and run his hand through Laurens’ hair.

“You two are not very helpful right now.”

“What do you expect?  It’s the middle of the night.”

“That’s not why.”

“It is why,” Laurens mumbled.

“You should go to LA,” Hamilton said.  “New York and Los Angeles.  Coast to coast.  Very classic.”

“Is that better than Sacramento?”

“Why would you go to Sacramento?”

“It’s the capital.”

“Albany’s the capital of New York,” Hamilton pointed out.

“Hm.  True.  I don’t mind visiting somewhere out of the way,” Lafayette went on.  “I liked Carbondale.”

Hamilton gave him a confused look.  “Carbondale?”

“Illinois.”

“Uh, excuse me.  When the heck were you in Illinois?”

“I went there to see the eclipse.”

Laurens actually lifted his head at that.  “You flew to Illinois to see the eclipse?  No way.”

“Yes,” Lafayette insisted.  “I went.  It was a short flight.  I liked Carbondale.  It was very nice.  Everyone was very friendly.  I put pictures up online.”

Laurens opened his mouth to ask more questions, then just shook his head and lay back down.

“Hold up.”  Hamilton didn’t have the same kind of restraint.  “Why didn’t you ever mention this before?  You’ve counted off all the states you’ve been to in our presence.”

“I didn’t want to make you feel like you missed out on anything.  I was just planning on going back later to check it off a second time.”

“And yet you mention it now.”

“I’m done feeling guilty about it.  You two made me very worried.”

“Fair enough.  So why didn’t you offer to take us?”

“I was going to,” Lafayette said indignantly, “but you were _busy_.”  He raised his eyebrows.

“For the entire lead up to it?”

“When I bought the tickets.  I only bought them that morning.”

“Jesus, Lafayette, I’m going to ask you how expensive that was, but it was rhetorical and I don’t actually want an answer.”

“I understand.”

“How _expensive_ was that?”

“I could have gone to Columbia,” Lafayette said.  “I didn’t know that until later.”

“I can’t believe you saw it and John didn’t.”  Hamilton ran his hand sympathetically across the back of Laurens’ head again.  “Did your whole family see it?”

Laurens made a disappointed and affirmative noise.  Hamilton clicked his tongue.

“…Anyway,” Lafayette said, trying to move on, “as I was saying, I enjoy visiting unusual places.”

“Did you at least get shots of the totality?”

“Oh, yes.”  Lafayette got up and sat at the edge of the bed, showing Hamilton his photos on his phone.  Laurens looked up curiously but begrudgingly.

“These’re good,” Laurens said.  “C’mere.  I’m gonna punch you now for not taking me with you.”

Lafayette recoiled.  “I took that offer back!”

“How long did it take to get to Carbondale?”  Hamilton asked, ignoring the other two and taking the phone to look at.  “Like an hour?”

“Four.”

Hamilton lowered the phone to stare at him.

“There was no direct flight,” Lafayette explained.

“Lafayette, we could’ve gotten a direct to Columbia for about two and a half hours.”

“Four hours was too long.”

“It wasn’t gonna be four!”  Hamilton rolled his eyes and kept scrolling.  “I can’t believe you made us sit on that dang day-long train.”

“It was a bonding experience,” Lafayette protested.  “…On the way down, anyway.”  He patted Hamilton on the head.  “I am very glad that you two have made amends.  Shall I go sleep in the bathroom to give you some privacy?”

“Nah.  Just cut the lights and take a pillow.”  Hamilton shoved his off of the bed onto the floor.  “You need a blanket?”

“Do you have an extra one?”

“No, but I can share.”

Laurens made a little exasperated sound and Hamilton shushed him but lowered his voice.

“I’m up now, but then again I don’t need to leave in a couple hours.”  He turned onto his side and let Laurens curl up against his back.  Lafayette lay on the ground in front of him.  “Keep your voice down, but let me tell you about all the crap that’s gone on this week.”


	183. Not a Politician

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You Are the Worst, Sir; Right to Know

“Adrienne has just told me that she is doing a group project with one of her friends for math, which we both think is odd because it’s math but they need to co-write a paper for it,” Lafayette said, “and one of John’s friends is a furry and he won’t tell me which and I was supposed to ask you to define that before I told you that part but I only just remembered that now, and _why_ ,” he asked with added frustrated emphasis and a gesture across the library table, “are we friends with Aaron Burr now?”

“You don’t have to be friends with me,” Burr said without looking up from typing on his laptop.  “I am perfectly fine with that.  I may even prefer it.”

“I have to be friends with you,” Lafayette complained.  “Alex is friends with you and where he goes, I go.  I am a ride or die.”

“Burr and I go back,” Hamilton said, also not looking up from his laptop.  “I don’t know what to tell you, Lafayette.  We made amends.”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Hamilton agreed.

“I spent a whole year learning to hate him!”

“Yeah, well, I’m an unreliable narrator.”  Hamilton shrugged, pausing in his typing just long enough to scratch his collar.  Lafayette suspected it was really to make sure the fabric was down low enough to expose the marks on his neck.  “Deal with it.  Also Adrienne’s teacher probably wants them to make connections to its relevance to daily life or some shit.”

Lafayette sat down at the table next to Burr and eyed him critically.

Burr finally stopped typing and looked up.  “May I help you?”

“I’m trying to think of how to do this…”  Lafayette’s brow was furrowed.  “Alexander has backed me into a very difficult corner.”

“Pity.”

“I think it will be best if I just begin fresh from here.  Are you sure you’re not going to change your mind on this?”  He asked Hamilton.

“Nope.”

Lafayette resisted the urge to smack him a little and powered through.  “All right.  Aaron,” he tested out the name, then shook his head.  “Burr.  Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“The city or the state?”

“The city,” both Hamilton and Burr answered in unison.

Lafayette gave Hamilton an annoyed look.

“Have you travelled much outside of it?”

“I’ve been around.”

“He’s hinting for some recs,” Hamilton told Burr.  “He’s planning some trip out West and wants to know if you have any good suggestions.”

“I don’t want to go to Las Vegas or Reno,” Lafayette said.  “Adrienne doesn’t gamble and I’m terrible at it and we have both agreed that I am banned.”

“You’re taking Adrienne now?”

“ _Cur non_?”

“That’s his catch phrase,” Hamilton said with a nod to Burr.  “Get used to it.  He says it in English, too.”

“Not French?”

“Not interesting enough, I guess.”

“Could you two stop talking about me as if I am not here?”  Lafayette complained.  “It is very rude.”

“Sorry.”

“There are other things to do in Las Vegas,” Burr said.  “You could go shopping or see a show.”

“Ooh, shows.”  Hamilton’s eyes lit up.  “That’s what I’d do.  And I know what you’re going to say, you’re going to say that you don’t know if Adrienne would like that but screw that because you don’t know for sure and I bet that she _would_.”

“Where have you been to before?”  Lafayette asked Burr, ignoring Hamilton completely.

“I haven’t been to the West Coast,” Burr said, “but I’ve traveled around a bit closer to home.  I liked Pittsburg and New Orleans.”

“I’m still sad on your behalf that you missed Mardi Gras,” Hamilton said, starting to type again.  “It’s just pathetic.”

“It wasn’t pathetic, it’s a beautiful and historic city.”

“That wasn’t the ‘it’s’ that I was talking about, Burr.  I meant your missing the one thing it’s best known for.  And all the titties.”

“‘Titties’?”

“Boobs?”

“Oh, this is very good,” Lafayette said with an encouraging nod at Hamilton.  “Scare him off.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested, “I’m just saying what we’re all thinking.”  He paused.  “Wait, is one of John’s friends really a furry?”

“That’s what he said.  Will you find out which for me?”

“Nah.  I’m making up for lost time when I see him next.  Besides, you don’t get to shame anyone, you’re from the country that brought us those Orangina commercials.  He’d be a golden retriever,” Hamilton told Burr as an aside, still typing away somehow.

“Why does everyone think I’d be a dog?”  Lafayette complained.  “I would not be a dog.  I would be something much more majestic than that.”

“You told me my patronus would be a limpet,” Hamilton reminded him.  “I get to picture you in a golden retriever fursuit.”

“I have many questions,” Burr said.  “But let’s begin with why would you want to picture that in the first place?”

Hamilton frowned.  “I dunno.  Good point.  See,” he said, slinging his arm across Burr’s shoulders for a second, “this is why I decided to keep you around again.”

“I thought it was because you ticked off too many of your actual friends and you needed a work partner.”

“That too,” he said with a decisive nod.

“This isn’t fair,” Lafayette complained again.  “I have no bad information on Burr and yet he is involved in this conversation.”

“Oh well,” Hamilton said, feeling Burr stiffen under his arm before he deflected for him and moved away.  “What can I say?  Guy’s made of Teflon, nothing sticks to him.”  He shook his head convincingly at him.  “I don’t have anything of note either.”

Lafayette sighed dramatically.  “I’ll have to do my best.”

“I believe in you.  But, hey, speaking of not being able to pin anything to a guy, I had asked Burr to dig up some dirt on Lee for me,” Hamilton said as Lafayette perked back up, “but he can’t find anything interesting.”

“That’s too bad.  Oh, but a shared enemy is excellent!  We can work with that,” Lafayette assured Burr.

“Wonderful.”

“You’ll learn to appreciate his dry sense of humor,” Hamilton told Lafayette.  “It grows on you.”

“Like a weed, I am sure.”

“See,” Hamilton said, “you’re picking up the tenor of it already.  Burr, where were we?”

“These are the main reasons I anticipate people will oppose you.”  He tipped his computer towards him.

“Right, thanks.  ‘Your personality,’” Hamilton read off the screen.  “Damnit, Aaron, I was just sticking up for you.”

“I’m serious, Alexander, you rub people the wrong way and this last week proved it.  If you want to make things a little more lax, there are some who are going to oppose you either because they’ll see it as a power grab on your part or just because they don’t like your tone.”

“He has a point,” Lafayette said, resting his chin in his hands.  “You can be very abrasive.  I would not want to be on this committee of yours.  It sounds like too much yelling.”

“There is no _yelling_ , Lafayette.”

“He yells a little.”

“You told me that you yell,” Lafayette said, sounding almost indignant.  “Are you lying to me?”

“I’m not—Okay, so sometimes things get a little heated, but it’s not completely out of control.”

“No,” Lafayette agreed, “your rules seem to work very well, or you wouldn’t be having so much trouble.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.

“What I was saying,” Burr went on delicately, “is that since you have managed to get your main objective, the change to the charter to make it easier for outside groups to participate, you may want to lie low and make nice.”

Hamilton mumbled something unintelligible and probably rude under his breath.

“I can assure you that no one is going to bother undoing it and once people see that it doesn’t mean that much more work, then you can set about with your affirmative action policies.”

“Probably don’t call them that,” Hamilton said.  “Don’t put a name to them at all.  Just more active recruiting.  Erring towards underrepresented groups.  Once we get some names put down we can work on explaining why they should be voted in or, democracy failing, why they should be given some kind of comparable role anyway.”  He drummed his fingers on the table.  “I’m thinking, not the exact same title, still get voting rights on as many issues as possible that we can swing as inherently relevant.  Especially money.  Anything with money.  You think you can popularize this among the Black Student Union?  You’re involved with them, right?  On paper, at least.”

“Probably,” Burr agreed.

“Good.  Just, you know, try to get people on board who’re committed to the follow through and frankly pretty vanilla.  You want me to spin this nicely, we’ve both gotta shoot for boring just until it’s all set up.”

“That’s very politically minded of you,” Lafayette said, his mouth hidden behind his hand but his brows knit.

“Thanks.”

“I did not mean that as a compliment.”  Lafayette looked carefully between him and Burr.

“I’m going to take it as one.  You know me, Lafayette, I’m usually too brash anyway.  Burr’s right, I can stand to tone it down a notch.  Besides,” he went on, “it’s just a popularity game, right?  You should join up, you’re great at this kind of thing.  You know how to get everyone to love you and do your bidding.”  Hamilton stopped short at the genuinely distressed look on Lafayette’s face.  “…What?”

“…I don’t know.”  Lafayette stood.  “Excuse me.  I wish you very good luck with your planning.”

“Hey, Lafayette…”  Hamilton started to get out of his chair, then sunk back down into it as Lafayette walked away.  “Jeez.”  He turned back, baffled, to Burr.  “What’s up with him?”

 

“I have something I need to tell you.”

Laurens started, jerking to the side and almost knocking into another student as he left his classroom.  “ _Jesus_ , Lafayette!”

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, hello, I know you have a break now.”  Lafayette put his hand on his arm.  “I need to tell you something.  Can you come with me?”

“What is it?”  Laurens shook his hand off.

“I’d like to not have this conversation right here.  Can we go to the dorm?”

“I don’t want to walk all the way back, I’ve only got an hour before my next class, and aren't you supposed to start work soon?”

Lafayette paused, thinking, then pulled him down to the end of the hall, away from the foot traffic.  “I can keep my voice down.  John,” he began while Laurens stared blankly at him, “I learned something yesterday and I didn’t know what to think about it, just that I did not like it.  But now I know and I—Look,” he said abruptly, digging his phone out of his pocket and scrolling up through his chat with Adrienne.  “See?  I did not even tell her the details because I was so conflicted in my mind about how to think of them.”

Laurens took the phone from him with a cautious look, slowly reading over their messages to one another in French.

“All right,” he agreed, handing it back to him after a minute.  “So what did he say?  Was it about Alexander?”  He asked, suddenly tense.

Lafayette shook his head.  He put his phone away.  “A month or so ago,” he began, biting his lip, “Alexander came to me and told me that Jefferson saw the two of you together.”

Lafayette saw the recognition dawn on Laurens’ face.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I remember that.  What about it?”

“He was worried,” Lafayette said, hearing his voice take on a slight pleading note as he tried to carefully thread the needle, “because he knew that Jefferson had connections to your father and he was worried that he would mention something.”

Laurens’ eyes widened slowly.

“He asked me to speak with him and make everything go away,” Lafayette said, speaking more quickly, “and I did and I spoke with him and he said that he would leave well enough alone and I think—I do really think that he means it and will not touch anything but I think that not because he is a nice person but because it was already clear to him that your father knew about your sexuality.  From the little they mingled at work.  Your father talks about you,” Lafayette said, his words slowing down again as he desperately tried to get a read on Laurens’ expression.  “He talks you up a lot and I think he—inadvertently, of course—made it clear between the lines.”

There was a long silence.  Lafayette was frozen, leaning forward a little, his hands clenched before him.

Laurens finally breathed out slowly between slightly parted lips and ran his hand up over his hair.

“Wow.”

Lafayette nodded with frantic and barely restrained enthusiasm.

“Shoot.”

Lafayette leaned forward a little more, still on tether-hooks.  “John?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens ran his hand over his hair again.  “Okay.  Thanks for telling me,” he said.  He put his hand briefly on Lafayette’s shoulder.  “I appreciate it.”

“That’s all?”  Lafayette asked hopefully.  “You are not upset?  With me or with Alexander?”

“Why would I be upset with either of you?  I get why he didn’t want to tell me.”  Laurens shook his head in an attempt to ground himself again.  “He was just trying to fix things.”

“He wanted to protect you,” Lafayette said quickly.  “And so do I, or, ah, I wanted you to know.  I thought that you should know.  I did not feel right knowing before you did,” he confessed.

“Yeah,” Laurens said again.  “I get it.  Thank you,” he added after a beat.  “That was really…  Thanks.”

Lafayette nodded in relief.  “Hug it out?”  He unfolded his fists and put his hands out tentatively.

Laurens laughed.  The sound was genuine if still a little uneven.  “Yeah, sure.”  He surprised Lafayette by going in for it first, pulling him tightly to him and then letting him go.  “Was that it?”

“Yes.  Are you all right with it?”

“It doesn’t really change anything, does it?”  Laurens hitched his bag up on his shoulder.  “I mean, it’s awkward.  But frankly no worse than it was.  If anything,” he said slowly, “it’s a good thing.  Right?”

Lafayette nodded.  “It could be.”

Laurens made a distracted affirmative noise, frowning and looking down the hall without seeing anything.  “Well, it’s not bad, anyway,” he said decisively.  “You have work next?”

“At the language center, yes.”

“I’ll walk over with you.  No one will mind if I do homework there, will they?”

“Not at all,” Lafayette said, leading them out of the building.  “Besides, I had to spend my morning listening to Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.   You and André will be _much_ preferable to them.”


	184. A Good Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron Burr, Sir (Reprise); Giving Notice

“ _Why_ ,” Lafayette complained to no one in particular as soon as he opened the door to the language center to see André chatting happily with Burr.  “What did I ever do to you?”  He asked, staring dramatically up at the ceiling as he crossed the room and dropped his things down at the adjacent table.  “Is it because I do not believe?”

“It’s because I have a standing appointment,” Burr said.  “Honestly, you act like you can’t read the schedule for yourself.”

“It’s rude to look at other people’s clients.”  Lafayette pulled out a chair for Laurens and sat down.  “By the way,” he told him,  “we’re supposed to be friends with this one now because your boyfriend was acting out while you weren’t speaking.”

“He wasn’t acting out,” Burr said, irritated.  “He just asked me if—”

“Acting out,” Lafayette confirmed.  “I have many friends,” he went on, “it’s a shame that he couldn’t have asked to borrow one of mine, it would have been so much easier.”

“Are you always this charming?”

“Quite.”

“Wait,” Laurens said, trying to catch up.  He sat and opened his bag, taking his laptop out.  “You’re friends with Alexander again?”

“‘Friends’ is a strong way of putting it,” Burr said while Lafayette nodded indignantly.

“Weird.  I thought he really hated your guts.  You should’ve seen the things he used to text Lafayette—”

“Yes,” Burr said, cutting him off, “he mentioned that.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens looked him over critically.  Maybe they all just had low standards.

Burr cleared his throat and adjusted the sleeve of his shirt, maroon against his skin.  “Is that all?  May I get back to work?”

“There’s not much more to go over really,” André said, holding up Burr’s printed paper and tapping it with the back of two fingers.  “This is pretty solid.  I mean, what do you think, Lafayette?”

“Let me see that.”  Lafayette took it and began to read it over, mumbling the words to himself under his breath.

“We were just talking,” André went on.  “Laurens, Burr was telling me that he caught the Monmouth game the other night.”

Laurens scowled.  “Great.”

“I was at a bar,” Burr said.  “It was on the screen.  I don’t follow them.”

“Good, because even if they do make it to championships we’re gonna wipe the floor with them and I’d hate to make you watch that if you were a fan.”

Burr chuckled to himself.  He saw the suspicious look Laurens gave him and he motioned casually with one hand, his elbow on the table.  “It’s just a lot of machismo, that’s all.  It was funny.”

“Yeah, well.”  Laurens opened his laptop and tried to remember what he had wanted it for.  “Well.”

“You sound a little like him,” Burr added.  “Alexander.”

“That’s what I keep telling him,” Lafayette said, forgetting his performative grievance.  “They’ve picked up a lot of each other’s mannerisms.  You knew Alexander before, could you tell?”

“He was fairly…  ‘Subdued’ isn’t the right word,” Burr said, taking his paper back from Lafayette.  “Agitated.  I don't think it was the most accurate example.  Is there anything I should change with this?”

“No.”  Lafayette sounded put out.  “It’s all very good.”

“Thank you.”

“You are not at all welcome.”

“He’s just bored because it’s a slow day,” André said, gesturing at Lafayette.

Burr waved him off.  “It’s fine.”

“It is a very slow day,” Lafayette agreed.  “I don’t think I have anyone scheduled, I don’t know _why_ , people should be coming in more now that the semester is drawing to an end.  Maybe it’s because it’s just after break,” he went on.  “Maybe everyone who had things due this week who would have been inclined to stop in already did them anyway.”

“I think most assignments would have been due at the start of the week,” André said.  “This is probably a lull.”

“I don’t think it will last long.”  Lafayette stretched his arms, hands clasped, behind his head.  He yawned.  “I did not sleep well last night.  I’m sorry if I am unnecessarily irritable.”

“You can root for whatever team you want,” Laurens said, trying to change the subject off of why Lafayette did not get much sleep and still fixated on Burr’s mention of sports, “but Monmouth sucks.”  He straightened his posture with as much dignity as he could bring to bear.

“I’m not rooting for them,” Burr sounded annoyed again.  “I told you, I just happened to be out while the game was on.”  He paused, then added casually, “Charles Lee—he’s your captain, isn’t he?—he was there too with a couple friends of his.”

Laurens frowned, not sure what to make of that or of how carefully Burr was watching him.  “Whatever.  So he went out with some of the guys.  You said yourself that the game was just what the bar had on.”

“Did you go to Fraunces Tavern?”  Lafayette asked, not sounding at all interested that Burr was at the same place as Lee or that he was acting as if he hardly knew who he was.  “They made me get my hand stamped.”

“No.  But I’ve seen that place.  This was maybe a block down.”

“Oh.”

“I’m surprised,” André cut in.  “That’s where we usually go.  The owner’s really nice,” he explained to Burr.  “And all the staff knows us by now so it’s less hassle.  I guess they wanted to try somewhere new.”

“Whatever,” Laurens said, half-muttering the word.  “Their loss.”

“I got a new phone,” André said, changing the topic and taking the clunky thing out of his bag to show Laurens.  “It’s just a temporary thing.  Here, I’m going to send you something so you have my new number, but don’t message me unless something important comes up, okay?  I have to keep buying minutes and texts to put on it and I want to be able to talk to Mina.”

“When did you get that thing?”  Laurens asked, looking at it with mild disdain.

“Yesterday.  I realized I was being stupid waiting for mine to get unlocked when I could just go buy another.”

“Oh, Alexander would hate this conversation,” Lafayette said, taking the phone from André when he was finished with it and punching in his own number into the contacts.  “He’d be so annoyed.”

“I told him about the lamp,” Laurens said.  “Come with me later to bring it by.  I’m not carrying that thing all by myself on the subway.”

“All right.  We can drop off the coffee maker as well.  Or did you want to save that for Christmas?”

Laurens hesitated.  “I guess we should bring it by so he has it before finals.”

“He’s going to be so wired.  Maybe we should do his heart a favor and hold off.”

“I got him the winter coat,” Laurens said.  “And you decided on something for him too, right?”

Lafayette tapped his wrist.  “I went shopping with Adelaide.  I’m giving her a new drawing tablet and stylus,” he informed Burr as if he knew who she was and cared about the conversation.  “I’m very excited about it.  I had to send her out of the store on a pointless errand to get it.  Oh,” he said excitedly, pushing his seat back and bending down to his bag, “I also got myself something.  Look!”  He pulled out an iPad in a bright red case.  “Rose gold!”

“That’s red.”

“ _Under_ the case,” Lafayette scolded Burr.  He ran his hand over it dramatically.  “This is just to protect it.”

“Why brag about the color if you can’t see it?”

“It’s still there,” Lafayette said stiffly, passing it over to André to inspect.  “ _I_ know it is there.”

“I hate to say it, but Burr’s right.”  Laurens put his hand out to take the iPad from André when he was done looking at it.  “This looks—well, not cheap, but not stylish.  I’d’ve thought you’d go with something a little more…”  He trailed off.

“Frou-frou,” Burr supplied.

“Yes, exactly.”

“Excuse me.”  Lafayette snatched it away from Laurens indignantly.  “I am not unnecessarily showy with my things.  I can appreciate practicality.”

“Mm.”  Burr eyed Lafayette’s newly colored hair obviously.

“I am the most practical of all of my friends back in France,” Lafayette sniffed.  “Except Adrienne, of course.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, “all that’s doing is reminding us of how ridiculous your friends must be.”

“The store did not have a very good selection of cases,” Lafayette admitted, annoyed that he was forced to show his hand.  “Are you happy now?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a prettier one.”

Lafayette pretended to repeat Laurens’ words back to him mockingly.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude,” Laurens complained to André.  “Shit.”

“I have a client,” Lafayette said with dignity as the door opened and a student stepped tentatively in.  “You’ll have to excuse me.”  He stood, then put his hands on the back of his chair and leaned back down, talking more earnestly.  “But if any of you do happen to see a more attractive case, please let me know.  I hate this thing passionately.  Someone give Burr my number so he can send me pictures of any nicer ones that he sees.”

 

“You’re in a good mood,” Washington commented as Hamilton strolled into his office with a stack of papers, whistling what sounded like it might have originally been club music.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”  Hamilton dropped the papers on his desk.  “It is a _lovely_ day, sun’s out, temperature ticked up, I got that earlier mix-up straightened out so I’m not in the doghouse out here…”  He shook his hair over his shoulder, drawing attention to the purple bite marks on his neck.  “…And John and I made up.  Coffee?”

“I have, thank you.”

Hamilton picked up his tune again as he crossed the room and dropped to sit on the floor next to the row of folders.  “You know,” he said, as he reached up to take a free pastry off the counter above him, “I think you should hire someone else to do this sort of work.  In addition to me, I mean.  I think it’d go much faster and I bet I could teach them whatever they needed help with.”

“Is this your way of saying that you need to request fewer hours?”

“Sounds like it,” Hamilton agreed, “but no.”  He sorted through the folders with one hand, the other holding a cream danish.  “Actually, I’m thinking about after I graduate.”  He took a bite.  “This’s a great opportunity for students to get some work experience for a year or so before they head out but I think it’d be even better suited to ones who just graduated and want some work affiliated with the university or the white collar world in general.  Sort of a springboard for other opportunities.”

“It’s perfect for you, then,” Washington said, flipping through his scheduler without looking up.  “Although I agree that a second set of hands would be very beneficial.  We could separate you out further from the rest of the secretarial staff, make you your own unit…”

“No,” Hamilton said, then hedged to make his response softer, “that wasn’t exactly what I meant.  I mean, I know you said I could stay on for the summer, but I was thinking about taking something else, something a little more relevant to where I want to end up.  But,” he added, “before I leave, you know, I think it would be a good idea if I overlapped with whoever was coming next, in case you wanted me to help train them.”

There was a pause.

“I see.”

Hamilton looked up nervously, just in time to see Washington take off his reading glasses.

“Well, I can’t expect you to stay and run the front desk for me forever.”

Hamilton half-nodded, half-shrugged.

“This is still early in the year.  Were you thinking of leaving before graduation?”

“No.” Hamilton shook his head.  “I just wanted to bring it up.  Make sure we’re on the same page.”

“Fair enough.”  Washington pushed back from his desk.  “Have you heard about anything over the summer that has you thinking that far ahead already?”

“Actually…”  Hamilton hesitated.  “Yes.  I haven’t applied yet but the offer was extended for me to do so.  It’d be working in a legal office.  Pretty much the same kind of stuff as here, I’m sure, but because I want to eventually apply for law school…”

“That makes perfect sense.”

Hamilton felt a surge of relief.  “Thank you, sir.”

“If you need a letter of recommendation, I’d be happy to write you one.”

Hamilton’s face lit up.  “All right.  I’ll give you plenty of time.  Would you like the details over winter break?  Or I can hold off if that’s too soon…”

“That’ll be fine.”

“Right.  Will do.  Thank you again.”

“Not at all.  And Alex…”

“Yes, sir?”

“What do you think of setting a goal for on-boarding your replacement in the fourth quarter?  I’d prefer someone who will be here and can work over the summer, if you have other plans.”

“Absolutely.”  Hamilton nodded enthusiastically.  “That makes sense.  Actually,” he took another bite of the danish and had to pause before he could continue his sentence, “I know a guy who’s looking for something.  He doesn’t have a ton of experience, but I could see if he’d be willing to shadow me or something, less to unteach him that way if he’s starting fresh.  He’s smart,” he added, “and I know he said that he wants work for the summer and it sounded like he’d really like to stick with the university for an extended length of time.”  When he didn’t get an affirmative response right away, he added, “It’s way too early to commit one way or the other obviously but I can pass his information to you later if you’d like to glance over it.  You’ve met him, actually,” he said, sitting back on his heels and taking another bite of pastry.  “At the trustee dinner at least if not earlier.  I assume earlier, he’s one of those guys who got an invite special.  Tench Tilghman?”

“Oh, yes,” Washington said, looking up at the ceiling and nodding.  “Nice boy.”

“Anyway,” Hamilton went on, encouraged, “he’s looking for something, like I said.  I’ll tell him you’ll take his resume?”

“I’d be happy to look it over.”

“Great!  I’ll let him know, thank you.”  Hamilton used his clean hand to cheerfully sort through the folders.  “I told you today was a good day.”


	185. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting Up with the Guys

“Mmm.”  Hamilton nuzzled up across Laurens’ chest and under his chin like a cat, eyes closed.  He had his legs curled under himself as he sat next to him, his hand on his thigh.  He stayed quietly where he was for several seconds before opening his eyes and looking up at him through his lashes, unable to see his face properly, just the stubble on his neck and jaw.  “Hello.”

Laurens laughed, the sound moving in his throat against Hamilton’s face.  He draped an arm over his shoulders.  “Hey.”

“Thursday night,” Hamilton said, still pressed to him.  “Date night.”

“That’s Friday.”

“Got my sexy boyfriend back.”

“Ha.”  Laurens kept scrolling through the timeline on the page he had open on his phone with his free hand.  “That’s what I should say.”

Hamilton pressed his lips lightly to his skin.  “Date night,” he repeated.  “Bars, clubs.  Theaters.  Restaurants.”

“Is this you hinting that you want me to take you out?”

“I don’t think it counts as hinting, J.  I’m being pretty goddamn obvious.”

Laurens put his phone down and leaned in, kissing him slowly.  Hamilton leaned a little harder on his thigh, his heart speeding up happily.

“So?”  Hamilton said once Laurens had moved away.  “Let’s go do something.  What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.  Stay in.”  He kissed him again.

“Later,” Hamilton said.  He returned the kiss.  “Later,” he repeated as a promise.  “I want to go do something with you first.  Stretch my legs.”

“We could go for a run.”

“Very funny.  I want to go somewhere with you and show everyone how good we look now that we’ve made amends.”

“All right.”  Laurens sat back, frowning slightly as he thought.  “You want to go get something to eat?”

“Could.”

“I could text the guys and see what they’re all up to.”

Hamilton’s eyes lit up.  “Yeah, do that.”  He kissed Laurens again encouragingly.  “I want to hang out with your friends.”

“You want to embarrass me in front of them.”

“I would never.”  Hamilton got up and went to sort through his drawers.  “You wound me.”

“Tallmadge says that a bunch of them are going to head down to the docks in a little bit,” Laurens reported.  “Should I say that we’ll meet them there?”

“Sounds good.  You think I can get away without a scarf?”

Laurens looked up from his phone.  “You really want to show that thing off, don’t you?”

“It’s like a tattoo,” Hamilton argued.  “If Lafayette had gotten that boat or whatever you know he’d be flashing it at everyone.”

“And you said you didn’t want to embarrass me…”

“I don’t _want_ to.  If you get embarrassed anyway that’s your own too bad, John.”  Hamilton shrugged on a coat.  “Check the weather, will you?  It was pretty nice out earlier today but the sun’s gone down.”

“High forties still.”

Hamilton clicked his tongue.  “Guess that’s good enough.  If I get too cold I’m stealing your jacket.”

“You’ve already got a coat…”  Laurens got up and started to gather his things.  “I think they’re just going to be walking around”

“Cool.”

“Hey,” Laurens said as he zipped up his jacket, “I didn’t realize what you did about Jefferson.  Thanks.”

Hamilton gave him a puzzled look.  “Jefferson?”

“That time that we bumped into him.  I didn’t realize you were worried he’d talk to my dad.  Lafayette told me,” he explained.  “Thank you.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton looked away awkwardly with the excuse of digging his gloves out of his bag.  “Yeah.  Well.  You looked happy, J.  I didn’t want to ruin it.  You know?”

Laurens nodded.  He took Hamilton’s hand once he had stood back up, gloves on.  “Anyway, Lafayette said that Jefferson told him that he already knew.  Apparently my father’s been hinting as much for years.”

Hamilton winced and then quickly tried to hide it.  “Oh.  I’m sorry.”

Laurens shrugged and didn’t let go of his hand even after they were in the hallway.  “It’s okay.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton looked at him searchingly.  “You mean that?”

“It’s done, isn’t it?  I can’t do shit about it.”

“No, you can’t.  I’m just kinda surprised.  I thought you’d be more upset about it all.”

“Why?”  Laurens asked.  “Because I handled it so well last time?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, J…”

“You’re always so confident,” Laurens said.  “I mean, you know who you are and everyone else has to deal with it.  In _everything_ ,” he went on.  “I wish I could be like that.”

“John,” Hamilton said, tightening his grip on his hand.  “I’m full of shit.”

Laurens gave him a confused look and he continued.

“No, I’m serious.  I’m full of _shit_.  I just know how to act like none of it bothers me.  Pee into the wind.  You do it too.”

“I’ve never done that.”

Hamilton hit him with his free hand.  “You know what I mean.”  They stepped out onto the street.  “I can’t stop being any of what I am and it’s less painful to just own it.  Like back in St. Croix.  Yeah, I’m a bastard.  So what?  You act like you already know, like it’s something you wear with pride, it’s harder for people to use it against you.  They’re just reinforcing what you’ve already taken on for yourself.  But that doesn’t mean it’s _easy_.”  He let go of Laurens’ hand to let him put on gloves.  “It’s just less hard sometimes.”

Laurens took his hand again.  “…Yeah.”

“You can still think I’m cool,” Hamilton said, bumping intentionally against him.  “I’m all right with that.  And I think it’s great that you’re not letting them drag you down.”

Laurens glanced at him and felt the side of his mouth curve up.  _I’m back with you now_ , he thought and saw that Hamilton knew what was going through his mind by the way that he smiled back.  _Nothing’s going to bring me down._

“So everyone important in the Laurens family knows?  And is at least giving us space to do our own thing?”

Laurens faltered in his steps and winced.  “Maybe I should ask Martha to talk to Harry.”

Hamilton snorted with laughter.  “ _Or_ ,” he said, “how’s this?  You don’t say shit to him and see how long it takes.  I just keep showing up to stuff and we wait for him to eventually get up the nerve to ask.”

“I should probably ask Martha.”

“Yeah, yeah.  That’s the mature and boring way to do it.  Should we invite Lafayette?”  Hamilton asked.  “I don’t want him to feel left out again.”

“Good idea.”  Laurens took his phone out.  “I’ll tell him to get in contact with the other guys.”

“You think Tench will be there?  I got Washington to agree to look over his resume and put in a good word for him, I’m thinking he owes me a pretzel or something.”

“Eliza said that you should send your resume to her father,” Laurens said, remembering abruptly.  “If you still want to work for him next summer.”

“Right, definitely on that.  I already put in my…  What is this, twenty weeks notice?”

“Something like that.”  Laurens was quiet a beat.  “So,” he said, “you’re definitely going to take it?”

“This summer?  If he’ll have me, hell yeah.  I’m pretty psyched about it, not gonna lie.  It’s a step in the right direction, you know?”  He was smiling and picked up the pace a little.  “Not that this wasn’t good, it was, but this’ll be so much _better_ , John.  It’s actually relevant, you know how hard it’s been for me to feel _relevant_?”  He looked up at him, eyes bright.  “God.”

“I asked her if she thought he might have a second space open.”

Hamilton’s eyes widened and his voice got even more excited.  “Really?”  He tightened his grip on Laurens’ hand.  “You’re serious?  That’d be great!”

“I don’t know if I’d get it.”

“Oh, come on, John Laurens?”  Hamilton scoffed.  “Of course he’d take you, why wouldn’t he?  Have you _seen_ you?  This is fantastic,” he went on eagerly, “okay, tonight when we get back, assuming it’s not too late, I’m definitely going over my resume.  Gonna tighten that baby up and make nice with Eliza and Angelia and then send it along.  God!”  He repeated.  “I’m so…  Man!”

Laurens laughed, both appreciative and a little apprehensive.

“I’m looking forward to this summer even more now,” Hamilton enthused.  “Do you know what you’re going to do about housing?  I bet it’ll pay peanuts but you’ve got some cash saved up, so you should be fine.  If you want you can stay with me until whatever else gets worked out, or I can talk to Herc and see if he’ll be subleasing any of the rooms…”

“I thought you wanted to move out.”

“I do,” Hamilton said, “and I really should look into that.  But, I mean, if there’s overlap or something…”

No one on the street was paying them any attention and Laurens stopped and kissed Hamilton briefly.  “I love you.”

Hamilton felt his cheeks burning above his broad and uncontrollable grin.  “You’re such a sap.”  He slipped under Laurens’ arm and intertwined their fingers, sliding the arm between them around his waist as they kept walking.  “I love it.”

“Good.”

“I know, I’m stuck with it.  Did Lafayette get back to you?”

Laurens checked his phone.  “He says he got in touch with them and he’ll see us there.  He was at the movies with a friend so I guess he’s closer than we are.”

“It wasn’t Angelica, was it?  Because I’d like to know in advance to brace myself and also I could take the opportunity to get her to like me again.”

“What did you do?”  Laurens couldn't help but ask.

Hamilton winced.  “I, uh, I said some shit to Eliza.  I was pissed in general, kind of took it out on her.  It was stupid.”

Laurens nodded and didn’t press him.  “You should talk to her.”

“Yeah, I know.  Both of them.  You think I gotta hand write an apology to Peggy, too?  They really stick together.”

Laurens thought back to the last time he had seen Peggy, right after he had stormed out of Mulligan’s apartment.  “I don’t know.  It probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“Great.  Well, if we pass some cutesy stationary place that’s still open, let me know.  I’ll buy cards.”

“Eliza sounded pretty pissed.”

“Okay, scratch that.  We find a bodega, I buy them bag holiday-themed candy.  No one’s got any nut allergies, right?”

“Do you want me to text and find out?”

“No.”  Hamilton paused.  “Maybe.  Can you just double-check with Peggy?  She’s the least ticked off at me I think.  I’d rather not make this whole situation worse by sending someone to the ER over a novelty Snickers.”  Hamilton paused at the corner of the sidewalk.  “Uh, where exactly are we meeting them?  Which subway do we want?”

“I think we should keep going.”

“Are you sure?  Because I was thinking turn left and—”

Laurens showed Hamilton the map he had pulled up with their route.

“…All right, got me.”

They crossed the street.

“Peggy says no allergies,” Laurens reported back, his arm still over Hamilton’s shoulders.  “And she requests something with caramel.”

“Shoot, she is mad at me, then?”

“I think she might just want the candy.  She said that having to face the combined rage of the other two was probably punishment enough.”

Hamilton grimaced.

“She also called you a loser, though.”

“Thanks, Peggy.”

Laurens started typing.

“—Don’t tell her I said that,” Hamilton said quickly, then groaned when Laurens glanced at him guiltily.  “Whatever.  Too late now.”

“‘Lol,’” Laurens read off his screen.  Hamilton groaned again and shrugged his arm off.

“So are the two of you friends now?”  Hamilton asked.  “No judgement, just wondering.”

Laurens shrugged.  “I guess so.  She’s pretty cool.”

“Neat.  Eliza thought the two of you would hit it off.”

Laurens half-grimaced, not sure how he felt about that.

“…Not that we were trying to set the two of you up,” Hamilton added quickly.  “We weren’t planning play dates or anything.  Jeez,” he went on, “can you imagine?”

Laurens gave a short, reluctant laugh.  “Yeah, that would have been weird.”

“Well, it wasn’t that,” Hamilton assured him.  “She was just telling me that Peggy seemed like someone you’d get along with.  You two seemed to mesh well when we went to go take pictures.  I’m just saying I’m glad that you get along,” Hamilton said, trying to wrap his thoughts up and bring them to a conclusion.  “I like you, I like people appreciating you too.”  He took his hand again and squeezed it.

Laurens laughed.  “I like you, too.”  He tugged Hamilton against him and kissed the top of his head.

Hamilton leaned on him, smiling broadly.  “You know,” he said, “we’re not even at the station yet, we could just go back…”  He trailed his other hand up Laurens' chest.

Laurens pushed him off.  “ _You’re_ the one who wanted to go out in the first place!  _You_ made me contact them!”

“Yeah, but…”

“No way.  I’m not calling out after asking if we could meet up.”

Hamilton sighed dramatically and shoved his hands in his pockets.  “Maybe you’re _too_ popular,” he muttered.


	186. The Night Is Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Up

“It was terrible,” Lafayette assured Tallmadge, gesturing dramatically to punctuate his story.  “The worst thing I have ever seen and I used to be in a _very_ amateur theater group.”

“Yeah,” Adelaide agreed, wrinkling her nose.  “I know I let you twist my arm into it but I’m still mad that I didn’t just call in sick.”

“You can’t call in sick on a friend,” Lafayette told her.  “Only on work.  That is the rule.”

“That is the rule,” Humphreys agreed with him.

“So how did it end?”  Tallmadge asked, accepting the open box of nonpareil covered chocolates from him and shaking a few out into his hand.

“No idea,” Lafayette shrugged.  “We left.”

“It’s still running now,” Adelaide added, pushing up her sleeve and checking the time on her watch.  “It should be over the halfway mark now.”

“Wow, you guys were really eager for an excuse to leave.”

“It was _bad_ ,” Lafayette emphasized as Tallmadge passed the candy around.  “I did not know a movie could be so bad.  I should tell Gouverneur to see it when he’s stoned,” he added.  “I wonder if that would make it better.”

Tench took the candy from Humphreys.  “He’d probably just get bored and wander off.”  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he took it out, shoving the box of candy back at Lafayette.  “Shit, it’s my parents.  Be quiet.  Hello?”  He picked up, stepping away from the others and turning his back to them.  “I’m good, how are you?  No,” he went on, grimacing over his shoulder and waving his hand at them as Lafayette spotted Laurens and Hamilton heading towards them and called out.  “Baba, I can’t talk right now, can I call you back later tonight?”

“Were you waiting long?”  Laurens asked as they came to a stop just outside the loose circle.  “How was the movie?”

“Terrible,” Lafayette said.  “Candy?”

Behind him Tench put his hand over the lower half of his phone and shushed them.

“Parents?”  Laurens asked, shaking a couple chocolates out into his hand and then offering the box to Hamilton.

“We’re supposed to be being quiet,” Adelaide said.  “It’s not Lafayette’s speciality.”

“We’re all here now,” Humphreys said, having the good manners to at least keep his voice low.  “Should we just pick a direction?”

“Hold on, let me rescue him.”  Tallmadge stepped away and took the phone out of Tench’s hands.  “Good evening, Mr. Tilghman!  Oh, I’m doing well, thank you!  How are you?”

“Man.”  Tench slipped back into the group.  “What timing.  Hey,” his eyes lit up when he saw Hamilton.  “Did you get the chance to ask about jobs?”

“You owe him a pretzel,” Laurens said through a mouthful of chocolate.

Hamilton elbowed him hard in the stomach, startling a slightly pained “oof” from him.

“I talked to Dr. Washington,” Hamilton said with evident pleasure at getting to draw out the story on his own terms now that Laurens was keeping quiet.  “And he told me that he’d take a look at your resume himself if you were interested in working with me starting next semester and then continuing on your own in the summer.”

“Yes!”  Tench exclaimed, then caught himself and spun around.  Fortunately Tallmadge had wandered several yards away and was still talking on the phone.  “That’s great,” he said, turning back and slamming his fist into his palm.  “Thank you so much!”

“Not a problem at all.”  Hamilton was grinning.  “It helps to know people.”

“I’ll say.”  Tench pulled him in for a brief hug and then slapped him on the shoulder.  “So you want a pretzel?  I think we can find that.”

“You should get him to buy you apology candy instead,” Laurens said as Tallmadge headed back over their way.  “That’ll probably cost more.”

“Whatever you want.  Who are you apologizing to?”

“Uh, two of my friends.  You’re a girl,” Hamilton said, turning abruptly to Adelaide.  “If someone said something stupid to you, how many bags of novelty candy would you require to forgive him?”

“How stupid?”

“Pretty dang stupid.”

“You can’t ask her that just because she’s a girl,” Humphreys said.

“You’re right.  That was also stupid, my apologies.”

“Here.”  Tallmadge rejoined them and handed Tench back his phone.  “I told them you’d call in the morning.”

“I don’t know how you do it.  There’s no way they would have agreed to that so easily if I had tried.”

“What can I say?  I’m the favorite.”

“Alex got me an in with his boss,” Tench said, still in too good of a mood to take the bait and instead putting his hand down low for a high-five.  “I’ll give you my stuff by Monday,” he promised, turning back to Hamilton.  “Is that soon enough?”

“That’s plenty of time.  I don’t think he’ll read it right away.”

“Sooner is better than later, right?  If he wants someone to start second semester.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hamilton said, catching himself and getting more hesitant.  “That won’t be paid, though.  Probably.  I got him to agree to a few weeks of changing of the guard stuff, but you’d really start in the summer.”

“That’s fine.  More time to fuck off before graduation, anyway.  Shall we?”  He motioned around them at the city and the night.  “Anyone want to pick a direction?”

“What are we looking for?”  Lafayette asked.

“Nothing really.”

“Let’s go that way,” Adelaide said, pointing past them down towards a collection of long piers jutting out into the water.  “I’ve never been down there at night before.”

“Have you been there during the day?”  Humphreys asked, falling into step next to her as they set off.

“No.  But especially not at night.”

Humphreys nodded and looked around at the others with an understanding shrug.  “You’re from Senegal, aren’t you?”

“Dakar, yes.”

“How does it compare to here?”

Adelaide laughed.  “That’s a difficult question to answer.  I don’t know.  It’s very different in some ways, the culture is very different.  I never saw it in such focus until I left.  But everything is different, of course, the architecture, the fashion, the food, the sense of self.  I don’t know what to tell you,” she went on, “you can find many things in New York, of course.”

“But that’s not it,” Hamilton cut in, “it’s not that it’s _not_ here, it’s that it’s not the dominant—”

Lafayette hit him from behind and he cut himself off.

“—Sorry.  You go.”

Laurens slung his arm across Hamilton’s shoulders.

Adelaide gave Lafayette an appreciative nod.  “You can find many things in New York, so it is not that I can never hear the music or taste the food that I grew up with, just that it is not something I can take for granted.”

“I get that.”  Humphreys nodded.  “What do you miss the most?”

“My family,” she answered immediately.  “I wish it was easier to visit.”

“Have you gone back at all since you came here?”

“Hey.”  Tench tapped Hamilton on the shoulder, stepping back to walk next to him and Laurens on the wide sidewalk.  “So, you’re definitely heading out?  You’re not going to be staying for the summer?”

“I’ll be in the city,” Hamilton said.  “But I need a change of pace.  Don’t get me wrong, Dr. Washington’s definitely not the worst guy to work for.  The perks are pretty great.  I actually went to this restaurant the other night,” he said, tipping his head against Laurens’ arm to look over it at him as they talked, “that was, like, _underground_ this bar.”  He motioned down with his hand in front of him.  “You have to be on some elite list to get in at all and the chef’s some famous Michelin whatever.  His name was Hercules,” he added, looking up at Laurens.  “Couldn’t believe it.  Almost texted you right there at the table.”

“This was for work?”

“Eh.”  Hamilton pulled a face.  “Not really.  The one thing is,” he said, taking a confidential tone, “is that he’s not great at keeping regular office hours.  So you kind of get taken along to things off the clock.  It’s not like I would’ve ever gone there on my own, though, so it was still a neat experience.  And Lafayette was with us,” he added.  “That’s actually why we went at all.  We were still working on stuff when Lafayette showed up and decided we’d all go out to dinner and wrap it up after.”

“Working dinner with Lafayette at a fancy place like that?”  Tench laughed.  “Yeah, I think I can manage that.”

“He’s right, though.  The hours are long.”

Hamilton hit Laurens lightly on the chest with the back of his hand.  “Don’t scare him off.  It’s not that bad,” he said, turning back to Tench.  “I just, you know, I get on a roll and don’t like to leave until everything’s wrapped up.”

Laurens noticed Tench looking questioningly at him and he begrudgingly nodded.  “It’s true.  You’ve said before that you didn’t really need to stay so late,” he admitted to Hamilton.

“See?  Exactly.  Besides, I’ll get all the messy stuff straightened out before you sign on and it won’t be a problem.”

“Thanks.”  Tench hesitated, then asked curiously, “What messy stuff?”

Hamilton bit the inside of his lip to keep from automatically giving the answer he wanted to.  “You know,” he said instead, buying himself some time, “just regular office, office politics shit.  Boring stuff.”  He could tell that both Tench and Laurens were looking at him and he fumbled particularly ungracefully for an escape.  “Hey, so, um, another, another perk of the job, I stayed over at Dr. Washington’s place when the weather was really shit.  My apartment isn’t super weather-proof and he’s got a bunch of guest bedrooms.  That’s where Lafayette sliced up his leg and had to get stitches.”

“You got stitches?”  Tench asked, turning around and walking backwards to talk to Lafayette who was trailing after them, his face lit up by the glow of his phone.

“Mm?”  Lafayette looked up, having registered only that he was being spoken to for a second before catching up on what had been said.  “Oh.  Yes, I got stitches.  It was my first medical procedure in the United States,” he added, unable to keep from sounding a little proud.

Laurens rolled his eyes.

“Would you like to see?”  He handed Tench his phone and started to undo his pants, stepping off to the side to stand up against one of the cement barriers between them and the dark ocean.

“You don’t have to,” Hamilton started to protest.

“Hell yeah I want to see!”

“See what?”

The other three members of their group turned around just in time to see Lafayette pull his pants down around his knees and twist one of his legs to angle the back of it towards them.  Adelaide put one hand lightly to her face and looked away automatically.

“Where is it?”  Tench crouched down, his face inches away from the back of Lafayette’s leg.  “I don’t see anything.”

“What are we looking for?  Did he get bit or something?”  Tallmadge backtracked and bent over as well.

“My scar,” Lafayette explained.  He leaned to the side and awkwardly tugged the leg of his jeans down further.  “Do you see?”  He traced his finger across the back of his knee and down beneath the material.  “It is a line.”

“Ooh, yeah.”  Tench tugged the denim down a little further.  “Shit, that’s long.”

“What happened?”

“I was injured.  A piece of siding blew off and cut open my leg during the hurricane.”

“Do you regret this?”  Laurens asked Hamilton, tightening his grip on him a little.  “Look at what you did.”

“I—They’re _bonding_ ,” Hamilton protested weakly.  “That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?”

“I dunno, I’m going to turn around and talk to these people who have all their clothes on.  _Hello_ ,” he said with forced enthusiasm, slipping out from under Laurens’ arm and turning to face Adelaide and Humphreys.  “How _are_ you?”

“He thinks I am just playing a part,” Lafayette complained, doing up his pants again.  “It hurt a lot, and I never get to show it off.  You immediately forgot that I was even injured.”

“That’s not true,” Hamilton said, turning back.  “Come on, Lafayette.”

“No,” Lafayette argued, “it is!  _Right after_ that John broke his shoulder and you spent all your attention on him and forgot all about me!  I had to do most of the heavy lifting to get him back to our room,” Lafayette went on.  “It _bled_!  I was afraid I had popped the stitches!”

Hamilton and Laurens both looked guilty.

“You didn’t have to help,” Laurens said.

“Oh, don’t do that.”  Lafayette put up both his hands and shook his head firmly.  “You are my friend and I wanted to help.”

“…Okay,” Hamilton said after a beat.  “Point made.  Lafayette’s allowed to get naked whenever he wants and we all have to deal with it.”

“It’s too cold to get naked,” Lafayette said as they started walking again.  “But thank you.”

“This has been a weird night,” Humphreys said, and then added to Adelaide in particular, “Apologies.”

“Oh, it’s fine.”  She shrugged.  “I see Gilbert all the time, I’m used to this.”

Tallmadge snorted.

“You make it sound like I am some _weirdo_ ,” Lafayette complained.  “That isn’t very nice.”

“You’re not a weirdo,” Laurens told him.  “You’re just… eccentric.”

Lafayette gave him a dead stare.

“That’s just a fancy way of saying the same thing,” Tench commented.  “Don’t worry, buddy,” he assured Lafayette, patting him on the back.  “We like you, don't we?”

“Of course we like Junior,” Humphreys confirmed.  “He should hang out with us more.  Besides,” he said, looking him over critically, “you’re pretty tall, aren’t you?  If you started training, I bet we could get you onto the team.”

“Ah, really?”

“I didn’t say starting lineup.”

“He doesn’t have great coordination,” Laurens said.  “Lafayette, what happened last month when you asked me to toss you a pen?”

“It bounced off of my hand and into my soup,” Lafayette admitted sheepishly.

“No one ever tosses to me,” Humphreys pointed out.  “As long as he can block, chances are he won’t ever have to catch a foul ball anyway.”

Lafayette looked torn between nervous and intrigued.

“Don’t do it," Hamilton warned him.  “Think how pissed Adrienne will be if you get your shoulder yanked out of the socket.”

“You’re right, Alexander.  I’m sorry,” Lafayette informed the others.  “I am already spoken for.”

“It was worth a shot,” Tallmadge told Humphreys.  “Nice try.”

“Damn.  Do either of you want to sign on?”  He asked Hamilton and Adelaide jokingly.

“Sorry,” Adelaide said.  “I think you need to be a student at the university to qualify and neither of us will be there next year.”

“Ask Eliza,” Hamilton suggested.  “Actually, her audition or whatever can be her kicking my butt if I don’t make up with her soon.  That place open?”  He asked, pointing across the street to a store with its lights on.  “I’m thinking cards—and if we can’t get proper ones, then postcards are probably good enough—and the biggest bags of candy we can find.”

“On it.”  Tench clapped Hamilton on the shoulder and Hamilton patted his hand enthusiastically, both of them staring straight ahead.

“Do you want to see if she’s free?”  Laurens asked.  Hamilton turned to stare at him in surprise.  Laurens shifted awkwardly.  “No?  You’d have to find her anyway to give her all this…”

“I’m just surprised,” Hamilton said.  “I didn’t expect you to suggest that.”  Lafayette nodded in agreement.

“It seems easier,” Laurens muttered.

“It seems nice, you mean,” Hamilton corrected him, taking his phone out.  “I’ll ask.  She’s probably not going to want to meet up.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate the gesture.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton looked back at Adelaide.  “I hope so.”

“Come on.”  Tallmadge motioned them forward and across the street while it was empty.  “You can text in the store.”

“Do they have a cat?”  Hamilton asked, half-jogging after him.  “I’m gonna take a picture and make it like the cat’s the one asking.”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” Lafayette said to Laurens as they crossed after the others.  “You didn’t have to do that.”

Laurens shrugged, embarrassed.  “He has to meet her sometime to give her all the shit.”

“I didn’t think you liked either of them very much.”

“Eliza and Alex?”  Laurens looked away from the pointed stare Lafayette was giving him.  “Fine.  I don’t know.  They’re fine, okay?  All three of them.  It’s not like I have any reason not to like any of them.  And Eliza’s… really nice,” he said reluctantly as they stepped onto the sidewalk and headed into the bodega.  Hamilton was across the store crouched down at the end of one of the aisles, trying to get a picture of a fat gray tabby.  “And Alex likes her,” he added.  “That’s the important part.”

“It is.”

Laurens hesitated.  “Do you ever get jealous of Adrienne’s friends?”

“Of course,” Lafayette said quickly, nodding.

Laurens looked skeptical.  “Really?”

Lafayette crossed his arms over his chest.  “No,” he admitted.  “I’m sorry.”

Laurens exhaled slowly, watching Hamilton show his picture to Adelaide and ask her opinion.  “Just me, then.”

“I don’t think it’s just you,” Lafayette said.

“You don’t.”

“I’ve known Adrienne so long,” Lafayette explained.  “And we talk all the time.  It’s hard for me to be jealous of them.  I want her to have more friends,” he added.  “I am more social than she is.  She and I, we both know this.  It is easier for me.”

“That’s true.”

Lafayette nodded.  “See?  It is just a different situation.  It is not that there is something wrong with you.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “Thanks.”

“You’ve been very mature lately,” Lafayette commented, browsing through the prepackaged snacks.  “I am very impressed.”

Laurens made an embarrassed and noncommittal noise.

“Are these any good?”  He held up a foil bag with Japanese writing on it.

“No idea what that is, Lafayette.”

“Hm.”  Lafayette scrutinized the depiction on the front.  “I did mean it, though,” he added.  “I was very worried that you were going to be upset about what I had to tell you after class.  I was thinking that I needed to tell you but that it would completely ruin your week.”  He glanced up at him, double checking that it hadn’t.

Laurens looked uncomfortable and turned away.  “It’s fine.”

“I won’t ruin it.”  Lafayette went back to sorting through items on the shelf.

“…Can I tell you something?”  Laurens asked after a pause.

Lafayette tried to look nonthreatening and not too overly enthusiastic when he nodded.

“I was talking to my coach, and then Alex, and—They kind of got me thinking that,” he stopped for a beat to gather his words.  “That I’ve got people, you know?  So it’s, I guess it’s pretty okay.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened in surprise and Laurens continued in a rush.

“I’m not telling you this so you can be weird about it.  Just since you were asking.”

Lafayette smiled, genuinely and quietly.  “All right,” he said.  “I see.”  He turned neatly back to the shelf and picked up another bag of the same product but what the coloring suggested was a different flavor.  “Which one do you think?”

 

“Chocolate, uh, those mint-filled things,” Hamilton said, pointed up to the top of the shelf.  “Eliza likes that sort of thing.  And maybe some of these weird chocolate-covered marshmallow baby Jesuses?”  He leaned to the side, letting Tench gather all of it.  “I think Angelica at least would get a kick out of that.”

“So did you piss them off individually or is this a buy one, get one sort of situation?”  Tench asked as he followed Hamilton through the aisles.

Hamilton winced.  “Uh.  The latter, mostly.”

“‘Mostly.’”

“Uh-huh.”

“I only met her a couple of times,” Tench said, “but Eliza seems so nice.  What did you _do_?”

“Nope, no way.  I’m not answering that, I’m not stupid.  I don't need to make this all worse for myself by blowing it all out of proportion.”  He grabbed a bag of Starbursts and tossed them to Tench, who managed to catch them with minimal fumbling.  “New topic please.”

“It’s hard to think of something else when we’re doing this.”

“Okay, tangentially related topic.  Tallmadge, its your turn.  What are you planning on doing after graduation?”

“Get a job.”  Tallmadge was following after them.  “I’d like to get a government job.  Do you know if Laurens said anything to his father about it over break?  He said he was going to see if he knew of any relevant connections.”

“The government’s pretty big,” Hamilton said, debating the various kinds of canned meats.  “You talking more US Post Office or more House of Representatives?”

“Intelligence.”

“Nice,” Hamilton commented.  “That’s pretty hot.  Have you done any relevant work?”

“No, not really.”

“Not at all,” Tench corrected him.

“Yeah, okay.”

“What do you have to do to make yourself a career over there?”  Hamilton asked.  “You’d need a Master’s, I bet.  Did you want to stay in the city for school?”

“It doesn’t matter.  I’d rather go wherever the best program is.”

“ _I_ like the city,” Hamilton said.  “I definitely want to stay here as long as possible.  Are most of you guys planning on splitting off after graduation?”

Tench and Tallmadge shared a look.

“I think so,” Tallmadge said.  Tench nodded.  “It seems like it, at least,” he hedged.

“I figure Lafayette’ll eventually go back to France,” Hamilton said, handing more items to Tench.  “I know he’s got Americana Fever but his family’s there and his girlfriend’s there and it’s not like he doesn’t have the money to travel back and forth.”

“Is Laurens still planning to move back to Columbia?”

“Nah,” Hamilton said, smiling to himself.  “I think he’ll stay up here for a while.”

He noticed the look the other two were giving him and he coughed behind his fist, embarrassed.

“Anyway.  I think I’m just about done finding stuff.”

“I’ll pay for this.”  Tench headed for the front, Tallmadge bending down to pick up the bag of candy that he dropped and then following him.

“You’re very cute,” Lafayette told Hamilton from the other end of the aisle.

Hamilton jumped and put his hand to his heart.  “ _Shit_ , Lafayette!”

“I did not mean that as an insult.”

“I know.  You just scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m glad the two of you worked things out.”

“I know you are.”

“I spent so much time bragging about how I set you up, it was very hard for me when you were on the rocks.”

“Hard for _you_ ,” Hamilton began, then trailed off when he saw that he had been teasing him.  “Yeah, well.”

“Are you planning on asking John to live with you after you graduate?”

“I want to look for a new place this summer,” Hamilton said.  “That’s as far as I got.”

“Yes,” Lafayette pushed, “but when you think of your new place…”

“Look,” Hamilton said, glancing casually around and seeing Laurens by the door.  “I don’t even know what his plan actually is, okay?  Just before we met up with you guys he said something about—something about seeing if he can get work up here, but that was the first time he ever mentioned anything like an actual plan.”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side, deciding to ask Laurens more about that later.  “Would you like to live with him?”

“Sure, why not.”  Hamilton couldn’t help the grin that slipped onto his face as he responded and he looked away to try and hide it.  Unfortunately he looked back towards the door and it just grew more obvious.  “It’d be nice.  You know that he’s a good roommate.”

Lafayette folded his arms and watched Laurens talk to Humphreys.  “He’s all right.”

Hamilton hit him lightly.

“He doesn’t put out for me,” Lafayette pointed out.  “And he goes missing sometimes, like last night.  He’s not always very clear on what his schedule will be and he complains when I ask him to give me some alone time.  He also lets his laundry pile up.”

“That’s all right,” Hamilton said without looking back at him.  “I don’t mind.”

“Of course you don’t.  That was why I mentioned the putting out.”

Hamilton hit him again.


	187. Fixing Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strip Truth or Dare; Amends Made

“Warm night.  Well,” Humphreys amended, hands on his hips and standing next to Laurens by the door, both of them as much out of the way in the small store as possible.  “Relatively warm.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed.  “It’s supposed to drop again over the weekend though.”

“Would he still try to find a way to flaunt that thing on his neck if it was colder out?”  Humphreys nodded towards Hamilton, talking to Lafayette, the hickeys on his neck very visible over the collar of his coat.

Laurens winced.

Humphreys laughed and patted him on the shoulder.  “I’m just messing with you.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” Laurens said, deliberately watching Tench get rung up at the counter instead of looking at either Hamilton or Humphreys.  “What is it?”

“I’m glad you brought him tonight.”

“Yeah, I mean,” Laurens tried to answer smoothly and failed.  “We’re not fighting anymore.”

“That’s not what I meant, although I’m glad about that too.  We used to worry that you weren’t comfortable bringing him around.  I’m sorry if we made a scene about it before.”

Laurens turned to him in surprise, feeling embarrassment and guilt at how serious his eyes were.

“The guys all like him,” Humphreys went on.  “He’s cool.  I know I’m not the only one who was hoping that we hadn’t said something to make you uncomfortable.  You know that you can always bring him along.”

Laurens nodded, at a loss for words.

“Anyway.”  Humphreys crossed his arms and took on a deliberately lighter tone.  “Did you guys get everything?”  He asked as the others rejoined them.

“I think so,” Hamilton said, taking the large plastic bag from Tench and linking arms with Laurens.  “Hey, is it okay if we swing by the Schuylers’ later and drop this off?  Eliza said she’d come out to the street as long as it wasn’t too late.”

“You got in contact with her,” Laurens said as they left the store.  He felt Hamilton lean against him once they stepped out into the night air.

“Yeah.  Messaged her in the bodega.  She liked the cat.”

“Everyone likes cats,” Lafayette said, walking alongside them.  “That’s why I knew to buy you one.

“Bullshit, you bought me that to piss me off.”

Lafayette shrugged.  “Let’s play a game,” he suggested loudly and abruptly, clapping his hands together and turning around to talk to the others.  “There are so many of us and it is nighttime, which is the best time for games.  Let’s play truth or dare!”

Tallmadge gave him a blank stare and Tench wrinkled his nose.  “Really?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said with patient insistence.  “It will be fun.  Don’t you think it will be fun?”  He asked Hamilton.

“Uh—”

“He wants to play,” Lafayette announced cheerfully, clapping Hamilton on the shoulder.  “We should not deny him!”

“Hey, Lafayette,” Humphreys called from the back.  “Truth or dare?”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “Dare!”

“I dare you to only communicate by mime for the rest of the night.”

Hamilton bit back a laugh as Lafayette visibly drew himself up taller at the challenge and then inclined his head to Humphreys while shooting him finger guns.

Lafayette popped back up and dramatically looked around, hand on his chin, before pointing at Adelaide.

“Yes?”  She feigned innocence.  “What is it?”

Lafayette used his hands to make the shape of first a capital “T” and then a “D”.

Adelaide laughed.  “Truth.”

A panicked look washed briefly over Lafayette’s face as he realized he didn’t know how to ask a coherent question without speech.  At a loss, he grabbed at the first easy one he could think of, pointing at Adelaide again, then making a heart with his hands, then putting them both out questioningly.

“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Gilbert,” she said, continuing to tease him.

He huffed in silent frustration and repeated the sequence.

“He’s asking if you like anyone,” Tallmadge translated.

Lafayette nodded enthusiastically and gave him a thumbs up.

“Ah.”  Adelaide shook her head.  “No, I don’t.  I’m sorry.”

Lafayette shrugged disaffectedly and flipped his hand at her.

“…Is it my turn?”  Adelaide looked the group over.  “Ah, Alexander.  Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Hamilton said immediately, getting into it now that the game was unfolding.  “Give me something good.”

“All right…  I dare you…”  Adelaide paused, thinking for a moment.  “You can’t say more than one sentence back to back in the same language,” she told him.  “You need to break it up with another one in between.”

Hamilton scoffed.  “Is that all?”

“Two other ones,” Humphreys said.  “So you need to be rotating between at least three.”

“Hey,” Hamilton started to protest.

Laurens grinned and pushed him.  “What’s wrong?  I thought you were so proud of how good at languages you are.”

Lafayette nodded pointedly behind him.

Hamilton paused, his mouth still open to finish his sentence, then shut it with a brief scowl.  He had to take a couple of seconds to reorient himself before he spoke again.  “ _D’accord.  No me importa nada, puedo hacerlo._ ”

“He says he’ll do it,” Laurens translated amidst a round of laughter.

“What happens if I screw up?”  Hamilton asked, back to using English.

Tench put his hand over his mouth to make the word almost echo.  “Strip!”

There was another burst of laughter and Adelaide nodded regally.  “I like that.  That seems like a good incentive to pay attention.”

“ _Il fait froid!_ ”

“It’s not her fault that it’s cold out,” Laurens told him.  Lafayette tapped him rapidly on the arm and pointed to himself once he had his attention.  “Yeah,” Laurens agreed, “I think it applies to you too.”

Lafayette snapped his fingers in disappointment.

Hamilton rolled his eyes and looked around the group.  “Tallmadge, _¿verdad o reto?_ ”

“Which one of those means ‘truth’?”

“ _Verdad_ ,” Laurens said.  Lafayette held up one finger to indicate the same.

“Right, that one.”

“When did you tell John that you thought I was good looking?”

Tallmadge looked surprised, then ducked his head, laughing in embarrassment.

Hamilton grinned triumphantly and took Laurens’ hand, squeezing it.

“He told you that?  Uh, when he said that you two were dating.  We were describing you to make sure that we knew who you were.  I can’t believe you told him that,” he said again.  “You know what, Laurens, your turn.  Truth or dare?”

“It’s not a big—Dare.  I didn’t say it was you,” Laurens went on, still a little defensive.  “It’s not my fault that he figured it out.”

Hamilton said something smug in Hebrew that none of the others could understand and, after a pause, Lafayette put his hand on the side of his face and pushed him away to sputtering French.

“Yeah, whatever.”  Tallmadge put his hand to his mouth as he thought.  They all kept walking meanwhile.  “Okay, come here.  Adelaide, do you have a pen?”

Lafayette pulled a ballpoint triumphantly out of his back pocket before she could open her purse.

“Thanks.”  He took it from him and motioned Laurens over.  “C’mere, stand still.”

“What are you doing?”  Laurens asked, obeying although with obvious reluctance.  “Don’t draw on my face.”

“Neck.  Shit, sorry.”  Tallmadge had to go over the line a second time to get the ink to start flowing and Laurens held his breath in an attempt to not get jabbed quite as badly.  Tallmadge worked his way all the way up to his jaw and around to both sides as he wrote, occasionally stopping to darken or fill in a line.  “There,” he said, stepping back as Tench, already able to read it, snickered.  “What do you think?”

Lafayette leaned in to get a better look and then gave an approving thumbs up.

“What does it say?”  Laurens asked, looking down at himself as if he would be able to see it.

“Here.”  Adelaide passed him a compact.

“Thanks.”  He took it awkwardly from her and tipped it back and forth until he was able to read ‘Property of A. HAM’ in the reflection.  “Great,” he said dryly, snapping it closed and handing it back.  “Very mature.”

“I ran out of space,” Tallmadge told Hamilton.  “I hope that’s okay.”

Hamilton leaned up and kissed Laurens on the cheek.  “ _Claro_.”

Laurens cleared his throat in embarrassment.  “Right.  Uh, Tench, your turn.”

“Dare.”

“Help Lafayette carry a sunlamp tomorrow over to Alex’s place.”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, that’s a good one.”

Tench made a noise like a buzzer on a game show and Lafayette recoiled from what he had just done.

“Ah, no— _Merde_.”

“That’s twice,” Tallmadge pointed out.  “You need to take two things off now.”

Lafayette pulled a dramatically indignant face and put his hands out in protest.  They both looked at Adelaide.

“I heard you speak twice,” she said with a disaffected shrug.

Lafayette swore expressively without sound, taking off both his gloves and putting them in his pockets.  He held up his bare hands and looked pointedly between them.

“Yes,” Adelaide told him, “we’re happy now, thank you.”

Lafayette sighed and put his arm over her shoulders, leaning his weight on her.

“Gloves are cheat,” Hamilton said, “because they go together so it’s really just one article of clothing.”

“Be careful,” Laurens warned.  “You’re going to make this harder for yourself.”

“N…  _Non_.”

“Hey, Alexander, truth or dare?”  Tench asked.

“ _Verdad_.”

Tench grinned.  “Tell us about how you met Laurens.”

Hamilton gave him a puzzled look.  “Sure.”  He had to stop himself from continuing in English and then counted back to make sure he knew what language he could use.  “ _J’avais un cours avec John._ ”

“What course did you have with him?”

“ _Historia_.”

“Cool.  Go on.”

Hamilton thought about protesting that he had already said enough, but knew he’d just be shouted down anyway and had to admit that he hadn’t really answered the question fully.

“I signed up for this history class my first semester in NYC and John was in it, so I met him through that, because we actually got partnered up for this minor group thing so we had to talk a little outside of class.”

“That was a long sentence,” Laurens remarked.

Hamilton shrugged.

“That’s mild,” Tallmadge said.  “Nothing more interesting to say than that?”

“ _Non, c’est tout._ ”

“That’s not really all,” Laurens said, teasing him while he couldn’t defend himself easily.  “He’s right, we were in the same class, and he was so annoying.”

Hamilton pushed him.

“Typical overeager freshman, all cute and innocent and eager to learn.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Hamilton protested.  “And I wasn’t even that bad!”

“Oops,” Humphreys commented.

Hamilton made a frustrated noise and launched into a rapid complaint.  “ _No tengo suficiente ropa, pensé que no era tan frío porqué hacía calor hoy y no tengo ninguno…_ ”  He paused, at a loss for what word he wanted, and just tugged pointedly at his collar where he did not have a scarf.  “ _Ni una chaqueta debajo mi abrigo ¡y voy a morirme de frío!_ ”  He looked at Laurens expectantly.

Laurens shook his head slowly with an apologetic smile.  “You’re going to have to repeat that.”

“ _Connard_.  I said that I don’t have enough clothes for this and I’m gonna fucking freeze to death.”

“You tried to get Lafayette to take off both his gloves for just one offense.”

Lafayette nodded.  He mouthed, “ _frileux_ ,” pointed at Hamilton to make sure he knew who he was talking about and mimed shivering, rubbing his upper arms.

Hamilton rolled his eyes and took off a single glove.  He leaned against Laurens as if already threatening to steal heat or spare clothing and turned to him, muttering something in Spanish as he rubbed his face against his sleeve.

Laurens looked down at him in surprise.  “We met before we had a class together?”

Hamilton shook his head.  “לֹא.”

“We should have made André do this,” Tench commented.  “That would have been _really_ funny.”

“No,” Hamilton elaborated now that he could use English again, “we didn’t meet, I just saw you with a couple friends loud and drunk standing on a table outside some event near campus.”

Lafayette put his hand to his mouth as he bit back a laugh.

“No way,” Laurens protested.  “You did not.”

“Oh, come on, Laurens,” Humphreys said, laughing.  “That sounds like you.”

“It doesn’t!”

“Making a fool of yourself right before the semester starts?  Was he the only one on the table?”

Hamilton turned back to face him and nodded.

“I believe it,” Humphreys said.  “Sounds legit.”

“You don’t think the other one sounded good?”  Laurens asked.  “Come on, can’t you see him in class like I described?”

“Yeah, sure, he’s a nerd.  So are you,” Humphreys added before Hamilton could get offended.  “But you’re also stupid sometimes and it’s way funnier this way.”

Hamilton tightened his grip on Laurens’ arm.  “ _C’est vrai._ ”

“You’re _vrai_ ,” Laurens muttered.

Lafayette frowned.  “But he is.”

Adelaide cleared her throat and Lafayette recoiled from her.

“Shirt next,” Tallmadge suggested.

Lafayette whined.

 

“ _Arrêtez_.”  Hamilton held up his hand, motioning for the others to stop on the sidewalk, and took the plastic bag of assorted cheap candy and snacks from Tench.  He nervously made sure his coat was done up all the way and walked up to the front door of the Schuylers’ townhouse.  He knocked on it and had barely pulled his hand back when it opened.

“That was fast.”  Eliza didn’t step out of the doorway.  The light behind her, comparatively bright to the night outside, blackened out the details of her face and clothes.

“I was already at the stop,” Hamilton said, keenly aware of his audience behind him, “so it was already close and I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry and to drop this off.”  He handed her the bag.

Eliza looked into it.  “What is this?”

Hamilton wished he could tell if she sounded amused underneath the surprise.  “ _Dulces_.”

“Did you just buy this?”

“ _Oui_.”

Eliza gave him a quizzical look and Hamilton winced.

“Sorry, they’re going to keep taking my clothes if I stop.”

Eliza looked over his shoulder and Hamilton could hear someone offer an embarrassed greeting.

“ _¿Pero quiero hablar contigo?  Merde._   This isn’t working, so screw it.”  Hamilton cleared his throat.  “Eliza—”

“Why don’t you come in?”  Eliza asked, cutting him off and stepping to the side.  She held the door open for him.  “Just for a couple minutes while I put this away.”

Hamilton started nervously and turned around.

Laurens hesitated, then nodded as encouragingly as possible.  “Tell Peggy hi,” he added after a second in a burst of inspiration for how to maybe come off as a little more genuine and reassuring.

Hamilton gave him a thumbs up and vanished into the building.

“Now you can talk like normal,” Eliza said, leading the way towards the kitchen.  “I think you were going to give both of us a headache.  Does anything in there need to be put in the fridge or freezer?”

“No.”  Hamilton fiddled nervously with the top button on his coat.  “They already took both my gloves and my shirt.”  He was relieved into silence to hear Eliza laugh.

“Then I definitely made the right decision to invite you in.”

“I’d be a poor stripper,” Hamilton agreed.  He felt ready to agree with anything she said.  “Not enough rhythm.  I wouldn’t turn a profit.”

“You said that you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “Yeah.  Look.”  He followed her into the kitchen, watched as she dumped the bag out onto the counter, and then helped her sort through its contents.  “I was being a real jerk.  I shouldn’t’ve have—was that even hitting on you?  I don’t know what you’d qualify it as but it was shitty and I’m sorry.  You’ve been really helpful and that was, like, the worst way to repay you.”

Eliza gave him a level, measuring look, and when she smiled it reached her dark eyes.

Hamilton felt his expression mirror hers.  “You mean it?”  She hadn’t needed to say anything for him to ask.

“Of course, Alex.”  She wrapped him up in a hug and he breathed out hard against her neck and shoulder, his arms tightly around her.  “Alex?”

“Mm?”  He still had his face pressed against her.

“Do you want to at least borrow a scarf?”

“Maybe,” he admitted, pulling away.  “Lafayette’s not supposed to talk,” he said, catching the small chocolate she tossed to him as they made their way out of the kitchen and towards the stairs.  “He’s missing even more clothes than I am.  Of course,” he added, “he cheated by taking off his socks and sticking his shoes back on and he started with more than me.”

Eliza laughed.  “Do you need to stay here and have them go on without you?  Or to take a cab back?”

“Nah, I think they’d be disappointed if I bailed.  I know they, unlike you, want to see me get down to my skivvies.  Is Angelica here?”  Hamilton asked, looking around as they reached the second floor.  “I need to apologize to her, too.”

“She’s at the university library.”

“Oh.  Well, don’t eat all the candy without her.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“I guess I can always get her another bag.”  Hamilton hesitated at the entrance to Eliza’s room.

She turned around and looked back at him impatiently when she was half across it.  “They’re hanging up.”  She motioned him forward as if there was no reason at all why he might be uneasy and he found that her willingness to push past it gave him courage to play along.

“You got anything not super girly?”  Hamilton asked, following her to the rack by her dresser.  He unwrapped the chocolate and popped it into his mouth, pushing it with his tongue into his cheek and talking around it.  “Pink’s not really my color.”  He dropped the wrapper into a small wastepaper basket by her desk.

“It’s not mine, either.”  Eliza took down a unisex scarf with the school’s emblem embroidered on one end.  “Will this do?”

“I guess it’s macho enough,” Hamilton said, poking fun at himself and putting it on.  “How do I look?”

“Less like you were attacked by whelks.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s no good.”  Hamilton attempted to adjust the scarf so that the relevant part of his neck would still be visible.  “I need to show off while I still can.”

“Honestly.”  Eliza put her hands on his shoulders and turned him around, giving him a push towards the door.  “Don’t lose that.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise.  Hey,” Hamilton turned back, still just inside her room.  “Um,” he began awkwardly, “so, how’s it going with you?”

Eliza stared at him.

“Did McHenry like the poem you sent back?”

Eliza laughed.  “Yes,” she said, putting her hand warmly on his arm for a moment.  “Thank you for your help.”

“I wasn’t trying to fish for a compliment,” Hamilton protested.  “I never followed up and I really wanted to know.  I’m always going on about shit, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear about your life too, you know.  I’m serious, Eliza, if you ever want to talk about—I mean, that, or anything else, school or whatever—you know you can always talk to me.”

Eliza smiled again, one side of her mouth curving up more than the other and her head tipped slightly to the side.  “I know,” she said.  “Thank you.”

Hamilton looked down at the carpet and kicked the toe of one shoe against it.  “I should…”

Eliza nodded.  “I’ll walk you out.  Oh,” she said, “actually, come with me.”  She took his hand and pulled him out of her room, leading him one door over.  “This is Angelica’s room.”  She opened the door and turned on the lights.

Hamilton looked around curiously.  It felt conspicuously empty somehow, even though it was clearly just as lived in as Eliza’s.  Books filled a set of shelves identical to the one in Eliza’s room and spilled out onto the desk and nightstand.  A pair of shoes were kicked off to the side and makeup and a crumpled receipt lay on the dusty rose bed as if its owner had dumped it out of her bag in a hurry.

“So…?”

Eliza crouched next to the bed, pulling a purse out from under it and rummaging through it.  “It’s here somewhere.  I know Peggy gave it to her—Here.”  She stood triumphantly and handed Hamilton a cheap silver flash drive.  “The photoshoot Peggy did with you guys.”

Hamilton’s eyes lit up.  “Oh!  Thank you.”

“Let me know if you want anything printed,” Eliza said, herding him out of the room and turning off the light behind her.  She closed the door.  “I’ll pass the message along.”

“Great, thanks.”  Hamilton pocketed it.  “I appreciate it.  Hey,” he said as they headed back downstairs, “do you want to do something sometime?  Not tonight, obviously, but…  Sometime?  It can be a group thing,” he added.  “Or just the two of us.  I pissed off a lot of people this last week,” he said as they neared the front door, “but the two that I missed the most were John and you.”

Eliza shook her head with that same bittersweet smile.  “You,” she told him, fixing his scarf at the door, “are a rotten charmer.”

“—And Angelica,” Hamilton added quickly.  “…Don’t tell her that I named her third.”

“I’ll say that she was the very first.”

“Thank you.  You’re the best.”

“Someone has to be,” she teased.  She hugged him again briefly and then opened the door.  “Thank you for the present.  And don’t forget to return my scarf!”

Hamilton was already half-jogging down to meet his friends under the nearby streetlight.  “Got it,” he called, turning around and running backwards.  “Let me know when you’re free, I’ll give it back to you then!”

He watched as Eliza waved and vanished back inside.


	188. Dirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lamp Delivery

“Are you whistling _Sleigh Ride_?”  Hamilton asked as Lafayette pulled out the seat to his desk and sat down.  “Is this what you’re going to be like all December?”

“Just up through Christmas.  And then until _l’Epiphanie_.”

Hamilton groaned and slouched down on Laurens’ bed.

“Hush,” Lafayette scolded him.  “We won’t even be in the same part of the country for most of that.  I’m going to buy my tickets today,” he went on, “once Adrienne gets out of class.  I’m so excited,” he said happily, opening his laptop and waiting for it to wake up.  “I’ve been looking forward to this for so long.”

“You started planning this literally two days ago.”

“Allow me a little creative license, please.”

“Ugh.  I hate you sometimes, you know that, Lafayette?”

“You’re welcome to come if you’d like,” Lafayette said, turning back to face him.  “I would enjoy your company.  I’ll pay for your ticket.”

Hamilton slouched down a little further.  “I should get work done here.”

“I’ll probably be insufferable,” Lafayette assured him.  “You’re really not missing out on anything.”

“So how is this supposed to work?”  Hamilton asked.  “You’re going to fly back to Paris, then out to…  Wherever?”

“No, Adrienne is going to come straight out here,” Lafayette said happily.  “I convinced her parents that she does not need to be home for Christmas.”

“Really?  How the hell did you manage that?”

“I am young and beautiful.”

“Somehow I feel like that isn’t what won them over.”

“They like me,” Lafayette said.  “And I have been a part of their family for a long time and I promised them that we would still go to Church.  Besides,” he went on, “Adrienne had a very good trip earlier this year.  She talks about all of you a lot.”

“Yeah?  Shoot,” Hamilton said, not sounding actually distressed, “I guess this means I need to get her something.”

“I would have hoped you’d get her something anyway.”

“Maybe a ceramic parrot this time, something that’ll go with the cat.”

“Please don’t make it too difficult to bring through customs.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be a cheap ceramic parrot.  You probably won’t even have to declare it.  Nah, I don’t know.  I’ll get her something nice.  You’ll see.”

There was a knock at the door and Hamilton checked his phone and swung his legs off the bed. 

“That’s Tench.  He’s here for the lamp.”

“Oh, good.”  Lafayette got up as well, nudging the box it was still packaged up in towards the door.  “It’s a pity that it did not work out.”

“Did you even open it and see?”  Hamilton opened the door.  “Hey, thanks for coming over.  It seems to me that you should’ve at least set it up,” he went on, turning back to Lafayette, who just shrugged innocently.  “It’s a two-person job moving it around,” Hamilton said to Tench as he grabbed his things from the floor.  “That’s the main reason why John wanted you to help.”

“Got it.”  He tipped the box towards him, then put it back.  “Actually, you take this end.  I’ll get the bottom.”

“You sure?”  Hamilton did up his coat.  “Lafayette, you sure you don’t want to come?”

“It looks like you two have this under control.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes and took his end of the box.  “He’s waiting for his girlfriend,” he explained to Tench as he backed slowly out of the room.  “They’re going to go on some big winter vacation.”

“Nice.  Where to?”

“No idea.  I don’t think he even knows yet.  Let’s take the elevator.”

“Where’s Laurens?”

“Still in class.”  The doors opened as soon as Hamilton pressed the button and they put it down inside.  “So…”  They started to ride down and Hamilton rocked forward onto his toes, not sure what to say and not wanting the trip to turn awkwardly silent.  “You got any good stories about him?”

Tench laughed, caught off guard.  “Uh, yeah, probably.  Is there anything in particular you want to know about?”

“Anything.  Really,” Hamilton assured him when he looked at him skeptically.  “I mean, I know you guys see a lot of each other and I figure you’ve gotta see some good shit.”

“That’s true.  Oh, okay.”  Tench laughed again and took his end of the box when the doors opened, letting them out onto the ground floor.  “So during pre-season training,” he said, “we were doing this one bit where there are these two rows of tires laid out and you have to run through them—”

“He tripped and sprained his ankle,” Hamilton interrupted.  “He told me that.”

“Did he?  He was so embarrassed about it I thought he’d keep it secret.  All right, let me think…  Did he ever tell you about the time he got lost in a Sears?”

“Uh.  No.”

“Okay, so you know Sears, right?  Lower-end department store.  Not exactly the kind of place Laurens frequents.”

“Right,” Hamilton said impatiently.  “Go on.”

“So, shit, okay this was back in my first year, so a bunch of us were going to rent this hotel room for a party and we were going to put it on Laurens’ card because he was old enough to legally do it and he had the funds.  So,” Tench went on, pausing as they maneuvered the box through the doors and out of the building, “he pays for it, we’re hanging out, we decide that we want to go downstairs before everyone else gets there and have something to eat at the restaurant.  We get halfway down the hall and his shoe breaks.  I mean, I don’t even know how that happened, the whole sole just—” He clicked his tongue.  “—Came right off.  And you know Laurens, he’s pretty ticked about it and doesn’t want to go down to dinner with only one shoe and, besides which, it’s a decent place and they’re not going to let him in if he’s barefoot.”

“Right.”

“This is all my fault, really.  I told him, ‘Laurens, just got to some cheap place and buy yourself a pair of crappy sneakers.  We’ll put our names down and you can meet us at the table when you get back.’  He leaves and we head down, ‘table for seven,’ takes us ages to get seated, and anyway, long story short, we’re halfway through the entrees by the time someone realizes he never came back.”

Hamilton snorted.

“I felt kind of back,” Tench said in his own defense.  “Like, I got up from the table and called him and just got sent to voice mail, he wasn’t responding to my texts, none of us are sure where the heck he went.  It turns out,” he went on, “that he had just looked up on his phone ‘cheap shoes’ and gotten instructed to go out to some random Sears where he promptly got lost.  He was so frustrated when he finally got back, turns out he’d been cycling through all the floors unable to figure out why he couldn’t get to the part of the store he wanted because the route that _should_ have worked just kept getting him stuck in a dead end.  He was insisting there was some kind of wormhole down by yard tools.  Anyway,” Tench concluded casually, “there was a car garage in the basement of the building and so that floor was shaped like a U.  There was no way to walk all the way around, which he would have known if he had actually looked at the floor plan he had taken a picture of for us for proof.”

Hamilton laughed appreciatively.  “What did he say when you pointed that out?”

“What do you think?  He got all flustered and embarrassed and quickly shut up about it.  Figures that’s where he’d get lost.  Wouldn’t’ve happened somewhere nice.”

“He paid for same-day shipping on his blue shoes,” Hamilton offered.  “And he only bought them because everything else clashed with the sling.”

Tench snickered.  “Yeah,” he said, “we all suspected as much.  I’d tell you that he’s the sort of guy who color-coordinates his underwear to the rest of his outfit as well, except you probably already know that.”

“At least that means he actually knows how to do his own laundry.”

“Fair point.  Tallmadge broke a machine his first semester here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I guess no one had ever made him do home ec.  He’d been talking about how he was running out of clothes and never actually doing anything about it and then I came back from class one day to the carpet in the hall completely soaked and the laundry room full of soap and the RA lecturing him.”

Hamilton wrinkled his nose.  “How much detergent did he put in?”

“He won’t tell me,” Tench said, “but judging by how much sooner than me he went through his bottle, I want to say like a solid two cups.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, it takes a lot of rinses to get that much soap out of clothes.”

“I’m sure.”  Hamilton paused, trying to think of something that would count as a fair trade.

“He really did miss you,” Tench added with a slight grin, not noticing that Hamilton had been seeking to pay him back.  “When we went to the club to hear André’s girlfriend perform,” he explained, seeing Hamilton’s blank look.

“Oh.”  Hamilton felt a little more embarrassed than he would have normally since he had been caught off guard by the statement and he had to force himself to not just look away and change the subject or make a joke.  “Did he?”

“Yeah, he kept bringing you up while we were out.  Not all the time,” Tench clarified.  “But he’d cycle back, you know?”

Hamilton knew that he was smiling fondly and he didn’t care.  “Yeah,” he said, “I know what you mean.”

“It was cute.”  Tench had meant it to tease both Hamilton and Laurens a little and he laughed.  “None of us had ever seen him get like that before.  He usually plays his hand really close to his chest.”

“What was he saying?”  Hamilton knew that he was, to extend the metaphor, showing his own cards, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Kept talking about your bed.”  Tench snickered.

“Ha, yeah, complaining about how much he hates it?”  Hamilton matched his tone.  “For putting so much stock into all his sports shit, he’s such a baby.”

“We weren’t even talking about it and he brought it up all on his own.  Shit, I forget now what we _were_ talking about.”  Tench shrugged as best he could while still carrying the box.  “It doesn’t matter.  The point was just that he jumped right in with it and wouldn’t even deny stuff like all the stuff I’m sure you two get up to in there and spooning and shit.”

Hamilton made a split-second judgement of character.  “He’s really clingy.  It doesn’t really matter that it’s not a giant mattress because he sleeps all wrapped around me anyway.  This is the station,” he added, relieved that Tench just laughed.

“Really?  Oh, man.  I’ve never shared a mattress with him on away games, but I can see it.  Sometimes they double us up,” he explained as they carefully maneuvered the box through the turnstile, having to lift it up and over the mechanism.  “You know, like, four people per room, two on each bed.”

“Do you usually share with Tallmadge?”

“Yeah.”

Hamilton nodded, the frank admission making him more comfortable with elaborating further, even if they weren’t the same thing.  “I don’t mind at this time of the year.  At the start of the semester it was like, ‘fuck, John, get off of me.’”

Tench laughed again appreciatively.  “Were you guys already messing around then?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “From, shit, back at the start of spring semester.  We started dating when we were in France.  I think.”  He looked up at the station ceiling overhead.  “Uh, I kind of told him we were dating because he was—No,” Hamilton admitted, “because I got pissed that he wasn’t telling me stuff.  But also because he hadn’t wanted me to hit on other people while I was there.  I dunno.”  He looked at Tench sheepishly as they set the box down at the platform, but Tench seemed to be taking it in stride and just nodded.  “…Anyway.  So we pretty much started dating in France, but it’s not like we were _dating_ dating.  Just that we, uh, there were rules.”

“Got it.”

“I don’t think we really were in a relationship until after John dislocated his shoulder,” Hamilton mused.  He rubbed at his chin with one gloved hand and frowned.  “Something that that, at least.  It’s only been a couple of months.  Or half a year, or a full year, depending on how you want to look at it.”  Hamilton laughed and shrugged.  “Who knows?” There isn’t a strong line of demarcation.  I think I’m just going to go ahead and call it as a couple days after he got injured.”

“Man,” Tench complained, “that was a rough game.”

“You’re telling me.”

“I mean, Laurens aside.  No offense.  But you know what a _shit_ show that was after?”  He shook his head.  “Complete nightmare.  Coach was pissed as hell,” he explained, “not that I blame him.  With Laurens gone things took a turn for the worst but that sort of thing happens and it’s not supposed to matter.  People get injured, you know?  Like I said, it happens.  I’ve gotten pulled from matches before and they just put in someone else and it goes on.”

“So what happened?”

Tench gave him a mildly confused look.

“…I didn’t stay,” Hamilton said.  “Lafayette and I, we went to the hospital.”

“Got it.”  Tench leaned on the box.  “It just all kind of unraveled from there.  André felt really bad about it, not that I blame him.  They’re good friends and he kind of led him right into it.  He just couldn’t get his head back in the game.  After the second interception, Coach switched him out.”

Hamilton winced, remembering the numerous messages André had left on Laurens’ phone that night.

“You’re friends with André, right?”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Yeah.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way.  I love him, he’s a great guy.  Everyone’ll say so.  But I was talking to Tallmadge the other day and we both agree, it’s a good thing he isn’t planning on doing this professionally because he’s way too easy to shake.  I never asked him about it but I bet he’s got some kind of secret elaborate pregame ritual, you know,” he teased, “like Laurens and sex.”

“Hah, yeah, he dropped that one.”

“No longer with the vow of celibacy?  Why am I not surprised.”

The train at the opposing platform pulled noisily up and they both waited for it to leave before continuing.

“Anyway, like I was saying, it was a shit show.  Between Lee tearing into André and Coach ripping into the rest of us, I’ve never been so glad to have been at a home game.  Having a long bus ride back with them would’ve been hell.  It’s not like everyone else was in a great mood either.”

Hamilton seized the opening.  “Does Lee usually go off on people like that?”

Tench shook his head.  “No.  That was a whole new level of angry.”

“What did he say?”

“What you’d expect.  ‘How could you have missed that, you need to start acting like the starting quarterback,’ stuff like that.”

Hamilton nodded, disappointed.

“Anyway,” Tench went on, “you’re an econ double major, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, you might find this funny.  Laurens showed you that one site with the betting pool, right?  There’s more of them of course but that’s the one some of us have been following along with because it’s got the biggest pile of chips on the table.  I don’t know if we’re really supposed to,” Tench said, “but some of us have been contributing to that.  Not to jinx anything,” he added, rapping his knuckles on the cardboard box.  “So I’m not telling you who we’ve been putting our money on.”  He winked and mouthed “us,” pointing to his own chest.

Hamilton laughed.

“But, yeah, I’m not saying for _certain_ ,” he went on, “but you _might_ say that me and Tallmadge and Humphreys and McHenry and Grayson…”  He trailed off suggestively.

“I don’t know anything,” Hamilton joked, “but if I did I would say good luck.”

“Thanks.  I asked André but he wasn’t interested.  I told you that he’s too superstitious.”

They both waited as the train for the opposing platform pulled up noisily.

“Right.”  Tench snapped his fingers once it had boarded and rolled away.  “I got sidetracked.  Anyway, on that site there’s a way to check out previous matches and what the odds had been and how many people went in on both sides and what the payout was.”

Hamilton nodded, looking up at the digital sign above them as it changed to state that their own train would be there in one minute.

“So when we lost not only did we take a brief tumble in the rankings but also gave people betting on Monmouth their biggest payout of the season.”

Hamilton laughed, amused in spite of how the game had gone.  “Seriously?  That figures.  André’s very lucky, it’s just a toss up if it’s good or bad luck.”

“I know, that’s what I said.”  Tench was grinning.  “I think he’s the sort of guy who’d get hit by lightning but not only would he survive, he'd somehow get super powers from it.”

“He reminds me of Lafayette,” Hamilton said.  “Except Lafayette’s luck is more consistently good.”

They could hear their train approaching and they picked up the box.

“Lafayette’s, like, he tries to do something good and then it goes well,” Hamilton said.  “André tries and then he gets thrown under the bus.”


	189. Right Where I Want You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Topping From the Bottom

“Hey,” Hamilton said, unzipping Laurens’ jacket for him and reaching up to take off his beanie.  “I missed you.”

“Am I late?”  Laurens half-joked, putting his bag down and checking his watch.  “I thought I made good time.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”  Hamilton put his hand on the side of his face and kissed him.  “I was talking to one of your friends about you and it reminded me of how much I love you.”

“Yeah…?”  Laurens felt himself blushing even as he smiled.

“Mm.”  Hamilton kissed him again and urged him out of his jacket.

Laurens moved his hands down to his belt.  “I see you got the lamp set up.”

“Yeah.  It’s real frickin’ bright.  Did you pick up dinner?”

“In my bag.”

“You’re my hero.”

Laurens laughed, pleased and embarrassed and warm, and kissed him back.  Hamilton undid his belt and fly and he stepped out of his jeans, kicking his shoes off and putting his hands on Hamilton’s back and in his hair.

Hamilton pressed himself to him, hungrily kissing him and feeling his heart racing in his chest.  “J…”

“Yeah.”  The word was a confirmation of what they both knew they wanted and Hamilton hummed a pleased note against his mouth.

“Bed?”

“You need a new—”  Laurens began and stopped when Hamilton laughed.

“Just strip and get on it, J.,” Hamilton said, pulling his own shirt off over his head.

Laurens watched as he did so, appreciating the taut way his chest and torso arched, and put his hands at his bare sides, feeling an anticipatory shiver run through him.

They were kissing again before either knew what was happening and Laurens urged him down onto the mattress, his cock already pressing against the front of his briefs.

“Said I was going to make up for lost time,” Hamilton teased.  “I’m gonna make you…  Ah…”  His eyes flickered closed and his voice trailed off as Laurens slid his pants down and took him out of the front of his underwear, moving his hand over his shaft and running his thumb over his slit.  “J…”

Laurens kissed him again, biting his lower lip and sucking on his tongue and continuing to work him.  He slowly moved his mouth off of Hamilton’s, causing him to protest with a soft gasp.  “Your turn?”

“Sure.”  Hamilton moved his hand down, only to have it caught at the wrist.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

Hamilton’s eyes widened with realization and he nodded.  “All right, got it.  But…”  He twisted his wrist free.  “This first.”

Laurens caught him again and Hamilton laughed.

“What, do I need to get the tape again?”

“Maybe.”

Grinning broadly, Hamilton sat up.  “You’re gonna make me work for this, aren’t you?  Damn you, John Laurens.”  He rolled off the mattress and to his feet, grabbing the tape off his desk.  “All right.  Uh, okay, get on your knees, over here.”  He motioned to the space off of the futon in front of him.

Laurens looked at him standing there, half-dressed, smug, awkward, and stretched out on his back instead.  “Fuck off.  You just said I was going to make you work for it.”

Hamilton blinked, surprised.

Laurens tipped his head back, looking at him upside down with his eyes half-lidded.  “You’re going to have to make me.”

Hamilton felt his cock twitch and it took force of will not to put his hand down on the desk to brace himself.  Laurens reached his arms up above his head and closed his eyes as he arched off the mattress, naked except for his underwear and lips slightly parted.

Hamilton swallowed hard.

He stepped closer and knelt on the floor, yanking his arms up higher and binding his wrists.  He put his hand roughly in Laurens’ hair and kissed him hard, forcing his tongue into his mouth and feeling him yield readily.

“There.”

“Mm.”  Laurens opened his eyes.  His gaze managed to be eager and exhilarated and dark all at once.  “Finish stripping,” he told him without moving.  “You look sloppy with your cock out.”

“Hey, fuck you.”  Hamilton took his underwear off and threw it impulsively on his face.

Laurens laughed and shook it off.

“That’s some kinky shit, too,” Hamilton said, stepping over him and straddling his waist, facing away from him.  “If I was a hooker I’d have you paying extra for that.”  He bent forward and pressed his mouth to the bulge in Laurens’ briefs, earning himself an immediate low moan.  He ran his tongue over it and shifted his weight to one elbow on the mattress, lowering his shoulder and putting his other hand on Laurens’ thigh when he tried to raise his hips.  “No.”  He pushed him back down, hard.

Laurens couldn’t help but groan and try to move into the touch again when Hamilton repeated it.  The firm pressure on his thigh served as a reminder and he forced himself to stay still as Hamilton continued to tease him.

“Can you keep this up if I take this off?”  Hamilton asked, sliding two fingers under the elastic on his upper thigh.  “Do I need to tie you down fully?”

Laurens realized he was waiting for an answer when he didn’t put his mouth back on him, instead teasing the skin just off his base.

“This is good.”

“Arch.”

Laurens willingly complied with the command, planting his feet and lifting off the bed so that Hamilton could finish undressing him.  He groaned as Hamilton took his cockhead into his mouth, feeling fleeting regret that his hands were bound and so he could not run them up over his calves and outer thighs.

“Now—” Hamilton started.

“Turn around,” Laurens cut him off.

Hamilton looked back at him over his shoulder in surprise.

“Turn around,” Laurens repeated more firmly.

“Who’s giving the orders around here?”  Hamilton joked.  He turned.

“Kiss me.”  Laurens stayed flat on his back.

Hamilton hesitated, then shrugged, still off balance, and lay on top of him.  He kissed him, tentatively at first and then with greater assurance as Laurens didn’t take control of it.  He ran one hand up and down his arm, feeling and relishing the hard muscle.  He could feel his pulse through the veins just under the skin.

“Alex.”

Hamilton pulled back, looking at Laurens underneath him.  He could see the beat of blood in his neck, a moment off from where he could still feel it.  His gaze was drawn slowly away from it, over the ridge of his jaw, then his lips…  Just looking seemed tactile somehow.

“Alex,” Laurens repeated.

Hamilton registered faint amusement at how he was blatantly staring.  He shook the distracted fog from his head.  “What is it?”

“You should get the lube.”

Hamilton rolled off of him.  “Condom too?”

“Yes.”

“Right.  Can I leave the light on?”  Hamilton asked as he grabbed the items.  “I know it’s usually just easier not to but…”

“Leave it.”  Laurens had his eyes closed and he heard Hamilton walk back up to the futon, felt the floorboard adjust under him as he stood next to him.  He heard him kneel and then his mouth was back on his and his hand on his bare chest.  The kiss was tender and searching and Laurens raised his head a little to better meet him.

“Can I—”

“Touch me.”

“Good.”

Hamilton put his hand on his cock, stroking it until it was fully erect again.  He straddled his thighs and applied lubricant to it, briefly using both hands to work his shaft and tease his cockhead.

“Mm…”  Laurens tipped his face back.

Hamilton eagerly bent down and took his head into his mouth, sucking on it and pressing the flat of his tongue to his slit.  Encouraged by the jerk of Laurens’ hips and how they rocked towards him, he continued, using one hand to cradle his balls at the same time.

“J.”  Hamilton sat back a little.

“Yeah…?”

“Uh,” Hamilton sounded uncertain.  “Can I?”

Laurens grinned and then tried to keep it out of his voice.  He didn’t entirely succeed.  “What do you think?”

“I think you should turn over.”  Hamilton got off him and knelt on the floor.  “Get on your knees.”

Laurens turned over, bracing himself on the mattress.  Hamilton got in position behind him but before he could do anything else, Laurens spoke.

“We’re not fucking yet.”

“—I know.”

“Put your left hand on my waist.”  When Hamilton did so, Laurens continued.  “Put your right hand on my cock.”

“Is that how it is?”  Hamilton was forced into position very close to him and he leaned his hips forward, letting his shaft rub up against Laurens’ thigh.  He had meant to tease him with it, but Laurens didn’t give a reaction.  Mildly frustrated, he kept it touching him as he talked and started to work his cock.  “You want it slow tonight?  Trying to give yourself an extra treat?”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, concentrating on pulling lightly against the tape on his wrists in order to distract himself.  “I think you like having to earn it.”

“I’m the one who tied you up,” Hamilton protested.  “Don’t talk like you’re the one in control of this situation, I’ve got you right where I want you.”  He squeezed lightly and heard Laurens’ breath catch in his throat.  “I think you should be nice to me, J., I could just stop—”

“You’re not going to,” Laurens said before Hamilton could decide to demonstrate and pushing any remaining shreds of embarrassment aside.  “I know you can feel my heart beating through my cock.”

Hamilton felt his own cock jerk.  His hand certainly did and Laurens let out the faint start to a moan.

“Goddamn you.”  Hamilton pressed closed to him, picking up the pace.

“Y-yes?”

“You know I—hate it when you’re right.”  Hamilton closed his eyes, his shaft rubbing up between Laurens’ legs, feeling pressure on both sides.  “J…”

“Mn.”  Laurens had to bite his lower lip to keep from making noise.  “Use your hand.”

“This one?”  Hamilton ran it all the way down to his base and held it there firmly.

“Your other one.”

Hamilton slid his left hand from Laurens’ waist, along his hip and around to cup his ass.  He moved it through the sparse hair running down the back of his hard thigh and then back up along the inside, making Laurens’ hips twitch.

“Lube.”

“Right.”  Hamilton moved away.  Laurens gave a sharp and involuntary gasp at suddenly being released.  Hamilton grinned.  “What?  Didn’t you know that was coming?”  He pushed a finger into him.  He remembered suddenly how he had been trying to guess at a date for the proper start of their relationship earlier that day and he leaned down and kissed Laurens’ back.  “…You’re hot,” he said, as if it needed an explanation.

“Suck ass.”

“…Mn.  Okay.  I’m not going to go for the obvious joke, J., but let’s agree that you walked right into that—”

Laurens tightened against him and Hamilton cut himself off.

“Two fingers.”

Hamilton immediately obeyed, adding a second and putting his other hand back on Laurens’ cock, working it at the base.  “Like this?”

“Yes.”  Laurens had his eyes shut tight, feeling the different sensations pulse through him.  “Fuck me,” he commanded abruptly.  “Now.”

“God,” Hamilton breathed.  “Hold on.”  There was a brief pause, then he pushed into him.  He got all the way in, held his place for a moment, then moved his hips back.  When he was only about a third inside him, Laurens spoke again.

“Stop.”  He concentrated on keeping his voice relatively steady.

Hamilton gave a confused whine.

“That’s as far in as—  I—I’ll tell you when you can go past that.”

“ _John_ …”

Laurens clenched against his cock again and Hamilton relented.

Hamilton breathed out heavily, then slowly, deliberately, pulled out and pushed back in, taking care not to move past where Laurens had given him permission.  The lack of full sensation was frustrating and he let a controlled hiss of air escape between his teeth.  Instead of the steady build to release he wanted, this was teasing him, keeping him aroused without letting the tension build.

“J…”

“Are you going to,” Laurens pressed his forehead to the mattress, not quite believing how well it was working out, “plead with me?”

“John,” Hamilton began, then stopped.  He cleared his throat, trying to not just immediately prove him right.  “…No.”

Laurens grinned, his expression hidden from Hamilton.  “All right.  Just a little—Stop.”

Hamilton whined again.  “ _J_ …”

“Come on, Alex, I’m giving you what you want.”

“Not really.”  Hamilton tried for a dramatically sullen mutter but the quiver to his voice gave him away.

Laurens bit his lip and tried not to laugh at him.

Hamilton relented, accepting that he had to, for the time at least, take what he was given before Laurens decided to revoke it.  He thrust shallowly into him, his hands at his hips and his eyes closed.  His breathing was coming more quickly now and he repositioned one of his hands onto the side of Laurens’ chest.  He could feel the sweat on his skin and he opened his eyes again, watching the roll of Laurens’ shoulder muscles as he adjusted his weight.

He picked up the pace and Laurens moaned quietly.

“What’s that—J.?  Should I…”

Laurens shook his head and Hamilton made a frustrated noise.  _Still?_

Laurens let out an amused breath of a laugh, too distracted to be properly amused for more than a second.

“—Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Fuck me harder.”

Hamilton didn’t need to be told twice.  He slammed into him and Laurens gasped.

Hamilton pulled back out and thrust into him again, not quite as hard but still forceful and Laurens moaned.  The sound was low and guttural and it sent fire through Hamilton’s body.  He continued, picking up slight speed as each thrust triggered short pleading noises.

“J…”  Hamilton’s hand dug in at his side.

“Yes,” Laurens encouraged him.  “Alex—”

Hamilton pressed his nails in further, earning himself an appreciative groan.  Hamilton raked his nails over his back and Laurens gasped.

“Ah—  Alex—”

“God,” Hamilton breathed.  “J., John, I’m gonna—”

“Please, Alex, please—”

Hamilton felt his orgasm building and he scratched sharply down Laurens’ back again, this time starting up higher and dragging his hand all the way down in order to hear him cry out.  He could tell from his voice that he was near release as well and he turned himself over to it, letting the heat and pressure pulse through his cock in shuddering waves.

Hamilton pulled out and got to his feet.  “Hey.”  Laurens was lying on the futon and he repeated himself.  “Hey.  J.  You want to rinse off first?”

Laurens didn’t move for a couple of seconds, then he rolled over with a laugh that startled Hamilton.

“Alex,” he said, his arms still stretched above his head.  “You need to unbind me.”

“Oh!”  Hamilton dropped to his knees, quickly pulling the tape off.  “Shit, you’re right, sorry.”  His tone quickly faded from apologetic to tender and he put one hand lightly on his chest, leaning down to kiss him.  “Sorry,” he said again when he pulled back.  Laurens had one of his hands in his hair and for a moment their eyes locked.

Hamilton kissed him again, moving his hand up from his chest to stroke the side of his face.  “I love you.”  He drew slowly back and took one of his hands.  “Come on.”  He stood.  “Let’s get cleaned up.”


	190. Personal Preferences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Best Parts of the Holidays

“Thank you for coming back with me.”  Lafayette let the steam from his hot chocolate bathe his face and he breathed it in deeply.  “I know we saw it being lit, but it is just so festive.”

“I thought you weren’t Christian.”

“I’m not,” Lafayette said, standing next to Adelaide as the two of them nursed their hot drinks and looked up at the towering tree. “I’m not much of anything.”

“Atheist?”

Lafayette shrugged.  It wasn’t affected for once.  “I suppose so.  I would like to be religious,” he said.  “That sounds very condescending of me, my apologies.”  He put his mouth to the lid of his drink and thought better of trying to take a sip.  “Adrienne and her family are all very religious,” he said after a moment.  “I don’t understand.  I want to understand.  I like sharing things with her.”

“You could still go to church with her,” Adelaide pointed out.  She turned her cup between her gloved hands.  “Plenty of people who call themselves members of one faith or another are there because of the community and culture.”

“I know.  I do go sometimes.”

“You complain about it a lot.”

Lafayette laughed guiltily and winced.  “Yes.  But that isn’t what I mean.  I could easily go, but I cannot easily believe.”

Adelaide studied his face.  Lafayette was still looking straight ahead at the decorated tree, a slight furrow to his brow.

“You’re right,” she said after a minute, turning forward as well and taking a tentative drink.  “It’s better not to lie about things like that.”

“I feel bad about it.”

“You can’t help feeling the way you do.  If you cannot reach it…  There’s nothing wrong with that, Gilbert, you know it is not important in the grand scheme of things.”

“I have other gods,” Lafayette said with mock decisiveness, decidedly poking fun at himself and their conversation.  “Love and Adrienne are my gods.”

Adelaide laughed.  “There you go.”

“Oh, do you really not like anyone?”  Lafayette asked.  He turned to her and saw how she tensed.  “I did not want to push it in case you did not want to share in front of the others.  But you are my friend and so are they and I have other friends and it is the season of giving…”  He trailed off pointedly.  “I have had very good success so far,” he added when she did not respond right away.  “Alex and John, of course.  But I also introduced Aglae and Peggy _and_ Eliza and James.  By some definitions of ‘introduced,’” he amended.  “That is three just since I got here.  I was a very good go-between in France as well.”

“No,” Adelaide said, shaking her head and looking away.  “No, there is no one that I am interested in.”

Lafayette frowned.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Is it me?”  Lafayette stage whispered the question, blurring the lines of a joke and serious inquiry and deliberately taking some of the edge off.

“ _Gilbert_ ,” Adelaide complained, starting to sound flustered.

Lafayette leaned back on his heels, frowning up at the gray sky.  “All right,” he finally said.  “Well, I may not be religious but I do know that winter is the best season to date someone.  It is cold out,” he said, counting off on his fingers, “so it is better to share body heat.  The snow and the lights are very romantic, so it’s good—”

“Gilbert.”  Adelaide interrupted him firmly.  “Stop.”  She had her cup in one hand and motioned downwards with the palm of the other.

Lafayette looked hurt.  “I am trying to help.”

“I know.  But you do not need to.  I do not want you to try to set me up with anyone.  Do you understand?”

Lafayette hesitated.  “Now?  Or ever?”

“Ever.”

A beat passed and Lafayette chewed on his lower lip, then glanced up, considered, and nodded.

“All right.  I’m sorry for assuming.  I forget sometimes that not everyone is like me.”  He took a sip of his drink.  “…You do like hot chocolate, don’t you?”  He asked, suddenly anxious.  “Or should I have ordered you something else?”

Adelaide breathed out, looking clearly both amused and relieved.  “I like hot chocolate.”

“Oh, good.”  Lafayette sounded equally reassured.

Adelaide smiled at him and put her hand very briefly on his arm.  “Thank you for the offer.”

Lafayette screwed up his face and shook his head.  “No.  Thank you for forgiving my faux pas.  I don’t always think things through.”

“Is that so?”

“Ah, a jab, but I can take it.  No, I don’t, and I have noticed,” Lafayette went on carefully, “that I sometimes do things thoughtlessly and without considering anyone else.  That will be my New Year’s resolution,” he declared, “to fix that.  And I would like to start practicing now.”

“A noble resolution.”

“We can both pick our favorite parts of this season,” Lafayette said.  “I’ll leave the religion and you can leave the romance.  It’ll be much better that way.  Tailor-made.”

“We’re very smart like that,” Adelaide agreed.  They watched as a toddler was carried past them over the shoulder of his guardian, shrieking in frustration and disappointment.  “…Let’s leave out the small children as well.”

“Ah, a quiet holiday,” Lafayette said, nodding vigorously.  “I’ve had my fill of drama.”

“I know it was bad when you of all people say that.”

“Again, I cannot be offended.”  Lafayette shook his head in blanket acceptance.  “It is how it is.  Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”  He asked, changing the topic.  “I don’t mind buying the ticket, not at all.  It does not matter to me.  And if you would like to pay me back then that is fine too.”

“I can’t get away for long enough to make it worthwhile, Gilbert.”

Lafayette was going to protest, then remembered what he had just said and relented.  “I’ll send you postcards instead.”

“All right.”

“And when we are older and you are more established, you will take time off in the summer to go on vacation with me, even if that just means that we do absolutely nothing and you do not even leave the city.”

Adelaide cracked a smile into her hot chocolate and looked up at him fondly.  “You’re really someone special, Gilbert.”

Lafayette shrugged and replied honestly, “So are you.”


	191. Setting the Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deck the Halls

“Just because you’re tall doesn’t mean you get to be Legolas,” Hamilton complained.

“Of course not.  It is because I am tall and beautiful.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes and didn’t bother getting up from where he was lying stretched out on the floor of Mulligan’s living room.  He turned his head away from Lafayette, braiding his hair on the couch, to the kitchen.  “Mulligan, back me up.”

“Your pretty friend is definitely an elf.”

Hamilton swore.

“I’d be a dwarf,” Mulligan said.  “I like the axes.  They look murdery.”

“Your ears aren’t pointy enough to be an elf,” Hamilton told Lafayette, ignoring Mulligan as he pretended to swing his weapon at the counter.

“Tolkien never said ‘pointy ears,’” Mulligan argued.  Hamilton looked back at him.  “He didn’t.  Look it up.  That’s a later interpretation.”

“See?”  Lafayette said.  “I am an elf.”  He backed up the YouTube tutorial video he was watching on his tablet half a minute and leaned in a little to watch the screen more closely.

“You’re such a fucking nerd,” he complained to Mulligan.  “I hate it.”

“You know what they say about glass houses, Hamilton.  Besides, Peggy taught me that one.”

“Yeah, well, she’s a nerd too.”  Hamilton sat up.  “I’d be a human.  So would John.”

Lafayette nodded without looking away from the tutorial.  “ _Oui_.”

“You’re not going to fight me on this one?”

“Nah,” Mulligan said, “you’re right.  I know the easy answer would be to go for the height joke with the hobbits, but you’re too much of a go-getter for that.  Too much with the running off to prove yourself and shit.  If you lived back in the Dark Ages you’d probably abandon your apprenticeship or whatever and join the Crusades and die of an infection en route to the Holy Land.”

Hamilton wrinkled his nose at him.  “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I would have been a knight,” Lafayette said, bobby pin in his mouth as he talked.  Both his hands were busy convincing his hair to stay put as he braided half of it up.  “But that is a given.”

“They literally did that sort of thing,” Hamilton explained to Mulligan.  “He’s got a _lineage_.”

Mulligan whistled teasingly.

“Yes, I know.”  Lafayette kept working.  “I come from a long line of men who died on the battlefield.”

Hamilton scooted backwards so that he could lean against the couch.  “You ever watch _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_?”

“No.”

“Figures.  British.  Just talking to you gets the bit with those French guards stuck in my head.”

“Now who’s the nerd?”  Mulligan asked.

Hamilton sat up straight.  “Did you know that their insults aren’t just nonsense?  They’re saying actual shit.  Like, they used to make wine from elderberries, so they’re calling the king’s father a lush.”

Mulligan laughed and sat on the couch next to Lafayette.  “I’m going to shove you in the trashcan later, Hamilton.  You’re pretty good at that,” he told Lafayette.

Lafayette dropped the bobby pin into his lap.  “Thank you.”  The video finished playing and he stopped it from jumping automatically to the next one.  “There.”  He turned his head from side to side, showing off his half-up.  “What do you think?”

“Very elven.  Elfin?”  Hamilton said.  “You didn’t need the pin?”

“No.”

Hamilton nodded approvingly.  “Magic.”

There was the sound of a key in the lock Lafayette turned to look at the door as it opened.

“Lafayette, what do your elf-eyes see?”

Peggy paused just inside the door, giving Mulligan a quizzical look before her eyes landed on Lafayette.  She paused, then nodded.  “Sure.  Okay.”

“Okay?”  Laurens was standing in the hall outside, unable to pass her.

Peggy walked the rest of the way into the apartment, taking off her boots and coat and dropping her canvas bag to the floor as she went.  “Thank you for the apology candy,” she told Hamilton.  “I decided that I forgive you.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested, standing, “that wasn’t for you.”

“Some of it was,” Laurens pointed out.  He took off his own coat and hung it up, then crossed over to Hamilton.  “Hey.”  He kissed him lightly.  “What’s up?”

Mulligan elbowed Lafayette and nodded towards the other two.  “Nerds in love.”

“Not much.”  Hamilton casually stepped backwards and leaned his hand hard on Mulligan’s face.  “We were just hanging out and waiting for Lafayette to finish doing his hair.”

Laurens looked Lafayette over.  “Very nice.”

Lafayette beamed.

Peggy came back out of her room.  “Um, so my sisters are coming by for dinner tonight and I want it to look like I have my shit together.”

“Did you finish unpacking or are you living in a ball of your crap on the floor?”

Peggy made a face at the back of Mulligan’s head.  “I’m getting there!  It’s _hard_ to set things up!”

“He’s a real pain to live with, isn’t he?”  Hamilton said.

“Watch it, kiddo.”

“I thought Eliza helped you unpack?”  Lafayette asked.

“Um, she did.  But I’ve kind of kept bringing back more things and he just dumps all my stuff on the floor in my room.”

“I’m not your maid,” Mulligan said.  “And I told you, this is the common area.”  He gestured around the living room and towards the kitchen.  “It’s a shared space.  That means we can keep things out here that’re for communal use and you can leave out some little knick-knacks and stuff you’re going to get right back to.  If you leave half your laundry basket out here, yeah, I’m picking that shit up and dropping it over the threshold.”

“…Whatever,” Peggy said, making the apparent snap judgement that she couldn’t win the argument.  “Anyway, the point is that I need to clean and I thought maybe we could distract them from anything I miss by making this place more festive?”

Lafayette had slouched back down on the sofa to scroll through his iPad and he put it down and sat up straight.

“What kind of festive?”  Mulligan asked.

“ _Communal_ festive,” Peggy said, coming off more than a little  childish.  She must have realized because she looked embarrassed and quickly crossed the room to her bag.  “I bought some decorations,” she said, sitting on the ground and taking things out.  “I got tinsel, string lights, these bird ornaments because John thought they were cute—”

“They are,” Laurens protested.  Hamilton stroked his neck reassuringly.

“—paper and scissors so someone can make snowflakes, and this banner.”  She pulled out a long holographic banner that read “HAPPY HANUKKAH” in blue on silver.  She looked hopefully at Mulligan.

“Well…”  Mulligan rubbed his chin with overdone consideration.  “…All right.  You’ve won me over.”

Peggy jumped up.  “Yes!  Okay,” she said, “I’m going to work on stuff so you guys can all,” she shoved the banner at Mulligan, “get festive.”

“I’m surprised you two didn’t buy tackier stuff,” Hamilton said as Peggy disappeared into her room and closed the door with a slam.  He knelt by their purchases, Peggy’s coat and shoes still lying on the floor nearby.  “This is all pretty tame.  I would have gotten the worst stuff I could find, really make a theme of it.”

“And that’s why she’s allowed to do this and you weren’t.”  Mulligan got up and went to get tape from the kitchen.  “I didn’t want to come back from work with some friends to be greeted by a banner reading ‘Merry Dick-mas’ and a bunch of phalli in ugly sweaters.  Where do you think I should hang this?  On the back wall, so you see it when you come in?”  He came back out with tape and a pair of scissors.  “Here.”  He gave Laurens the scissors.  “Get busy.  Clean up the scraps, though.  I don’t want to get papercuts just walking to the fridge.”

“You should make some with pictures in them,” Hamilton said.  “I mean, they’re basically just patterns, right?  But you should cut something into them.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno.  Ducks.”

“Ducks?”

“…A laying?”

“Those are geese,” Lafayette scolded.  He picked up one of the bird ornaments, cheap painted glass with a long feather for a tail, and carried it around the living room in search of an appropriate perch.

“Geese, then.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“Sure you can, you’re the artist.”  Hamilton watched as Laurens carefully folded one of the pieces of paper and began making cuts in it.  “When are Eliza and Angelica coming over?”

“Peggy said they’d be here around seven.”

“Cool.”  He turned to Mulligan.  “What’re we having for dinner?”

“I’m not your dad.”  Mulligan was standing on a step stool to hang the banner.  “There’s leftover lasagne and tuna salad in the fridge.”

“Nice.  Thanks, Dad.”

“There should be half a cherry pie, too,” Mulligan said.  “Beth made that one but we can finish it off.  It’s not all going to be enough for seven people.  Eight, nine, after the others get home.  Shit, you could’ve all told me I was going to host a dinner party tonight.”

“We can order something,” Laurens said, feeling guilty.

“Expensive.  I’ll see what I can do and if it’s too much of a pain we can call for a couple pizzas or whatever.”

“Make it eleven,” Hamilton said, reading through the messages he had missed on his phone.  “Sorry.”  He looked up.  “I’m telling Aaron to come over and he’s got André with him.”

“What does this place look like, some kinda town plaza?”

“It’ll look more like that with all the lights and tinsel.”

“You’re right.  Screw it, I’m ordering Chinese.”  Mulligan took a take-out menu off the fridge.

Lafayette looked over from clipping a bird to a book on the entertainment unit.  “May I get spring rolls?”

“You can get whatever you want if you help me make this order.”

Bird in place, Lafayette went to join Mulligan.

“Are Burr and André friends too now?”  Laurens asked, trying to keep from sounding annoyed.

“Dunno.  I thought they were just doing language…”  Hamilton stopped talking, not wanting to accidentally show his hand or talk poorly about something he had himself arranged.  “…Anyway they were together and they’re coming over now.”

Laurens shrugged noncommittally and went back to his paper snowflake.  “I need to call Martha after dinner.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, no problem.  I’m sure you can duck out onto the balcony or into Herc’s room if you need quiet.  Bedroom is better, go for that first, it’s frickin’ freezing out there again.”  Hamilton hesitated.  “So are you going to talk to your sister about your dad?”

Laurens nodded.  “That’s the plan anyway.”

“Good plan.  Hey, you know I’m proud of you, right?  I’m serious, J.,” Hamilton said when Laurens turned away awkwardly.  He stepped around him and put his hand on his forearm.  “I don’t—You’ve done a lot, that’s all.  I think it’s really neat.”

“No one’s done as much as you.”

“Thanks, but it’s not a contest.  Just accept the compliment, you big jerk.”

Laurens glanced up from his work and smiled, his expression almost shy, and Hamilton felt his heart melt.

“I love you.”  He lifted up on his toes and kissed him lightly.

“Some way you have of showing it.”  Laurens was grinning in spite of his words.  “You owe me an apology.”

“Yeah…?”  Hamilton draped his arms carelessly over his shoulders.  “I’ll have to think about what I can do to make it up to you…”

“Hey, kissy boys,” Mulligan interrupted.  “Number one, if you’re going to suck face it’s rude to do that in front of the company _you_ invited over to my place.  I expect you to get it out of your systems ahead of time or hold off until after you’re no longer expected to be hosting.  And ‘out of your systems’ doesn’t mean you get to go fool around on any of the flat surfaces here.”  He gestured around the apartment with a pen.  “Number two, I’m making a list for when I call, either of you have anything in particular you want?”

“Is this the place that makes the good duck skin buns?”  Hamilton crossed eagerly into the kitchen, leaving Laurens to his embarrassment.

“Nah, that one got shut down.  Look this over,” Mulligan said, handing him the list and the menu, “see what else you’d like to add.”


	192. Thicker than Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calling Home

“Yellow journalism,” Hamilton was arguing through a mouthful of chow mein, “no, I’m serious, you think words don’t have direct effects on reality, find me something to counterweight that.  And that’s not just an umbrella term I’m tossing around trying to paint all kinds of minutiae with,” he went on, gesturing with his chopsticks for emphasis.  “I’m talking the actual iconic moment of yellow journalism in the nineteenth century and _literal_ boots on the ground regime change.  Burr, you keeping up?”

“The _World_ and the _Journal_ and the Spanish-American War of 1898,” Burr said with strained patience.  “And I was saying that if there are not pre-existing embers—”

“Immediate effects went beyond the Spanish Empire.”  Hamilton cut him off, kicking both his boots up onto the edge of the coffee table in front of the couch and leaning forward, still holding the takeout box in one hand.  “You look at what the US gained during the war—obviously Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, temporary physical presence in Cuba—”

“You can’t talk about just blatant military occupation,” Angelica interrupted.

Hamilton looked up at where she was leaning against the entertainment unit and nodded enthusiastically.  “Right, true, but, bare with me, even if we’re narrowing the parameters to _just_ —”

“Look,” Burr jumped in again, managing to interject before Hamilton could build up steam again.  “I never said that words did not lead to actions.  That’s completely asinine.  I was taking to task your constructivist assertion that words _themselves_ created this disparity of power.”

“You think the return policy’s still good on this other one?”  Mulligan asked, leaning over on the couch to talk out of the side of his mouth to Eliza, sandwiched between him and Hamilton.  “Or is it like a ‘once taken out of the box we’re stuck with him’ sort of deal?”

“No, no.”  Eliza shook her head.  “You’re wrong.  It’s like how if you get one cat you should go back to the pound and adopt a second one so the first one has a friend while you’re at work.”

“We’re not at work,” Peggy pointed out from her seat on the floor.  “We’re stuck here with them.  And he already had Angelica.”

“We need to share Angie.  He can’t hog her.”

“I guess.”

“So is that a hard ‘no’ on slapping a receipt on this new one’s ass and taking him back to the store?”  Mulligan asked.  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy Alexander’s happy but I’d like my impromptu dinner parties with a little less yelling about semantics.”

“They’re not even really into it yet,” Eliza said.  “Angelica’s still waiting for the right moment to strike.”

“Like a cobra,” Mulligan said with an appreciative nod.  “My money’s on her.  She’s letting the other two give her the rope she’s going to use to hang them with.”

“Yeah.”  Peggy scrunched up her nose.  “That’s the worst.”

Laurens, on the floor next to Peggy, checked the time on his phone and glanced towards the closed door to Mulligan’s room.

She noticed.  “Are you timing how long André’s in there too?  I thought he was worried about his minutes or whatever.”

“Free after nine.”

“Man.”  Mulligan shook his head.  “That’s old school.”

“He’s gotta talk to her,” Hamilton, high off of the argument and jumping rapidly from one topic to another, cut in unnecessarily.  “Great quarterback, as long as he’s kept happy.  He gets crap after a break up,” he told Burr.

“Alex,” Laurens started.

“What?”  Hamilton turned to him, Burr’s expression of surprise not holding his interest.  “You told me that.  It’s true.”

Laurens made a face and Peggy nudged him.  “Should we go get him?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Laurens said, “I just told my sister I’d call tonight.”

“Do you want to use my room?”

Laurens frowned and shook his head.  “No, that’s okay.  I’ll just wait for him.”

“You can use it,” Peggy repeated.  “It’s not a big deal, I’m not, like, line drying my delicates in there or anything.”

Something of his opinion on walking in on that must have shown in his face because Mulligan snickered and then quickly looked away.

“If you’re sure that you don't mind,” Laurens said stiffly.

“Go for it.”  Peggy motioned down the hall.  “It’ll be better than having to sit out here listening to the debate championships.”

Three overlapping and increasingly frustrated voices prompted Laurens to get to his feet.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Laurens headed down the hall and hesitated for a moment before opening the door to Peggy’s room, still not quite comfortable with the suggestion.  He let himself in and flinched a little when he turned on the bottom light switch by the door and a string of soft yellow lights above the chair and desk in the corner lit up.  He tried the second switch and was relieved when the overhead light turned on.

The door closed behind him, he dialed his sister’s number, walking awkwardly through the center of the room, not sure if he should stand or sit on the bed.  The comforter was also yellow, with a white mandala pattern and so obviously belonging to a girl’s bed that he couldn't bring himself to both make the call and sit on it.

The line stopped ringing.  He could tell Martha had picked up before she said anything and he leaned, tense, on the back of the chair.

“Jack?”

“Hey.”

“It’s late.”

Laurens cracked a smile at how put-off his sister sounded.  “I said after dinner.  We eat late in New York.  The guys still have the food out in the other room.”

“Where are you?”

“Mulligan’s.”  Laurens rocked his weight forward against the chair.  “One of Alex’s friends.  He shares an apartment with his brother and some other guys.  I went to one of their rooms to call you.”

“Got it.  So what’s up?”

Laurens took a deep breath.

“Jack?”

“Why did you tell Alex about Francis?”

There was a pregnant silence, then Laurens heard Martha get up and close what he knew had to have been her bedroom door.

“Martha.”

“I’m sorry.”  She sounded genuinely, painfully apologetic.  “I’m really sorry, Jack.  I only said anything because I thought he knew.  I had no idea—What we were talking about, I misunderstood him, I thought he _knew_.”

Laurens felt a tired weight sink over his shoulders.  “I’m not mad at you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.  I didn’t think you’d want… that.”

“Yeah.”

There was a long awkward silence.

“So…  Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

Laurens ran one hand up through his hair.  “Half of it.”

“Getting the bad stuff out of the way first?”  When he didn't respond right away she tried again.  “Jack?”

It was so frustrating to feel this way when he had just been enjoying the company outside in spite of his fears that it would be too much.  Too noisy, too many people.

“No,” Laurens said.  His voice sounded firm and steady, much to his gratitude.  “No, I just needed to know.  Martha—”  He almost asked her if she knew what their father had done, but realized there was no way that she would.  “When Dad was dropping us off at the station he got Alex by himself.  He gave him money to,” he fumbled for a moment, “I guess pay him off.”

He could feel the shock and rage emanating off the line before Martha could say anything.

“What the fuck—”

Laurens jerked the phone away from his ear as she swore.  He switched it to his other side while she went off.

“—the point of that, even!  Jesus Christ, Jack, I swear sometimes I want to just scream at him but I know that won’t do any good.  Mom never would have done shit like this, he gets so caught up in his own stupid—”

“Martha,” Laurens cut her off.  “Martha, shit.”

She stopped talking.  He could see her in his mind’s eye, mouth a thin angry line and face red.

Laurens ran his hand through his hair again.  “Look, I can’t stay in here forever and I need to go back out to everyone else.  I just—”  He pressed his eyes closed against the reminders that he was having this conversation not in his own territory.  “…I need to eventually talk to Dad about all this,” he said, picking his words with great care.  “Do you think he’ll take it okay?”

He wished that there hadn’t been any pause before Martha responded.

“Dad?  I mean, I think he’ll be a jerk about it, but you know how he is.  He loves you.”

“He loves himself,” Laurens said, the thought suddenly too bitter to hold back.  “And he’s embarrassed of me.”

“Jacky, that’s not true.”

“It is.”  He couldn’t help his voice rising slightly and he bit his tongue, trying to get control of himself.  “He made it pretty fucking clear what he thinks,” he said, his words still tense but no longer threatening to explode into a yell.  “I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.”

Neither of them spoke for several seconds.

“What are you afraid of him doing?”  Martha finally asked.

“I don’t know.”  Laurens took several steps backwards and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, his surroundings feeling unreal and distant.  He rubbed at his face with his free hand.  “My coach thinks he’ll cut me off,” he admitted.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Martha protested.

“Did you think he’d try to pay off Alex?”

Silence again.

“I don’t—Dad wouldn’t do that,” Martha insisted.  “And if he even threatens to, I’ll yell at him until he drops it.”

“The money from Mom,” Laurens started, “do you know if he can touch that?”

“What?”

“My share of the inheritance.”  The words sounded so clinical.  “I want to know if he can cut me off.”

“I don’t think so.  You’re a legal adult, Jack, I don’t think he can keep you from accessing any of that.  I don’t think he can even really do much with the rest of ours because Mom set it up to go to us, not to him.  I guess he has some managerial power over ours but you should have aged out of that, right?  You’re the one studying to be a lawyer, though, shouldn’t you know?”

Laurens was unable to bring up any relevant information, just bits and pieces of shifting readings and assignments like a jumble of loose pages.  “That makes sense,” he said.  “I think you must be right.”

“I don’t think you need to be worried about any of this,” Martha said.  Laurens was very aware of how many miles separated the two of them.  “Sure, he’s an asshole sometimes but he’s still your dad.  He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you.  I don’t want to live near him any longer than I have to,” she went on, “but that doesn’t mean that I think he’s a _monster_ , you know?”

“I never said he was a monster.”

“I’m being dramatic.”  She paused.  “What happened to the money?”

“What money?”

“The money that Dad…  You know.  Did he give it back?”

“I don’t know.  I think he still has it.  I don’t know.  He tried to give it to me.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t take it.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.  Should I ask him about it?  I don’t think he’s done anything with it.  He hasn’t mentioned it at all, but we were fighting and I didn’t talk to him for a while so maybe he got rid of it or put it away somewhere…”

“What do you want him to do with it?”

Laurens shook his head helplessly.  “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

Martha didn’t have a response.

“…I should go.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I yelled earlier.  If you want to call me later—”

“I’m fine, Martha.  I’ve just been in here a while already and I need to get back out to the others.”

“…Okay.  Have fun with your friends.”

“Yeah, I will.  Good night.”

“Night, Jack.  Love you.”

Laurens hung up and let his phone fall to the floor.  He leaned forward and put his face in his hands and felt the whole world lurch to a halt.


	193. Kickoff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Putting Things Together

Burr cleared his throat in a lull in the talk in the living room.  “I could use some fresh air.”

“You smoke?”  Mulligan asked.  “Balcony’s over there.  Keep the window closed.”

“Thank you.”  Burr studied the night through the window and then got his coat from the rack by the front door.  “Alexander?”  He picked up Hamilton’s as well.  “Care to join me?”

“Don’t give him a cigarette,” Mulligan warned.  “He’s bad enough with the coffee already, he doesn’t need anything else.  You,” he said, pointing to Hamilton as he stood and accepted the coat.  “Smoking kills.  But you know what kills faster?”

“You?”  Angelica asked.

“That’s right.”  He nodded at her.  “Thank you.  I kill,” he said to Hamilton as he pulled his coat on.  “And if I see you out there with a cigarette I’m chucking you off the edge myself, capisce?”

“Calm down,” Hamilton said.  “We’re just going to talk student body stuff.  Right?”

“Nothing interesting,” Burr assured Mulligan, who settled back down on the couch.  “But all your other rooms are taken and sometimes the cold air helps one to think.”

“Be back in a few.”  Hamilton popped the window and they both climbed out.  He flinched as the air hit his face.  “Shit.  Well, that was subtle at least.”  He slammed the window closed behind them.  “What did you get from André?  Unless you really do just want to talk student body politics, in which case frankly we can head back inside because it might be boring but the rest of them can deal.”

“I heard something interesting from Mina.”

“You talked to André’s girlfriend?”

Burr nodded.  It was comparatively quiet on the balcony and they were both talking in low tones.  “I thought I needed to, since she knew Lee as well.”

“A lot of people know Lee.  The whole team knows Lee.”

“The whole team wasn’t given to the quarterback to keep his head in the game.”

Hamilton chewed on his lower lip and let the language slide.  “What did she say?”

“Not much.  She acknowledged that she knew Lee, as did André’s previous girlfriend.  She either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell me the details of how those two got together.  As for herself she told me once André had left the table that she had only talked to him after Lee had encouraged it.”

Hamilton shook his head slowly.  “So he set them up.  That was nice of him.  I guess.”

Burr gave Hamilton a long hard look.

“How do the rich become rich?”

“They work hard for it.”

“Alexander.”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me,” Hamilton said, frustrated.  He leaned back against the corner made by the railing.  The cold pressed against him, even with his coat on.  “What’s the answer you’re looking for?  I asked you to find dirt on Lee for me and, no offense, this doesn’t sound like it.”

“When I was out with André and Mina tonight, she told me that Lee had asked her if she would date André for the rest of the semester.  He told her that once finals were over she should wasn’t under any obligation to stay in contact with him.”

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  “That’s weird.  But mostly for her.”

“How do the rich become rich?”  Burr asked again.  “Stop beating around the bush, Alexander.  You were always so direct when we worked together before.”

“I don’t know, you steal it.”  Hamilton was getting more annoyed.  “You see something someone else has and you take it from them and you keep them in the dark about it so they don’t even realize what you’ve pulled off.”

“Did you know there’s a sizable betting pool on the playoffs?”

Hamilton stared at Burr.

“I think Lee is trying to steal the game.”

Cars passed them by several stories below.

“Actually,” Burr said, “I suspect he’s done it before.  Individual games, nothing that would really change their overall standing.  A loss here and there, just pocket change, really.  The whole team is talking about their odds this time.  This pool is much bigger, and a good number of them are contributing to it on top of that.”

“It’s for the championships,” Hamilton said, things slotting into place.  “Of course they’re talking about it, they’re basically guaranteed to make it at this point this year.  John keeps telling me that they’re favored to win, at least as long as no one fucks up before the end of their regular season.  There’s only one game left at this point.  I did the math myself.  The biggest payout at this point would be to take and then win the gamble against them.”

Burr nodded.

“Lee was angry with André after John dislocated his shoulder,” Hamilton said.

“He was probably concerned it would throw them out of the running.  Or maybe it screwed up whatever his earlier plans were and he had to recalibrate, I don’t know.  But he’s using him now.  André doesn’t know that Lee set him up and is planning on screwing him over in a couple of weeks.”

“Do you think Mina knows what’s going on?  Is she in on it or was she just there and convenient?  Is she actually going to break up with him?”

“It’s probably just icing on the cake if she does.  I’m sure Lee can manipulate someone else into throwing a game even with his quarterback on form.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything for several long seconds.  Laurens’ long record of fouls stretched before him.

“There’s no proof,” Hamilton finally said.  “This smells fishy but I can’t…”  He trailed off.  The air around them was tense.

“If Mina does know,” said Burr, “it would probably be easiest to get her on her own and try to convince her to admit to everything.  She could blame Lee for basically everything.  If she knows and we twist her arm she should cave.”

“Neither of us know her and it’s already the start of December.  We can’t wait on this any longer.  I’m not risking her having no idea what we’re talking about and then either ghosting on André because his friends are creeps and accusing her of all kinds of shit and us being stuck knowing something’s going to go down but unable to do anything to stop it.  I’m thinking what we have to do is backlog through their earlier games,” Hamilton said, steadily gaining momentum.  His breath clouded in the air in front of him.  “See if there’s some way to find out who put their money down on what, try and pull Lee’s name out of the crowd.  Once we’ve got a hit on a likely account I can try and see if there’s anyway to get identifying information off of it, computers aren’t my speciality but I’m stubborn and—”

Burr, without looking at him, took out his phone and began to rapidly type.

Hamilton forced himself to stop, his adrenaline already too high to make that easy.  “What are you doing?”

“Trying the smart way first.”  He turned his phone to show Hamilton.

 

> A. Burr: Hey, André.  Alexander’s going to invest the $500 from John’s father.  It’s true that Lee is organizing a pool, isn’t it?

 

“We don’t need to jump straight to accusing her of anything, let’s just get him to set up a time for her to talk with us and we can try to feel—”

Even out on the balcony they were interrupted by how quickly Mulligan’s bedroom door opened.

“Alex, wait—!”

They couldn’t quite make out the other confused voices.  Shooting a startled look to each other, they opened the window leading to the living room and climbed back inside.  André, phone in his hand, was standing in obvious panic at the other end of the room.

His eyes flicked around at the group, Mulligan and the Schuylers sitting in startled bewilderment where he clearly anticipated to see Hamilton and Burr and a pile of cash.

His eyes met Hamilton’s.

Hamilton felt his heart plummet.  “You know.”

Burr closed the window.

“You _know_ ,” Hamilton repeated, words rising in sudden anger as he stepped towards him.  “You know about that bastard’s scam and you’re just going along with it?  Even after what he’s done to— You’re _stealing_ from people!  From your friends!  And then you’re—”  His eyes darted to the phone and to the door Laurens was still cloistered behind and the memory of the throw and the catch and the tackle played out clear as day in front of him.  “Was the game where John got wounded your inspiration?  Did you sign on at that point, did you whore yourself out in order to make up for it?  Or were you already in on it and just fucked up that badly anyway? ”

André had his hands up, eyes wide and almost comically frightened.

“Or not so badly,” Hamilton went on, his shoulders tensing, his finger out accusatorially, pointing at André like the sight on a gun.  “Was that part of it, did you get a fat payout, did you and Lee play up like it was such a bad thing?”

“What going on here?”  Mulligan asked, still seated but tense and ready to spring to his feet.

“We know Lee is planning to throw the championship and make himself a pretty penny,” Burr said, stepping forward and putting a restraining hand on Hamilton’s shoulder.  His voice was calm and without the violent waver to it that Hamilton’s had.  “You’ve made that very clear,” he said to André.  “Why else react like you did?  You haven’t even tried to deny it.”

Mulligan slowly stood.  “I still don’t know what the fuck is happening,” he said, his voice just as measured as his actions as he spoke to André.  “But you’re going to sit your ass down in the kitchen and we’re going to figure this all out before you’re responsible for a second fistfight in my apartment in one month.”

André backed wordlessly into the kitchen and sat heavily in the chair.  It pushed backwards across the tiled floor with his weight and knocked against the small table, shaking the open containers of take-out on it.

“Alex.”  Eliza was at his side, her hands on his arm.

“Ask him,” Hamilton said, answering her unspoken question, his voice still shaking slightly.  He swallowed hard, trying to get control of himself.  “André.”  He managed to sound more pulled together and drew strength from the short squeeze Eliza gave him.  “From the start.”


	194. The Trial of Major John André

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting Some Answers

Laurens was jerked out of something almost like sleep by loud voices outside.  He couldn’t quite follow them but he recognized Hamilton’s and he raised his head from his hands at how sharp it sounded.  He stared at the desk across from him, at the syllabi pinned up to the cork board and the small potted cactus in one corner.  It could almost be Martha’s room.  There was a knock on the door and then it opened.

“John?”

Laurens looked at Peggy.  She seemed distressed and trying to keep a calm façade up for his benefit.  He felt his brows knit and he stood.

“What is it?”

“Um.”  She looked back over her shoulder, down the hall.  “Are you off the phone?  I think you’re gonna want to—You should come.”

He followed her out of the room.  He could see the others crowded around the entrance to the kitchen and suddenly, without knowing why, he felt fear translating itself into anger rise within him.

“What’s going on?”

They all turned.  Laurens seemed to fill the hallway and Peggy hurried over to the group, linking her arm with Angelica’s.

Laurens strode forward.  Burr stepped back so that he could stand next to Hamilton.  André was in the middle of his explanation.

“I’ve _grown up_ around people doing things like this!  I spent my whole childhood watching my parents discuss shady trade deals, money laundering, things appearing where they’re not supposed to be.  People using their connections to move huge funds around in a more _legal_ way—”

“Your father is a diplomat,” Burr said.  “Forgive me, but this sounds a little out of his official job description.”

“My mother is part of a commercial dynasty,” André snapped.  “She grew up knowing everyone who’s anyone in two countries, why do you think I was an idol?  I didn’t get scouted off the street, they _know_ people.  Don’t act like you know more of what I am talking about than I do.”

Hamilton hesitated.  He looked at Laurens.

“What does this all have to do with Lee?”

“Your captain is betting against you,” Mulligan said.  “At least, that’s what these two Sherlocks here think and what we’re trying to figure out from this one.”

“Lee’s planning on throwing the championship game,” André explained breathlessly.  “It doesn’t matter to him if we win it, he’s leaving after this year and won’t be playing anymore.”

“The same goes for you,” Hamilton said.

André made a restrained frustrated gesture with both hands.  “That’s incidental!  You have to listen to me!”

“How did you find out about what he was doing?”

André turned to Angelica.  “Peggy told me.  Not your sister,” he added quickly, “Margaret Shippen.”

Laurens felt like his world was threatening to unravel at the seams and between this conversation and the one with his sister he couldn’t process it all quickly enough to tell what shape it would take once reformed.  “What?”

“Does this mean you know that Mina’s in on it too?”

“Mina isn't in on anything,” André protested vehemently.  “And neither was Margaret.  They just—They just know Lee,” he argued, “and he was using them.  I _know_ he’s been playing me,” he said.  “I know he set them both up to date me, I know he thought he could manipulate me like that—and it’s not like anyone else disagreed with him,” he added in a swipe at the team at large.  “I’m not a _moron_.  But, like, I liked them and at least I was getting something out of it.”

“Ms. Shippen told you about Lee?”  Angelica asked after silence greeted André’s revelation.

André nodded.  “Yeah.  When we broke up she mentioned that he had encouraged her to date me, but…”  He trailed off and seemed to me carefully curating his words.  “She’s really smart, you know.  She picks up on things.  She knew Alexander and Laurens were dating before I did.”

Laurens glanced at Hamilton in surprise and saw him press his eyes shut and realized that was just confirmation of what he had already suspected.

“Anyway, she… suspected,” André went on.  “Lee implied as much when she asked.  And he gave her things sometimes.  Encouraged her not to end things.”  He gave a dry hurt laugh.  “Tallmadge actually tried to talk to me about it once, he said he thought she was only dating me because she was friends with Lee and he was pushing her into it.  Something like that.  I didn’t want to believe him then, but…”  His uncomfortable attempt at a smile was more like a grimace.  “A couple of times Lee definitely paid her not to break up with me before an important game.”

“And you just went along with it.”

“Yeah.”  André shrugged.  “I figured it wasn’t really hurting anyone.  It’s not like he wanted us to do badly, he was just making some extra money off of it.  It was dumb but seemed like a win-win.”

Hamilton winced.

“Okay,” Angelica said, “but then he switched what he was going for.  It looks to me like the best way to lose a game is to get someone like the quarterback on your side.”

“I’m not sure when exactly he changed his plan,” André said.  “Maybe he was switching back and forth all along, I don’t know.  I just know that I screwed him over when we lost to Monmouth before and I realized he wanted to make his money back and then some by deliberately losing again Halloween night when Margaret told me she was planning on breaking up with me for good during finals anyway and that she was, I quote, ‘done with both of us.’”

“After the last game of the regular season,” Hamilton said.  “Before the championship game over winter break.”

André nodded.  “Exactly.  She was pretty pissed,” he went on.  “She told me that he had given her a window in December to break up with me, said that he didn’t want her with me after that anyway.  And, not right then, but as I thought about it after…  It all fell into place, you know?  He didn’t want us to perform well after the main season ended.  I don’t know what else if anything he was planning on doing to ensure that, but you know he’s good at getting under people’s skin.”

“Tench,” Laurens muttered, remembering his conversation with Tallmadge in the bathroom.

The others looked at him.

“He hates him,” Angelica said.

It was Laurens’ turn to give her a surprised look.  Angelica met it and lifted her shoulders slightly, almost challenging him to argue.

Lafayette made eye contact with Hamilton.  They both stared down the memory of the field and the long list of Laurens’ penalties, wondering how many involved Lee knowing how to get under his skin as well.

“When he asked me for additional money the other day,” André said, “I knew it sounded sketchy.  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”  He looked at Laurens.  “I wanted to check—I wanted to make sure he wasn’t trying to scam you too…  He said he hadn’t contacted anyone else but I didn’t really trust him not to lie about it.”

Laurens shook his head, at a loss for words.

“Tell us more about that.”

André nodded, turning to Hamilton.  “Right.  Like I said, he never offered me a cut—I think he was just going to pay me back what I had given him later.  I figured that I’d give it to him and then after he had added it to his pile, I’d—”  He stopped himself again.  “Figure out where to go from there,” he finished lamely.

“Nuh-uh,” Mulligan said, arms folded.  “You did not get this far in your schemin’ before running into a wall and deciding to wing it.”

“He’s right,” Burr agreed.  “If you really were planning to catch him in his act, then explain how.”

André hesitated.  “You need to believe me about Mina,” he began.

Hamilton, unable to help himself, ran a hand over his face.

“Listen,” André argued.  “I asked her to talk to Lee about it and try to get information out of him—”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that all these girls he is setting you up with are just taking advantage of you?  You already know they’re only dating you because he was—how do you say—he was giving them things—”

“Mina’s not like that,” André said, his voice rising.  “And—and neither was Peggy, they’re not—She was just talking to him and telling me what he said.  I thought he’d let something incriminating slip.  I can call her back, we were just talking about this in the other room.”

There was a brief silence.

“Let me get this straight.”  Mulligan began to count off the order of events on his fingers.  “You’re saying that Lee was playing you with the other Peggy in an attempt to get the team winning.  She knew at least some of what was going on there and you knew that he was paying her off.  Then you two broke up and she told you that she was gonna dump your ass with his blessing after finals anyway.  Then Lee sends Mina your way and you filled her in and asked her to get more information from him, then he asks you for money.”

“Basically,” André said with a nod.

“I’m not looking for ‘basically,’ kid, I’m looking for the truth.”

“That is the truth.”

Lafayette let out a sigh of relief.

“Really?”

“ _Peggy_ ,” Lafayette complained, turning quickly to her.

“I’m just saying!  Like, if you look at that timeline,” she looked over at Angelica for reassurance, “couldn’t it also be that he he was in on it the whole time and Lee was just, I dunno, getting him girlfriends?  And that he didn’t want Alex to get caught up in it?  Or even if he didn’t know until, um, until the other Peggy said anything, there’s no proof that he didn’t go in on it at that point.  I’m just saying, it’s awfully convenient that he could have been doing some kind of dumb spy thing this whole time.”

“They were doing a dumb spy thing,” Lafayette said, gesturing at Hamilton and Burr.  “I know they were, they told me about it!”

“Lafayette’s right,” Eliza said.  “It sounds like he was just trying to help.”

“Or he was tryin’ to get in on the action.”

“He asked you for money,” Burr said with a nod to Mulligan.  “And your… partner was asking him for more details after he promised her some kind of payment.  This is all, at the very least, incredibly messy.”

“I believe him,” Hamilton said defiantly.

Burr scoffed.  “You would.”

“I do.  So what if this was unconventional, everything here’s unconventional.  He was trying to do the same thing I was and he beat me to the punch.  Well, mostly,” Hamilton conceded.  “I don’t see anything wrong.”

“How about the fact that nothing he said actually means anything?  Stop hearing only what you want to, Alexander, and admit that this all looks like some massive cover story.  At minimum someone needs to go verify Mina’s account before we just decide that he’s off the hook.”

Hamilton paused, then turned back to André.  “How did you get her to agree to this if there was nothing in it for her?”

André hesitated, obviously reluctant to say any more.  “She hates him too.  There’s nothing for her to gain from this financially because she doesn’t like him and initially came to tell me that he had asked her to date me and she thought that was vile.  He asked her because he thought she’d be easy—an easy mark—and she was so pissed that she agreed only so she could tell me what happened.  I already  knew, so we talked and…”  He trailed off.

“Was it Mina’s idea to play Lee?”  Angelica asked.

André didn’t answer.

Laurens spoke.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  I could have helped.”

André looked suddenly wane and guilty.  “…I just didn't want to get you involved, I guess,” he said lamely.  “It’s not your problem.”

“I’m on the team, aren’t I?”  Laurens asked with a flash of heat.  “So it seems like it’s pretty much my fucking problem.”

“Lee was being an asshole,” André said, “to you.  To… to you in particular.  I wanted to help.”

Laurens stared at him, incredulous.  André looked young and caught out and earnest and somehow that made it difficult to forgive him any attempt at chivalry.

“If you had wanted to help,” Laurens began, “you could have tried actually behaving like a friend instead of playing at being the hero.”

André shrunk back against the chair.  Lafayette shifted his weight towards him.

“I mean, if you had actually wanted to _help_ ,” Laurens went on, “you could have told him off when he was being a jackass or said something to _me_ about it—”

“I did at my apartment,” André interjected.

“Just this _week_!  Lee’s been a condescending prick for _ages_!  If you actually wanted to help you could have not gone the entire fucking semester making nice with him to my _face_ and making me wonder whose side you were really on!  _Fuck_ ,” Laurens swore, any remaining numbness from his call to his sister melting off and turning into steam, “even if this is all true, you clearly cared more about playing some role than actually helping me so you can take that excuse and _shove_ it.”

A tense silence filled the kitchen and Laurens became aware first that not all eyes were on him in spite of his outburst and then that he had overlooked something Hamilton had let slip earlier.

He turned to him.  The question was visible on his face because Hamilton nodded and opened his mouth to answer it before he even asked it.

“You were also—”

“John, it’s not like that.”  Hamilton jumped straight to pleading, facing him straight on with his hands palm up between them.  “I just—You were so _upset_ , J., remember, when you came to the office that evening when I was doing all the shredding?  I couldn’t just—the look on your face, J., you’d’ve done the same, I couldn’t stand there and let him get away with it, I couldn’t.”

Angelica closed her eyes and turned her head away.

“He hurt you and I wanted to hurt him back and I said it then, I said that you weren’t going to let me and that was bullshit, do you remember?”

Laurens nodded, feeling once again like his world was reshaping itself before his eyes.  “Yeah.  I do.”

“So I just…”  Hamilton took a deep breath, eyes closed for a moment before he continued.  He deliberately touched the tips of his fingers together.  “I asked Burr for a favor.”

Laurens’ gaze flicked briefly to Burr, who gave the smallest nod of his head.

“I asked if he’d help me find some kind of disqualifying dirt on Lee, something that wouldn’t require you to speak up yourself.  We tossed around a couple ideas, didn’t we?”  Hamilton encouraged Burr to speak up.

“We did,” Burr confirmed.  “Mostly Hamilton wanted another set of eyes and ears on Lee under the assumption that he would eventually slip up and say something stupid and we could report him.”

Mulligan snorted.  “Passive.  Works better if you actively try to get in with them.”  He inclined his head towards André.

“We knew you wouldn’t want our help,” Hamilton said, intentionally including André in his statement.  “But we wanted to give it to you anyway.”

Anticipatory silence filled the room again and this time all eyes were on Laurens.

He shook his head slowly and pushed his hand up into his hair.  “I need a drink.”

“Fridge.”  Mulligan knocked on it with his fist.  “Beer.”

Laurens opened it.

“J.”

“I’m not mad at you.  Either of—Well, I’m not mad at _you_.”  Laurens closed the door, beer in hand and using it to gesture at Hamilton.  “You,” he said, directing the bottle at André, “If you’re telling the truth, I’m still a little pissed with.  I’ll get over it.  If you’re telling the truth, that is.”

The tension in the air didn’t break but it eased and Mulligan motioned them out of the kitchen as he gathered up the leftovers.

“I moved out to get _away_ from all the drama,” Peggy complained, grabbing Angelica’s hand and collapsing with her down onto the couch.  “This had a courtroom theme and _everything_.”

“It’s not over yet,” Angelica pointed out.  “The jury decided to hold off on pronouncing innocence or guilt and we haven’t even begun to talk about what we’re going to do next.”

“Go tell… whoever you’d tell for something like this.  Alex’s boss, I don’t know.  Whoever.”

“That’s right,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, sitting on the arm rest next to them.  “Washington can take care of it.  He even knows and likes John and he’ll see that this is all a big misunderstanding, it will be very easy.”

Hamilton chewed on his lower lip.  He looked at Burr.

Burr held his gaze, then sighed and turned to André, standing by the entrance to the kitchen.  “Did you or your girlfriend actually give Lee the money he wanted?”

“Hm?”  André sounded dazed.  “No.  Why?”

Burr turned to Lafayette.  “As long as André acts first, he should just be able to claim that Lee was trying to take advantage of him.  I don’t think he or Mina would get in trouble.  If your aim is to screw over Lee and you’ve decided that you believe that other one, then you likely have what you need.”

Lafayette nodded.

“He hasn’t really done anything,” Eliza said.  She stood behind the couch and leaned her elbows on it.  “André, that is.  Oh, it’ll be messy to sort this all out last minute, though.”

“He’s done things if he was conspiring to throw their championship game.”

“But that hasn’t happened yet.  Lee would just have been paying him to play well, which is not an offense and doesn’t even make any sense since why would he even bother?”

“Do you think the school will act quickly enough on it if we bring it to their attention?”  Angelica asked, tipping her head back to look at her.  “Lee’s a bit of a golden boy, but it’s threatening their bottom line.”

Eliza ran her hands through Angelica’s hair, teasing out a section of it and toying with it.  “I think so.”

“Then it’s decided.”  Mulligan put the last of the food away in the fridge and slammed the door.  “Monday someone takes this one down to talk to the proper authorities about how he was getting played.  He clears his name, works off his debt by doing what he should have done in the first place one way or the other, y’all bag yourselves an asshole.  Problem solved.”

There was the loud clatter of glass on glass as Laurens dropped his empty bottle into the recycling bin.

“I’ll take him.  Right now.”  He pointed at André.  “You’ve got your car, we’re driving up to the Washingtons’ with Lafayette and you’re telling him everything you just told us.  Got it?”

André nodded.

“Give me your phone.”  Laurens put his hand out.  “You’re not contacting anyone until after we’ve got this whole thing sorted out.”

André hesitated, then turned over his phone.  Laurens powered it down and put it in his pocket.

“Lafayette,” he said without taking his eyes off André.  “Do you want to let them know to expect us?”

Lafayette got to his feet.  “Ah, let me just gather my things.  Alex,” he said, “do you want to…?”

Hamilton looked at Burr.  “I think,” he said, “I think we need to go find Mina.”

“Give them her number,” Laurens commanded André with a tip of his head at Hamilton.

“It’s the middle of the night—”

“Then they’re going to wake up the entire sorority,” Laurens began, his voice rising.  “Until they get her to come down.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”  Angelica sat up straight, her words as sharp as her gestures between Laurens and the other two.  “John, no.  These two boys are not going to go trespass on a _sorority house_ in the middle of the night looking for a girl only one of them barely knows.  Don’t be ridiculous.  André,” she went on, “we can send her a message now or you can do it after you inevitably get your phone back at the president’s house.  I think it would be worth talking to her as well,” she went on, “but you all should keep in mind that if she is working with Lee she might just turn around and tell him.  Although she may have raised the alarm anyway when André dropped the call to run in here in a panic.  I’m not convinced that matters either way at this point, but don’t be shocked if it happens.”

“She won’t tell him anything,” André said.  “I swear.”

There was a brief silence.

“Give her the number,” Hamilton said.  “We can—Maybe Washington would want to talk to her too, we should see if we can get in contact with her.”

Angelica passed André her phone.

“There.”  He typed the number in and passed it back.

“ _I’ll_ contact her,” Angelica assured him.  “And _if_ she’s willing then I’ll take these two with me to talk to her.  In a properly lit and appropriate location of her choice.  I’ll tell her that you’re going to talk to the president now.”

“All right,” Mulligan said.  “That’s that.  You three hop to Washington’s before you’re guaranteed to be waking everyone up and we’ll sort the rest of it out here.”

Lafayette followed Laurens and André, the latter practically being herded by the former, out the door, his phone already to his ear.  He paused in the threshold and waved goodbye to the others, then ducked out into the hall for what looked like a long tense drive.


	195. A Technicality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drive; Mina; Collateral Damage

“Turn right in one mile.”

Laurens put the blinker on and moved them into the far right lane without missing a beat.  His phone continued to track their progress from its spot in front of the gear shift.

“I’m telling the truth,” André said.  It was the first time he had spoken since giving Laurens permission to drive his car.  He glanced at him from his seat next to him.  “You know me.”

Laurens breathed out sharply, not needing words to indicate exactly what he thought of that argument.

“I believe you,” Lafayette said, leaning forward from the back seat of the car.

“Thank you.”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Laurens said abruptly.  “And you might as well practice your answer on me because I bet you’re going to have to give it to Washington as well.  You said that Mina came to you and said that Lee was being a shithead and she wanted to screw him over.”

“Right.”

“Why didn't you just go with her to Coach at that point?  What more did you actually need from him if both of you—all three of you, if we’re counting Peggy, too—knew what he was doing?”

“I didn’t have any proof,” André tried to explain.  “I didn’t—He had never come right out and told any of us, ‘yeah, I’m trying to make money by throwing this game,’ so I thought that if we played it cool and Mina and I just kept talking to him…”

“Well, you weren’t any good at that, were you?”  Laurens slowed the car down more roughly than he needed to as they neared the vehicle ahead of them.  “Now it’s just closer to the end of the season.  What were you going to do if he never said anything?  Were you just going to play out the clock?”

“Of course not.”

“When were you going to let anyone else know?”

André was silent.

Laurens swore at the mild traffic as if it was personally attacking him.

“I’m sorry,” André said after they had been sitting in the car for several long seconds of uncomfortable silence.

“That’s not good enough.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“Then don’t say it like it is.”

“I didn’t do anything,” André said as the streetlights flashed over them.  “And maybe—And I should have, but at least I didn’t _do_ anything.  I didn’t compromise our playing, I didn’t set us up to fail.  We’re still going to go to championships, bar something really ridiculous happening.”

“Thanks to you,” Laurens pointed out angrily, “something ridiculous _is_ happening.”

“Thanks to Lee.”

“And, yeah, you should have done something, that much is obvious.  You shouldn’t have just _made nice_ with that asshole—”

“I was trying to get back at him,” André said, his voice rising a little.  He twisted in his seat to face Laurens more directly.  “For the things he said to me and to _you_ —”

“I never asked you to do that!”  Laurens put the blinker back on with a quick angry snap of his hand and turned them sharply onto the exit.

Lafayette decided it was best not to point out similarities to what Hamilton had been doing, especially as he was involved with that.  He leaned back and sank down in his seat, out of the way.

“You were still getting something out of it,” Laurens said after a minute.  “Those girls were still dating you and as long as you went along with it you still had that.  Don’t act like you were doing me some big favor.  Don’t act like you didn’t have a vested interest in playing along for as long as possible.”

“Mina—”

“Don’t tell me crap about Mina” Laurens said, cutting him off.  He swore at the road again.  “Did you draw it out so that you’d have an excuse to keep seeing her?  You said that she was offended from the get-go so why wouldn’t she want to just wash her hands of it all?”

“She said that she wanted to screw him over,” André protested.  “…I might have told her that we had more time to try to get information out of him than she initially thought.”

In the back Lafayette sank further down with a grimace, his face illuminated by his phone.

“But I really did think there was time still,” André continued quickly.  “And she—We are actually dating,” André said.  “She _likes_ me.  More than Margaret ever did.  It’s nice to have someone actually want to be with me for a change.  And Lee wanted to keep winning until the end of the regular season, so there’s no need to act yet.”

Laurens gave him a dark look and André rephrased.

“…I mean, not _just_ yet.  Soon, though.”

Laurens turned his attention back to the road with a long, frustrated hiss of breath between his teeth.

 

“Thank you for meeting with us.”

Mina shushed Hamilton and motioned quickly for him to keep his voice down.  She looked back over her shoulder at the house behind her, most of its windows dark.  “I said I was stepping out to say hi to a friend who was having drama,” she explained, linking her arm through Angelica’s and tugging her close.  Her face was shadowed by the hood of her coat, tossed on over pajamas and soft boots.  She was speaking quietly but sounded genuinely distressed.  “You said you needed to talk to me about André?  What happened?  Is he okay?”

“We know what the two of you were doing,” Burr said.  “Or, at least, we know what we found out independently and we know what he said happened when we confronted him and we wanted to hear if you could corroborate his story.”

“About Lee?”  Mina asked immediately.  She switched to holding Angelica’s arm with her far hand and wrapping her other arm around her.  She leaned in a little to talk in a lower tone.  “That jerk had been practically blackmailing Peggy into dating André for _months_ ,” she said, her words switching from anxious to angry.  “And then when she finally got so fed up with it that she broke up with him anyway he had the nerve to come to me and ask if I’d take her place.”

“She did cheat on him,” Hamilton pointed out.

Mina made a face at him.

“Hey, I’m just saying.  I stuck up for her.”

“Thank you,” she said, very dryly.

“Lee came to you?”  Angelica prompted.

“Right.  Can you believe it?”

Angelica made a consoling noise and Mina continued.

“She’s my _sister_ ,” Mina said.  “So I thought that what I’d do would be to go right to André and tell him exactly what was going on.”

“He must have been surprised.”

Mina shook her head at Burr.  “He already knew.  He said that Peggy had told him more or less what was happening.  That she had agreed to date him at Lee’s request and that Lee had been giving her things to get her to stay.  He had also threatened to tell everyone she was a slut if she dumped him,” Mina said, angling to talk more directly to Angelica.  “But Peggy figured that there was no way Lee could reasonably expect they’d keep dating after she kissed that other guy anyway and André found out about it.  Like, you know.”

Angelica nodded, her mouth set in a tightly controlled frown.

“Anyway, I’m not stupid,” Mina continued.  “I don’t know why he thought that we don’t all talk.   Why are the three of you here instead of André?”

“He’s going to talk to Dr. Washington right now,” Angelica said, fielding her sudden question.

“Now?”  Mina sounded obviously caught off guard and her dark eyes widening.  “It’s the middle of the night!”

“Our mutual friend is basically Washington’s adopted son,” Hamilton started, gesturing off to the side to an invisible Lafayette.  “—Look.”  He cut himself off before he could get into it.  “That’s not important.  The point is that André’s in a shit ton of trouble if they decide that he was lying and you’re his get out of jail free card.”  He tried to ignore the continued skepticism about André’s involvement he could feel coming off of Burr in waves.  “André isn’t Lee, so do you want to help him or not?”

Mina hesitated, then spoke.  “André told me he knew Lee was trying to secretly manipulate him.  He said he suspected he had some way of making money if they made it to the championship game but lost it.  Neither of us had any proof of that, though.  I was really mad at Lee,” she said.  “If it was true then I wanted to hear him to say something incriminating so I could really get back at him.”

They stood in silence for a beat.  

“There you have it,” Burr said.  “Thank you,” he told Mina.

“Yeah.”  She shivered and let go of Angelica.  “Are we good here?  Am I in trouble?  I don’t think I did anything wrong.  I never took any money from him or anything.”

“This is a very strange situation,” Angelica said.  “But if this is all of it then I think you’re fine.”

Hamilton put his hands in his pockets.  “You’ll probably have to tell people this again.”

Mina grimaced.  “Fantastic.  And,” she continued haltingly, “André?”

“If they can verify all of this, I think it’ll really help him.”

“Good.”  She wrapped her arms across her frame and took a step backwards towards the house.  “He’s a good guy.  I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

 

> G. Lafayette: So hopefully Washington will be able to straighten everything out by next weekend.

> G. Lafayette: That is a full week!  It is still only Saturday.  Barely.

> G. Lafayette: But he has time!

> A. de Noailles: Wow…  Poor André :(

> G. Lafayette: I know :((((

> A. de Noailles: I’m glad that the US allows gambling or there really wouldn’t be a good way out.  Even if he explained what was going on and that it was not his idea, he’d still have been potentially participating in something illegal.  So I’m glad that he doesn’t have to worry about that and can focus on just clearing his name from his contact with Lee.

> G. Lafayette: Not all states allow gambling!  Alexander told me about this once

> G. Lafayette: He said that not all states legalized it and I’m sure that even the ones that did have it so that there are various restrictions…

 

Lafayette looked up from his phone with a frown.  The world outside the car was largely dark and impenetrable now that they were off the main streets and onto the network of winding roads, somewhere between rural and suburban, near the Washingtons’ property.  He could tell they were close by the feel of the curving road and he spoke as he opened a new tab on his phone and ran a search.

“John.”

No response.

“John,” he repeated.  “John Laurens,” he said, an impatient edge to his voice.  “But also both of you.”

“What is it?”

“Some of your teammates were putting their own money in, correct?”

“On our own team,” Laurens said.  “Why?”

“When André talks to Washington, he needs to emphasize that the site Lee was showing around was not technically a gambling site,” he said, “but fantasy sports.”

Laurens slowed the car to a halt on the side of the street.  “Fuck.  _Fuck_ ,” he repeated, “I read about this in class before.  You’re right.”

“And I don’t know what all of your paperwork and contracts look like,” Lafayette added, “but you should think first and make sure that you are not about to toss all of your friends into the fire.”

“Fuck,” Laurens said again, under his breath this time, struggling to remember what any of it said.  They had signed things.  He had read them.

“It’s okay,” André said.  Lafayette and Laurens both looked at him.  “There’s nothing in there about this sort of thing.  There will be now,” he added.  “But technically they didn’t do anything wrong.  I wouldn’t have let them,” he said.  “Really.  I would have said something.  Reminded them.”

“Of course you would have.”

“I’m still their friend, aren’t I?”  André sounded angry now and returned to Laurens, one hand on his chest.  “You’re studying to be a lawyer, Laurens, think about it.  There was a loophole—twice, because _technically_ it’s not a  gambling site and then again because the school’s regulations on that sort of thing are outdated anyway.  They’re fine, I looked into it!  Check my work if you don’t trust me anymore.”

Laurens struggled with his response, torn between telling him that he was right, he didn’t trust him and he needed to see the proof, and wanting to vent that he couldn’t follow _anything_ , not when there was so much going on and he was trying to just stay sane and keep it together.

“Fine,” he said, his words curt with the effort of controlling himself.  “I trust you.”

“Do you?”

“On this.  You’d be a lot more fucked if it turned out that you knew all along that they were screwing themselves.  You did your research and aren’t about to get a whole bunch of guys out for your blood?”  When André held his gaze without flinching away in guilt or fear, Laurens took the break off the car and moved them back into the middle of the lane.  “All right.  I don’t know if I trust you to be a good friend, but I do trust you to have left yourself an escape hatch, both with them and to cover your own ass.”

“Why is it so difficult to believe me?”  André asked, sounding just as angry as Laurens had.  “Are you just pissed that I acted on this before you did?”

“Yes,” Laurens said, his hands tight on the wheel and his voice rising.  “All right?  In part, yes.  I should have done something if it was that big of a deal and I didn’t and I never do and I hate that you all were trying to fight my battles for me, and apparently thought I was too weak to even know!”

“Lee was a jerk to me, too.  Maybe that had something to do with it.”

“You already said that part of it was because I didn’t like him.  And, besides, even if—I should have done something,” Laurens said.  “You were apparently strong enough to stand up for yourself and I should have done the same.”

“Why do you think you should be any more responsible than me?  Do you think I’m not as capable as you are?”

“You’re clearly very capable,” Laurens shot back.  “You were capable enough to go behind my back for weeks!”

There was silence.  Washington’s house came into view over a row of trees, a light on in one of the front rooms.

“You’re doing something now,” André said, his words level.  “I don’t know when I was going to actually _act_.”

Laurens’ whole body was tense as he turned them up the driveway, rolling the car to a halt.

“You can help me get him.”

“I drove you here,” Laurens said.  “Alex forced this all out into the open tonight and Lafayette is giving us our best shot at getting this taken care of quickly and with actual consequences.  _You’re_ going to get him.”


	196. Awaiting Judgement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the Washingtons'

Lafayette hurried ahead of the other two, slamming the car door behind him and taking the steps up to the front door two at a time with a familiarity that betrayed how many times he had been there in the last year.

He had barely raised his hand to knock at the door when it opened.

“Come in.”

Lafayette did so, speaking to Washington in a lowered voice just out of sight of Laurens and André around the corner from the door.

“This is all a big mistake,” he said.  “John André was not actually involved in any of it.  He just saw what was going on and had not yet had the opportunity to prove that he was correct and talk to anyone.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Washington said.  “Let me hear what he has to say.”

“I heard him explain it all already,” Lafayette said, earnest and frantic as Laurens and André came up the walk.  “He might not do a very good job talking to you because it is late and we frightened him, but—”

“I know it is late,” Washington said, cutting him off.  Lafayette realized that the reason he was so neatly dressed had to be because he had just changed for them.  “And this is not my actual job.  I would normally have it delegated to someone else and unless everything is a complete childish misunderstanding, I am going to have to call some people before we make any decisions about John André or Charles Lee.”

“Just Lee,” Lafayette said, quickly correcting him.  “Just Lee.  André is on our side.”

“I cannot take sides with individual students at the risk of damaging the university.  That is not my job.”

Lafayette’s eyes widened and he felt his chest tighten.

“I will listen to what this young man has to say and the extent of my favor here is that I am willing to do it at midnight instead of instructing you to send this all through the proper channels in the morning.  Am I clear?”

Lafayette, for once mute, nodded.

Washington sighed and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his temples.  Outside, Laurens and André climbed the steps.

“I’m sorry.  It is late.  If he did nothing wrong then he is not in any trouble.”

“He didn’t,” Lafayette said, not sure if there was a difference in that moment between hope and defiance.

“I know he is your friend, but you shouldn’t trust everything that everyone says.”

“With respect,” Lafayette said, finding the words easily and truthfully, “I believe that I should trust people as much as I am privileged to.”

Washington gave him a piercing look, then turned to bring in Laurens and André.  “Come,” he said.  He put his hand out.  “John André?”

André, obviously nervous as he stood in the entryway, shook it.

“Let’s talk in my study.  I’ve had rooms made up for all of you in case it is too late for you to reasonably drive back when we are done.  Lafayette, would you mind showing Laurens to his?  It is the same one as last time.”

Lafayette nodded.  “It will be all right,” he told André reassuringly as Washington led him off.

Laurens made a quiet derisive noise.

“It will be,” Lafayette told him.

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Laurens folded his arms.

“I would like a drink before we go upstairs,” Lafayette said, heading towards the kitchen and obviously assuming Laurens would follow him.

He did.  “Not that hot chocolate again.”

“No.  Water.”  Lafayette opened the cabinet and took out two glasses as comfortably as if he was in his own house.  “How did your conversation with your sister go?  You were in Peggy’s room for a long time.”

“Bad.”

Lafayette gave Laurens a startled look.  He had expected some kind of deflection.  Instead, Laurens was standing just inside the kitchen, staring in exhaustion straight ahead.  His folded arms made him look less obstinate and more like he was trying to physically hold himself together.

“It’s been a long night,” Lafayette said.

Laurens nodded.  “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry your call did not go well.”

Laurens shrugged.  “I’m…  It went fine.”  He sounded a little bitter.  “She didn’t say anything wrong.  I think it was good that I talked to her.  She apologized for some of the shit she told Alex, that was nice.  She thinks I’m overreacting about our dad.”

Lafayette filled both glasses and handed one to Laurens.

“Thank you.”  Laurens took a long drink and then continued.  He sounded openly uncertain and it made Lafayette both want to encourage him to keep talking and wish that he was not the one who was there for him to speak to.  “I really don’t know what he’ll do.  And it’s dumb, because he’s all talk on some things and it’s not like he hasn’t told me before that I’m a disappointment or whatever.  He always comes back around when I prove him wrong.  I guess I’m just not sure I can work hard enough to prove him wrong on this one.”

“I think it’s very brave of you to want to tell him.”

“Thanks.”  Laurens took another drink and then put the glass down on the counter.  “I don’t know how you know that, but you’re right.  Part of me does want to tell him.  I think…  I just want to make him angry,” he admitted.  “And I know that’s not a good idea.  But I just can’t—stand the idea of him pitying me and then the rest of you for your association with me.  It’s like…  I was sitting in the other room after talking to my sister and I wasn’t really thinking about much of anything.  Just little random bits of information.  But I was remembering learning about ethylene glycol in high school,” he said.  “Antifreeze.  I remember reading in our textbook that part of the reason it’s so dangerous is because it’s sweet-tasting.  But it’ll still kill you.”  He had been looking at his glass and he turned his face to Lafayette’s, an unspoken question in the way his words hung hesitantly in the air.

Lafayette nodded and put his arm around his shoulders.  “I know what you mean.”

Laurens didn’t say anything.

“I do,” Lafayette assured him.  “I know it sounds like I am just playing along, but I understand exactly what you mean.  That’s almost the entire reason why I had to go abroad.  I felt like I was suffocating in that kind of, ah, that cloying environment.  It was like trying to breathe through cotton candy.  Sticky sweet.  Everything wrapped in pastels.  Everything a treat.  I could never really do wrong and if I did it was so meaningless anyway.  Poor little rich boy.”  He shrugged.  “That’s the truth of it, too, how can I even be mad about it?  I got people _angry_ with me when I left,” he said.  “So angry that they could not coach it in ‘you represent your family’ and ‘you don’t know any better yet.’  It sounds silly, but I almost could not imagine what anger would be like before it happened.”

“And Alex teases me about being spoiled.”

Lafayette laughed.  The sound was clear and clean in the room.  “I know!  It’s not very fair.”  He finished his water and let go of Laurens to rinse both glasses in the sink.  “I hurt people too,” he said.  “Quite badly.  But, I think, that if you act with good intentions and try to make amends then things have a way of working themselves out.  I would not do this again,” Lafayette said.  “I couldn’t, not knowing what I do now.  But at the same time I don’t regret doing it.  I’m very selfish like that.”

“Self-centered.”

“Is that a better word for it?  Either way, I don’t think anything you do could be nearly as, ah, disruptive as what I did.”  Lafayette put the glasses in the drying rack.  “So you don’t need to feel as guilty as I do.”

“Do you feel guilty?”  Laurens asked skeptically.

“Yes.  But it’s better on this side.  I might be a self-centered, thoughtless, terrible human being, but at least I feel like I _am_ human.  I…”  He trailed off, searching for the phrase he wanted.  “I have a _body_.”  He touched the tips of his fingers to his chest and looked at Laurens with something like amazement.  “Do you know?  I am not just a representation.”

Laurens nodded slowly.  “Thanks,” he said.  “Your English is very good.”

Lafayette’s face lit up.  “Really?  It is late and I am tired and it was hard to find all of the words.”

“Don’t tell Alex,” Laurens said, “but you’re about a hundred times better at languages than he is.”

“Ah, that is not true.”  Lafayette said, blushing with pleasure.  “Only about twice as good.  And I am living the immersion experience.”

“That’s true.”  Laurens ran a hand over the rough side of his jaw.  “So…”

“I’ll show you where your room is,” Lafayette said.  “I don’t know if you remember, since last time we spent half the visit in the study.”

“That was a weird trip.”

“I’ll say.  You two fooled around in the study.”

Laurens felt his face immediately heat.  “You knew about that?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Lafayette said with a practiced dignity to mask how hard he was trying not to laugh at him.  “Of course I knew.”

“Shit.  Sorry.  Is it bad if I blame Alex?”

“No, go ahead.  He’s not here to defend himself and we both know it was his fault.”

Laurens nodded.

Lafayette led the way out of the kitchen, then hesitated and looked over his shoulder at Laurens.  The door to the study was right next to the stairs.

“Can you hear anything?”  Laurens asked, giving Lafayette permission to sneak up to it and put his hands lightly against it, leaning his ear to the crack.  “I can’t believe this is happening,” he muttered.  “Not even _him_ ,” he added, gesturing towards the door.  “I can’t believe we’re all here in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, I know, I’m a very good person to know,” Lafayette whispered back, only paying half-attention.  “I can hear André talking,” he said.

Laurens took a step closer.  “Can you make out what he’s saying?”

“No.”

“Tone?”

“He sounds okay,” Lafayette said with relief.  “He doesn’t sound so scared like he did at the apartment.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Laurens said grudgingly.

“You want him to come out of this okay.”

Laurens pulled a face and looked away.

“You do,” Lafayette insisted.  He wondered for a moment if he was saying it because he really believed it to be true or just because he wanted it to be.

“It’d be easier.  It wouldn’t mean that the last however many years would have been a farce.”

“Washington is very fair,” Lafayette said, reassuring himself as well as Laurens.  “I’m sure he will see that he is not at fault here and everything will work itself out.”


	197. 3, 2, 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette; Hamilton; Laurens

Lafayette woke—again—to the sort of uncanny rawness of night that can only exist several hours after midnight with dawn still a long way off.  He lay in bed, perfectly alert and frustrated and too on edge to do better than pretend to sleep.

He reached out and picked his phone off the table.  No new messages.  He had only managed to sleep for an hour at a time at the most and he got up, feeling uneasily like he was a child again and waking from a bad dream to an unfamiliar room.  He turned on the light next to his bed and fixed the blankets, carefully smoothing them out and tucking them in.  He hesitated at his closed door for several minutes with one hand on the knob, his phone still in the other, then just when he had made up his mind to leave he heard a car pull into the driveway outside.  Curiosity more than pricked, he went to the window and craned his neck, unable to see more than the general glow of headlights.  They cut and he unlocked and opened the window a crack, letting in biting cold air and the sound of two car doors opening and then slamming shut.  There was an electronic beep as they locked, and then footsteps and a couple snatches of low voices.

Lafayette quickly closed the window and left his room, hovering in the hall with a look back at the closed door to the Washingtons’ bedroom.  He turned and silently let himself into the room Laurens was staying in, then hesitated again just inside.

The room was dark and quiet, save for Laurens’ slow and heavy breathing.  The sound was familiar after a year and a half of living with him, and Lafayette felt unexpectedly comforted by it.  He could just barely make out the expected curve of his body lying in the bed and he took a tentative step closer to him, freezing as the floorboards creaked under foot.

Through the open door behind him he could hear people talking downstairs.

It was four in the morning, too early or too late for anyone to come over if it was not for urgent business.

Lafayette wavered between the two points, then backed out of the room, carefully closing the door and standing at the top of the stairs, out of sight and unable to make out the entire conversation.

“The other half of this seems clear-cut enough.”

That was Washington’s voice.  Lafayette recognized it immediately and the recognition made it easier for him to understand.

Another man answered and Lafayette was too distracted by the accent to pick out the individual words or label the tone.

“Well,” that was Washington again, “it’s not the same.  The whole thing is undermining the value and capabilities of the program.  I’m waiting for a couple of calls back but on the face of it, my opinion is to expel the other boy.  The bigger question there is if it would be more or less damaging to let him finish out the season.”

The other voice again.  Lafayette was coming to assume that it was Laurens’ coach.  A woman cut in as soon as he paused and Lafayette looked, startled, back at the master bedroom.  He hadn’t realized it was empty or that he had managed to sleep soundly enough to not hear whatever movement must have occurred back and forth between the floors.

“—speak with him myself,” von Steuben was saying.  “But if—”  He was further away from the base of the stairs, which themselves did not lead out into the main hallway where it sounded like the conversation was taking place, and Lafayette could not hear all of what he was saying.  “—nothing more to do.  You are right.  André is in there?”

Lafayette heard Washington give an affirmative and could sense rather than hear the party break up.  He had an image of Washington leading von Steuben to the study and whoever else had come with him going into the kitchen—

The actors downstairs were moving faster than his imagination and suddenly he heard the open door that led from the kitchen to the stairs close and Martha Washington’s sigh as she began to head up to the second floor.

With a sudden burst of panic Lafayette recoiled from the railing he had been leaning on and looked desperately both ways down the hall before impulsively hurrying into Laurens’ room and shutting the door behind him.

Laurens was still asleep as Lafayette crept across the room and slipped under the covers next to him as unobtrusively as possible.  Laurens didn’t react other than with a soft grunt as the mattress shifted underneath him and to tug the blankets possessively more towards him.

Lafayette lay on his side facing his back, a series of thoughts chasing themselves around in his head.  He wasn’t a child, why had he done this?  What was he going to tell Laurens when he woke up?  For that matter, what was he going to tell him about what he had heard downstairs?  Why was it that being caught listening had seemed like the most impossibly terrifying prospect?

The thought of whatever he might see confirmed in Martha Washington’s face fell heavily into his stomach and wordlessly seemed to answer all of his questions.

The broad strokes of what to do about Lee seemed to have been decided upon.  It was just a matter of determining the collateral damage.

It couldn’t have been a good sign that von Steuben had been asked to drive up at such an hour.

He put his phone up to his face and began to type.

 

Hamilton woke alone in his apartment with a start.  At first he couldn’t figure out why he was awake—it was still very early and he hadn’t managed to fall asleep for hours.  He stared across the dark room for several seconds before he realized the sound he was hearing was his phone vibrating on his desk.

He pushed himself out of bed, shivering as his blankets fell away, and picked up his phone.  He squinted at the screen, then brought it closer to his face.  Without unlocking it he could only read the most recent message.

 

> G. Lafayette: I think he kicked André off the team.

 

Still half-asleep and confused, Hamilton felt for his glasses.  He put them on and crawled back into bed with his phone, then read through Lafayette’s messages explaining what had happened since he saw them last.

Hamilton lay there for a minute, awake and tense and not sure what to question first.

 

> A. Hamilton: Which “he”?

 

The fact that Lafayette did not answer right away told him the answer.

 

> G. Lafayette: Washington

 

Hamilton sighed and brushed his hair out of his face.

 

> A. Hamilton: I’m sorry, Lafayette

> A. Hamilton: Are they doing anything else with him?

> G. Lafayette: I don’t know.  That was all I could hear for certain and then they moved into a different room and now I am in John’s room.

> A. Hamilton: yeah

> A. Hamilton: Are you going to tell him?

> A. Hamilton: I guess it doesnt matter bc itll all come out in the morning anyway

> A. Hamilton: That André’s off, I mean, not necessarily the details there

> A. Hamilton: do you think André knows what they decided/how it happened?

> G. Lafayette: I don’t know

> G. Lafayette: he is being spoken with

> A. Hamilton: Are you ok?

> G. Lafayette: I am not the one in trouble

> A. Hamilton: Yeah, I know, but you like most of the parties involved.

 

There was a delay before Lafayette’s next message came through.

 

> G. Lafayette: I’m disappointed

 

Hamilton breathed out slowly, not sure what to say that didn’t toe the line with inappropriately and unintentionally smug.

 

> A. Hamilton: I’m sorry

 

When Lafayette didn’t respond to that, Hamilton added:

 

> A. Hamilton: I hope you’re going back to sleep.  It’s frickin late.  Feel free to spoon John for me and if he tries to kick you out of bed tell him I gave you permission to be there and for you to remind him that he could do worse

> A. Hamilton: good night Lafayette

 

Laurens was not surprised to wake up on his back with Lafayette curled under his arm.

He was able to reach his phone without moving away and as he picked it up to silence the alarm, wondering how he was going to get to practice, he saw that he had two new messages, rerouted from his school email to his text alerts, both sent through von Steuben’s university account.  The first was sent to the entire team and read that there would be no scheduled practice and instead a mandatory meeting at eight-thirty.  The second was sent to him alone and simply told him to meet him in his office half an hour before.

Laurens put his phone back down and stared up at the ceiling, feeling like he had woken up in someone else’s life or at least an alternate telling of his own.

This, somehow and with the night behind him, was not the action he wanted to have taken.

He closed his eyes, hoping that he would at least be able to take advantage of the situation and sleep in, but he couldn’t drift off.  Instead he found himself running over his memories from the previous night, torn between a still-burning resentment and cringing shame at his own actions, even as he tried to convince himself that he had not done anything wrong.  André was the one who had fucked up, not him.

Speaking of André…

The messages on his phone could mean anything and he didn’t even know where André was.  Presumably in one of the other spare rooms, unless he had driven himself back to his apartment after… whatever had ended up going down.

“Hey,” Laurens said, his voice low and rough with sleep.  He cleared his throat and nudged Lafayette with his arm.  “Lafayette.”

“Mm.”

“Do you know what happened last night?”

Laurens felt Lafayette tense and his heart sank with a surety that surprised him.

“Right.”

Laurens didn’t say anything and let Lafayette tuck his arms up over his face and then press against his side.  He slid his arm over his shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Laurens said, not sure why he was comforting him but knowing that he needed to.  “It’s okay.”

Laurens felt Lafayette’s knees against his calves and was uncomfortably aware of how tall he was.  Lying that far down the bed his feet had to be hanging off the mattress.  He frowned awkwardly.

“Do you want to move up?”

Lafayette shook his head and made a sad declining noise against him.

“All right.”  Laurens patted him on the arm.  “Practice got cancelled but I need to be on campus in the morning anyway.  We’re having some meeting and I’m supposed to talk to Coach before it.”  Saying the words out loud hardened the ball of anxiety in his stomach.

“He was here last night,” Lafayette said.  His voice was surprisingly calm and steady, even as his face was still hidden.  “I did not see him but I heard him arrive and then some of what they were saying downstairs.”

“Really?”  Laurens gave him a startled glance.  “He drove all the way up here that late?”

Lafayette nodded.

Laurens breathed out slowly.  “Shit,” he commented.

Lafayette nodded again.

“Did you tell Alex?”

“More or less.”

“Right.”

“Are you upset that I didn’t wait for you?”

“Nah.”  Laurens stared up at the ceiling, his mind finding patterns in the darkness.  “It’s okay.  They’re both your friends too,” he said.  “I know that you want to talk about it.”  He paused.  “Do you know if André left?”

“I’m not sure.”

Laurens felt the burning urge to apologize.  “Lafayette?”  When that was greeted with only an expectant silence, he continued.  “I’m sorry.”

Lafayette moved away and lowered his arms so he could look at him.

“I… don’t know.  I shouldn’t have rushed us into this.  We were all on the same side, as far as I know, anyway.  I feel like I could have done something better.”

“You should talk to André,” Lafayette said.  “Not me.”

“I know.  I wonder if he’ll go to the meeting today.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Yeah, I agree.”  Laurens paused, then added in slight defiance, “I didn’t really do anything wrong, though.  Out of everyone, none of this should be blamed on me.”

“That’s true.

“Are you just saying that or do you actually agree with me?”

“I agree with you.”  Lafayette rolled away and lay on his back.  “It’s true,” he said.  “You did everything exactly the way you should have.  You did not ask anyone to step in and you shouldered your burden stoically.  I don’t think you were unreasonably angry last night and—it does look like what André did could be read in many ways,” Lafayette admitted.  “He was foolish, even if he had the best of intentions.  Alexander was much angrier with him at first than you were.”

The corner of Laurens’ mouth twitched up.

“And you did the right thing by bringing attention to the people in charge.  Someone should have spoken to them earlier.”

“Someone like me,” Laurens said.  “Before this all got out of control.”

“You’re not responsible for what other people did.  And you don’t even really know what that was, anyway.”

Laurens sighed.

Lafayette sat up.  “It will be okay,” he said reassuringly.  He put his hand on his shoulder, convincing himself even as he talked to Laurens.  “It’s just hard to see right now.”

“It’s hard to see anything,” Laurens said, rolling away and getting out of bed.  “I’m turning the light on.  Let’s get coffee and figure out how we’re getting back to campus so I can be slaughtered by Coach before the team meeting.”


	198. Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee and Disappointment; Meeting with BvS; Anyway Hamilton Still Exists and Is Waiting to Be Plot-Significant Again; Guess What?

“André’s car is gone,” Lafayette said, coming back into the kitchen.  “I looked outside.”

“I guess he didn’t want to stay,” Laurens said, feeling guilt bitter at the back of his throat as he carefully set up the coffee machine.

“Or someone stole it.”

“Yeah, he probably just drove back.”

“I didn’t hear him leave.”

“You were asleep.”

“That’s true.”  Lafayette sat at the table.  “I slept much better once I joined you.  Alexander is right, you’re very comfortable to sleep with.”

Laurens made a face at his wording.  “You’ve slept in my bed before.”

“In Vermont,” Lafayette agreed.  “I was exhausted then, though.  Last night I kept waking up.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t call Adrienne or something.”

“I messaged her a little.”  Lafayette accepted the mug of coffee that Laurens passed him.  “But there is a five hour time difference and she was either asleep or getting ready for school.”

“Ah.”

Lafayette turned the mug between his hands.  “How are we getting to campus?”

“That’s a good question.  I assume we’ll get a ride with Dr. Washington.”

Lafayette didn’t respond.  Laurens glanced over at him.

“Lafayette?”

Lafayette was looking down into the dark brown of his coffee.  “It’s too bad that Washington was not able to do more,” he said.  “He must be very upset about it.”

Laurens looked away skeptically.  “I’m sure.”

“I suppose his hands are tied.”

“That’s probably true.  I’m sure you can ask him about it when he joins us.”  Laurens glanced up at the door.  “He has to be coming down soon.”

“I should ask him,” Lafayette agreed.  “Maybe he would like to talk about it,” he added.  “It might be cathartic.”

Laurens tried to keep a straight face.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “Definitely.”

They could hear someone walking around upstairs and Laurens sat next to Lafayette at the table with his own mug.

“It’s weird not to have Alex here.  Then at least I wasn’t the only one intruding.”

“That was a fun weekend.”

“Apart from when you needed stitches?”

“Yes.”

The footsteps were on the stairs now and they both fell silent and watched the door in anticipation.

It opened and Washington, fully dressed for the day, stepped through.

“Good morning,” Lafayette said, getting to his feet.  “Would you like coffee?”  He was already at the machine, and unlike Laurens had the comfortable air of someone who had operated it many times before.  He didn’t wait for a response before setting it up.

“Yes,” Washington said, handing Lafayette a mug.  “Thank you.”  He watched Lafayette’s almost exaggeratedly enthusiastic movements, then looked at Laurens, sitting quiet and attentive at the table.  “I suppose you boys want to hear about last night.”

“We don’t mind waiting,” Lafayette said.  “It was a difficult thing for you to handle, I’m sure.”

“The timing could have been better.”  Washington directed his comments to Laurens.  “Von Steuben has a lot to discuss with you this morning and I’ll let him take care of most of it.  Suffice it to say that both Charles Lee ad John André have been suspended from the team, pending further investigation.”

Hearing the words said out loud gave them a power and a weight.  The coffee machine ran innocuously in the background.

“But,” Lafayette said, “ _why_?”

“Lafayette.”

“André didn’t do anything wrong,” Lafayette insisted.  “He was a victim in this.  That is why we brought him here, so that you could see that and exonerate him!”

Laurens was surprised to hear him raise his voice and he decided against pointing out that that was not technically correct.  Maybe it had been in Lafayette’s mind.

“Lafayette,” Washington said sharply.  Lafayette visibly flinched at the tone but steeled himself and set his jaw.  “Your friend knew about this attempted sabotage and didn’t come forward, even though it involved him.  We have no reason to believe that he would have said anything with enough time for anyone to act.  He was playing chicken with this school’s finances and funding and opening us up to a very embarrassing spectacle, _especially_ if any of the girls who were brought into this decided to talk.”

“But—but you are blaming him for something someone else was doing!  That isn't fair!”

“He knew about what was going on and he was receiving benefit from it,” Washington said.  “It was his responsibility to act and by not doing so he made himself an accomplice.”

“But,” Lafayette tried again.  His protest died on his lips at the look Washington gave him.

“This is not open to debate,” Washington said.  “He’ll go before the judiciary board and it will be decided if he will face any further punishment and how this will affect his titles at graduation.  I’m not going to exonerate him just because you ask me to and it is disturbing to me that you seem to have thought that was an option.”

“Hey,” Laurens said, suddenly angry.  “He didn’t mean it like that.  Did you, Lafayette?”

The coffee filtered into the mug and the machine turned itself off and Lafayette mutely shook his head.

Washington sighed.  “John, we should leave in about an hour since you’re meeting with von Steuben this morning.  You two should make sure that you’re ready to go by then.”

Feeling distinctly like they were being dismissed, Laurens took his mug in one hand and Lafayette’s wrist in the other and led them out of the kitchen.

 

Laurens’ heart was in his throat as he walked up to von Steuben’s office.  The door was open and the light was on.

Laurens didn’t need to do anything to get von Steuben’s attention—as soon as he stepped into view his coach motioned him inside.

“Sit.”

Laurens sat.

“Is there anyone else waiting out there?”

Laurens shook his head, his sense of dread growing.  It couldn’t be a good sign that his coach wanted privacy for the conversation.  “Should I close the door, sir?”

“No, it’s fine.”  Von Steuben glanced out into the hallway again anyway.  “So.”  He folded his hands on the desk.  “You have heard about Lee and André?”

Laurens wondered if there was any significance to the order in which the names were listed, but didn't have time to try to decode it.  He nodded.  “Yes.”

“And that they have both been suspended.”

“Yes.  Sir,” Laurens tried suddenly.  “Lee’s an asshole but André’s just an idiot.  I know he shouldn’t have done that but he meant well and he was just trying to get something more concrete…”  He trailed off when von Steuben raised one hand to silence him.  “He meant well,” he repeated weakly.

“I spoke with André last night.  And with Lee about an hour ago.”

Laurens felt his stomach lurch at the thought of that meeting.

“And it is _mitgefangen, mitgehangen_. They are caught together, they are hanged together.  Still,” von Steuben said, “that is how it stands this morning but there may be adjustments made after everyone has had time to cool off.  The people in charge of things even more than I am, they are very angry.  We will see.  But that is not why I asked you to come here.  Do you know why I wanted to speak with you?”

Laurens stared at him blankly.

“I never told you this,” von Steuben said, his voice calm and quiet, “but last year I came this close to taking the title of captain away from Charles Lee because of his poor attitude.”

Laurens suddenly felt his heart leap into his throat for an entirely different reason as he struggled with blinding disbelief.  It couldn’t be.

“At the time I was considering giving the title to you instead.  I didn’t because you were forced to sit out the rest of the season and the lineup had to be rearranged and instead I talked to Lee and he buckled down.”  Von Steuben paused.  “Do you see where I am going?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Von Steuben gave him a tired nod of approval.  “Laurens, I am making you team captain.”

Laurens couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.  “Thank you,” he said, his voice vibrating.  “Sir.”

“You’ve earned it,” von Steuben told him matter of factly.  “This last year in particular you have played very hard, very carefully.  And we have all been glad to have had you for a fifth year.”

Behind Laurens, Ben Walker knocked on the doorframe and leaned in.  “Did you tell him?  Congratulations,” he said as Laurens turned to face him.  “I’ve printed the paperwork you need to go over with me and then sign, and then it’s all official.  You’re captain for the end of the season.”

“Go with Ben,” von Steuben told Laurens.  “And then we can all walk over for the meeting in which I will tell everyone who bet money not to be so stupid and obvious about what they were doing and tell them all about our change of leadership.”  He stood and Laurens quickly followed.  He held out his hand.  “Congratulations,” he told him.

Laurens, mind still spinning, shook it.  “Thank you,” he said.  “I—Thank you.”

 

“The thing is that if you’re using any category as a tool of analysis, it’s completely useless unless you make sure you’re historicizing it, which is more work than just applying it carte blanche.”  Hamilton’s breath fogged up before his face and he distractedly ran his gloved hands over one another in front of himself.  “So it’s all well and good to take your—to take gender, for example, and to use it to talk about something else.  Like not just how do laws affect men and women differently, but how do we _imagine_ the process of legal review to be gendered?  Is the language we use to talk about that act coded masculine?  The temptation, of course, is to read one good study on the subject and then bring it wholesale into whatever other relevant topics we’re interested in, but linguistics aren’t universal and cultural codes change, so unless we do the work all over again every time you’re gonna end up applying the exact same ideas about gender to colonial America to the Mughal Empire to twenty-first century China.”  He blew on his hands and rubbed them again.  “Obviously that’s got problems.”

“Why are you telling me about Joan Scott?”  Angelica asked.  “I’m a Women’s Studies major.”

“Dunno.”  Hamilton blew on his hands again and cupped them around his mouth.  “Just talking.”  His words were muffled.  “Sorry.”

Angelica shook her head.  It was genuinely cold out and her white earmuffs stood out against her hair.  “I know you’re just trying to fill the space, but that’s a stupid thing to mansplain about.”

“Trying to drown out my own thoughts,” Hamilton said.  “Did I ever apologize to you properly?  Maybe that’s part of what’s bugging me.  I’m sorry I was a huge disrespectful loser and can I buy you a coffee or a scone?  Can I make it up to you after I get paid?”

“It’s all right,” Angelica told him.  “Eliza would be angry if she knew I was taking your money.”

“You’re not taking it.  It’s different.  Besides, I didn’t pay for the candy.”

“You gave my sister stolen candy?”

“No, no,” Hamilton corrected himself quickly.  “I did a favor for a guy I know so he spotted me.”

They neared the building they had class in and Hamilton hurried ahead to get the door and stand inside, holding it for her.

“Thank you.”

“I miss summer,” Hamilton said, rubbing his face to try and get feeling back into it.  “I was complaining about how hot it was but I’d trade that in a heartbeat.”  He took off his gloves and checked his phone.

“Any messages from John?”

“No.  Back to back meetings.  I had hoped he’d be able to contact me between them but I guess he wasn’t able to get away.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Angelica reassured him.  “No news is good news.”

Hamilton made a vague uncertain noise, almost a whine, and shoved his gloves and phone in the pockets of his coat.  “I don’t have time for this,” he complained.  “It’s the end of the semester, I’m supposed to be up to my neck in studying, not worry about stupid _jocks_.”

“I know,” Angelica said sympathetically.  “It’s not fair.”

“It really isn’t.  This is a frickin’ school of higher education, Angelica, we should do this the European style and have _clubs_ for this sort of shit, not funnel tuition money into it.  Maybe then people wouldn’t take it so seriously.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Hamilton jumped at Jefferson’s voice suddenly behind him.

“Y’all never been to Europe during football season, have you?  Sorry,” Jefferson said, explaining unnecessarily, “that’s soccer.  People still get all kinds of worked up.  Last time I was in Paris someone set a car on fire just two blocks down from my apartment.”

“What were you doing in France?”  Angelica asked while Hamilton made an exasperated face at her, silently mouthing “don’t encourage him.”

“Just a little research.  They’ve got some wonderful archives.  Of course, a lot of the materials were destroyed in the Revolution, or so they say.  You ask me, a lot of the time that’s just a cover for some employee who doesn’t want to go dig things out of storage.”

“It must be frustrating to not be able to find what you are looking for.”

“Well,” Jefferson laughed, picking an invisible piece of lint off of his deep wine sweater, “it’s difficult to be _too_ annoyed when you’re in the cultural capital of Europe.  Work or no work, it was a very productive trip, as always.  The last time I was there I actually met Alexander.”  Jefferson turned slightly to include Hamilton in the conversation and Hamilton, unable to point to anything wrong with the statement, forced a very brief and strained smile.

“Lighten up, Alexander,” Jefferson said.  “Why the long face?”

“…Nothing,” Hamilton said.  “Just waiting on a call.”

Jefferson gave him a mildly curious look, but then Angelica distracted him with a question about French universities and he was more than happy to launch into a lengthy explanation.

Hamilton breathed a sigh of relief and wrapped his hand around his phone in his pocket.  Maybe by the time class was over Laurens would have messaged him.

 

As soon as class was over Hamilton had his phone out and he opened and closed his messages app as he gathered up his things and pulled his coat and bag on, hoping futilely that a text from Laurens would appear.

He tried to figure out what he could say as he left the room, his thumbs hovering just off the keyboard on the screen and his gaze locked on the text window.

“Hey.”

Hamilton looked up with a start.  “J.?”

Laurens was standing just across the hall, clearly waiting for him with a barely suppressed grin.

“How’d it go?  What did he want to see you for?”  Hamilton crossed to him.  “Are you in trou—Why are you smiling?”

Laurens put his hands on Hamilton’s arms and kissed him.  Hamilton was too surprised to close his eyes—still standing in the middle of the hall, his classmates streaming past them, Laurens’ _tongue_ pressing briefly between his lips—and dropped his phone to the floor with a clatter.

Laurens pulled away.

“ _John?_ ”

“Sorry.”  Laurens knelt and picked up his phone.  “I think it’s okay.”  He checked that the screen would still light up and then handed it back as he stood.

“John,” Hamilton repeated.  “What’s going on.”  He couldn’t stop staring at Laurens.  Had he ever seen him this excited before?

“I’m captain,” Laurens said, and the pride he felt was audible in his words.  “Seriously.”

Hamilton let out a thrilled shout without meaning to, then clapped one of his hands over his mouth as he began to laugh with embarrassment and happiness.  “Seriously?”

Laurens nodded, grining widely.

“Fuckin’ finally!”  Hamilton threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.  “Congratulations,” he said, pulling away but keeping his hands on him.  “I can’t believe it!”

“What,” Laurens teased.  “You didn’t think I was good enough?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Hamilton said, hitting him lightly.  “I’m just happy for you, you should’ve had it ages ago.”

“I have it now.”

“That’s true,” Hamilton agreed, kissing him again, then leaving his mouth just of of his.  “Good for you, J.”

“Congratulations,” Jefferson said, closing the classroom door and standing opposite them in the hallway.  “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

Hamilton peeled himself off of Laurens and stood at his side.  Laurens took his hand.  “I bet your family’ll be real proud to hear it as well.”

“They will,” Laurens said.  “I’m going to tell them right away.”

“Good,” Jefferson said.  “That’s nice.  I’ll see you Wednesday,” he told Hamilton.  “Y’all have a good week.”

Hamilton watched him walk away, then glanced up at Laurens.  He seemed to have sobered up but didn’t look upset.  “Do you want to go back to the dorm?”

A mischievous smile flickered over Laurens’ face.  “Guess I could take the rest of the morning off before I call home.”

“Sure you can,” Hamilton said, pulling his gloves on and doing up his coat.  “Afternoon, too, probably.”

“Don’t you have places to be?”

“You’re not _actually_ going to do it,” Hamilton said.  “Let me have my fantasy, J.”

Laurens laughed.  “All right,” he agreed as he put his own gloves on and followed Hamilton out of the building.  “Whatever you say.”


	199. Social Network

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interrupted

“Hold on, let me get the door—”

Laurens pushed the door to his dorm room open, Hamilton’s arms around his waist, and then stopped abruptly just one step in.

Lafayette was lying on his back on the floor, knees up, Gouverneur sitting under the window to the outside world, pressed up against the television.

“Hey.”  Gouverneur nodded at them.  Lafayette raised one hand in listless greeting.

Hamilton stepped away from Laurens and looked them over.  “Are you guys going to be here long?”

“I have class in an hour,” Gouverneur said.

Hamilton frowned, doing the math on how much time they realistically had and how long it would take to go to his apartment instead.  “Lafayette,” he said.  “John didn’t tell you yet, did he?”

“About how we ruined André’s life?”

“No, no.”  Hamilton waved his hand.  “John, tell them.”  He gave him an encouraging nudge.

“I’m team captain,” Laurens said, barely managing to keep a cool temper on his excitement.

“What?”  Lafayette rolled over and sat up.  “Really?”

“Yes,” Hamilton jumped back in, too enthusiastic to help himself.  He wrapped his arm around Laurens’.  “Finally, right?  They announced it to the whole team and everything.”  He looked up at Laurens to double-check that last statement.

Laurens nodded, his grin starting to reappear.  “Yeah.  It’s pretty neat.”

“I’ll say,” Hamilton said, elbowing him.  “Stop trying to look suave and sophisticated in front of these guys.  They’re high anyway, so it doesn’t even matter.”

“Hey,” Gouverneur protested.  “That’s rude.  You shouldn’t assume stuff like that.”

“Okay, are you?”

“Besides,” he went on, ignoring the question but flipping him off, “your buddy’s upset about how the weekend went down.  I’ve been keeping him company and if you guys had found somewhere else to neck I’d still be here keeping him company.”

“We are planning another midnight breakfast night,” Lafayette said.  “We’re going to make protein this time.”

“Cool.”  Hamilton resisted the urge to back them out of the room and went to sit on the floor by Lafayette instead.  “American bacon or Canadian bacon?”

“American.  What’s the difference?”

“Canadian bacon is ham,” Laurens said, sitting on his bed and resigned to the conversation.

“It’s also a movie,” Gouverneur said.  “It’s not good.  We should watch it.”

“During midnight breakfast,” Lafayette agreed readily.

“Right.  So I think John and I probably have plans during that,” Hamilton said.  “Together, apart, either way.”

“Together,” Lafayette said with a nod.  “You can make up for our cockblocking you today.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said dryly.

“You’re welcome.  Oh,” Lafayette put his hand on Hamilton’s knee.  “You should make it special since it’s to celebrate.  What is something that he likes?  You could wear that body chain again.”

Hamilton made a face.  “It’s too cold now, I’m not doing that.  Remind me in the spring.”

“I can’t believe they’re having this conversation either,” Gouverneur assured Laurens.  “Don’t worry, I’m not really paying attention.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said again.  “I guess.”  He checked his watch.  “Actually, I should call home.”  He stood, looking around the crowded room awkwardly.  “You know what,” he said, deciding he didn’t want to make the call in front of so many people and in such close quarters, “I can just take this in the hall.”

“Good luck,” Lafayette called after him as he left.  Hamilton blew him a kiss.

“Are you seriously that upset about how everything went down?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette as soon as Laurens had left.  “It’s not like it’s your fault or anything.”

Lafayette gave him a tired and sad look.

“He’s upset that his dad didn’t smooth it over for him,” Gouverneur said.  “He thought taking it to him would fix it.”

“No,” Lafayette protested.  “That’s not right.  I know that’s not right.”

“So?”

“…I know it’s not right to want that,” Lafayette said stubbornly.  “That is wanting favoritism.”

“You can still be disappointed,” Gouverneur said.  “I dunno, because he disagreed with you or some shit.”

Lafayette carefully unrolled and set about rolling his shirt sleeve up again.  He folded it back to the elbow and turned up the bottom two inches.  “I know.”  He folded it on itself again.  “But,” he said, “I think that if it was just that then I would not have been so surprised.”

Hamilton patted him on the back.

“Ah, well.”  Lafayette turned his attention to fixing his other sleeve.  “It is what it is.  I have to accept that I made a mistake.  Twice,  Once by taking it to him and once by not even realizing what I was doing.”

“Can we play with the Wii?”  Gouverneur asked after a drawn out silence indicated that Lafayette was done talking.  “If we put in a multi-player then John can join us once he’s back.”

“That’s a good idea,” Hamilton agreed.  “Okay, uh, you guys pick something out, I’m gonna go see if he’s almost done.”  He got up, pushing himself off the ground with one hand on Lafayette’s shoulder, and went outside.

He closed the door carefully and looked down the empty hall.  “John?”

He rolled his eyes at himself—Who did he think was going to answer?—and tried the stairwell at one end.

“—right after.  He just told them all that I was captain for the rest of the season and had me get up next to him and say a bit.”

Hamilton paused, then very quietly stepped into the stairwell, closing the door gently behind him.  Laurens was standing at the landing half a flight up, one hand in his hair as he talked.  He saw Hamilton and gave him a brief nod of recognition without breaking the flow of conversation.  “Oh, you know, ‘I’m honored to take on this responsibility, I know we won’t let this distract us from the game this weekend, this is a team effort and I’m standing here as your representative and am proud of all that we have accomplished together so far.’  I didn’t really have time to put anything together so I had to wing it.”

Hamilton smiled fondly at him and sat on one of the lower steps, his body turned and one leg up so he could still watch him.

Laurens was smiling broadly.  “Yeah.  Yeah, that’s true, I mean, I grew up listening to you pull things together all the time.  I never thought I’d say this, but it’s a good thing you dragged us to all those dinners growing up.”  He paused as his father talked.  “I signed everything this morning.  He had me come to his office before the meeting and I filled it all out with the assistant coach then.  I know it’s only for the last game—”  His father cut him off and Laurens’ face lit up even more.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “That’s true.  They’re all pretty pissed at him so I don’t know what they’ll do about that.  Worst case scenario they’ll have to add my name in next to his, I guess, but maybe they’ll take him off everything.”

His father was talking again as he walked down the stairs, coming to a stop next to Hamilton and reaching out for his hand.  Hamilton gave it to him and pulled his leg in tighter so he had more room on the step.

“I really wanted to tell you,” Laurens said, his voice almost childlike in how obviously eager for approval it was.  “I figured you’d want to know right away.”

Hamilton was still smiling but he pressed his eyes closed, a knot suddenly pulled tight in his throat.

“Can you tell the others for me?”  Laurens asked, giving Hamilton’s hand a squeeze and looking down the flight of stairs, oblivious and distracted.  “I don’t want to call during school hours.  Thanks,” he said, dropping down to sit next to Hamilton.  “Okay.  I’ll see you then, Dad.”

He hung up and put his hand with his phone to his side.  He looked at Hamilton.

“He’s really happy for me.”

Hamilton’s smile didn’t falter.  “That’s great, J.  I’m happy for you, too.”

Laurens leaned in, pushing Hamilton’s leg gently away, and kissed him, bracing himself with one hand on the higher step.  “I just can’t believe it,” he said.  “God.”

Hamilton laughed, making an effort to move as far away from the call as he could.  “You’re practically giddy.  I love it.”

Laurens kissed him again.  “Come on.”

“I’m not judging.  I’m glad you got the position.  I want you to be happy about it.”

Laurens moved closer, pressing Hamilton up against the wall.  One of his hands slid down to his thigh.  “Coach said he would have moved me in last year if I hadn’t gotten benched.”

“I don’t doubt it.”  Hamilton kissed him back, putting his hand on his collar and tugging him down into it, then nuzzling the side of his face.  He spoke without moving away.  “He should’ve started you off as captain at the start of this season.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed.  His hand moved slowly between Hamilton’s legs.  “But I have it now.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton leaned into the touch, then pushed his hand away.  “The guys are still in the room.”

“We’re not.”  Laurens kissed him again, sliding his tongue into his mouth.  “And no one ever uses the stairs.”

“Not—Mm.”  Hamilton couldn’t keep from eagerly returning the kiss.  He wrapped his arms around Laurens’ neck and pulled him closer in spite of himself.  His face flushed and the rational voice telling him that they needed to not get too carried away was very easy to ignore in favor of how good it felt to press his hips towards Laurens’ hand.

Laurens felt a thrill of surprise when Hamilton pushed his tongue into his mouth.  He hadn’t expected him to urge him on and he very willingly deepened the kiss, sucking on his tongue and pressing his own against it.  He could feel his breathing start to speed up, blood flowing into his cheeks and desire making him rock his hand, trying to get Hamilton to feel like he did.

Hamilton let out a soft groan, half just breath of air, and tightened one hand in the material of Laurens’ shirt.  There was nothing more important in that moment than kissing and touching and he pressed uncomfortably against the inside of his pants.  It was worse whenever Laurens passed his hand directly over him but in a way that just made him ache for more.  He turned his head to the other side, making Laurens chase him, and slid his tongue back into his mouth with desperate hunger.

That pulled a short pleading whimper from Laurens and Hamilton, encouraged, slid one hand up into his hair.

The doors to the hallway opened and Laurens jerked away to the opposite side of the step.

Lafayette looked between them—both of their faced flushed, Hamilton’s legs still spread, Laurens’ shirt tugged to one side—and cleared his throat.  “We wanted to know if you were almost done out here.  We set up the Wii.”

Laurens glanced at Hamilton, not caught up and distracted.

“Oh. Uh.  Right.”  Hamilton hesitated and then got up slowly and with obvious regret.  He made an effort to adjust his pants.  “Yeah, okay, we’re coming.  John just got off the phone.”  He took Laurens’ hand once he stood and led him through the door Lafayette held open for them.  “Did you tell Adrienne the good news yet?”

“You only just told me.”

“Yeah, but you’re always talking to her.”

“You _just_ told me,” Lafayette repeated.  “But, yes, I did.  She says congratulations and that she’s very happy for you,” he told Laurens.

“Thanks.”

“My grandmother also says congratulations,” Lafayette added.

“What would you do without technology?”

“Probably be an obsessive letter writer.”

Hamilton nodded, he looked back at Laurens to keep him in the conversation.  “Dumb question.”

Laurens snorted.  He squeezed his hand.

Lafayette let them back into the room.

Gouverneur was sitting on the floor in front of the television, the intro sequence playing.  He turned and raised his hand.  “Yo.  It should be ready.  Who wants player one?”

“I do.”

“It’s John’s system,” Hamilton pointed out, sitting on the edge of Laurens’ bed as Lafayette took the controller.

Lafayette sighed and handed it over to Laurens.  “May I be second player?”

“That’s Alex’s.”

“I’m good.”  Hamilton made a face.  “You guys can play, I’m going to watch.”

“He’s a sore loser,” Lafayette told Gouverneur as he took the second controller.  “I’m sure he doesn’t want to throw a tantrum in front of company.”

“Hey, Gouvs and I were friends before he met you.”

“Yeah, but Lafayette actually does stuff with me, you and I just have meetings together.”

“We talk,” Hamilton protested.  “Mostly in the context of meetings, but still, we have fun.  And I’ve gone to parties with you!”

“I guess it’s not your fault that you’re so busy,” Gouverneur said, choosing his character.  “Except actually it kind of is, you did this all to yourself.  Don’t give me that spiel about work-study or your scholarship,” he added, “you’re doing more than you need to and you know it.”

“I don’t know how he sleeps,” Lafayette confirmed.  “It can’t be healthy.”

“Hey…”

Lafayette leaned over behind Laurens and patted Hamilton on the leg.  “It’s okay.  I appreciate that you still make time for us.”

“Yeah, well.”  Hamilton pulled his bag from the floor into his lap.  “Thanks for reminding me that I need to be studying.”

“You weren’t going to study before your next class originally.”

Gouverneur snorted.

“Sex ranks above studying,” Hamilton agreed.  “But I’m not getting any.”

“They were going at it in the hallway,” Lafayette said.  Laurens elbowed him in the ribs.  “Ow!”

“Shut it.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Hamilton told Gouverneur as he flipped through a notebook.  “You know what I don’t get?”

“What?”

“Those notes that are all, like, aesthetic and shit.  You know,” he said, “with the fancy lettering and different colored pens.  Little hand-drawn diagrams.  Pictures of flowers.”

Laurens gave him a look.  “Who does that?”

“Adrienne does,” Lafayette said.  “Are we ready to play?  I’m waiting.”

“Adrienne draws flowers in her notes?”

“In the margins.”

“Angelica was showing me pictures,” Hamilton said.  “We were talking about note-taking styles.”

“Nerd,” Gouverneur commented.

“Lafaytte, hit him for me.”

Lafayette obliged.

“She uses the Cornell method, because of course she does.  You divide your page with a vertical line about two and a half inches out from the binding and write all the main ideas in there as they come up in class, using the bigger side for the details.  You write a summary at the bottom of the page of what’s on it so you can skim through later.  She also dates and numbers all her pages and keeps a table of contents.”

“Wow,” Gouverneur said, a little distracted as they started the game, “and here I thought you were the worst offender.  She’s got you beat.  She’s the queen of the nerds.”

“Yeah, Angelica’s great.”

Laurens laughed, the sound obviously fond.  That hadn’t been the response Gouverneur had been looking for but Hamilton had sounded so genuine.

“She’s pretty cool,” Gouverneur agreed.  “Think I should hit her up some time?”

“Dude, she has a boyfriend.”

“Really?”  Gouverneur glanced up at Hamilton, then at Lafayette, who frowned at the screen and leaned forward and didn’t respond.

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “They’ve been together for ages.”

“Oh well.” Gouverneur swore at the game as his character was hit.  “Which one of you did that?” 

“ _Voilà_.”

“Screw you.”

“Stop taking credit, Lafayette,” Laurens said.  “That was me.”

“I don’t think any of our female friends are available,” Lafayette said, tipping his head to one side in thought.  “That’s interesting.”

Hamilton licked his fingers and turned the page of his notebook.  “Huh.  Weird.  Guess we need to meet more girls.”  He looked up quickly to see the other three all glance at him.  “—That’s not what I mean.  I just meant that it’s weird that I know so few girls.  I only really hang out with Angelica and Eliza, and they’re _sisters_.  It’s sexist of me.”

They went back to their game and Hamilton breathed out a sigh of relief.

“You better win, J.,” he said, sliding off the bed and behind Laurens, wrapping his arms around his waist and leaning against his back.

“Come on,” Gouverneur said.  “You’re gonna distract him.”

“Right, sorry.”  Hamilton grabbed his notebook and leaned back against the bed, leaving one leg still touching Laurens.  “You should tell them about your big speech, J.  He had to give a whole talk to his team,” he explained.  “Big announcement, right off the cuff.”

“It wasn’t long,” Laurens said.  “I only said a couple lines.  Most of the meeting was Coach going off at everyone about putting money down online.  If it comes out that anyone was betting against us they’re going to get pulled for the rest of the season but I guess between talking to André and to Lee they’re pretty sure that no one else was doing anything intentionally.  Guess if they were, Lee would have ratted.”

“What about if they thought you guys were going to win?”  Hamilton remembered Tench helping him move things on the subway and he felt a rush of sympathetic nerves.

“Well, yeah, a bunch of people put money on that, too,” Laurens said.  His brow was knit as he concentrated on both talking as well as the game.  “Coach was pretty pissed about that because I guess it looks really bad if anyone finds out.  I mean, we’re not supposed to be making money off of playing and that’s going through an outside party and not messing with the licensing stuff or anything—Shit.”  He fell silent for a minute, too distracted by the game.  “…Anyway he’s pissed about it.  They’re probably going to close that loophole next year.”

“And André?”

Laurens glanced at Lafayette.  “He’s not going to be playing this weekend.”

Lafayette had the controller down in his lap and was watching him anxiously.

“Look.”  Laurens gave a small shake of his head.  “I don’t know.  Sorry.”

Lafayette sighed and turned back to the game.  “He didn’t call me back,” he said.  “I tried to contact him.  We did give him back his phone, didn’t we?”

“He’s probably upset and doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

“We could go to his apartment,” Hamilton said.  He nudged Laurens with his foot.

Laurens made a face.  The thought of going to André’s apartment didn’t sit well with him somehow.

“I think he would like that,” Lafayette said eagerly.  “We can bring him dinner tonight.”

“I don’t know, Lafayette.”

“We need to do something,” Lafayette insisted.  “We should do something for him.”

Laurens didn’t respond.  He didn’t think there was an excuse he could give to get out of going and Lafayette still seemed desperate to make things right.  That wasn't his fault, he felt gnawing frustration point out.  It wasn't his fault that anyone else had screwed up and that for once he had not.

"I guess," he said out loud.  He had the win.  If he really had it, then reaching out couldn't tarnish it.


	200. Make Nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knock, Knock?; Putting a Damper on Things

“I don’t know if he’ll let us in.”

“That’s why we picked up food,” Hamilton said.  “He has to let us in if we brought food.  It would be rude otherwise.”

“And if he doesn’t, then we can eat it,” Lafayette added, looking at Laurens around the large paper bag of hot food picked up at the nearby grocery store.

Laurens, his arms folded, shrugged.  At least it was cold out enough that he didn’t look suspiciously like he was sulking.  “That’s it,” he reminded them, nodding at the building up ahead.  “There’s the doorman.”

“I want to live somewhere with a doorman someday,” Hamilton said.  “And an elevator.  And in-unit laundry.  And better windows.  Mine is small and has a shitty view.”

“I thought you wanted air conditioning?”

“Yeah, that too.  I want a lot of things.”

“I want a big yard,” Lafayette said, “outside of the city.  With a nice terrace and a fire pit.”

“Okay,” Hamilton said, “I guess I don’t feel so much like I’m overreaching anymore.  Thanks, or something.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I thought you’d want to live in the city.”

“Oh, I do.  But I’d buy an apartment here and one in Paris, I would just also like a place in the countryside to get away from it all.”

“Screw it,” Hamilton said.  “If he gets that then I want the air conditioning and a skylight.”

“Oh, that’s very picturesque,” Lafayette agreed.  “That’s a good idea.”

They reached the apartment entrance and Laurens broke off to sign in with the doorman.  Hamilton shifted from one foot to the other impatiently while Laurens wrote down his name and the number of André’s apartment.

“Cold,” Hamilton explained when Lafayette gave him a confused look.

“Ah.”

Laurens led them inside and took off his hat.  He wondered briefly if he should have at least asked some of their teammates if they wanted to come with him, but maybe that would have been a bad idea.  Too many people, and he wasn’t entirely sure if they were all on good terms with André still.  He winced to himself as he crossed to the elevators.  He didn't know if he hoped that André would be out or in.

“I hope he likes the soup,” Lafayette said as they got into the elevator.  He shifted the package in his arms.  “Soup is good comfort food.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it,” Laurens said.  He pushed the button for André’s floor.  It felt like weeks since he had spent the night in his guest bedroom.

The elevator rose quickly and it was only a matter of seconds before the doors opened.  Lafayette stepped out first and walked quickly down the hall, forcing the other two to hurry after him in spite of the fact that he was the one carrying the food.  He shifted the bag closer to his chest and into one arm and raised his free hand the few inches he could manage with it to knock on the door, then abruptly stopped himself.

“This is André’s, yes?”

Laurens shouldered him carefully aside.  “André?”  He knocked on the door once, twice.  “Are you home?  We picked up dinner.”

“I brought food,” Lafayette said, talking over Laurens.  “Do you think he can hear us?”  He asked, looking from Hamilton to Laurens.  “John, knock again.”

Laurens did so.  “I don’t know if he’s home.”

As if on cue, the door opened.  Mina was on the other side.

Laurens wasn’t sure if he was more suspicious of what she could possibly be doing there or relieved that they were not confronted by André alone.

“Hi,” she said to Hamilton.  “André’s on the phone right now but if you want to drop something off for him, I can take it.”

“We’re friends of his,” Laurens said, pushing his way into the conversation.  “I’m on the team with him.”

Mina looked at him, visibly hesitating.

“John Laurens.  We were roommates before.”

“I’m Lafayette,” Lafayette said, adjusting the bag again and putting his hand out for her to shake.  “I work with André on campus.  _Enchanté_.”

Mina shook his hand.  “I guess you can come in to say hello.  You’ll have to wait for him, though.”

“Not a problem,” Lafayette assured her, stepping into the apartment once she moved out of the way.  “Have you eaten?  We have plenty of food.”

Laurens privately doubted that they had brought enough to comfortably add another dinner guest and the smell of chicken and spices indicated that they had already prepared food, if not already eaten it.

“I made dinner,” Mina said, motioning with her hand, palm up, towards the kitchen.  “Here,” she said to Lafayette, “I’ll help you put that away.”

“Some of that is for us.”  Laurens undid his coat and hung it by the door.  Hamilton hit him lightly.  “What?  It is.”

“I know.  Don’t be rude.”

“Well, it is.  I don’t want him to forget that.”

“What did you make?”  Lafayette asked.  “It smells delicious.”  He let Mina lead him into the kitchen.  “Is that saffron?”

“You have a good nose.  It’s basically chicken soup with vermicelli noodles.”

“Oh, that’s what we picked up,” Lafayette said.  “Soup, that is.  With chicken.”

The kitchen had not been cleaned up yet and Lafayette put the bag down next to a used cutting board and looked curiously at the covered pot still sitting on the stove.

“Do you think André will be done soon?”

“Who knows,” Mina said, a little darkly.  “It depends on how much longer his mother wants to cry at him.”

Lafayette felt her words like the knives she intended them to be and he winced and turned it into a nervous laugh.  “Ah.  I see.”

“It’s not enough that he got pulled from the team,” Mina said.  “His parents are upset too, of course, even though he didn’t do anything wrong.  It would have worked itself out if you hadn’t interfered.”

“We didn’t want to get him in trouble,” Lafayette said.  “We were all very surprised to find out about it.”

“If you didn’t want to hurt him then why did you turn him in?”

Lafayette kept himself from trying to explain all of the events of the previous night.  “I thought it would turn out different,” he said instead.  “I’m sorry.  I like André.”

Mina silently loaded the dishwasher and dumped the food scraps in the trash.

“I’m going to wait with the others,” Lafayette said.  He pointed out of the kitchen.

“Fine.”

He waited for a beat, then left.

“Hey.”  Hamilton said once Lafayette came back into view.  He was sitting stiffly on the same couch he had used when he visited before, Laurens at his side.

Lafayette sat in the nearby chair and nodded in response.

“This is ridiculous,” Laurens said quietly.  “André’s busy and she obviously doesn’t want us here.  Let’s just leave the food and go back to campus.”

“We came all the way down here,” Lafayette said.  “I want to wait for him.”

“We’re imposing,” Laurens argued.  “I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m being rude.”

“It’s not rude, she let us in and we just want to visit with him.”

“People like being left alone sometimes, Lafayette.”

“He must be feeling abandoned,” Lafayette insisted.  “We can’t just leave, he needs to know that he still has friends.”

Laurens looked over his shoulder towards the other rooms, a mix of sullen and skeptical.

Hamilton put his hand on his knee.  “Why don’t we wait for a few more minutes?  Then it’ll be obvious that we wanted to see him.”

“…Yeah.”  Laurens turned back.  “Okay.  That sound good to you, Lafayette?”

Lafayette nodded.

“Right.”  Hamilton took out his phone.  “Let’s see, what time is it…  We’ll leave at the hour if he’s not…”  He trailed off as somewhere out of sight there was the sound of a door opening and closing.  They all looked in its direction.

Mina came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands dry on the hem of her shirt.  “How is she?”

“Ugh.”  André walked down the hall and out into the living room, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.  His black hair had lost the shape he normally gelled into it.  “Upset.  She’s…”  He lowered his hands and saw the others.  “What are you doing here?”

“We brought dinner.”  Lafayette stood quickly.

“I already ate.”

“I told them that,” Mina said.  “They wanted to wait for you.”

“What did you want?”

Lafayette felt his heart sink at how stiff André’s words were.  “We thought you might want some company.”

“Thanks.  But I’m fine.”

“André.”  Laurens stood as well.  Their eyes met across the room and the air became, somehow, even more tense.

Lafayette looked encouragingly at Laurens but he felt a dragging reluctance to apologize like he knew he wanted him to.  Was there anything to apologize for that they hadn’t already been over?  And what end would it serve?

“Congratulations,” André finally said.  “I heard the news.”

Laurens blinked and felt a little sliver of guilt at holding out.  “Oh,” he said.  “Right.”  He paused.  “Thank you.”

“You deserved it,” André said.  “I mean, he should have given it to you before like he had originally wanted to.”

“Thank you,” Laurens said again.  He paused.  “How did you know that?  He only told me today.”

“I heard Tallmadge talking about it once.”

Laurens hesitated again, not sure if he wanted to push him on it.

“He told me he did,” Mina said, taking another step forward into the room.  “He said he had been hoping that after Lee was removed you’d get the position.”

Laurens looked at her, then back to André, who half-nodded.

“Yeah,” he said.  “That’s true.”

“You still should’ve said something to me.  But I appreciate your support,” Laurens said grudgingly.

“Are you still mad at me?”

Laurens gave a pointedly noncommittal shrug.

“John,” Lafayette protested.

“Coach said that this might all blow over,” Laurens said, surprising even himself by bringing it up.  “He said that right now tempers are high and the people who have more say than he does are pretty upset, but he said that they might quietly change their minds.

“Really?”

“I don’t just make things up.”

André wrapped his arms around himself.  “Right.  If you hear anything…”

“I’ll let you know if I do.”

“Thanks.”

There was a brief silence.

“You already ate so we should get going.”  Laurens put his hand briefly on Hamilton’s shoulder and he got up.  “Keep the extra food.”

“Thank you for having us,” Lafayette said, nodding at André and then at Mina.  “It was nice to finally meet you.  André has said so much about you.”

She allowed him a thin smile.  Lafayette took it as an olive branch and the tentative hope that things would once again manage to work themselves out.

 

“Now you’re an even better piece of arm candy,” Hamilton teased as they walked away from the subway station.  He linked his arm with Laurens’, and leaned into him as if they were in some old movie.  “You’re a real trophy boyfriend.  Maybe I’ll have to give you a teaser of what you can expect once we get some actual alone time.”

Lafayette made a noise of protest.  “Not at the dorm.  I sleep less than six feet away.”

“Hey, Lafayette, remember when we fucked on your bed?”

“Go to your apartment tonight.  Neither of you are welcome in the dorm."

“Got it, will do.”

Laurens’ phone was vibrating in his pocket and he took it out, motioning Lafayette and Hamilton to silence.  “Guys, shut up.”  He picked up the call, turning away from them.  “Hello?”

“We’re gonna get so lucky,” Hamilton said in a loud stage whisper.  Laurens punched him on the arm in one quick sideways motion, a little harder than intended, and Hamilton yelped and rubbed it.  “Hey, that hurt!”

“It’s my brother,” Laurens hissed, covering the bottom half of his phone with his hand.  “Sorry, Jemmy, I can hear you now.”

“You got in trouble,” Lafayette remarked, sounding a little too pleased.

Laurens lagged behind to talk.  “I was wondering if Dad had told you already.  Thank you, yeah, I was real surprised.  It’s pretty last minute but it’s—Oh?”  He stopped walking abruptly, his smile frozen and brittle on his face.  “Yeah?”

His tone had changed and Hamilton and Lafayette both stopped talking and turned to watch.

“Fantastic,” Laurens said in that same forced uptalk.  “All right, I’m looking forward to it, it’ll be great.  Look, I’m walking back to campus, so I’ve got to go, but thanks for calling.  I’ll see you then.”  He hung up and brought his phone slowly down from his face.

“‘I’ll see you then’?”  Hamilton asked, feeling with a sense of apprehension that he already knew the answer.

“My father told them about how I got made team captain,” Laurens said, not moving in spite of the cold and how they were still standing in the middle of the sidewalk.  “Jemmy twisted his arm until he got him to agree to take him up here to this weekend’s game.”

Hamilton winced.  “ _Why?_ ”

“Because he’s my brother and it’s the last proper game of the season and he hasn’t seen me play in person since I left for college,” Laurens said, somehow hotly defensive of Jemmy’s decision in spite of how much he wished he hadn’t made it.  “It means something.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hamilton said.  “But—Seriously, J.—”

“I know.”  Laurens put his phone back in his pocket, his pulse anxious.  “But I can’t tell him not to come and he can’t come by himself.”

Hamilton stared at him for a long second, weighing how much he didn’t want to have this fight against how much it would cost him to swallow down what he wanted to say.

“Fine,” he finally said, and the rest of the words burned his throat.  “Got it.”

Laurens started walking again.  “They won’t be here for long.”

“Right.  John,” Hamilton said, “are you going back to the dorm or to my apartment?”

Laurens looked at him and Hamilton could read in it that he didn’t know what the right answer was.

“Lafayette?”  Hamilton turned to him.

“I don’t mind if he goes.”

“There you go.  Come with me, if you want.  Do you want?”

“Yes,” Laurens said.

Hamilton wished he could have sounded just a little more certain.  “Once more.”  He nudged him.

Laurens took the hint.  “You know I want to go back with you.  Why wouldn’t I?”

“Mm, yeah.  I already told you what you can look forward to.”

“Could you two please not engage in foreplay until after you are back in your room?”  Lafayette asked.  “We’re sharing the same walk for another five minutes.”

“Sorry.”

“I wasn’t touching him,” Hamilton added unnecessarily.

“Alexander.”

“I’m _not_.”

Lafayette sighed.  “Fine.  What are we going to do about André?”

“I dunno.  Maybe you should try Washington again after he’s cooled down some.  I mean, like John said, it might all blow over still, so maybe we just need to…”  He ran his hand through the air in front of himself.  “…Let it blow over.  I can see them slapping his name back on stuff even if they make him sit the end of the season out.  He’s had a good run, anyway, maybe he wouldn’t even really mind the break.  Give him time to concentrate on other stuff.”

“If they don’t tell him that is what they are doing, I don’t think he’ll be able to concentrate.”

“Yeah, true.  Okay.  John,” Hamilton said.  “What do you think?  You think you can tell him without lying that he can rest easy?”

Laurens shrugged uncomfortably.  “I don’t know.”  When it became clear that the other two were still waiting for something from him he added, “I didn’t think you’d care so much.”

“He’s a nice guy,” Hamilton said.  “And he was just trying to help, right?”

Lafayette nodded.  Laurens felt a prick of jealousy that Hamilton had changed his mind so completely in the span of twenty-four hours.  He couldn’t identify where it was coming from at first, and then he remembered how when they had fought they had not spoken to one another for days.  He tried to push it away.  “Got it.”

“Washington’s got a temper,” Hamilton told Lafayette.  “Try tugging at his heartstrings again once he’s evened out.”


	201. Laurels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Long Awaited Congratulatory Sex

Hamilton kissed Laurens’ neck.

“Sit.”

He tipped his head towards his desk chair.

“Let me at least get my coat off first.”

Hamilton helped Laurens undo the buttons, kissing him again, this time on the ridge of his jaw.  “ _Sit_ ,” he repeated insistently.  “I’ve been trying to do something nice for you all day, John.”

“We could have come back here sooner.”

“Yeah, well, we could have not run into people at the dorm, too.”

Laurens finally sat on the chair and Hamilton cupped his face in one hand, kissing him deeply.  He sank into his lap, pressing his weight carefully against him and draping his other arm over his shoulders with his hand on his back.  He bit his lower lip, drawing him closer with his teeth and his hand on his cheek.

Laurens put his arms around him automatically and Hamilton moved his hand up from his back to his neck, then into his hair, working his fingers against his scalp.

“Mm.”

Hamilton grinned at hearing the sound and slowly twisted his body, pulling one leg up and over so that he was straddling his lap.  Still kissing him, he began to undo the buttons at the top of Laurens’ shirt, opening his collar into a v and then running his hand into it.

Laurens made a noise again, this time more like a moan, and moved his hands to Hamilton’s waist.  Being able to hold him in place somehow made it all seem more immediate and he wondered if Hamilton could feel his pulse as his hands moved from his hair to his neck to his chest.

“Hey,” Hamilton said, his voice low, lower than even he thought it would be.  “Congratulations, J.”  He pressed his lips lightly just off of Laurens’, then trailed them along his jaw as Laurens turned his head for him, moving up to suck on his earlobe.  He rocked his weight over him and felt him hardening underneath him.

Laurens pressed him closer, his hands firmly at his hips.

“I’m happy for you,” Hamilton said, running both his hands over his chest.  Laurens arched towards him.  “You know what I want?”

“Sex?”

“Ha.  Good guess.”  Hamilton pressed his face against his cheek and jaw and breathed him in, his hands still moving over him.  “Yeah, that.  But I want you to tie me up first.  Get me on my knees.  Let me really give you anything you want.”

He had been choosing his words carefully, timing them as his fingers brushed over Laurens’ nipples and tugged at the fabric of his shirt.  The restrained jerk of Laurens’ hips convinced him that he had done a good job and he grinned, relieved.  It had seemed too easy to mess that request up.

“Tape is by the bed, J.”

“Bring It.”

Laurens’ voice sent a shiver down Hamilton’s spine and he quickly got up and retrieved them while Laurens took his shirt off.  Hamilton handed them to Laurens who took them and roughly pulled his wrists together.  He bound them—Hamilton tested the tape and found to his satisfaction that he couldn’t break free—and put one hand on the back of Hamilton’s head, drawing him forward and into a kiss. 

“Stay there,” he said, pushing him gently away and standing.  He was very aware of Hamilton’s eyes on him, how closely he was watching him, and he tried not to feel awkward as he undid and took off his pants.

He glanced up and saw Hamilton standing obediently before him and knew that he had to run with it or the whole situation would unravel.

“Knees.”  His voice was rough.

Hamilton dropped immediately to the floor.

Laurens sat back down, swinging his legs wide and planting his feet far apart form one another.  He puffed up his chest as part of the display and nodded curtly, his hands in fists on his thighs, sitting just at the hem of his boxer briefs.

Hamilton leaned forward and ran the flat of his tongue over the bulge between his legs.

Laurens had to force himself not to react.

“What—”

“Keep going.”  He cut Hamilton off.

Without saying anything else, Hamilton immediately repeated the gesture, rubbing the entire length of his warm tongue down him and curling the end of it around the curve at the end of his cock.  His breath was hot and humid and he ran his tongue over him again, reminding him of how well he would fit in his mouth and using the extra friction of his underwear to tease him.  He flicked the very tip of his tongue over his cockhead, dampening the fabric and pressing the weave against his sensitive skin.

Laurens’ hips jerked involuntarily, as if pulled by a string as Hamilton rolled his tongue more insistently over him and then raised his bound hands and pressed them over his cock, lifting his head and looking at him with hooded eyes.

Laurens leaned his hips into Hamilton’s cupped hands and when he started to take them away he put his own firmly on his shoulders and pushed him back into position.

Hamilton felt desire spark hot and low inside him.

“Stay there.”

“Oh…?”  Hamilton rolled his hands gently to one side and slipped his fingers along the crease between Laurens’ thigh and cock.  He pressed against him, teasing him by pretending to ignore him.  “Like this?”  He moved his hands lower, cupping him over his underwear.  “Here?”

Laurens put one hand in Hamilton’s hair and moved his head down.  Hamilton willingly went with it, putting his mouth back over him and letting his breath and tongue warm his cock as he pressed lightly on his balls.  Laurens was obviously hard now and Hamilton sucked against his head, then moved further up to nip at the elastic of his band.  He flicked his tongue over his skin under the dark hair that climbed out of it and up his stomach, then craned his neck so that he could force his tongue to follow it back under the band, just for an inch.

Laurens’ hips jerked forward again and shook as he pulled them back.

He put one hand in Hamilton’s hair again, the base of his palm on his forehead, and pushed him back.  He lifted himself off the chair and pulled his underwear down, kicking it to the side and then yanked Hamilton to his cock, now free and fully erect.

Hamilton’s heart was beating hard in his chest, his face flushed and his own cock hard.  He took his own lower lip into his mouth for a moment, so close to Laurens’ tip that the action sent a breath of air onto it.  Laurens was still holding him firmly in place and without moving any closer he slowly licked the underside of his cockhead.

A groan escaped Laurens’ mouth.

Emboldened, Hamilton repeated the gesture, relishing the feel and taste of his soft, smooth skin.  He was hyper-aware of every fraction of an inch that he touched and couldn’t help but imagine the sensations on his own shaft.  He tried to lean further forward to take Laurens properly into his mouth but was unable to and made a soft noise of protest.

“Do you want more?”

Hamilton wasn’t sure how Laurens had managed to make his voice so low and dark and it sent a thrill though him.  “Yes.”

Laurens tugged lightly on his hair and Hamilton gasped.

“Tell me again.”

“I want to suck your cock.”

Laurens hadn’t expected such an immediately full answer and it surprised him—excited him—and he pulled Hamilton towards him letting him take his head into his mouth.  He had to close his eyes for a moment at the feeling and how eagerly Hamilton sucked against him.

Laurens slid his hand back further into Hamilton’s hair, pushing him further onto him as he did so, until he had it entangled behind his head.  Hamilton moaned softly and moved slowly over him, going down and pushing back against Laurens’ hand, urging his way against the resistance.

Laurens found that he could control the speed and rhythm and he forced him to go slowly, feeling the pleasure build and draw itself out instead of rushing to a conclusion.  He pushed Hamilton down almost to his base, feeling the soft warmth inch over his shaft.  The contrast in temperature and pressure as Hamilton sucked against him was dizzying.

Hamilton had to brace himself with his bound hands in his lap for balance as he was pushed forward.  Unable to use his hands or separate them from one another, he was unsteady, and had to concentrate more on the task than usual.  He leaned slightly back against Laurens’ hand against his head to stabilize himself, and as he took almost all of him into his mouth he pressed back a little too hard, prompting a short tug on his hair.  He made a brief noise of protest, not against the gesture but against the idea that he had been trying to resist, and sucked harder against him to compensate.

Laurens moaned, the noise from low in his throat.  He shifted his hips forward, slipping down in the chair, and giving in.  He moved Hamilton more quickly over him, pulling on his hair and using short jerks to push him forward and back.

Hamilton could feel his heart racing and he tried to keep his breathing as steady as possible while Laurens used him.  He pressed his tongue against the underside of Laurens’ shaft and was rewarded with another groan, this one louder in volume and higher in pitch and with the way that Laruens’ hips tipped hungrily towards him.  Laurens gripped his shoulder with his free hand and Hamilton could feel by how tightly his fingers dug in that he was close to orgasm.  Hamilton hummed a low note against him, feeling the vibrations roll over one another in his mouth, and Laurens gasped.

“Alex…”

Hamilton hummed the note again, drawing it out as long as possible as Laurens tightened his grip in his hair and opened his mouth in a silent moan.

He forced his head down all the way, his breath catching in his throat and escaping in short pants as he felt himself reach climax.  He came forcefully deep at the back of Hamilton’s throat and made a shaky grasping sound when Hamilton swallowed automatically against him.

Hamilton slowly pulled off of him, Laurens no longer holding him down.  His own cock was throbbing and he raised his bound hands to rub his mouth.  “You good?”

Without responding, Laurens put his hand briefly to his mouth as well, feeling the blood pounding through his body.  “Yeah.”  He stood.  “Should I take those off of you?”

“Yes, please.  Unless you’re planning something else.”

“I should,” Laurens said.  He got up and carefully took the tape off of Hamilton’s wrists anyway.

“Psh.  What’s steak and a blowjob about reciprocating head?”

Laurens laughed.  “What?”

“Never mind, the reference didn’t—I could have put that one together better.  The point is that I’m not asking you to do anything, I told you I wanted to reward _you_.”  Hamilton rubbed at the remaining sticky residue on his wrists.  “Besides, I got my hands back.  I’m set.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens sat on the futon.  “Let me watch.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton grinned.  “We didn’t really get dinner, but you want the show?”

“Less talking.”

“Right, right, sorry.”  Hamilton glanced around, then shrugged and got into the chair, quickly undoing his pants and sliding them down around his knees.  “The lighting okay?”

“Yes.”

“Just checking.”  Hamilton ran his hand over his cock, rocking his hips into it more dramatically than he needed to, then slipped his hand into his underwear, wrapping it around his shaft and lightly squeezing as he simulated penetration.  He made a soft pleased noise, more for Laurens’ benefit than because he felt compelled to, and worked his hand back and forth over his cock.

“If you want to do it again after this,” Hamilton said, “we can.  I’d be into that.”  He rocked his hips and picked up the pace.  “Abso—lutely zero complaints there, J.”  He hadn’t meant for his voice to catch and he tried to hide the flicker of embarrassment by tipping his head to the side to show off his neck and jaw and making the movements of his hand more obvious.  He pulled his hand all the way up and down his shaft, feeling it already start to get damp with precum.  He could tell that his face was flushing and he bit the inside of his lower lip to keep some semblance of control.  It already felt good, but wouldn’t it feel even better if he was on his back with Laurens over him, kissing and touching—

“Ah—”

Hamilton bit down on his lip harder, too distracted by the fantasy to hear Laurens get up and he was startled into a loud moan by Laurens hand on the side of his face and his tongue pushing into his mouth.  He grabbed his arm with his free hand, his other suddenly stopped still anyway by Laurens’ hold on his wrist.  He was standing before he realized it, his arms around Laurens’ neck and cock pressed hard against him, rubbing against fabric then bare skin as Laurens roughly pulled his underwear down.

Laurens grabbed his bare ass, squeezing it, and held him closely to him with his other hand on his upper back.  He pressed Hamilton’s hips to him, almost forcing him to thrust against him, his cock hard and hot against his thigh.

“Mm, J.—”

“Again,” Laurens said, the word thick and clumsy.  He kissed him hard and Hamilton felt that he was starting to get erect again.  “Now.”

Hamilton groaned into his mouth and turned them, pulling him down onto the bed and wrapping one of his legs around Laurens’.  Hands met hands and hair and bodies in a rush of desperation.

Laurens was quickly hardening as Hamilton pressed against him, every breath a moan in his ear, and he pulled him higher onto his body so that their cocks rubbed against each other’s briefly and then, with Hamilton lying on top of him, he could fondle the curve of his ass and press his fingers between the cheeks.  Both of them were breathing hard and he kissed him hungrily, breaking it every few seconds to turn his head or bite at his lip before diving back in.

Hamilton’s hand was shaking as he gripped Laurens’ shoulder and tucked his other one behind his neck, ducking his face down with his forehead pressed to his collar as he came with a rolling shudder of pleasure, spilling onto his body with a strangled gasp.

Laurens wrapped his arms tightly around him, holding him to him as he came and feeling that push him back to the edge so that when Hamilton reached down with a trembling hand to touch him it was only seconds before he finished as well, shooting up his chest.

Laurens rolled onto his side, still holding him against his chest, and tucked one hand behind his head to cradle it.  He had, for the moment, no power of speech, and the pounding of his blood in his ears seemed almost too loud.  He felt Hamilton’s arms slip around his waist and his lips press against his bare skin, and he lay there, heavy and hot and vibrating with release.


	202. Anatomizing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Coital; (: ; Medical Library

 “Hey.”

Laurens was the one initiating the conversation this time, lying on his back, face still warm and sweat at the roots of his hair.

“Alex.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton tipped his face up, Laurens’ arm rolling under his neck.  He traced his hand over Laurens’ bare chest.  “It’s gonna get cold.  You should put your shirt back on.”

“Later.”  Laurens took his hand.

“So what’s up?”

Laurens didn’t answer and Hamilton pressed closed to him.

“J.”

“I don’t know,” Laurens admitted.  There were worlds of tangled thoughts caught within him and he didn’t know how to tease anything useful out.  “Forget it.  Sorry.”

“No way.”  Hamilton propped his head up on his hand and looked at him in the dark.  “C’mon.  What is it?”

Laurens was silent.

“J.”

“I just…”  It was a struggle to get the words free.  “You really want André to get off the hook.”

“Of course.  Don’t you?”

Two contradictory answers pulled on him.

“John?”

“I guess so,” he finally said.  “Because I’d rather that he was a moron and not that he was using me.”

“I’d rather that too.  So what’s the problem?  Are you not sure that’s true?”

When Laurens didn’t respond Hamilton leaned over him to turn on the small lamp off the side of the futon.  “J.”

“I don’t know.”  The words were frustrated in spite of Laurens’ best attempts to sound neutral.

“He’s your _friend_ ,” Hamilton said, watching as Laurens’ features hardened against the word and he continued to stare straight up at the ceiling.  “Why don’t you trust him?”

“I just—There’s just been a lot going on,” Laurens said.  “I feel like I can’t get a grip on any of it, and some of it’s been good, and—I don’t have the space to actually think it through.”

Hamilton sunk back down onto the mattress and tucked his arm under his pillow.  He looked closely at Laurens.  “Okay,” he finally said.  “I can understand that.”

Laurens made a skeptical noise.  Since when could Hamilton not keep up?

“But you should assume innocence, right?  Innocent until proven guilty.  And to me at least it looks like he’s not guilty, even if he’s not exactly lily-white.  It’s not like he needs the money,” he reminded Laurens.  “I don’t see what he could have had to gain by any of it, I mean, he’s got connections and he’s smart, and he has the grades…  Even if he wanted to go for a career in art I feel like he could actually make it, you know?  Like, it’s crazy.  It just seems more like him to have tried to do something gallant and screwed up.”

“You forgave him real fast,” Laurens said.  He couldn’t help himself.  He wished he hadn’t sounded quite so exposed.

Hamilton hesitated.  “I guess so,” he said, guarded.

“Faster than me.”

Hamilton blew air out through his nose.  “I was angry at André,” he said.  “But only as far as I thought that he had done something to you.  Once it seemed like he hadn’t…  I care more about you,” he said, putting his hand back on Laurens’ chest.  “That one hurt more.”

Laurens nodded slowly, then put his hand over Hamilton’s.

“We should go to bed.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens turned out the light and felt slow relief as Hamilton curled against him.

 

> A. Hamilton: I just thought hd be into it for a little longer thats all

> A. Hamilton: he was already being weird by the time we went to bed

> G. Lafayette: Maybe he was tired?

> A. Hamilton: i guess

> A. Hamilton: didnt want to push it this mornig but its not like he was jumping fr joy when he left

> A. Hamilton: or wahtever.

> G. Lafayette: Do you want me to talk to him later?

> A. Hamilton: idk

> A. Hamilton: actually, yeah.  If you don't mind.

 

Lafayette flipped through his recently sent emojis.  “Which do you think?”  He asked, holding his phone up to his computer screen.  “Three little stars or a heart?”

“A heart,” Adrienne said.

“It’s more reassuring,” Lafayette agreed.  “Which color?”

“Purple?”

“Purple.”  He added it to the message and sent it.  “I don’t like this,” he said, returning to their previous conversation.  “I feel very useless, my dearheart.”

“I know.  But you tried your best.”

“That’s not enough.  I should have thought things through.”  Lafayette scrolled through his apps.  “Did you see the ticket confirmations?”  He asked, looking up anxiously at his computer.  “I should have sent them to your account.”

“I got them.”

“Oh, good.  So I will stay here through Christmas and then you will come to join me,” Lafayette said, looking away very briefly as he vocalized not being in France for the holiday.  “And then we will get to visit with everyone still in town and then we will leave for the sunny tropics!  And Arizona.  Aglae told me that Phoenix is too hot to live in during the summer and I think she was exaggerating but I want to see it when it is possible to survive.”

A new message popped up on his phone and he was immediately distracted.

“‘What happened with André?’”  He looked up, puzzled at Adrienne.  “I don’t know this number.  ‘What happened with André?’  Who is this?  It’s a New York area code…”

“Message them back and ask who they are,” Adrienne said, her words overlapping with Lafayette’s.

“I’m going to message them back and ask who they are.”

Lafayette was already typing.

 

> G. Lafayette: Who is this?

> A. Burr: Aaron

 

Lafayette groaned and slouched down in his chair.  “Adrienne, what is a good emoji for ‘I recognize that I need to be polite to you and that right now you are checking in on our mutual friend but I still don’t like you and I am mad that I suddenly have to be friends with you’?”

“Gil…”

“Upside-down smily face.”

Adrienne sighed.

Lafayette looked up guiltily.  “That was a joke,” he explained.  “Because I was just asking you for advice on what emoji to send Alexander.  I’ll answer his question.  He did help Alexander when he asked him to, after all.  I think he got invested,” he added as he typed.  “I don’t think he was as disinterested as he wanted to pretend.”

“He’s Alex’s friend,” Adrienne said.  “It makes sense that he would be invested.”

“Yes,” Lafayette agreed, answering slowly in part because he was typing and in part because he didn't quite want to admit it.  “It’s strange,” he said.  “I truly thought that he was not a very nice person, all because Alexander told me to think that.  I trusted him and it’s strange to realize now that they were just in the middle of a falling out and that was coloring his opinion so strongly.  I shouldn’t have taken him at face value.”

“He’s your friend,” Adrienne said.  “It’s important that you stick with your friends.”

“Even when they are in the wrong?  You did not judge Aaron unfairly when you visited.”

Adrienne looked a little uncomfortable.  “That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“I’m one more step removed from the situation.  It doesn’t matter as much if I am neutral.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”  Lafayette sent his message and looked up at Adrienne again.  “I think I would like…  I don’t necessarily want to be friends with him, but I don’t want to feel like I owe him for my bad behavior.”

“Good,” Adrienne said encouragingly.  Lafayette smiled at the approval.  “That sounds like a good direction to move in.  What are you going to do to accomplish that?”

“I think I need to see if I can get the answer to a question for him,” Lafayette said, “even though he doesn’t know that _I_ know that he wants to know it.”  He shook his head apologetically.  “It’s less complicated than it sounds.”

 

“Hey, what are you doing here?  You’re not taking classes in here, are you?”

Laurens clasped hands with McHenry, then pulled away.  “No,” he admitted, feeling almost like the glance around the pre-med building was stolen.  “I had some time between things and—my younger brother is really into science,” he said, looking around again at the obviously expensive halls, all clean angles and chrome on white marble.  “He’s coming to visit for the game and I wanted to see what this place was like in case we’ve got time for a tour.”

“Got it.”  McHenry nodded, his hands in his jacket pockets.  He followed Laurens’ gaze around the halls.  “There’s an exhibit at the medical library,” he said after a pause.  “I’ve got a little bit of time if you want me to show you.”

“Sure,” Laurens said.  “That’d be good, thanks.”

“No problem.”  McHenry motioned him to follow him back down the way he had come.  “So your brother’s coming?  Which one?”

“Jemmy.  He and my father are coming up for the game.”

“That makes sense.  Guess they couldn’t pass that one by, huh?”

“He’s pretty excited about it,” Laurens said.  “Jemmy is.  He follows all the games back home—”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same,” McHenry said, cutting in almost in spite of himself.

Laurens nodded, strangely relieved to have gotten that reaction, even though it seemed like such an obvious one to him.

“He should get your signature,” McHenry teased.  “Like on a shirt or something, then he can show it off to all his friends.”

“I don’t think that’s really worth much since they all know that we’re related.”

“What if you passed it around and got everyone to sign it?”  McHenry asked, pushing open a set of doors at the end of the hall and continuing down the next one.  “I bet that’d mean something.”

Laurens considered this.  “Maybe.”  He hesitated.  “The line up’s different from what they’ve been watching, though.”

“Your signature is way better than Lee’s,” McHenry assured him.  “—As captain, that is.  I assume he’ll be okay with someone else filling in for his other position.”

“Obviously.”

He must have sounded convinced because McHenry laughed.  Laurens cracked a smile, but felt it starting to fade even as it appeared.

“Maybe I can still get André to sign it later,” he said.  “Jemmy’s actually talked to him on the phone before so I think he’d like that even if it’s not technically accurate.”

“André’ll still come to the game, won’t he?”  McHenry asked.  “I mean, I figured we’d still do something after since it’s the end of the semester.”

“I guess,” Laurens said.  He paused and reworded what he was going to say to put himself at more of a remove.  “I don’t know if he knows that he’s still invited.”

“I can’t speak for everyone, but I assumed he was.”  McHenry shrugged.  “He was doing the same thing that a bunch of us were and just got himself made into the scapegoat.  I mean, it sucks,” he went on, “so I don’t know what the coach and everyone on that side of things is planning on doing, like if he’s still going to be allowed in the team picture and if they’re going to pull his funding for the year—not that he can’t pay it himself, at least.  As far as I know though no one’s mad at him…  Why would anyone be, anyway?”  He glanced at Laurens, the rhetorical question sharpening just a little into a real one.

Laurens kept his face carefully blank.  “You’re right,” he said.  “I’m just being paranoid because he hasn’t been around, I guess.”

“I’d have thought you'd be spending more time with him.”

Laurens remembered how stiff and chill their conversation had been the previous night and he was relieved to see the sign for the library above a set of doors.  “Is that it?”

“Oh, yeah.”  McHenry, suitably distracted, quickened his pace so he could enter just ahead of Laurens and hand off the door to him.  “It’s just past the front desk.  He’s okay with anatomy stuff, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.  I should’ve asked earlier,” he said, not quite apologizing as he led Laurens over to a series of glass display cases holding replicas of partially dissected animal specimens.  “Uh, so it starts of with your basic frog, fish, fetal pig, then it moves to more unusual things as you keep going.”  He walked them down the row of cases.

Laurens wasn’t able to stop the amused breath of a laugh he gave at the large model of a turtle lying on its back behind the glass panel.

McHenry looked at him curiously.

“It’s nothing.  When I was home over break we were talking about turtles.  I had one as a pet before and he doesn’t remember it.”

“Oh.”  McHenry nodded, face still mostly blank since the explanation was clearly only scaffolding over the actual story.  “Neat.  Was that when he was little?”

“Yeah—”  Laurens paused and after a moment of consideration gave a more complete answer.  “Actually,” he said, “I had two.  One was when I was just a little kid.  It eventually died but I had it for years.  I got a second one just before I graduated but it got out not long after I bought it.  I don’t think I had it more than a week.  You know that that my brother was injured, right?  He fractured his skull and was in the hospital for a while.”

McHenry winced.  “I’m sorry.”

Laurens shrugged automatically, putting his hands in his pockets.  “Yeah.  He’s fine now, he’s…”  Laurens trailed off, feeling McHenry’s gaze on him and wishing he could shrug that off as well.  “I didn’t know that he didn’t remember it,” he said finally.  “It’s not a big deal, I knew that his memory of the day of the accident is wiped.  But I brought it home a couple days before he fell and he really didn't remember at all.”

McHenry nodded sympathetically.  “Yeah.  That’s kind of scary, though.”

“It is.”  The words were out of his mouth before he could think about them and Laurens only realized what he had said after it was too late to even add on to the sentence to temper it.  He pressed his lips together, embarrassed that he had let that slip out.

“Especially if you know anything about that sort of thing,” McHenry said, not seeming to notice how uncomfortable Laurens had made himself.  “I mean, you know that’s not good.”

Laurens was surprised to hear from the intonation that the “you” was meant for him in particular instead of just generically for whoever might be listening.  He nodded.  “Yeah.”  A beat.  “I learned about brain injuries at school and I remember—when he was in the hospital still, but stable at least—It was so surreal, because I’d read just enough to have this superficial understanding of what was going on, and enough to know that I really didn’t know anything.  It’s like I would have felt less helpless if I hadn’t studied it at all.”  Laurens leaned lightly against the glass case.  “I really liked those classes,” he admitted.  “I thought I wanted to study medicine.”

“That’s cool.  Why’d you change your mind?”

Laurens had never not known the answer to the question but he felt like somehow he was uncovering it, like it was a book that had been lying somewhere discarded and dusty, next to a well-worn but inaccurate translation.  He debated for a moment over which version to pick up but could only lift one, in spite of its weight.

“My father didn’t want me to.  He studied law,” he explained.  “And he—I think he wanted to share that with me, so he encouraged me to sign up for political science as a precursor to that.  I like it,” he said, very aware that he was making an excuse.  “My classes are interesting.  I’ve learned a lot.  The program here, I can take things with more of a focus on different kinds of law with the assumption that a lot of us are thinking about pursuing that later.  So it’s been good.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens tipped his head to the side, looking at the glass.  “Besides, everyone gets sick of studying after a while.”  He could hear Hamilton laugh at that and he tried very hard to ignore him.

“Sure,” McHenry agreed.  “I’d love to not have to study for finals.”

“You should join us sometime,” Laurens said spontaneously.  “I’m going to get dragged into studying with Alexander and Lafayette and both of them will probably invite other people.  You should come too.”

“All right,” McHenry agreed.  “Let me know when.”

“It’ll probably be last minute.  But I’ll text you.  Knowing both of them there’s going to be at least one night that they’ll want to make a _thing_ out of it.”


	203. We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies--it is the first law of nature.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Special Snowflake; Burr, Sir; Self-Portrait

“I have a question,” Lafayette said, sitting in Washington’s office and cutting out a paper snowflake over the waste bin.  He looked up at him hopefully over the desk and saw Washington put down the report in front of him.  “It’s not very important,” he went on, “ah, maybe it is.  It did affect my educational plans.”

“What is it?”  Washington's voice was level but already starting to turn suspicious.

Lafayette shook his head placatingly and put one hand up.  Nothing about André, nothing to worry about.

“Why is Dr. Bartow not taking new students?  I had wanted to ask her to be my advisor and it just seemed so strange to hear that she is not doing that anymore, especially since she’s still quite young and has not been working here all _that_ long.”

“Lafayette,” Washington started.  To Lafayette’s disappointment he didn’t take his reading glasses off and instead glanced back down at his papers.  “It is her choice to not take on students.”

“I did not think it was,” Lafayette said.  He paused, feeling out the conversation, then, suitably satisfied, kept going.  “Because, you see, I understand that working with students one on one like that is part of what faculty are evaluated upon.  There are several criteria that need to be met,” he went on, counting off on his fingers beginning with the thumb.  “Hours spent in the classroom, academic publications and presentations, and service to the university.  So then I thought, ‘Ah, Dr. Bartow must be rendering other services to the university, maybe she is leading a journal based here that I can read since I admire her work and that might be a suitable substitute for not being able to study directly under her.’  But when I looked into it,” he said, taking on something like a conspiratorial tone and leaning in closer for a moment, “I found out that she was not.  In fact, she is not on any committee at all this year.”

Washington glanced up from his work.  “That sort of thing is notoriously slow to get updated online.”

“I know,” Lafayette said, nodding.  “I figured.  But I contacted all of them and asked who was sitting on them.”

Washington did actually take off his glasses now.  “May I ask why?”

“I was curious,” Lafayette said honestly.  “And it did not seem like the sort of thing that would be a secret, especially since you say the listings do get published online.”

Washington sighed and put his glasses back on.

“I am just curious,” Lafayette said, pressing a little further.  “I talk to employees here a lot.  I am thinking about my own future and I want to know how things work.  Is it possible to completely cut out one of those three pillars and remain in good standing?”

“Exceptions can be made,” Washington said without looking back up.  “For example, if one were to publish extensively and in highly respected locations.  The attention and prestige that would bring to the school would certainly cause us to recognize that one would have had less time to devote to other occupations.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette nodded.  “I see.  That makes sense.  I look forward to reading Dr. Bartow’s upcoming publication.”

Washington made no response.

“It doesn’t matter too much, I suppose,” Lafayette said, turning his attention back to cutting out the snowflake.  “It’s all right if I cannot have her as my advisor.  I can always make her my _unofficial_ advisor and take courses with her.  Ah, not this coming semester, though, my schedule is already full—”

Washington uncharacteristically cut Lafayette off.  “I would suggest you take a course from her in spring if you are interested in studying with her.”

Lafayette looked up from his work, feeling shock like a bucket of cold water dumped over him, and not sure if he was supposed to have been able to read between the lines or not.

“Is that so?”

“Mm.”  Washington made a general noise of confirmation without volunteering any new information.

Lafayette put the scissors down on the desk.  “I think I am finished here,” he said, brushing the last scraps of paper into the bin and standing.  “Voilà.”  He unfolded the snowflake and held it out for approval.  “What do you think?  I should get off to class,” he continued, gathering the rest of his belongings, “but, ah, I can maybe very carefully fold this up again and…”

“You’re not leaving that here?”

Lafayette looked up, startled.  “Did you want it?”

“I thought it was going to be decoration for the office.”

Lafayette paused, then beamed.  “Ah, you are correct!  How silly of me to forget at the last moment.  May I borrow some tape?  Where shall I put it?”  He asked, crossing quickly from one end of the room to another.  “I could put it on the door, or on the window…”  He looked back at him.  “What do you think?”

“What about on the shelving?”  Washington asked.  “Then I can still see it from here.”

“A good idea,” Lafayette said enthusiastically, taping it up with a flourish.  He stepped back and it rocked gently over the empty space of one of the shelves.  “I’m glad you like it,” he said, turning back to Washington.  “I thought it might be too childish.”

“Not at all,” Washington assured him.  “Thank you for letting me keep it.”

 

“Maybe it doesn’t translate well to French.”

“But I was reading it in English.”

“Yeah,” Gouverneur said, “but if the joke is too cultural then maybe it just doesn’t translate.”

Lafayette considered this.  “Do I not understand American jokes?”  He furrowed his brow, the prospect seriously concerning.  “Do I miss a lot of things?  You are my friend, you would tell me if I made a fool out of myself, wouldn’t you?”

“Two or three different things there, Lafayette.”

“Is it true?”  Lafayette asked, a little more distressed since he was not getting an outright denial.  “Do I miss—Oh.”  He saw Burr approach the conference hall they were sitting outside of and he stood.  “This isn't over,” he warned Gouverneur as sternly as possible.  “Think of your answer because I am busy now but I will come back to it.  Possibly in text form.  Hello,” he greeted Burr, taking him by the arm and steering him away.  “I need to speak with you.”

“I need to—”

“Yes, yes, your council is starting soon, I know, but you still have a few minutes and Alexander isn’t even here yet so no one needs you in there to keep him under control.  I have class soon too, so we will both just have to be late together.”  He guided him around the corner.

“Lafayette,” Burr started with clearly strained patience, “what do you want?”

“I wanted to thank you for helping Alexander,” Lafayette said, letting go of him once they were stationed more discreetly.  “You put work in and I, well, I had not been putting in as much as I could have.  So I took what I learned from Thomas and then I did a little research on my own and then I talked to Thomas again—”

“Who’s ‘Thomas’?”

“Oh, Dr. Jefferson.”

Burr caught himself before he fully grimaced.  “Right.”

“And then I talked to Dr. Washington.  The president,” Lafayette clarified.

“I know who that is.”

“You didn’t know who Thomas was.”

“That’s because you were calling—All right.”  Burr put both his hands up in defeat.  “All right.  Fine.  You talked to the school president.  About what?”

“Dr. Bartow is not going to be teaching here after this coming semester.”

Lafayette watched Burr with bated breath but he remained impassive.

“Is she leaving for a new job somewhere else?”

“I don’t know,” Lafayette said.  “It, ah, it did not sound amicable.  Amiable?”

“People would understand you if you used either.  Technically in this situation it should be ‘amicable.’”

“Thank you.”  Lafayette paused, scouring Burr’s face for any sign of distress.  “She is not meeting the requirements to stay on as per her contract.  I don’t know if she is quitting or being let go.”

“Pity,” Burr said.  “I thought she was a good teacher.”

“I'm sorry that she is leaving,” Lafayette said.  “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” Burr said, brisk and all business.  “It’s a shame for her if she’s leaving under less than auspicious circumstances, but it sounds like she brought this upon herself.  Besides,” he went on, “I’m graduating in spring so it’s not as though I can take any more classes from her after that point anyway.”

Lafayette frowned at him suspiciously.

“What?”

“…Nothing.”  Lafayette clasped his hands behind his back.  “Ah, we are both going to be late for real if I do not let you go.”

“You certainly will be,” Burr agreed as he turned and took a step away.  “Well,” he said, glancing back at Lafayette over his shoulder, “if you do hear anything else, let me know.  I have to admit that I am curious now.”

Lafayette nodded, knowing that both of them were aware that he was keeping his face intentionally neutral.  “Of course.”

 

It was dark by the time Laurens left the gym that evening and he hunched his shoulders against the cold.  He hesitated, longing to go straight back to the dorms, then sighed and veered off to the art building instead.  It should still be open and he needed to get his portfolio together before the semester ended.  Maybe just an hour or two and then he could head back…

He pushed open the doors, unbuttoning the top of his coat and freeing the lower half of his face, feeling the warmth of the building sink into him.  He tried to ignore how much else he still needed to do by the end of the year as he walked down the hall to the stairs that would take him down into the basement and the studio.

Most of the rooms were empty and one of the restrooms had a janitorial cart blocking the entrance, and he rubbed his hands together as he went down the stairs, trying to warm them up.  He could hear music playing in the basement, clean but without much throw, and he walked towards it and the light from the open studio door.

Once he rounded the doorframe the song suddenly came into focus and Laurens realized that he hadn’t been able to pick out the lyrics because they weren't in English.

André was sitting in his familiar seat at the other end of the room, a mirror propped up next to his work.  Mina was lying on her stomach on the long table, her legs kicked up behind her, scrolling down the page of the large black laptop open in front of her.

“I can’t believe how much merch you had,” she said, obviously impressed.  She rested her chin on the base of her other hand, her fingers curled delicately in.   “What’s the conversion rate for won to dollars?”

Laurens cleared his throat and they both looked up.

The music continued to play, jarringly upbeat with the tension in the air.

“Sorry,” Laurens said.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine.”  André turned on his stool to face him and Laurens wondered if he should tell him that he had a smudge of charcoal on the side of his face and nose.  “You can use the room too.”

Laurens nodded and wondered if it would be more uncomfortable to take his normal seat next to him or move across the room.  In order to avoid having to decide he went to the back of the studio to first gather the work he had left there and some of the shared supplies.

“What happened to the rest of your bandmates?”

“Different things.”

Laurens heard André shift on the stool again, presumably leaning over to point them out on the screen.

“These guys are still in the business.  He does primarily dramas now.”

“But you were the only one who really went off the grid?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You’ve got such a good voice,” Mina said.  “Where’s your solo again?  I’m going to find it.”

The music stopped and made a couple false starts before Mina found the part she wanted.

“You should sing with us,” she said.  “Even if you don’t want to really collab, you should at least come on stage.”

Laurens took a seat near them as a compromise.  He started sorting through his things and glanced up when he heard Mina giggle, only to quickly look away again when he saw them kissing.

“Hey,” André said a few seconds later.  “Laurens.”

Laurens didn’t look up again, not sure if he didn’t want to just pack up and leave.  “Yeah?”

“You can have your seat.  I can move my stuff.”

“No, it’s fine.  I don’t want to get in the way.”

“Are you sure?”

“He said he’s fine,” Mina said.

Laurens heard them kiss again and felt his face heating.

“Is it okay if I put music back on?”

That was Mina, Laurens recognized, and she was talking to him.  He nodded.  “Do whatever you want.”  He regretted his wording and hoped they wouldn’t take him literally.

The music video started up again.

“I’m going to make a playlist,” Mina declared.  “I’m going to gather all of my favorite ones in one place.”

“You don’t have to do that…”

She laughed and Laurens debated taking his headphones out of his bag.  His phone didn’t have much of a charge left, but just having them on to muffle the noise might be something.  He forced himself not to, trying to remember that he didn’t want to appear rude.  That was why he was staying, after all, it wouldn’t be worth it if he came off poorly.

“Are you working on the pictures of Alex?”

Laurens looked up.  André was watching him carefully.

He nodded.  “Yeah.”

“So,” André managed to stretch the word out enough that it bridged into his next question.  “That’s coming along well, then?”

“Yeah,” Laurens repeated.  He didn’t know if he should show him and he didn't think he really wanted to show Mina.  “Working on it at your place helped a lot.  I was kind of going in circles before.  I have…”  He shifted the papers around.  “I have that one formal drawing, that one’s done.  And then the sketches…  I thought I’d get a whole set of those, uh, get like a character study.  I have a bunch of pictures of him that I can use so he doesn’t need to actually sit for me.”  Laurens hesitated.  “Are you doing a self-portrait in addition to your stuff of Peggy?”

“Oh,” André said, sounding suddenly more normal than he had previously, “actually, I tossed those.”

Laurens wondered if he was speaking metaphorically or if he had, in fact, tossed out his earlier work.

“I decided I needed to, like, do something different.  You know?”

Laurens nodded again.

Mina sat up and got off the table.  She shut her laptop and the music cut.

“I’m going to get a drink,” she said.  “I’ll be right back.”  She leaned down and André tipped his head up and they kissed.

“Anyway,” André went on as she left, “after I left Dr. Washington’s house the other night, I went back to my apartment and I couldn’t sleep.”

Laurens felt a fresh wave of guilt.  “Yeah?”

“I was really upset,” André said, “and—So I ended up drawing.  Do you want to see?”

“Sure.”  Laurens stood and crossed over to where André was sitting.  He leaned one hand on the table and tipped his head to the side, looking at the sketchbook open before him.

André had drawn a detailed self-portrait of himself sitting at his desk in his room.  It was full-length, although not fully finished, and showed him seated sideways in his chair and looking off the page and directly at the viewer.  Although incomplete, the gaze was soft and piercing.

“That’s neat,” Laurens said, meaning it.  “That’s very…  Why did you draw yourself?”

André shrugged and Laurens mentally kicked himself for asking.  André had just had his world turned upside down, was it any surprise that he had wanted to assert and record his presence somehow?

“I was thinking about…  A lot of stuff,” André said.  “On the drive back.  And mostly just that at the end of the day we only…  I shouldn’t have been trying to rely so much on other people,” he said, shifting the subject slightly.  “Like, I knew that Margaret—Peggy—wasn’t the best person for me and I shouldn’t’ve been going along with that.  Even the rest of that mess aside.  I’m an adult,” he said, “and I should act like one.  And that means that I need to be okay with being, you know, on my own.  Not trying to make nice all the time or play along with things until the last minute or look for a way to appease as many people as possible for as long as possible.  I’ve just always done things to please someone else, and I’m usually good at them, so it’s easy for me to keep going until I’ve committed so far that I don’t know what the original point was anymore or if I’m even doing what they wanted me to.”

Laurens didn’t say anything.  Somehow, even though André was speaking in his normal voice, that felt like the saddest thing he had heard in a long time.

“…But you like it?”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  His words were sincere.  He put his hand on André’s shoulder.  “You’re a great artist.”

André looked up at him with a grateful smile.  “Thanks.”

Mina walked back into the room and Laurens took his hand off him and folded his arms across his chest.

“That means a lot coming from you,” André said as Laurens went back to his seat.  “You actually know what you’re doing.”

“Hah.  Sometimes.”

The air felt like it had been cleared, at least mostly.  Laurens picked up his pencil and watched as Mina clicked her tongue and rubbed at the smudge on André’s face.  The side of his mouth curved up.  Maybe the future stretched on, unknowable, for further than either of them could see.


	204. Scheduling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cramming; Geography Lessons

Hamilton took a long careful sip of his coffee, then put the mug down on the floor next to his open textbook.  “I’m not surprised that Washington wouldn’t confirm that she’s being fired.  Or forced out, whatever.”

Lafayette, sitting next to him, nodded.

“It’s not the sort of thing he can technically share with you.  So, you know, don’t take it personal.”

“Jefferson knew.”

Hamilton scowled.  “Of course Jefferson knew.  Jefferson’s a huge gossip.  Don’t ask me how I know that, it’s just a hunch.  Besides, he was involved in…”  Hamilton waved the bright pink highlighter he had been using before Lafayette showed up at his apartment.  “…All of that.”

“He said there was nothing there.”

“I dunno, ask Burr about that.  Or don’t, actually, let’s wait until we’re all graduated before actively trying to get any of us to say anything that stupid.  There’s been enough drama already and I just want to get my fucking grades and clear out of this place.  I feel bad for André.”

“I know,” Lafayette said, stealing a drink from Hamilton’s coffee.  “He didn’t deserve that.”

“John was ticked that I believed him so quickly,” Hamilton said.  “André, I mean.  I think he thinks I’m fickle.”

“Fickle?”

“That I change my mind easily.”

“Ah.  I should write that down.”  Lafayette looked around for something to write with.  “You’re just smart enough to adopt a new opinion if presented with new evidence.”

“Right, exactly.”  Hamilton handed him a pen.  “I dunno, I mean, yeah, I was really freaking pissed at André at first but he does seem more like the sort of guy who’d just step in it, you know?  I think he means well.”

“Unlike Lee.”

Hamilton scowled again.  “Screw Lee.  l hope I never see him again.”

“He did get expelled,” Lafayette pointed out.  “So that seems likely.”

“I guess.  It just feels… anticlimactic somehow.”

Lafayette’s phone lit up and he unlocked it to respond to a message from Adrienne.  “That is life.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton bounced the highlighter between his fingers rapidly, looking across his apartment at the door without seeing anything.  “What kind of genre do you think you’d live in?”  He asked.  “If you were in a book.”

“Autobiography.”

“Ha.  Of course.”

“You?”

“I dunno.”  Hamilton kept toying with the highlighter.  “Porn.”

“Oh, probably.”

“John’d be some gay coming of age thing.”

“That’s a good genre for him.”

“I know.  You think I should find him a reading list or something?  I don’t know if he’d actually touch it but sometimes I feel like he’d do better if he had someone else for context.”

“It’s not like he only knows straight people.”

“That’s true.  There’s me, Peggy, his coach…  Okay, that’s only three people and I had to count myself in there.  That’s not great.”

“Aglae.”

“He doesn’t actually spend time with her, she doesn’t count.  She’s just you- or Peggy-adjacent.  I could’ve added other people but it doesn’t mean shit if they’re just my friends and not _his_.”

“You could introduce them.”

Hamilton winced.  “They don’t super get along.”

Lafayette sighed.  “John is so prickly sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.  I like how we both knew that it was his fault without my even naming names, by the way.”

“Of course it’s his fault.”

“He can be charming.”

“He can be,” Lafayette agreed.  “But he can also make a terrible first impression.”

“He has his off days.”

“I think this is all the more reason for him to make up with André,” Lafayette said.  “He can’t afford to just throw friends away.”

“I shouldn’t be ragging on him for this,” Hamilton said, trying to turn his attention back to the textbook.  “I piss people off all the time, too.  Kind of sort of on the same subject,” he went on, turning the page, “what’s our game plan for, uh, the game this weekend?  I was thinking I’d see if Mulligan can come, make a whole big thing of it, then it won’t feel as weird if we run into John’s family.”

“You mean his father.”

“I mean I’m trying not to give myself a complex about going.”

“I’m sure Eliza and Angelica will want to go.  I can see if anyone else is interested.”

“Yeah, can you?  I bet Peggy would be fun.  I bet she’d have a good time heckling everyone.”

“Oh, probably.”  Lafayette reached for Hamilton’s coffee again and Hamilton pulled it away.  “I just want a little!”

“Get your own.  I’ve got clean mugs.”

“You don't have any left in the machine.”

“So make a new pot.”

Lafayette sighed and got up.  “It is such a hassle.”

“Yeah, well, if I had one of those single-serve things it wouldn’t be as much of one.”

“It would go with your skylight,” Lafayette said, scooping coffee grounds into a new filter.  “And my four properties.”

“I thought you wanted three?”

“Chavaniac, Paris, New York City, and somewhere upstate.”

“Right.  You’ll forgive me for not being able to keep track.”  Hamilton put the end of the highlighter to his mouth and read a couple lines.  “Maybe I should just move into your place in the city.  It’s not like you’ll be living there all the time.”

“Oh, that would be fun.  If you and John move in it will be so friendly.”

“And I bet it would be big enough that we wouldn’t all be tripping over one another.  Okay, that’s cracked it.  After I move out here I’m slumming it at your place.”

“I look forward to it,” Lafayette said happily, trying to decide between a mug with the New York City skyline on it and one with a corporate logo.  “Is this your bank?”

“Nah, they were handing them out free if you took a survey and talked to someone about opening a checking account.”

Lafayette nodded and put the other one away.  “When you move in with me we can buy you new kitchenware.”

“I like my university mug.”

“And the rest of them?”

“Yeah, those are all garbage.”  Hamilton took another drink.  “So any suggestions for what to about with John’s father if I end up in the same place as him?  I don’t know if it would be more awkward to act like nothing happened or literally throw myself out of the stands to avoid having to talk to him.”

“I’m surprised there’s no third option.”

“I told John I wasn’t going to poke that hornet’s nest,” Hamilton said.  “I’d like to at least attempt to keep my word on that, it’s only going to have been a couple of weeks.”

Lafayette nodded.  “That is true.  It’s best not to pick unnecessary fights in relationships, especially when it means dragging the other person’s family into it.”

“Yeah, hey, tell me again about how you ditched Adrienne’s family at the airport and flew to New York without telling them about it?  I’m surprised they didn’t try to get a GPS tracking anklet for you once you returned to France.”

“I’m allowed to be speaking from personal experience,” Lafayette protested.

“I guess so.”

“I would act as though it never happened.”

“Yeah?”

“If I didn’t want to make a scene,” Lafayette clarified.  “I am only…”  He held one hand out, palm down, and tipped it back and forth.   “Fifty-fifty.”

“Ha.  Yeah, same.”

“No,” Lafayette said.  “You are more like eighty-twenty.”

Hamilton made a face.  “I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“I’m trying to study, too.  I can’t believe Friday is the last day of classes.”  He laughed, sounding a little hollow and frantic.  “ _This_ close to completely losing my shit as of this morning, let me tell you.”

“You don’t need to get perfect grades.  Barring some absolute disaster, you’re going to graduate in the spring and you have a very large buffer.”  Lafayette adjusted the glass pot in the coffee maker impatiently.  “I’m not even bothering to study for one of my classes because I could fail the final and still get a B.”

“Look, I know I don’t need it to stay enrolled,” Hamilton said, draining the rest of his mug and putting it down.  “I just—I still feel like I need it, you know?”

Lafayette nodded and Hamilton saw in his face that he didn’t.

“No you don’t.”  He fiddled with the corner of the page of his book.  “And that’s okay.  Look,” he said after a moment, “it’s like—Do you remember being a kid and say you’re at a park—or maybe your backyard in France was big enough to count—but you’re playing outside somewhere and there’s a hill, and you decide to run down it.”  Hamilton waited until Lafayette nodded again and then he continued.  “Real fast.  And it’s a long slope, pretty steep, so as you go you start to pick up more and more speed.  Pretty soon you’re just flying down that thing and your legs are pounding and the thing is that you’re out of control.  You can’t _stop_ ,” he said, “because you’ll just trip over yourself and fall flat on your face.  You just have to keep going until the ground levels out.  That’s how I feel.  And sometimes, sometimes I think it’s never going to level out, it’s just going to keep going forever and I’m going to be running faster and faster until I eventually lose control and crash in spite of my best efforts.”

“Alexander…”

“But it’s okay,” Hamilton went on quickly, “because then it’s break and then the start of a new semester and I’m standing at the top of the hill again.  So it doesn’t actually last forever.”

Lafayette sighed.  “Please don’t die of a heart attack while we are still young and beautiful.”

“‘Beautiful.’  Speak for yourself.  I’m gonna age prematurely.  I hate it, it’s awful.  Can I steal your expensive revitalizing serums and shit?”

“I don’t need any because I don’t have such unhealthy practices.”

“You don’t need any because you have stupidly good genetics.”

“That too,” Lafayette agreed.

“I think my point was that I need to study.  Or to get laid, I’m not sure which.”

“Both.”

“Both.  And to avoid the hell out of Henry Laurens.”

 

“We should have a study party.”

Laurens picked his phone off the cafeteria table.  “I knew it.  When?”

Lafayette sat next to him with his tray.  “This weekend.  The last day of class is Friday.  If we have a study party on Saturday or Sunday then we can _actually_ study until Wednesday.  Angelica said that they can host it.”

Laurens was already texting.  “Is Sunday okay?  The guys are probably going to want to do something after the game and I figured McHenry would want to go if it’s at the Schuylers’.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette looked surprised.  “You invited him already.  That was fast.”

“I told him we’d have a thing.”

Lafayette frowned, puzzled.  “Did I mention…?”  He shook his head.  “That’s true.”  He paused.  “And your father and brother are leaving…?”

“Saturday.”

“I think Angelica said that she would rather have it start during the day.”

“Yeah?”

Lafayette nodded innocently.

“I wanted to show Jemmy around campus, but I can do that in the morning and then head over with McHenry.”

Lafayette nodded again, satisfied.  “All right.  I think you should come for the full thing,” he said.  “Peggy will be there.”

“I figured she would be, since it’s her parents’ house.”

“Your father would understand if you wanted to go, wouldn’t he?”

“A party at a girl’s house?”  Laurens snorted.  “He’ll probably want to meet Peggy in person.  If I get roped into lunch with them, you and Alexander can head over without me.  I know he doesn’t want to interact with him.  I can’t say that I blame him,” he added.  “Or that I actually want them in the same place at the same time.  If arranging this is your way of trying to tactfully circumvent all of that, then thank you.”

“It is my pleasure.”

“Who else will be there?”

“Alexander, of course.  And Angelica and Eliza and Peggy.  I suppose I should invite Aaron Burr,” he sighed.

“André and Mina,” Laurens said abruptly.  “I’ll text him too.”

Lafayette gave Laurens another confused look.  This was all going even better than he had hoped.  “I’ll ask how many people we can bring.  I assume that Angelica and Eliza and Peggy will want to invite their own friends as well.”

“André’s not playing, though,” Laurens pointed out.  “So, I don’t know, I thought it would be good to make sure that he’s included.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Lafayette said, suddenly excited.  “John, André can watch the game with us!  This is perfect, Alexander wanted to have a big tailgating thing as well.”

“Back to back events.  He’s really trying to make sure he’s too busy to talk to my father.”

“Back to back to back,” Lafayette confirmed.  “Before and during and after the game.  Besides, it’s the end of the semester,” he went on, “we should all blow off some steam.”

“I don’t know that a study party at the Schuylers’ is the way to do that.”

“There will be people.  And some of them even like one another.  I should get _mistletoe_ —”

Laurens laughed.

Lafayette sat back, looking pleased with himself.  “I’m glad you think it’s a good idea.”

“It should be fun,” Laurens agreed.  His phone lit up again and he checked it.  “They’re all coming,” he said.  “I’ll tell my father that I have an event that morning so I’ll need to split off.”

“Good.  I’m glad that you’re not upset about this,” Lafayette said.  “I was afraid it would come off as meddling.”

“I mean, it is and it does.”  Laurens shrugged.  “But, no, I’m not upset.”

“That is what matters.  I was trying to help.”

“I know.”

“Alexander is starting to really panic about grades again anyway,” Lafayette confided.  “I thought the setting and theme might help.”

“Yeah.  I don’t know,” Laurens said.  “He’s going to do fine.”

“That’s what I told him!”

“I don’t know if this will really be the most productive way to study but I think just being with a bunch of people helps him burn off energy.”

“That, or…”  Lafayette raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that right after spending all morning with my father and kid brother.”

“Can you imagine the level of zen he would achieve after an orgy?”  Lafayette asked with a slow shake of his head.  “My God.”

“ _Definitely_ not doing that after spending all morning with my father and kid brother.”

“I don’t know if I would like it,” Lafayette said, finally relaxing into lunch and picking a grape off of the bunch he had purchased.  “Too many elbows.  And too hot.”

“Yeah.  It seems like a bad idea.  One of those things that only sounds good.”

“I bet Alexander would disagree with us.  I don’t know if he’d actually follow through and participate in one, but I feel like he’d have a very elaborate argument on why it’s a good idea.”

“Probably,” Laurens agreed.  “That does sound like him.”

“Do you know,” Lafayette said abruptly, leaning in across the table, “that it’s been almost exactly two months since the two of you joined Adrienne and me at the cafe?”

Laurens paused.  “No,” he finally said, sounding almost awed.  “I thought it had to have been longer than that.”

“Nope.”  Lafayette pulled off a second grape.  “Two months.  I checked.  It came up when I was talking to Adrienne this morning,” he explained.

“That was an awkward…  Whatever that was.”

“A date,” Lafayette said.  “It was a date.  Don’t back out of it retroactively, it was hard enough to get Alexander to commit to it.”

“Right, sorry.  A date.”

“It was awkward,” Lafayette agreed.  “You did all right.”

“Excuse me…”

“But Alex was so…”

“I know,” Laurens agreed.  “He was.”  He toyed with his phone.  “Adrienne being on a computer probably didn’t help.”

“It’s so much more natural with the tablet,” Lafayette enthused.

“Yeah, that’s not really what I…”  Laurens cleared his throat.  “Anyway, that’s not the point.”

“No, it wasn’t.  The point was that I am very impressed.  It’s like you managed to pack a whole year or two of character development into a couple of months.”

“‘Character development’?”

“English is my second language, John,” Lafayette complained.  “Please don’t.”

“Sorry.”

“What I was saying was that the two of you have put a lot of work in,” Lafayette said.  “We only went to Vermont over this past fall break!  And that feels like it was ages ago.  So congratulations,” he said finally.  “I’m very impressed.”

“Thank you.  But weren't you the one who set us up in the first place?  Shouldn’t you be less surprised?”

“Oh, I knew you two had chemistry,” Lafayette said airily as he cut into his pot pie.  “But I didn’t realize just how good my instincts were.  And then you two just didn’t really go anywhere with it for _ages_ …  It’s only been since this semester that you’ve put more effort in.”

“I guess.”  Laurens unlocked his phone and typed.  “It just seems weird to have you of all people say this sort of thing.”

“ _Moi_?”

“You know.”

“Relationships _are_ my thing.”

“That and being enthusiastically on exchange.”

“That too.  It’s not the worst reputation.”

“No,” Laurens agreed fondly in spite of himself.  “It’s really not.”

“We should do something again,”  Lafayette said after a beat.  “You and Alexander and me and Adrienne.  It will be fun!  And Alex probably won’t panic after it’s done this time.  Plus, it will give you a chance to use your Southern manners again like last time.  I notice you’re not usually that courteous.”

“It’s just polite,” Laurens said, flustered.  “It’s—Fine, what did you have in mind?”

“There’s not much time left,” Lafayette said.  “I’m leaving as soon as finals are over…  Oh, would you and Alexander like to meet up with Adrienne and me in the city?  We would be a bit pressed for time, but perhaps we could do something before we fly out.”

“Sure,” Laurens said.  “As long as it’s after finals I don’t think Alex will complain.”

“Great,” Lafayette said happily.  “Oh, and then of course thanks to the internet, we can talk all we want once vacation really starts.”

“Right, about that.  Where are you actually going?”

“We’re flying to Phoenix, Arizona for a couple of days,” Lafayette said, “which I am very much looking forward to because I have never been somewhere with rocks that color before.  Then we are going to fly to California and go to Disneyland and LA.”

“I like how you say ‘Disneyland’ before ‘LA.’”

“And then we are going to Hawaii, and we will stay there a little while longer because that is a lot of flying already.”

“Fair enough.”

“And also because—”  Lafayette cut himself short.  “Ah, maybe this is still a secret.”

Laurens gave him a curious look.

“I’m not supposed to tell Alexander.”

“I’m not him.”

“No, but you practically live with him and you might let something slip.”

“Come on, Lafayette.  What is it?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

Laurens leaned back in his chair, resigned.

“On the way back,” Lafayette started up again, “we are flying into Washington and that will be fun because I’ve never seen Seattle before.”

“You’ve never seen any of these places before.”

“And then we’re going to Missouri—”

“Wait, what?”

“—And then back to New York.”

“Missouri?”

“To break up the flight from Washington.”

“But why Missouri?  Why not stop in Chicago or something?”

“I wanted to see the Midwest.”

“Chicago is the biggest city in the Midwest.”

Lafayette looked surprised.  “Really?  But it’s all the way up North.”

“Still part of the Midwest, Lafayette.”

“I don’t understand these region names.  I thought originally that Arizona would count as the Midwest because it’s in the west but it’s not all the way to the coast.  Then I thought ‘oh, it must just be the West.’  Do you know what it actually is?”

“Southwest,” Laurens answered promptly.

“ _Southwest_!  Except on some maps it’s actually part of the West and in some maps California is in the Southwest!”

“Well, that’s not right.”

Lafayette nodded vigorously.

“…Except I guess I can see it for Southern California.”

Lafayette groaned.

“Sorry,” Laurens said.  “If it helps, Arizona doesn’t do Daylight Savings, either, so they clearly just like to stick out.  Where did you think Illinois and Indiana were, anyway?  They’re not in the Northeast.”

“I thought they would be in the North.”

“I guess,” Laurens said.  “But, hey, you’ll have managed to go to every region, at least.  …Except for the Gulf Coast.”

Lafayette sighed.  “I will try again in the summer.”

“Summer?”  Laurens shook his head.  “Good luck with that, buddy.”


	205. Subconscious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stress Dream

Laurens woke that night from a dream that for some reason he was on a trip with his father and brother and Hamilton, all four of them confined in the close quarters of a roadside motel.  There were two beds in the room and he was desperately trying to argue that the chairs could be pushed together into another bed or a cot could be called up from the front desk,  and he could share one bed with Jemmy since they were siblings anyway.  It didn’t matter how earnestly he explained, somehow everything he said just seemed to trap him more in an obvious lie in front of his father.

“You don’t understand,” Laurens had been saying just before he woke, the door to the room locked from the outside in the kind of dream logic that only made sense while you were still half-asleep or better, “we’re just _friends_.”

After he jolted awake he lay in the dark of his dorm room without moving for several long seconds.  He carefully opened his eyes, not convinced that he was in his room until was able to make out the black shapes of his dresser and the door beyond it.  The breathing he heard was Lafayette’s, not his father’s or brother’s.  He reached clumsily over his head, touching the side of his desk behind him.  The cold familiar surface anchored him back to reality and brought everything around him into certain focus.

He was in his room, on campus, and that had just been a dream.

Laurens ran his hand over his face, still feeling his heart pounding in his chest, anxiety now mixing with guilt.

He carefully sat up, the mattress creaking under him, and heard Lafayette stir and mumble something incoherent into his pillow.  He sat still for a moment until he felt like he wouldn’t wake him, then pulled his computer from his desk into his lap and opened it.  Three in the morning.

He thought about messaging Hamilton, then thought about how he didn’t know how to explain why he was up and justified it by reasoning that he didn’t want to wake him anyway.

 

> J. Laurens: How’s the art final coming?

 

He figured he could lie and pretend that he had been working on it if André asked why he was awake.  It was due on Friday, anyway.  Laurens winced.   Maybe he _should_ be working on it.

 

> J. André: It’s coming…

> J. André: Yours?

> J. Laurens: Ugh.

> J. André: Hah

> J. André: Yeah

> J. André: You’re lucky I had my computer open because I was looking up a reference picture or I would have missed this.  I’m trying to get this foreshortening right…

 

Laurens let André explain what he was in the midst of working on to him, feeling the adrenaline slowly ebb from his body.  He had missed this.

 

> J. André: So were you up because you were working on your project too?  Not to sound like your mom but you should go to bed, you're going to have to get up for practice soon.

> J. Laurens: Yeah, I know…

 

Laurens, making a snap decision, continued.

 

> J. Laurens: My father and Jemmy are coming up this weekend to see the game.  I can’t sleep.

> J. André: Ohh yeah

 

Laurens could practically hear him wince and wondered if he had made the right decision or not.

 

> J. André: I can tag team them again with you if you want.  I can offer to take them out to dinner to repay your father for Boston.

> J. Laurens: Thanks, but it’s okay.

> J. Laurens: I mean, I appreciate it but I feel like it would be weird.

> J. André: I don’t think it would be weird

> J. Laurens: idk.  I don’t want you to

> J. André: Ok

 

It was Laurens’ turn to wince and he ran his hand through his hair and tousled it in frustration.  In shorthand and not in person he thought the tone came off too harsh.

 

> J. Laurens: Sorry, that came out wrong.  I don’t think I want anyone to have to do that is all that I meant.  I just want them to show up and watch the game and then I can show Jemmy around a little and then they can leave.  You know?  Nothing big.

> J. André: Got it

> J. Laurens: …I don’t know, maybe you should go out to dinner with us.

> J. André: You’ll legit be busy, I’m sure he’ll just want to congratulate you and spend a little time with both of you.

 

Laurens’ stomach tightened before he realized that André had meant him and his brother.

 

> J. Laurens: Yeah, you’re right.

> J. André: I don’t blame you for being freaked tho

> J. Laurens: It’s fine.  Just late or something.

> J. Laurens: Anyway thanks for the offer.  I’m going to bed.  Practice, etc.

> J. André: Totally

> J. André: The offer stands!  Let me know if you need someone to buddy up with.  I think I’m pretty good at that sort of thing.

 

Laurens half-smiled at the screen, feeling comfortable with André in a way that he certainly had not been in the immediate past and suspected to his shame that he had not been in a while.

 

> J. Laurens: You’re surprisingly good.  Thanks

> J. André: Haha no problem!  I should probably go to bed soon too

> J. André: Night

> J. Laurens: Night

 

Laurens stayed sitting in his bed, listening to the ambient noise of the night around him, sounds very particular to his room in the dorms.  Lafayette’s slow breathing and the soft whirr of his computer fan and a faint drunken shout from somewhere outside and the heavy concrete weight of the building.  He didn’t know how he could hear a building, but he could, and it reminded him of all the nights he spent at Hamilton’s and how familiar the noises of his apartment complex’s piping and settling and creaking floorboards had become.  When he had first become aware of it he had thought that it was too loud and too overtly in use.  Even if he couldn’t hear voices he could feel the presence of the other renters in their units, just from the invisible give and take of the building.  It was the same thing at the dorm, however.  Even though he couldn’t hear any residents throwing a party for the end of the year or talking in the halls he could tell that they were all around him.  The motel room in his dream had not had that same sense of lived experience.  Although it had looked normal, there had been nothing outside its four walls—he didn’t need to return to the dream and try to break down the door to know that.

Laurens clicked into his chat with Hamilton to send one last message before he went back to sleep.

 

> J. Laurens: I love you


	206. On the Bright Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Informant; Sibling Bonding; Spy on the Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Added an extra section to the end of this on 11/24

Laurens ran a hand through his freshly washed hair as he sat in the small conference room by the lockers in the gym.  A pile of blank exercise physiology worksheets sat on the long table next to him, either left over from a class that met there or still waiting for them.  He repeated the gesture with his hand through his hair, wishing that he had taken the time to style it.

“Laurens.”  The door behind him opened and Walker came in.  “Sorry about the wait.  I’m going to go over the plays with you for Saturday, get you familiarized with all of it.  It’s your fifth year,” he said, pulling out a chair next to him and taking a seat, putting his large black laptop on the table between them and opening it, “and this is the last game so I’ll try to be as quick as possible about this.  Let me know when we’re done here if you need a note for class, okay?”

Laurens nodded.  “Sure.”  He felt as though the two of them were on more or less the same level and it unnerved him a little.  “Should I take notes?”

“That’d be a good idea.  I think you’ll be familiar with all of this by now, though, this is really just to give you a refresher.  Help you make sure that you’re passing along the right messages.”

Laurens took a notebook and pen out of his bag and made a note of the date and topic at the top of a new piece of paper.

“Friedrich might join us later,” Walker said as he pulled up a slideshow.  “He had to leave early for a meeting.”

That caught his attention.  “About André?”

Walker gave him a surprised look, like he wasn’t sure if he had said something that he was not supposed to.  “Yes.  How did you know that?”

“I—”  Laurens frowned.  He hadn’t expected that strong a reaction.  “I just figured,” he said.  “About him and Lee.”

“Oh, yeah.”  Walker nodded and clicked past the title page in the slideshow.  “About André.  Anyway, we should get started.”

“Wait,” Laurens said.  He saw Walker tense his shoulders.  “What are they saying about André?  Is he clearing the air?  Did they finalize things about Lee?  He’s not actually expelled yet, is he?”

“Look,” Walker began.  “It’s confidential.”

“That’s bullshit,” Laurens said.  “Come on, this affects me too.  I deserve at least a half answer.”

“It’s confidential,” Walker repeated, a little defensive.  “I can’t tell you the details.”

“So at least tell me if he’s talking to whoever’s in charge about getting André out of trouble.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Just yes or no!”

“No,” Walker said.

Laurens leaned back slowly in his chair and Walker quickly went on.

“Look, it’s not as—”  He made a frustrated noise.  “I really can’t talk to you about this.”

“I thought he was supposed to let them cool off for a couple days and then get André off the hook.”

Walker looked up at the ceiling.  “Well, yeah, I mean…”

Laurens narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously as he continued to try to evade answering him.

“…It’s more complicated than that, Laurens.  There’s, uh, a lot of balls in the air right now and it’s not yet time to talk about André.”

“The year’s almost over,” Laurens said.  “If he waits too much longer then there won’t _be_ any time.”

“I mean with you,” Walker said with a note of finality.  “Let’s go through this meeting.”  He tapped his fingers lightly on the keyboard.  “All right?”

Laurens was silent as Walker waited for continued pushback and then launched into a fast-paced lecture.  He went through the different plays that might be run, emphasizing the ones more likely to come up in their final game and how exactly they were anticipated to work given the people on both sides of the field.

Laurens took diligent notes almost in spite of himself, quickly filling several pages in his notebook.  It was almost an hour before Walker cleared his throat and unscrewed a bottle of water.

“Do you have any questions yet?”

“Who’s Coach talking to?”

“I meant about this.”

“I know.”  Laurens held his gaze evenly.

“Laurens.”

“Please.”

“Look,” Walker said with strained patience.  “I meant what I said.  I’m not allowed to tell you anything.  Friedrich is talking to—to some people about this whole mess, and that includes about André.  André’s in—not as much—Mn.”  He chewed on his lower lip, clearly trying to think carefully about his words.  “André didn’t do what he was supposed to,” he finally said, picking his words with great caution.  “Friedrich isn’t as upset with him as you might think he is.”

“I don’t think he’s upset with him.”

“And he needs to talk to some people outside of Athletics about both André and Lee.  Okay?  That’s what he’s doing right now and you’ll hear as soon as their plans get finalized.”

Laurens looked searchingly at Walker, but he wasn’t able to read beyond the intentionally opaque words.

“Anyway,” Walker said, “we need to get back to—”

“Why didn’t they just expel Lee right away?”  Laurens couldn’t help himself.  He hadn’t anticipated the wash of anxiety that would come with the question however and that now sat vibrating in his throat.  “He fucked up worse.  It seems like André’s the one actually being punished for all of it, or at least like he’s getting it just as badly.”

“No,” Walker said, with genuine concern.  “Laurens, that’s not true.”

Laurens felt embarrassment creep up into his face from his collar.  The tone made him feel like he was a child who, upon being scolded, had begun to cry in front of the teacher.

“Lee’s a fucking asshole,” he said, more harshly than he would have normally in an attempt to regain control over the situation.  “He used to say all kinds of shit about me and I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to make problems, but I would have said something if I knew that this was going to be the alternative.  He shouldn’t have been captain.  I saved his ass,” he went on, managing to build into anger, “for the sake of everyone else.  Tallmadge told me that they all knew what he was saying, too, that they just didn’t want to make a scene.”

“A little after Fall Break?”

That broke through Laurens’ manufactured rage.  “Yes,” he said slowly.  “How did you know that?”

Walker waved one hand vaguely.  “We had a report.”

Laurens carefully folded his hands together in his lap, his thoughts starting to chase one another in circles as he rubbed his thumbs one over the other.

“When did you start dating Coach?”

Walker gave him a startled look.

“I heard about it over break,” Laurens said, almost apologetically.  “I didn’t know before that you…”

Walker snorted and shook his head.  “Jesus.  A little before I took the job.”

“You got hired almost right after graduation.”

Walker shrugged.

Laurens tipped his head to the side, trying to get a better look at Walker’s face as he fixed the syntax on one of the slides.  “Did you know about him?”

“What, did I know that Friedrich is gay?  Of course I did.  It’s painfully obvious, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t,” Laurens admitted.

Walker laughed properly at that.  “Oh, honey.  He has a bear flag sticker on his car.”

It took Laurens a moment to understand what Walker was talking about.

Walker snickered again at the dawning realization on his face.  “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding in that moment very much like how Laurens remembered him as a senior player on the team when he was an incoming freshman.  “It’s not—No, it really is funny.  Look,” he went on more placatingly, “I thought he was hot so I hit him up after I graduated.  I didn’t know I was going to be working here.  I thought it’d just be a one-night thing.”  He shrugged again.

Laurens nodded.  “Got it.”  He paused.  “Thanks.”

“You’re fine.  Hey,” Walker said, “I know it’s a little late in your academic career here, but did you ever consider checking out the LGBT resources at the student union?  It’s not perfect but it might help to meet some other people.”

Laurens shifted awkwardly.  “That’s not really my style.  I like more…  You know.”  He gestured around them.  “Sports.”

“You can blend different things together,” Walker said.  “You can like different things.”

“I know.  But, I mean…”  His hand was still out to indicate the gym and he brought it forward to motion wordlessly at Walker.

Walker stared back at him.

“…I mean, you don’t like stuff like that either.”

“Not all of it,” Walker acknowledged.

Laurens wondered what lay behind the cracked door of that answer.

Walker cleared his throat.  “Do you have any other questions?”

Laurens picked up his notebook and flipped back to the start of where he had begun writing.  He shook his head.  “No.  I think I got it all.”

“I meant about anything else.”

“Oh.”  Laurens was quiet a moment.  “Coach thinks André will be okay?”

“I don’t have any actual authority here, you know that, right?”

“Yes.”

Walker sighed.  “Look.  You really can’t talk to anyone about this.  I’ll get in trouble.  But André’ll be okay.”

Laurens felt the remainder of the tension in his throat fade away.  “And Lee?”

“I can’t talk about either of them independently of one another,” Walker said.  “It’s a little more complicated than you know.”

Laurens frowned, puzzled.  That opened up more questions that he wanted to ask, but Walker was closing his laptop and clearly signaling that their meeting was over and he’d already gathered a lot of new information.  He nodded instead.  “Right.  Thank you.”

Walker stood.  “I’ll see you later, Laurens.  Right,” he snapped his fingers.  “Do you need a note for class?”

They both pushed their sleeves up to check the time and Laurens shook his head.

“I should be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens packed his things away in his bag.  “I’ll see you at practice.”

 

Hamilton nudged Angelica.  “Look.”  He nudged her again, aware that he was smiling obnoxiously and that it was probably taking great effort on her part not to roll her eyes at him or tell him to cool it.  “Angelica.  Look.”  Another nudge into the side of her coat.

“What is it?”

He shook his phone in front of her and she held his wrist still so she could look at the screen while they walked.

“He says he loves me.”

“Uh-huh.”

Hamilton put his arm over her shoulders—with her winter boots they were the same height—and tipped his head towards hers, his thick-knit beanie pressing against her faux-fur earmuffs.

“Did you hear me?”  Hamilton spoke just below her ear, the fake cream fur brushing his nose as they continued to head down the sidewalk.  “He says he loves me.”

Hamilton grinned as Angelica burst out laughing, the sound half-exasperated.

“Alexander,” she said, “you’re acting like this is the first time he’s said that.  What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t know.  Sleep deprived, I guess.”  He pulled away and put both his gloved hands in his coat pockets.  “Delirious and hysterical.  It’s the end of the semester, I’m not sleeping right anymore.  I work until I can’t think and then I wake up every couple hours anyway because I’m too anxious.  At least I’m happy.”

“Mm,” she agreed.  “That’s true.”

“So do you know how that picture I wanted from Peggy is coming along?  I wanted one that she got of us printed out, told her I’d pay.”

“I know you did.  I don’t think she’s gotten around to it yet.  She has her own work to do, you know.”

“Don’t let her forget.”

“Relax, there’s plenty of time still.  Is John going home for the holidays?”

“I don’t think he’s going for the full break, but I want to make sure I can give it to him in person.  And then I can give it to him in person,” Hamilton added, raising his eyebrows repeatedly.

“You’re so trashy sometimes.”

“Hey,” he fake protested, “I am in a committed, loving relationship.  The filth I get up to behind closed doors is between me and John and my neighbors who thankfully are almost always not at home.  Seriously,” he went on, “I hardly ever hear anyone moving around in there.  I was tempted to call in a welfare check when the unit next to me didn’t show signs of life for two weeks.  It’s okay, though,” he added.  “Got woken up one night at three in the morning by someone in there blasting Rent, so no one died.  Well, no one in real life,” he amended as they approached the building they had class in.  “Someone does die in Rent.  Spoilers, sorry.”

“I don’t think you can spoil Rent.  It’s been two decades.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know if you had seen it.”

“Alexander, I grew up in the city.  I’ve seen Rent.”

“I should take John to a show.  Not Broadway, though, I don’t have that kind of money.  How much does off-Broadway go for?”  He opened the door and held it for her.  “That’s my new plan.  Dinner, a show, I have him unwrap the picture, then I fuckin’ _raw_ him.”

“And they say that romance is dead,” Angelica said dryly as she took off her gloves and put them in her pockets.

“I know, right?  What idiots.”

“I thought you’d be more nervous about his father coming into town.”

“I was,” Hamilton admitted.  “Like, I mean, I was talking to Lafayette about this just yesterday.  I’d rather that guy stay far away, but at least it’ll just be a short visit and turns out that I’m going to be busy for a lot of it and John’s not expecting me to go socialize this time so it’s kind of the best case scenario.  Besides,” he added, “John’s stressed about it but I think he’s really pleased about the captain stuff and he’s finally going to get to take on that role in a game.  It’s exciting.  I’m hoping that’ll be enough to buoy him through the visit and then have him still be on a high from it after saying goodbye to his fam and meeting back up with me.”

“I just want to clarify something,” Angelica said.  “Are you imagining this reunion taking place at the study party Lafayette convinced me to throw?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“I thought so.  I would like to remind you that you have tests and papers due the following week and that it’s incredibly bad luck to sneak off with your boyfriend to neck somewhere in my house.”

“Aw, come on, Angelica,” Hamilton said as they entered the classroom.  “I wouldn’t do that.  You know me, I’m talking a big game now but it’s just the thin veneer over my crippling end-of-the-semester panic.  I’m going to be far too busy making someone quiz me for my finals to do more than make out with John on your sofa.”  He took off his coat and hat and dropped into his seat.

“Acceptable,” Angelica said, getting settled next to him.  “Besides, I’m going to hang up some bunches of mistletoe, just for a few of you.”

“You’re a good big sister,” Hamilton teased.

She patted his hand and smiled.  “You’re not the worst brother.”

 

“Hey.”  Laurens took his seat next to André in the art studio, finding that he could do so without second-guessing himself.  “Did you—You look tired.  Did you sleep at all last night?”

André had his palms over his eyes, his elbows leaning heavily on the table.  “No.”

“That sucks.”  Laurens began to casually take his things out of his bag.  “I heard something good today, though,” he said, lowering his voice and completely ignoring what Walker had asked of him.  “I was going over stuff for the game with Ben Walker and he confirmed that Coach isn’t really mad at you but just has to play the part and you’re probably not going to be in real trouble once he sorts everything out.”

André’s head bobbed forward and he didn’t respond.

“…André.  André.”  Laurens nudged him.

André jerked awake.  “Wha—?”

“Did you hear me at all?  Walker thinks Coach is going to get you off the hook.”

André looked around and then at Laurens in confusion, obviously not putting the pieces together properly yet.  “Yeah.”

“So that’s good.”

“Right.  Right, yeah,” André said, slowly orienting himself.  “Great.  Did he—Who said this?”

“Ben Walker.”

“Cool.  Yeah, I appreciate it.  Thanks for telling me.  I’m sure Coach’ll let me know as soon as he’s done talking to the judiciary board.”

Laurens frowned.  “What?”

“Uh.”  André looked almost equally puzzled.  “Didn’t you say that…?”

“No.  Walker wouldn’t tell me who he was talking to.”  Had André even been awake enough to catch that implication?

“Oh.”  André rubbed his eyes and stretched with an almost suspiciously big yawn.  “Must have dreamed it, sorry.”

“Did someone talk to you about all this already?”

“I haven’t spoken to anyone in Athletics since I was at Washington’s this weekend.”

The room was filling and Laurens forced himself to let it go as the teacher began to walk through the class.

“Right.  I wasn’t supposed to say anything anyway.”

“Thanks,” André said, “for telling me, though.  I appreciate it.  Uh,” he frowned down at the folder he had closed on the table in front of him.  “More immediately pressing question, did you do the reflection for this and what did yours say?”

Laurens swore.  “No, I forgot.  Damnit.”

“Due at the end of the day,” André pointed out, only half reassuringly.  “At least you didn’t scrap everything you had and start over.”

“No, just half of it.”  Laurens pulled his bag into his lap and opened it.  “Do you think I should work on the reflection now, or…?”

“How finished are you?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I haven’t really had time to do it as well as I’d like.  I guess it would have been better if I’d actually asked Alex to pose for me again, but I didn’t want to do that.”

“Is it supposed to be a surprise?”

“No—Well, kind of,” Laurens admitted, “but I didn’t mean for it to be.  I just think I work better when he’s not around sometimes.”

“You drew some of them from life.”

“Only one was intentional,” Laurens mumbled.  “And he was a shitty model for it.”

André laughed.  “All right.”

“I guess I should do the reflection,” Laurens said, taking his laptop out in resignation.  “Did it take you long?”

“You can probably get just about all of it done in class today.”

“Good.”

“At least I’ve had more time to work on this,” André said, sounding surprisingly cheerful.  “I don’t think I would have been able to pull this off if I was still going to practice.”

“That’s probably true.  I can’t wait for break, except for the whole going home part.”

“You should stay in New York,” André said, finally opening up his folder and taking things out.  “It’s your last year here, anyway.  Maybe you want to experience Christmas in the city before you leave.”

The words “before you leave” hit Laurens in the chest.  Once December passed it would only be five months until his final semester was over.

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “That’s true.”  He grasped for a different topic.  “Hey,” he said.  “Can I tell you something kind of petty?”

“Always.”

“I think Tallmadge went and filed a complaint against Lee after he and I talked,” Laurens said.  “Just after Fall Break I was arguing with him and we were talking about Lee and he said that he thought he was a dick too but that he hadn’t done anything about it.”

“Yeah?”  André was carefully arranging his pictures on their backing.  “So what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know.  I just…  It’s kind of rubbing me the wrong way that he went and said something after I was complaining to him about it.”  Laurens put his name and the date on a blank document and skipped a line.  “I almost wish he wouldn’t have.  It just feels like he knew it was bad all along but didn’t say anything until I guilted him into it and even then it was after justifying why he hadn’t to me.  I don’t know.”

André nodded, carefully placing captions under his pictures.  “Okay.  But maybe he didn’t realize how bad it was until after you guys talked.  I don’t think you should be mad at him.”

“I’m not mad at him.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m not really mad at him,” Laurens hedged.  “I’m just kind of…  I don’t know.”  He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the mostly blank screen.  “I need to work on this.”

“You do.”

“Do you think I should say anything to him?”  Laurens asked, not wanting to and not sure with everything else that was going on if that meant that he needed to do the mature thing and clear the air.

André looked up at that.  “No,” he said.  “Don’t do that.  I mean, it’s in the past, right?  And you don’t even know for sure that it was him, and even if it was, he was trying to help.  So I don’t think you need to bring it up.  You’ll probably just confuse him.”

Laurens nodded, a little relieved.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “Besides, I have enough to do right now.”

“It’s nice not having to get up so early every morning,” André said brightly.

Laurens gave him a confused frown, then shrugged it off and turned his attention back to his reflection.  He didn’t have the time to unpack André’s coping mechanisms.


	207. Matchmaker, Matchmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party Shopping & Planning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I added an extra section to the end of the previous chapter (11/24)

“Oh,” Lafayette said, trying not to sound disappointed.  “This is all plastic.”

“Of course.”  Angelica picked through the bunches of fake mistletoe in the decorations aisle of the grocery store.  “I don’t even know where you would buy real mistletoe.”

“A florist would have been a good place to try.”

“If you want to run out to a florist in this weather, be my guest.  I think it’s starting to snow.”

“I love the snow,” Lafayette said.  “But this is not snow.  It’s too wet to be real snow.”

“Slush,” Angelica agreed.  “Which seems unfair because it’s so cold out.”

“And then it will be icy,” Lafayette complained.  “All over the sidewalk and on the stairs…”

“Terrible.  And that’s why we are buying everything from one place.”

“Fair enough.”  Lafayette crouched down to sort through the items stocked on the lower shelves.  “Do you need tinsel?”

“I’m not cleaning that up, so no.”

“Fake snow?”

“Do you see anything that does not look quite as painfully bad for the environment.”

“Real mistletoe is more eco-friendly.  I started listening to NPR,” Lafayette went on, “I am learning a whole new set of vocabulary.”

“You’d make a good talk show host,” Angelica said, collecting several bunches of mistletoe in her shopping basket.  “Either on radio or on daytime television.  I can just see you doing interviews.”

“I’d like that,” Lafayette said.  “Do you need string lights?”

“That’s a good idea.”

“And they don’t have to be seasonal.  You can put them up in your room after.”

“Mm, that’s a little juvenile for me.  But you take them if you’d like them.”

“All right.” Lafayette added several boxes to her basket.  “When you turn on the overhead lights in our room,” he said, “it also turns on whatever is plugged into one of the outlets.  That way if you have a floor lamp or something like that you can turn it on or off with the main light switch.”

“Mmhm.”

“I think I’ll make a giant phallus with these after I take them back and let John discover it when he comes back one night.”

“Honestly, I’ll never understand boys.”

“It’s funny because it’s genitalia.”

“I got that.”

“You said that you didn’t understand.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”  Angelica looked around the aisle.  “Eliza wanted me to get baking supplies.  She said we’re almost out of flour and need more vanilla.”

“Are we going to have cookies for the party?”  Lafayette followed her down the aisle.  “Should I bring something?  I can tell the others that it is a potluck.”

“That would be nice, but it’s not necessary.”

“I was planning on baking soon too,” Lafayette said.  “It is perfect timing.  Do pancakes count as baking?”

“They don’t go in the oven, so no.”

“Cooking?  Cooking pancakes.”

“That sounds strange too,” Angelica agreed.  “Would you make those ahead of time and bring them over?  They’ll be cold.”

“You’re right, that wouldn’t be as good.  Will your parents be home?”

“Not during the day.”

“May I use your kitchen to make pancakes?”

“Just don’t make a huge mess.”

“I promise.”  Lafayette motioned ahead at the correct aisle.  “Baking goods?  I really would make a good host,” he said as they walked down it.  “Ms. Schuyler,” he said, putting on an air and mimicking holding a microphone out for her, “tell our listeners more about this party you are having.  Sources are saying that it will be the event of the season.”

Angelica laughed.  “What kind of show is this?  Celebrity gossip?”

“We could be celebrities.”  He motioned at her with the invisible microphone again.

“Well,” Angelica said, giving in willingly and putting on an air of her own, “I don’t know about that but I do know that many of my dear friends and relations will be attending and we’re hoping to have it be a very productive day.”

“Productive or fun?”

“It can be both.”

“A good answer.  Now what about the rumors that are swirling about your sister Eliza and her new relationship?  Can you speak to that.”

“Oh, she’ll kill me,” Angelica said, not at all seriously.  “But I think it’s safe to say that we are all looking forward to a certain young man’s attendance.”

“I know,” Lafayette said, “but that’s enough about me.  What about James?”

Angelica laughed and put down her basket to look at the flour.  “That’s an old joke.”

“Ah, but you still thought it was funny.”

Angelica shook her head but kept smiling.  “You know,” she said, shifting her weight to one leg and leaning conspiratorially towards Lafayette while she read the back of a bag of flour.  “I think she's looking forward to it.  She sees him in class already and the two of you have been coming to her games with me, but that’s not really the same.”

“No,” Lafayette agreed, “it isn’t.  It’ll be nice for them to actually have time to talk properly to one another.  Have they been meeting up any on their own?”

“No, they’re both too busy.  Although at this point in the semester who isn’t?”  Satisfied with the flour, Angelica knelt down to add it to the basket and then stood back up, carrying it with her to the spices.  “Actually, Peggy,” she said.  “That’s who.  She _never_ studies.  It drives me crazy.”

“We have a class together,” Lafayette reminded her.  “I’ll make her study with me this weekend.”

“Do it.  If she bombs it’s going to be entirely her own fault.  I keep offering to quiz her and she just refuses.”  Angelica clicked her tongue in barely suppressed irritation as she picked a vial of vanilla extract from the rack.  “Did you need anything while we are here?”

Lafayette shook his head and clasped his hands behind his back, forgetting about the microphone.  “How is JC?”

“JC?  He’s fine.  He’ll probably be there this weekend so you can scope him out like I know you want to.”

“How could I not want to?”

“I didn’t tell you anything scandalous about him.”

“No, but I am curious to see if you have any—”  Lafayette made a little arc of jazz hands between them.  “—Chemistry.”

“Don’t you say anything to him,” Angelica warned.  “I don’t care what you see.”

“I will be good.”

“That’s right.  You will be.”

“I don’t want to ruin anything.”

“No, but you meddle and we’re balanced precariously enough as it is.  I just want to get through the holidays without any major drama.”

“If you wanted to come on vacation with me I wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t think Adrienne needs me as a third wheel.”

“That’s what Adelaide said,” Lafayette mused.  “I didn’t think it would be weird.  We are all friends.”

“How would you like it if you went on a romantic trip with two people in a relationship?  It would be awkward.”

“I went to South Carolina with Alexander and John.  Mm,” Lafayette conceded.  “I see your point.  The ride down was horrendous.”

“I’m sure you and Adrienne have better manners than those two do at least.”

“They practically ignored me the whole way there, even though I was sitting directly opposite them.”

“That’s funny,” Angelica said.  “The way Alexander told it, he was barely able to get a word in edgeways to John because you were being such a bother.”

“Who do you really believe?  Me or Alexander?”

“In this case probably John.”

They headed towards the registers.

“How are Aglae’s grades?”  Angelica asked.  “I was hoping that she might encourage Peggy to pick up the pace.”

“Ah,” Lafayette said, “I’m not sure.”

“I thought you had class with her.”

“Yoga,” Lafayette said.  “And we don’t talk about schoolwork.”

“What do you talk about?”

“Yoga.  Oh, and where we would like to travel.”

Angelica gave a little frown as she loaded their items onto the belt.  “Is that all?”

“Oh, do you want to know more about her?  I can tell you about her.  I won’t tell her,” Lafayette assured her.  “Besides, I would do the exact same thing if I had a baby sister who had just started seeing someone.”

“Did Adrienne’s siblings try to find dirt on you?”  Angelica teased.

“I…”  Lafayette trailed off, closing his mouth and falling into serious consideration.  “I don’t know,” he finally said as Angelica paid.  “I hope so.”

“You hope so?”

“Yes, because that would mean that they thought enough of both her and our relationship to think that it was worth investigating.”  He took one of the bags.  “I want to have been scrutinized.”

“In that case, I’m sure you’ll tell me every detail you know about these two suitors coming over to my house this weekend.”  Angelica stepped outside and stood for a moment under the awning, craning her neck to look up at the heavy sky and the thick wet flakes of snow falling down.  “This is miserable.  Give me that bag,” she said.  “I’ll take them both home and you can head straight back to campus.  I don’t want you to have to walk around in this more than you have to.”

“I’ll come with you.”  Lafayette moved the bag away from her.  “If you don’t mind.  I can help you set up and we can keep talking.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’ll take less time,” Lafayette said.  “I know you must have a lot of work to get done.”

Angelica caved.  “All right.  Then let’s make a dash for it—but carefully.”  She stepped out into the weather and bent her head against the cold and the wet, heading for the proper station.

Neither of them spoke while they walked, concentrating instead on making their way through the elements and avoiding the icy slush on the ground.  By the time they reached their destination both of their faces were red and numb and the crowded underground station seemed almost like a sauna.

“You should take a cab back from my place,” Angelica said.  “Really.  I think it’s just going to get worse as it gets into evening and it’s not like you can’t afford it.”

Lafayette half-frowned, turning down one side of his mouth and furrowing his brow.  “It’s so pretentious to take cabs everywhere.”

“Alexander told me how much that coat cost your girlfriend.”

Lafayette looked down at himself.  “Ah.  All right, I see your point.  It is a nice coat, though.”

“It is.”  Angelica put the plastic bag down on the ground at her feet.  “Now, tell me what you know.”

“Already?”

“We need something to talk about while we wait for the train, Lafayette.”  Overhead the loudspeakers piped out a garbled announcement.  “…And I think we will be here for a while.”

Lafayette undid the top button of his coat.  “Aglae is very young,” he said, cutting right to the the meat of the conversation.  “In temperament.  She reminds me a little of myself that way, but I don’t think that she is aware of it.  She means very well,” he went on.  “She has a very, how do you say, a very bubbly personality which is not faked.”

“I was wondering about that.”

Lafayette nodded.  It started off earnest but quickly faded to calmer.  “It’s very endearing.  I like that about her, too.  Even when she is complaining about things to me it is never too serious.  And, I think she has seen some interesting things, even if she does not agree.”

“She seems a little immature.”

“So does Peggy,” Lafayette pointed out.  “Aglae is just more… more.”

Angelica considered this for a few seconds.  “Peggy is immature,” she agreed finally.  “But she’s also only eighteen.”

“I think Aglae is nineteen.”  Lafayette put his own bag down heavily and stretched his arms out behind his back.  “I am twenty,” he added, his fingers interlocked behind him.  “You’re just old.  And Peggy moved out,” he added.  “I think that is very mature.”

“Mm,” Angelica said, pointedly noncommittal.  “But I am surprised she went through with it.”

“I like that about both of them,” Lafayette said.  “Both Peggy and Aglae.  They both talk and talk and talk about things they have to do that they don’t want to do and they procrastinate on them terribly.  But then when the moment is right, they step up—”  He took a half step forward to demonstrate his point.  “—And they do it.”

Angelica smiled.  “I like that about her.”

“Aglae?”

“Peggy.”

“I know you meant Peggy.  I was making a joke.”

“She needs a little pushing sometimes, but she once she has made up her mind she does commit.  Possibly too much so.”

“Kids,” Lafayette said with a shake of his head.  He glanced at Angelica with a grin when that made her laugh.  “I don’t know very much about James,” he admitted.  “Perhaps you can talk to John this weekend.”

“I thought as much.  I’ve spoken to James some, of course, so I’m not as worried about him.  He seems like a nice boy, if stupid enough to be on that team when he clearly knows the health risks.”

“Does Eliza like him?”

“You’re just looking for gossip to report back to John.”

“Of course.”

“Yes,” Angelica said.  “She’s been enjoying talking with him.  They get along well.  I think he’s a little overawed of her,” she added with another laugh.  “I’m sure that helps.”

“Ah, but who could not be?  All the daughters of that family are so charming and talented.”

“You are a flatterer, _monsieur_.”

“You enjoy it, in moderation.”

“So do you.”

“True enough.  Tell me more about Eliza.  You said they talk.  Do they talk regularly?  Do you know about what?  Have they met up just the two of them?”

“She hasn’t gone on any dates with him,” Angelica said.  “But you know they’re in class together and they text a lot.  Like you said earlier, it’s a busy part of the semester.  But he’s from the city so I assume he will be here over break.  Hopefully he will ask her out then.”

“She could ask him at the party.”

“He should ask her,” Angelica said.  “I already told her not to.”

“Really?”  Lafayette looked at her in surprise.  “But, there’s nothing wrong with her asking him out if she likes him and you said that she likes him.  I didn’t think you would care about maintaining gender roles.”

Angelica shook her head with a short scoff.  “That’s not it at all.  Just like you, I want to know that he actually cares enough about her to make the effort.  I love my sister,” she said.  “And anyone who isn’t serious enough about her to put themselves out there isn’t worth her time.”

“Hm.”  Lafayette considered this.  “So this is just about you being overly protective, then.”

“There’s a lot of trash out there, Lafayette.  I don’t think I’m being extreme.”

“Maybe not.  Is it cheating if I tell him about your rule?”

“No.  I was going to myself, if it seemed like he was lost.”

Lafayette nodded.  “Shall we see how the party goes?”

“That is the plan.”

Lafayette hummed a bar of music to himself.  “But Eliza would say yes if he asked?”

The corners of Angelica’s lips curved up.  “I think she would.”


	208. Strengths and Weaknesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Study Date

“I know this isn’t real romantic.”  Hamilton’s voice was a little muffled by the pillow he was resting his chin on.  He turned the page of the book he had propped up at arms length on the floor in front of him.  “But thanks for agreeing to it anyway.”

“What are you talking about?”  Laurens adjusted his laptop on Hamilton’s back, his body draped across his folded legs.  “This is fine.”

“Not really a date.  I should take you on an actual date.  You deserve an actual date.”

“It’s the middle of the week.”

“So?  We’re young and shit.  We’re not in the nine to five grind yet.”

“Finals are coming up.  ‘Studying’ is a date.”

“Only if you’re like me.  I know you’re humoring me, J., it’s okay.”

“No,” Laurens said, a little firmer.  “I don’t mind at all.  I’m enjoying spending time with you.”

“Mm.  You even managed to sound sincere there.  Once I finish reviewing this one I’ll make out with you a little.”

Laurens laughed at that.  “Alex, do you remember last year when we were studying for chemistry together?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“Do you remember how long it took you to finish reviewing?  By the time you’re done I’m going to have gone to bed already.”

“…Yeah, okay, fair point.”  Hamilton balanced the book with one hand and groped for his pen with the other.  “It worked, though.  I got the grade.”

“Just a couple weeks ago you were saying that was because of me.”

“You helped with labs,” Hamilton agreed.  “I think most people would have gotten sick of having me as their partner.  Of course, most people weren’t spending the semester fooling around with me, so.  But what I meant was that I got the A on the final.  My way of studying works.”

“Your way is excessively long.”

“The hard sciences are not my thing, okay?”

“I’m surprised.  It’s not like you’re bad with numbers.”

“I know, I just don’t have the attention or creativity or something for them.  I dunno.  Spatial awareness?  Something.”

“And yet somehow math is okay.”

“Math’s fine.  Ish.  Regular math’s just patterns and figuring out solutions to problems using the tools they’ve given you.  I prefer words but I’m decent enough at math to make it do what I want it to, as long as no one’s getting too complicated and fancy with it.”  Hamilton made a note in the margin of his textbook and put the pen back down.  “I hate the real abstract theoretical shit.  It’s too removed, I can’t get invested if I don’t see the point.”

“Isn’t the pursuit of knowledge itself the point?”

“Sure, if you don’t have any more pressing issues to attend to.  Pure mathematics is pretty but unless you’re using it as training for something more practical then I don’t see the appeal.”

“No wonder you’re a crappy artist.”

“Hey,” Hamilton protested.

“Come on, it’s the same thing, isn’t it?  You’re just shitting on it because you’re not good at it and it doesn’t interest you.  I bet you’ve said the same thing about the arts before.”

“You can’t buy math and stick it up in your house or wear it on the street.  Well,” Hamilton amended, “I guess you could.  But you’d look pretty fucking eccentric wearing a proof.”

Laurens scrolled down his screen.  “I think you’re just cranky.”

“You’re talking about me like I’m a kid.  Knock it off.”

“Seriously, Alex.”

“Look, I think the point of this was that someday I’ll have the luxury to only study things I want to and do it without the pressure of grades.”

“What would you study?”  Laurens asked, looking up from his laptop.

Hamilton attempted to shrug.  “Latin.  Classics.  Still econ,” he added.  “That’s the kind of numbers I like best.”

“But not law?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess.  I figured this was a world where I already practiced law,” Hamilton said.  “So I’d already be keeping up on all the journals and shit, I meant what else I’d be studying outside of that.”

Laurens cocked his head slightly to the side, studying Hamilton’s back and shoulders and trying to memorize the angles and compare them to what he had put together for class.  “Would you rather study law or the rest of that?”

“Law,” Hamilton said promptly.  “The rest of that feeds into it.  You know.”  He leaned briefly against Laurens, rocking his body to the side.  “It all helps to keep the rest of it properly informed.  Keeps it from getting stale.  Which is a little ironic, since two of those are inherently dated.  But you know what I mean,” he said with obvious fondness.  “I don’t need to explain shit like this to you.”

Laurens smiled.

“Anyway,” Hamilton went on, “I’m really looking forward to getting to focus on that more after graduation.  I’m feeling good—knock on wood—about that internship this summer.  I mean, we’ve already got an in and I’m thinking over break I spend some time trying to make nice with Mr. Schuyler, convince him of why he should take us on.  It’s temporary anyway so I feel like I can swing it.  It’s not like he needs to scrutinize us like he would permanent hires and you’ve already got your family background…  Hey,” Hamilton said, twisting onto one elbow and looking up at him.  “Do you think maybe your father can put in a good word for you with him since he’s already coming up here?  If he’s going to be around he might as well make himself useful, right?”

Laurens felt nervous energy snake through his body.  “Yeah,” he said, shifting his shoulders away.  “I guess I can ask him.  I don’t think he’ll see him though and he doesn’t even know him.”

“But he said that he knew of him and that he had heard good things.  It’s not like their circles don’t overlap at all and their children are friends now…”  Hamilton trailed off in a tone designed to lead Laurens to agree with him.  “J.?”

“You’re right,” Laurens said reluctantly.  “I should ask him.  At the very least he can pass a message along.”

“You’ll be going to a party at his house,” Hamilton said.  “You’ll already be mentioning him.  There’s your conversational opener, bam.”

“I haven’t told my father about the internship,” Laurens said.  He had admitted it before he had the chance to lose his nerve and his stomach twisted in the short surprised silence before Hamilton responded.

“Really?  Why not?  I figured you’d want to bring that one up.”

Laurens shrugged awkwardly.

“Do you not think he’ll want you to do it?  It’s law, isn’t it?  And he really did tell me that he thought well of him.”

“I know.  I believe you.  I just…”   Laurens leaned back on his hands, not comfortable having this conversation when Hamilton was in his lap and looking at him so closely.  “I’m not sure if he’d rather I do something else.”

“What, like work in his office again?”

“Or something.”

“This is better, isn’t it?  A new experience.  Something that doesn’t just tie directly to him.  I think it’ll look better.  It can’t look _worse_.”

Laurens nodded, unable to piece out the words to the conflicting thoughts he had about the job.

“J.?”

“You’re right.  I don’t need to worry about it.”

“No, but you are.  What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know.  I’m just nervous about talking to him, I guess.”

Hamilton’s expression softened.  “Yeah,” he said, reaching out and lightly placing his hand on Laurens’ thigh, close to his hip.  “I know.”

Laurens didn’t think they were really having the same conversation but he nodded.

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Hamilton drummed his fingers on Laurens’ thigh, biting his lower lip as he thought.  “Jemmy’s coming with him.”

“Yes.”

“So I don’t think—I don’t think he’s looking for a confrontation.”

“He isn’t,” Laurens said, sure of that much at least.

“J.,” Hamilton said, his frustration barely tempered and held back behind his teeth.  “I really don’t get it.  I want to get it.  I do.  I just…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I met him,” Hamilton said.  “I understand that he can be intimidating.  Kind of freaked me out some.  I know that he’s your father and I saw that he’s not just a huge dickhole to you all the time.  And it just seems to me that if all of this—all of what you’ve been saying—is true, then it wouldn’t be the end of the world for you to tell him what’s going on, especially since he already knows something’s up.  I don’t even mean tomorrow,” Hamilton went on.  “I think you’d be in the right to not say anything, get the meal or whatever out of him, and drop the bombshell in a few months.  If you want to confront him while he’s visiting, obviously I am all here for that, but later makes sense too.  That’s not the…”  He bit his lip again, choosing his words carefully.  “…It just feels sometimes like you’re not waiting for a good moment,” he finally said.  “But like you’re hoping one never comes.”

Laurens was silent for several long seconds and Hamilton sighed and lay down on his front again.

“Forget it,” he muttered.  “Not a big deal.  I’m not getting into it, just like I promised I wouldn’t.”

“Why do you think that?”

Hamilton looked up, startled.  Laurens was watching him closely, his expression serious but not accusatory.

It was Hamilton’s turn to sigh and he turned back onto his side.  “It’s just the way you talk to him.  And about him.  And, I mean, I heard you on the phone with him the other day, J.  You were so _happy_ and I know it was because you thought you were doing what he wanted.  If you’re that happy about some dumb sports thing, then how _hard_ would it be to have him know about this?”  He gestured between them.

“There are guys who are gay and like sports.”

“Obviously, I’m lying on top of one of them.”

“I mean, there are others—”

“I know that,” Hamilton said, cutting him off, his voice rising slightly without his meaning for it to.  “And I’m glad you know that too because for a while there you were acting like you were a brand new _species_ or something—Sorry,” he said, forcing himself to stop.  “Sorry.  I meant that it doesn’t matter what either of us think right now, it matters what your father thinks.”

“I don’t know what he thinks.”

“All right, what you think he…  Look.  The important part is how he is going to react to…  You know.”

“Yeah.”

They were both quiet for a minute.

“Ben Walker,” Laurens started, thinking back to that morning, “he said that someone did file a complaint against Lee.”

Hamilton cocked his head with newly piqued curiosity.  “Really?”

“Yeah.  I don’t think anything came of it, though.  He didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Wait, someone complained about that jackoff and they didn’t do anything?  That’s not okay.”

“I don’t know, Alex.  I said he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“How did you find out?”

“I asked him about André,” Laurens said, “and he didn’t want to talk about that either but he did say there had been a report about Lee and what he—the kind of things he was saying.”

Hamilton nodded.

“I think it was Tallmadge.”

“Why do you think that?”

Laurens breathed out slowly.  “When I found out about what Lee was saying behind my back,” he said, “I got in a fight with Tallmadge.”

“I remember.”

“Ben Walker knew when that was.  No one else was around,” he said.  “It was just the two of us.  I think Tallmadge told them.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?  We like him.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  “I guess.  I don’t know, it’s weird.”

“Weird or not, good on him.  But you don’t know if they did anything about it?”

Laurens shrugged.  “He didn’t say.”  He fell silent, feeling strangely guilty that he had gotten distracted instead of pushing the point.

Hamilton finally cleared his throat once it became obvious that the topic had run its course for the time being.  “Anyway.  I just want to request that if you’re going to really ream any of these jerks out that you hit voice record on your phone so I can listen later.  I’m still a little mad I missed you yelling at the student council, it sounded hot.”

“I didn’t yell at them.”

“Yes you did, Gouverneur told me later.  Again, hot.”

Laurens managed a laugh.

“Cannot believe I missed that.  Fucking head cold.”

“You were so pathetic,” Laurens teased, angling to get back onto a safer topic, something that would distract Hamilton and that they could both safely laugh at but that also offered him a little less vulnerability.  “You should have seen yourself.  All clingy and exhausted.”

“Yeah, ‘pathetic,’ that’s rich coming from the guy who practically jumped at the chance to show off what a cute boyfriend he is, or did my fridge magically produce food on its own and did some other John Laurens deal with my extracurricular crap for me?”

“Magic fridge.”

“Hope it keeps that up, then.  I’d hate to starve to fucking death waiting for it to do its thing.”

“Is that you asking to be kept?”

“I don’t even know what I’m saying half the time this week, J., my brain is fried.”  That was something like an excuse for what he had said earlier and they both knew it.  Hamilton turned back onto his front and returned to his reading.  “I think I’m saying that I hate grocery shopping and I hate cooking because they both take too much time and if I had a magic lamp I’d figure out how best to word this wish.  They’re tricky things, magic lamps,” he added, staring straight ahead at the page.  “The genies go real literal and they exploit any loophole you can find.  You gotta be good at the legalese and the fine print.  Like that stupid joke about the guy who asked for a million bucks and…  Well.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be studying?”  Laurens sat up straight again and tried to turn his attention back to his laptop.

“Yeah.  Okay, if I say anything not related to econ for the next hour, hit me.  Seriously, J., just go for it, I trust you.  I’m stretched out over your lap already anyway, it’s prime position for—Ow!  Jesus!”  Hamilton jerked with the smart of Laurens’ hand across his ass.

“Come on, that didn’t hurt that much,” Laurens protested.  “I barely hit you and you’re wearing jeans.”

“Yeah, well, you whipped that.  Jesus…”  Hamilton sunk down and stared at the page sulkily.  “I didn’t realize we were starting already.”

“I’m going to do it again.”

“Mm.”  Hamilton couldn’t help himself.  He pressed down against his legs with a movement somewhere between a shimmy and burrow.  “Yeah?  Kink—Ow!  Damn it!”


	209. A Subject of Gossip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black Sheep; Putting Your Foot in It

“Good morning,” Lafayette said, putting his things down on the floor of the yoga studio.  “You’re coming today, right?”

“To the study session on Saturday, you mean?”

“No,” Lafayette said with a flick of his hand.  “I know you’re coming to that.  To the game today.”

“Oh.”  Aglae shrugged as she put up her hair.  “I guess I can.  I wasn’t planning on it.  It’s really cold out.”

“I know,” Lafayette agreed.  “But please come.  We’re having a whole thing, it will be very fun.  And it’s the last game of the season,” he added when she still looked reluctant.  “It’s a big social event.”

“I guess…”

“Peggy will be there.  I hope.”

“You’re doing a great job of selling this,” Aglae said with honeyed sarcasm.  “Really top notch.”

“Please come,” Lafayette said.  “We’re trying to create a, ah, a buffer so that Alexander does not have to interact at all with John’s father.”

“Do they not get along?”

“He doesn’t approve of them dating.”

Aglae made a face.  “Gross.  Okay,” she agreed.  “I’ll come.  But it’s specifically to help stick it to the Man,” she went on.  “And not because I actually care about the stupid game.”

“Duly noted,” Lafayette said.  “I won’t be offended if you don’t pay any attention.”

“I’m going to freeze,” Aglae complained.  “Which sounds so stupid to say when it’s this hot in here.”  She finished getting her hair up and shook her head to test its hold.  Her blonde ponytail swung from side to side and then fell over her bare shoulders.

“I know.  It almost makes the walk back to campus sound appealing.”

“Almost.  Just like I almost have proper feeling back in my toes again.”  She curled them against her mat.  “I’m mad that you’re going on vacation,” she said.  “I hope you get sunburned.”

Lafayette made a noise of protest.  “You are going to be leaving for the holidays, too!”

“I know, but I’m going home and it’s going to be just as cold as it will be here only worse because I’ll have to sit through weeks of my relatives asking about _school_ and _why did I break up with my boyfriend_ and _ugh_.”  She shuddered dramatically.  “I already know I’m going to lose my shit at them.  When I was dating him they asked all these judgmental questions about that and as soon as we broke up it was just ‘why did you do that, he was such a nice boy.’”  She shuddered again.  “But you are going to places with sun and no parents and it’s all very rude.”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette said solemnly.  “I will bring you a present.”

“You better.  It’ll give me something to look forward to so I don’t just skip town and go become a nun at the convent a few towns over.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“I used to fantasize about it as a kid,” Aglae said.  She stretched her legs out in front of her and reached out to her ankles, talking as she did so.  “I’d get sick of people talking about me and I’d think, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be nice to go join the nunnery?  No one would talk shit about that and then you wouldn’t have to see their stupid faces anymore.’  Plus I thought maybe I could go be in seclusion and then they’d miss me and that would show them.”

“Don’t join a nunnery,” Lafayette said.  “Because I actually would miss you.”

“Lafayette, knowing you, you’d probably find a way to appear at the doors and charm the abbess into letting me go.”

Lafayette shrugged and sat down, crossing his legs.  “Maybe.  But even if I did, it would be such effort.”

“My hero.”  Aglae propped her chin up on her knuckles, still leaning forward across her legs, and stared moodily at the other end of the room.  “Ugh,” she said after a moment with a short shake of her head.  “Great, now I’m thinking about break.  Quick, change the topic.  It’s putting me in a bad mood.”

“Do you really not want to go home?  I thought you got along well with your family.”

“I do,” Aglae said, ignoring that he hadn’t done as she asked.  “But still, it’s stressful.  Don’t people talk about you, too?  You skipped town even more than I did.”

“Not really,” Lafayette said.  “Ah, they did at first, but I wasn’t there for that anyway and they meant well.”

Aglae rolled her eyes.  “Yay.”

“Adrienne did complain about it once,” Lafayette admitted, trying to find a way to get onto the same page as Aglae.  “She said it bothered her.  Our friends and family were saying things about, ah, how I was irresponsible and thoughtless, that sort of thing.  It really wasn’t anything that bad, and I made up for it.  It’s not interesting anymore.  Maybe it will be the same for you.”

Aglae scowled.  “Nothing interesting ever happens back home.  They’re not going to be sick of talking about it yet.”

“About how you went to school in New York and started dating an older man?  But you are done with that and you ended that with remarkably little drama and you don’t need to tell them about Peggy if you don’t want to.”

“I know.”  Aglae continued to focus on a blank spot across the room.  “Why did you come to New York?”  She asked abruptly.

“Because I felt like I needed to.”

“Why?”

“I was restless,” Lafayette said.  “I felt like…  Like even though I love my friends, like if I stayed there I would just turn into them and the thought frightened me.  I felt like there was something better that I could do with my life if I could just break free and figure it out for myself.”

Aglae sat up and leaned back on her hands and nodded slowly.  “I thought I was going to go crazy back home, too,” she said.  “I remember thinking that there was this whole _world_ out there that I hadn’t seen and that hardly anyone I knew had gotten around to seeing before they got old and settled down and when I thought about how that would be me too, it made me want to scream.  But then, I don’t know.  For a while I didn’t think I could actually get out.  Or maybe I did, but I was impatient.  I don’t know,” she repeated, sounding frustrated and irritable and no longer in the city.  “So I did some stupid stuff.  And _everyone_ does it, I just did it louder and with less luck.  None of it really helped, and I was also—  Anyway.”  She cut herself off with the finality of a door closing.  “Anyway.  It’s just stupid and I miss them but I don’t want to go back and give them a target for all their stupid questions.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I understand.”

“I don’t think you do,” she said, tipping her head to the side and looking at him with a short twist of a smile.  “But thank you.  You’re a nice boy,” she teased, slipping back into her usual cheerful tone.  “Adrienne’s really lucky.”  She reached over and pretended to pinch his cheek, then leaned to the side until she was resting against him.  “If she ever gets tired of you, I’m going to take you.  Don’t worry,” she patted his chest reassuringly.  “You can come live with me and we’ll get a whole bunch of dogs.  That’ll be the dream.”

“I’m supposed to live with Alexander and John in a penthouse in the city,” Lafayette said.  “I think with a skylight.  Oh,” he frowned.  “And with André on a lavender farm.”

Aglae laughed.  “Wow, okay.  What if you rent the rooftop also and do your gardening up there?”

“That would work,” Lafayette agreed.  “And then there will be more room for our dogs!”

“Cracked it.”  Aglae patted him again and then sat up as Adelaide walked in and began to set up for the class.  “This is a good plan.  Do you think you can get it all set up by the end of next week?  If I’m going home I want to at least give them something _good_ to talk about.” 

 

“Took you long enough.”

“Alexander,” Burr said, doing up the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt and staring at him with suspicion.  “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, catching you before class, obviously.  You don’t have company over, right?”  Hamilton looked over his shoulder then quickly ducked around him and into his dorm room.  “Single with a private bath.  Much better for bringing company over.  If John was staying on another year I’d tell him to go for one of these.”

Burr sighed and closed the door.  “How did you find my room?”

“Asked our neighbors,” Hamilton said, crossing the room to look out the window.  “Figured they’d know.  You never go over to their place, though.  Is it because it’s too cramped or do you just not like them that much?”

Burr ignored that and turned away from Hamilton to straighten his sleeves and collar in the mirror.  “You didn’t look up my class schedule as well, did you?  I could have been on campus already.”

“Lucky shot.  Figured I’d check and then head over.  I was swinging by here anyway to say get breakfast with Lafayette.  Lunch, I guess?  I dunno, he let me join his date.”

“That’s thoughtful of him.”

“I know.  I think he’s going to miss all of us over break.  He invited to me to go on vacation with him, but I turned him down.  I guess he might have paid for the tickets at least, but I feel weird about it.”  Hamilton made a face at his reflection in the window and put his hands in his coat pockets.  “Third wheel.  And like I’d owe him.”

“That would be hard to pay back.”

“You’re telling me.  You keep this place stupid tidy, by the way,” Hamilton said without turning around.  He looked at the room reflected in the glass, the made bed and the neatly stacked books and the closed hamper.  “It’s like you’re a robot or something.”

“It’s easier to think if it’s like this.”

“I guess.  Hard to get it to stay clean, though.”

“Just put things away when you’re done with them, Alexander.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, “can’t.  Oh well.”

“Why did you want to talk to me before class?”  Burr asked as he packed his bag.  “Did something come up?”

“Mm?  Oh, right.”  Hamilton turned around, gesturing outwards with his hands still in his pockets for a second before letting them fall back down.  “What are you doing this weekend?”

Burr raised an eyebrow.  “Studying.”

“Great, I hoped you’d say that.  We’re having—well, I’m not sure I count as a host for this, but anyway—there’s a party this weekend.  A bunch of us are getting together and studying and shit.  It was Angelica’s idea, I think.”

“You can’t invite me to your friend’s event.”

“Don’t worry about it, I was sent to tell you to come.  Lafayette figured you'd be more likely to actually attend if I told you about it in person.  So?”  Hamilton asked after a brief pause.  “What do you say?  I think Gouverneur should be there and it’s probably fine if you want to bring some a couple of the other student council guys.”

Burr shook his head, just a slight angling from side to side.  He finished putting his books in his bag and closed it.  “Are we friends?”  He asked.  “You didn’t answer me before.”

“I dunno.  I guess so.”

“We weren’t before,” Burr said.  “You were very clear about that.”

Hamilton shrugged without freeing his hands.  “Yeah.”  He managed a nonchalance.  “That’s true.  I was mad at you.  I’m not now.”

“You pity me?  Or you enjoy having something to hold over me?”

“No, Jesus.  I just, I dunno.  I get a little more now why you were being a jerk and I still think it’s stupid that you didn’t want to just tell me about it.  And if we’re having honesty hour I still want to know the details and you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, ya dig?”

“You can’t pull that off.”

“Beg to differ.”

Burr pulled his coat and scarf on and slung his bag over his shoulder.  “Alexander.”

“Yeah, okay.  Fine.”  Hamilton took a step forward.  “Anyway, you coming?  It’s starting Saturday morning.  I can text you the address if you don’t want to meet up beforehand.”

“Who else is going?”

“Uh, me, Lafayette.  The Schuylers, obviously, it’s their place.  John’s coming but he might be late, I don’t know.  He’s going to bring a couple of his friends from the team.  Angelica’s boyfriend, I guess.  Not really sure who else.”

“You told me I was not invited to the Halloween party you threw,” Burr said wryly.  He looked over his shoulder at Hamilton as he opened the door.

“You didn’t miss out on much.  John punched a guy for making out with André’s girlfriend and I had way too much to drink.”

“Sounds like a classy affair.”

“Hah, yeah, real black tie.”

“That was Peggy Shippen?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton confirmed, following Burr out into the hall and nodding.  “That’s what André was talking about.  Hey,” he said, “actually, speaking of.  Did you ever hear anything about some complaint getting put in against Lee?”

“I would have told you if I did.  Why?”

Hamilton frowned.  “John said that the assistant coach told him someone had ratted him out.  But you didn’t hear anything?”

“No.”

Hamilton chewed on his lower lip.  “Guess they really did keep it quiet.”

“They’re supposed to,” Burr pointed out.  “For PR reasons as well as actual privacy concerns.”

“True.”

They waited at the elevator.

“So what did you end up doing?”

“Hm?”

“On Halloween,” Hamilton said.  “What did you do?”

“Not much.  I had reading to do for class.”

“You didn’t do anything with your friends?  Go out, watch a movie, buy a lot of candy, anything?”

“No.  I had work to do.”

Hamilton didn’t say anything until the elevator doors were opening.

“Anyway,” he said, “you’re coming this weekend.  I’m going to harass you if you don’t, you know me, you know I’ll do it.”  They stepped inside the elevator and Burr pressed the button for the ground floor.  “I’m going to swing by your place and pick you up again, just like today.  We can all head over together.  You and me and Lafayette and whoever else.  Okay?”

“Alexander—”

“No, come on, Burr,” Hamilton said.  “We’re going to be getting work done anyway, or at least trying to.  Bring headphones if you have to, I know you like socializing and if you really need an excuse, remember that the Schuylers are a law family, so it’s some extracurricular smoozing as well.”

Burr laughed, the sound habitually detached.  “I was going to ask what time you wanted to head over.” 

“Oh,” Hamilton said.  “Right.  Uh, leave around nine sound okay?”

Burr nodded and smiled.  “I’ll make a note of it.”

“Cool,” Hamilton said.  “Cool.”  They headed out through the lobby of the building.  “So I gotta ask…”

“Of course you do.”

“This, uh, this lady-friend of yours.  So you haven’t done the…  You know.”

Burr looked for a moment like he was going to make a sarcastic jab back but instead he breathed out slowly and adjusted the lapel of his coat.  “No.”

“Understandable.  There’re a couple things there that are making it a bad situation.  Even if she was into you.”

“You don’t say.”  Dry.

“Okay, so, cool, I got it.  That would be weird.  And bad.  Professional standards, imbalance of power, got it, got it.  And you’re so… you, that I assume you didn’t say anything to her.  Like, okay, I get it, not a big deal, so you’ve got a crush on her, I’m not gonna go telling people that you’re head over heels or anything or that she’s committing all kinds of ethics violations—”

“Could you stop talking?”

“Right.”  Hamilton stepped out into the cold air a pace behind Burr.  He tensed his body against it, hunching his shoulders.  “Right.  That happened and that was bad.  Fuck,” he said, switching gears.  “I can’t believe they’re playing in this.  I can’t believe I’m going to be sitting in this.  My nads are gonna get frickin’ frostbite and fall off.”

“Please stop.”

“I changed the topic.”

“I am _viscerally_ aware.”

“Look, okay, before I drop it again.  What I meant to say before was that you’re a pretty smooth guy.  Are you thinking of looking her up after graduation?”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate, Alexander.”

“Why not?  Assuming you’re into the May-December thing.  You’re both adults, there’d be no shared workplace.  You both just happened to be at the same institution in the past.  Not like you’d have to worry about it affecting your grade.”

Burr didn’t say anything.

Hamilton sighed and it made a cloud in front of him.  “I bet you’re good at poker.”

“I bet you’re terrible at it.”

“John tried to teach us over break.  Not really my game.  I didn’t suck at it, though.  John’s coach and the assistant are hooked up, though,” he said, slipping back to the previous topic.  “And that one HR actually had to sign off on.  So, you know.  I think it’d be okay, is what I’m saying.  At least to go test the waters.”

“She’s married,” Burr said, his words low but with force.

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed.  “Technically.  But, come on, Burr, I know you know more of the details there than I do, but you’re not seriously telling me that’s a _happy_ marriage, are you?  Last I heard they were like four-fifths of the way through their divorce proceedings.  She’s not going to suddenly go ‘oh, you know what, I was wrong, I’m going back to this jerk.’  Get real.”

“Would you let it go, Alexander?  It doesn’t affect you.  Drop it.”

“I’ll stop talking about it,” he said.  “In a minute.  I just think that get out of this place first, sure, but if you like her so much you should do something about it.  See if it’s even an option.”

“She wouldn’t be interested,” Burr said sharply.  “And she never was.  There was nothing to be interested in.  This whole thing is too close to that witch hunt against her and I’m not so shortsighted that I want to step right in that myself.  It would be entirely inappropriate.  Let,” he said, force behind each word, “it go.”

“But—”

“No,” Burr said again, firmly.  “There is nothing there and it would be a disaster to pretend otherwise.  I had a, a crush on someone I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry I came down hard on you in the process.  It was immature of me.  There,” he said.  “There’s your apology.  Are you happy now?  That’s what you really wanted all along, isn’t it?”

“Burr,” Hamilton said, having to pick up his pace to keep up suddenly.  “Wait.  Come on, that wasn’t what I wanted—”

“Then what is it?”  Burr stopped walking abruptly.  He kept his words relatively quiet, but they hissed.  “This is pointless, Alexander.  You’re just needling me over something in the past that I cannot change and trying to get me to agree to something that we both know is stupid.  It’s outright offensive to even suggest it as a possibility.  Do you realize what you’re even saying?  That she’d be so low as to be interested?”  He had leaned in and he straightened up, controlling his features with obvious effort.  “For once, think before you speak.”

Burr turned and walked away.

Hamilton was tempted for a moment to change course and let him go but instead he steeled himself and hurried after him.

“Wait!  Aaron, wait.”  He caught up to him.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “Seriously.  I’ll drop it.”  He made a zipping motion across his mouth.  “I’ve gotten better at not talking on touchy subjects.  Lot of practice.  Okay?  Hey.”  He patted his arm under the thick coat with his gloved hand.  “We cool?  Ish?  You’re still coming this weekend, aren’t you?  I’m sure some of the others would like to see you, you can just avoid me.  Or maybe make out with one of Eliza’s friends right in front of me, show off, make me jealous of your slick moves.”

He tipped his head to the side to look at Burr’s expression and was relieved to see him nod.

“I’m not kidding about the jealous thing,” Hamilton said.  “I might have a way better boyfriend than you’ll ever get—no offense—”

“None taken.”

“—but I’ll still be jealous of how effortless you make everything look.  In life in general,” he said.  “You’re way too polished for your own good.  Me, I’m just loud and good at wearing people down.”

“Is that how you got John to agree to go out with you?”

“Hah,” Hamilton said, “I forgot!  You never heard that story!  Shit, I should make up a better version to tell you.  This is a rare opportunity.  I’ll tell you what,” he said, “actually for real come this weekend and I’ll tell you what happened, okay?  We can be, like, even for me putting my foot in it.”

“All right.”

“Good,” Hamilton said, stepping in front of him and sticking out his hand.  “Shake on it, Burr.  It’s a deal.”


	210. Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee

Laurens waited nervously in the cafe near his classes on campus.  His phone was on the arm of the couch and he picked it up again for what he was uncomfortably aware was the third or fourth time that minute and checked again that he hadn’t missed any messages.  He didn’t have a book with him; he debated grabbing one of the papers up front.  He put his phone down again and drummed his hands lightly on his legs as he looked around and saw, with a mixture of anxiety and relief, his father and brother walking up to the door.

He stood and raised one hand as they entered.  Jemmy let out an excited exclamation and hurried over, his coat only half undone and hat and mittens still on, and hugged him.

“Jack!”

“Hey there.”  Laurens was smiling in spite of his nerves and he ruffled Jemmy’s hair when he pulled away.  “Did you get taller?”

“It’s my shoes,” Jemmy said, lifting one leg to show him.  “See, I got them for the snow and they have these really thick grips—”

Laurens missed the end of his sentence as he turned to greet his father.  “Hello, sir.  Did you have a hard time finding the cafe?”

“No, no,” Henry Laurens said, taking off his hat and undoing his coat much more sedately than Jemmy had managed.  “You gave us good instructions, thank you.  So.”  He clapped his hands together and turned to look at the menu.  “Shall I buy us something to drink?  What would you like?  And how long do we have you for?”

“Can I get a peppermint mocha?”

“You can get a peppermint hot chocolate,” Henry Laurens told Jemmy.  “I think you are energetic enough already.”

“Jack,” Jemmy said, turing quickly back to Laurens.  “There was a lady walking four dogs at the same time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we passed her when we were walking over from the lot and they were all different breeds, too.  One was a black lab and one was a terrier and—”

“Jack, what do you want?”  Henry Laurens put his gloved hand on Jemmy’s shoulder to quiet him.  “How’s the house blend?  Any good?”

“It’s not bad.  I’ll just take that, thanks.”

“I like your school,” Jemmy said as he and Laurens sat back down on the sofa.  “It’s really cool.”

Laurens laughed.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  Jemmy looked around conspiratorially and leaned in, dropping his voice to a whisper.  “Are your friends here?”

Laurens laughed again, more tensely.  “No.  They, uh, they’re in class.  Everyone’s pretty busy at this time of the year, so I don’t know if you’ll see them.”

“You too?”

Laurens nodded and relaxed slightly as Jemmy sat back and raised his voice to a normal level.  “Pretty busy, yeah.  I have exams next week so I need to study for that—I’m going to meet up with some others on Saturday to do that.”

“I have exams, too,” Jemmy said quickly.  “I have a math test on Tuesday.”

“Oh, yeah?  Are you prepared?”

“Mostly,” Jemmy said with airy confidence.  He missed the smile that Laurens had to bite back.  “I’m pretty good at math.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I like solving problems,” Jemmy answered.  “I like being able to figure it out.  It’s like a mystery.”

“Do you do a lot of word problems?”

“No.  I don’t know.  I guess so.  I like the other ones more,” Jemmy said.  “Like when they’re just numbers.  Those take less time.”

“I see.”

Laurens moved over on the couch to give his father room to walk past him and take the chair at the short end of the table.

“What are you two boys talking about?”

“Jemmy has a math test coming up.”

“That’s right,” Henry Laurens said.  “He was doing his homework for math on the plane.”

“Speaking of tests,” Laurens said, consciously trying to find the angle that he wanted to approach the topic.  “A bunch of us are getting together on Saturday to study.  Do you think it would be all right if I joined them?  I know they were going to meet up in the morning, so maybe I could get breakfast with you early and then head over.”

Henry Laurens tapped his credit card on the arm of the chair, then put it back in his wallet.  “That should be fine.  Who are you meeting?”

“Angelica Schuyler’s the one hosting,” Laurens said, his hands folded and balanced between his legs.  “It’s going to be at her place.”

“Oh, Schuyler.  Is that one of Philip’s daughters?  I know who that is.”

“Yes,” Laurens said, nodding.  “I’m—”  He faltered, not sure how not to lie.  “—friends with Peggy,” he finished.  “Her sister.”

“Peggy.  Why have I never heard you mention her before?”  Henry Laurens put his wallet away in the inner pocket of his coat, draped over his arm.

“We only met recently,” Laurens said.  “Through Alexander, actually.  He’s good friends with Angelica and Eliza.”

“Three young ladies in the house.”  Henry Laurens shook his head.  “Their father must be kept very busy.”  He chuckled.  “I don’t envy him that.”

“So it’s all right if I go?”

“Of course.  You don’t have to ask my permission,” Henry Laurens said.  “You’re a college man.”

Laurens leaned back against the couch with a breath of relief.  Across the room their order came up and Jemmy jumped up to collect it.

“So tell me about this Peggy,” Henry Laurens said.  “What is she studying?”

“She’s still undeclared,” Laurens said, very aware of why his father was asking and hyper-attuned to every answer he gave.  “She likes photography, though,” he added.  “She’s pretty good.”

“Oh?  What sorts of things does she take pictures of?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Artsy stuff.”

His father laughed.  “Well, I’m glad you have someone to talk art with.  You were always interested in that kind of thing.”

Jemmy brought over the two coffees and then went back for his hot chocolate.

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed automatically.  “She’s fun to talk to.”

“Good, good.  Is she coming to your game?”

Laurens blanked.  “I think so,” he said after a flustered pause, reasoning that he could always try to convince her to and that he wasn’t giving a hard answer anyway.  “But, like I was telling Jemmy, the end of the semester is crazy.  Everything’s due.  I think she’s still pretty busy working on her photography project.  I just turned my things in myself.”

“You’re taking life drawing, right?”  Jemmy sat very carefully back down the couch with his mug.

“Yes.  We had this portfolio project due,” Laurens explained to him, turning his coffee around in his hands and then taking a careful sip.  “André and I were finishing up yesterday.  I got it in on time,” he went on, “but it was really down to the wire.  We’re not doing a gallery, but we needed to at least get them up in the classroom.”

“Is that on campus too?”

“Yeah.  I’ll point the building out to you when I show you around.”

“Cool.”  Jemmy took a too-large drink and made a face and a short pained noise.  “Ow.  Hot.”

“Be careful,” Henry Laurens warned.  “Jack,” he said, “do you have plans after the game tonight?  If you’re free I’d like to take you out for dinner, but I suspect you’ll be busy.”

“I think the guys are probably going to want to go out,” he said apologetically.  “Since it’s the final game of the season.”

“That’s fine.  Go with them, enjoy yourself.  You’ve earned it.”

Laurens smiled, feeling his confidence rise with the praise.  “Actually, there was something else I wanted to ask you,” he said.  “It’s about this summer.  I wanted to apply for a position helping in a law firm.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.  With Philip Schuyler.  He’s looking to take on a couple of interns in the summer and I thought it would be a good opportunity.”

“Wonderful.”  Henry Laurens sounded genuinely pleased with the idea and he was smiling when he raised his mug to his lips for a short drink.  “I’ll see if I can’t drop him a line since we’re in New York,” he went on.  “I’m rarely up here and I should at least send him my regards.”

Laurens nodded, knowing exactly what he meant.  “That sounds good.  Could you please tell him hello from me as well?”

Henry Laurens’ smile split into an amused laugh.  “I think you should pass the message through that friend of yours, Jack.”

Laurens busied himself with a long drink of coffee and didn’t respond.

“The rest of the family says hello,” Henry Laurens said, mercifully dropping it.  “They all wish they could have come up to see you, of course, but you’ll be back with us in a couple weeks anyway.  Have you gotten your ticket yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You should get on that.  Do you know what day you’ll be done?”

“Exams end on the fifteenth, which is today in a week, but my papers are due that weekend.”

“You could fly down late on Monday.  That would give you some time to pack whatever few things you need and you’ll have a week to spend with the family leading up to Christmas.”

Laurens felt Jemmy’s eyes snap eagerly to him and he ignored him.

“It’s my last winter here,” he said, “same for a bunch of the guys.  I’d like to stay a little longer.”

To his surprise his father nodded amiably.  “That’s fine.  We’d love to have you, as long as you show up before Christmas Eve then I don’t see any problem.”

“But all the good stuff is in the build up before Christmas,” Jemmy protested.

Henry Laurens shushed him.  “Jack will be back,” he assured him.  “I’ll talk to Philip,” he told Laurens.  “I should drop him a line anyway if you’re such good friends with his daughter.”

Laurens struggled to maintain a blank face.  “Thank you,” he said.  “I appreciate it.”

“More importantly,” Henry Laurens said, “I hear that André won’t be playing today either.”

Laurens started.  “I—Who told you that?”

Henry Laurens looked genuinely surprised by his reaction.  “It was on the news.”

“We looked up interviews at the airport,” Jemmy jumped in.

“The news?”  Laurens’ heart dropped.

“Just some filler piece,” Henry Laurens said.  “It was saying that he hadn’t been at practice all week.  The reporter was asking about it.  One of your other teammates, something Grayson—”

“Richard,” Jemmy interjected again. "Wait, Will."

“—he said that he likely wouldn’t be playing.  Isn’t that so?”

“—I didn’t see the reporter,” Laurens said.  He hoped it would pass as some kind of excuse or cover.  “I didn’t realize anyone had asked about him.”

“What happened?”  Henry Laurens asked.  “He’s a good quarterback.  He didn’t injure himself, I hope?”

Laurens hesitated, not sure what to say.  “He just…  It’s nothing,” he finally said, hoping he wasn’t lying.  “I don’t really know,” he went on, settling on something like the truth.  “I wasn’t told.”  He was very aware of how closely his father was watching him, of how he maintained eye contact and how it would be impolite and some kind of admission to look away prematurely.  “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” he said, and he heard how apologetic his voice was.  He tipped his head to the side to indicate the greater room around them.

Henry Laurens glanced at the others in the cafe and the spell seemed broken.  He nodded.  “It’s not important.  Jemmy and I were just wondering about it, isn't that right?”

Jemmy nodded.

“Someone will play quarterback either way,” Laurens jokingly reassured him.  “Don’t worry about that.”

“So,” Henry Laurens asked, putting his coffee down on the table and leaning back.  “How are your friends doing?”

Had there been just the breath of a pause before “friends” or had Laurens imagined it?

“Uh,” Laurens couldn’t keep from turning red.  “They’re, uh, it’s the end of the semester so we’re all pretty exhausted, but they’re fine.  It’s hard to keep up on top of training and all of that in addition to class.”

“I’m sure.  That’s a lot to deal with.  And how are Lafayette and Alexander?”

“They’re good.”  Laurens felt himself get more flustered and he grabbed blindly for an exit strategy.  “I haven’t seen them as much since Thanksgiving.”

“That’s too bad.”

Laurens struggled to keep a perfectly neutral face and he wondered what and how much it looked like he was hiding.

“Well,” Henry Laurens said and the suggestion that he was moving on was like breaking the surface after being shoved unexpectedly underwater, “I’m sure all you boys will be run less ragged in a week or so.  Jemmy,” he said, turning to him, “tell Jack about how your science project went.”

Jemmy launched into an enthusiastic narration and Laurens responded almost in kind, eager to keep them distracted with the bone his father had tossed them for as long as possible.


	211. Golden Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People Pleaser; Jemmy; Quiet Day at Work; Surprise

> G. Lafayette: Let me get this straight

> G. Lafayette: Instead of confronting your father or planting any kind of seed in his mind you told him that you are dating Peggy?

> G. Lafayette: John why

> J. Laurens: I didn’t tell him that, okay?

> J. Laurens: He just sort of got there all on his own.  It’s not a big deal, maybe now he’ll back off some and he agreed to the other stuff I wanted from him.

> G. Lafayette: I suppose so

> J. Laurens: yeah so I know you have class with her now so if you could just tell her for me that would be great

> G. Lafayette: wait 

> G. Lafayette: John

> J. Laurens: Sorry I have to go I’m taking Jemmy around campus.  Thanks I’ll talk to you after

> G. Lafayette: putain

 

Lafayette looked up from his phone at Peggy, sitting next to him and snapping her gum as she read her open textbook.

She glanced up.  “What?”

Lafayette smiled nervously.  “How are you today?”

Peggy leaned away slightly.  “What’s going on?”

“Ah, John just messaged me,” Lafayette said, lifting his phone up.  “His father is in town.”

“Okay…”

“He said that his father thinks he is your, how do you say, your beau.”

Peggy wrinkled her nose.  “Gross.  Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Lafayette said with a long-suffering sigh.  “You can ask him in person after the game or at the party.  But if you need a pretend boyfriend for the holidays, I think you now have one.”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Do you already have one?”

Peggy snapped her gum again.  “I don’t need one.  My parents aren’t assholes like his.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said.  “Has he talked to you about his father?”

“Uh, he doesn’t need to.  His job kind of speaks for itself.”

Lafayette nodded.  Fair enough.

“Is the final cumulative?  Like, does it cover everything from the semester or just from the midterm on?”

“I believe so.”

“I’m going to die,” Peggy groaned, turning her attention back to the book, her grade more engrossing than Laurens’ drama.  “I’m going to fucking _die_.  I hate school.”

“I like this class.”

“I like this class,” she said back, mimicking him.  “Of course you do.  You’re a genius.  How are you even taking classes in English, anyway?”

“I started studying it when—”

“Lafayette,” Peggy complained.  “Don’t.”

“Ah, my apologies.”

“No wonder you’re friends with Angelica,” she muttered, putting her elbow down hard on the desk next to her book and leaning her chin against her fist.  “She says hello, by the way.  She wanted me to check that you made it back safely last night.”

“I am in one piece,” Lafayette said, patting his chest over his heart with one hand.  “Tell her thank you for me.”

“Will do.”

“It’s all right,” Lafayette said coaxingly.  “I will study with you, if you would like.  We can review on Saturday.”

“Saturday’s for making out and we all know it,” Peggy said, turning red at her own words in spite of how bluntly she said it.  “That’s why you and Angelica bought all that stuff.”

“It’s for both.  The kissing is the reward for the studying.”

Peggy snorted, her cheeks almost as red as her lipstick.

“I miss kissing,” Lafayette sighed.  He imitated her position with his chin in his hand.  “Adrienne is so good at it.”

“Keep it in your pants.”

“Don’t be so crass.”  Lafayette stared across the room with only partially affected moodiness.  “Do you know,” he said, “out of all of my closest friends at this party, I will be the only one without someone to kiss?  Even if you are too embarrassed to, at least you will have the option.”

“Isn’t Adrienne coming here in like a week?”

Lafayette shrugged.

“I guess, that does suck, though,” Peggy said reluctantly.  “Even though you’re being more dramatic than you need to be.”

“I miss Adrienne.  I’m bringing Gouverneur but I bet that he will find someone.  He is very charming.”

“Did you guys actually get high in a park with Angelica?”

Lafayette nodded.

Peggy looked impressed.  “I thought maybe she was exaggerating.”

“No, she fell off the bench.”

Peggy snickered.

“You two have a very similar laugh.”

“Hey,” Peggy said.  “I actually do need to get a good grade on the final, so maybe you can study with me this weekend?  At the party and then later also if we don’t get through everything.”

“Of course,” Lafayette said.  “I would like that.”

“I don’t know what else you have to do.”

“I have to study.  And I like doing that with people.  Back in France I used to study with my friends all the time.  We would all get together for group sessions.  They were not the most productive,” he admitted, “but they were fun and it’s good to have other people around to ask your questions to.  My friend de Ségur, ah, his name is actually Louis but we knew other people with that name so I called him…”  Lafayette cleared his throat.  “It is not important.”

“Is that like his title or something? Is he a duke like you?”

“I’m a marquis.”

“Same idea.”

“He’s a count.”

Peggy rolled her eyes.

Lafayette laughed awkwardly.  “Ah, yes.  Anyway, de Ségur and I were in the same classes all through school and we would study together for almost every test.  We were very good friends.”

“Honestly, I feel like you’re very good friends with everyone.”

“I try,” Lafayette said honestly.  “I like people.”

“Clearly.”

“I like people a lot,” he said.  “But, ah, not everyone is as up front about things as you are.”

Peggy gave him a skeptical look, like she wasn’t sure if she was being complimented or insulted.

“That is a good thing,” Lafayette said quickly.  “I like that about you.  When you don’t like something you say so, and there is no confusion.”

Peggy considered that.  “Thanks,” she said, the word light.

“You are welcome.  But it just made me think, we used to have these big get togethers with many people, all of whom I thought were my good friends and it just got to feeling very…”  He paused, thinking about how to say what he wanted to.  “Hollow.”

“Like superficial?”

“Yes, exactly.  De Ségur was different when it was just the two of us, but with everyone else, it felt like he was just a pale imitation of himself.  Many of the people, they are not bad, but they were just very superficial.  Maybe it was the combination of them all put together.  On their own or with others it might have been very different.”

“Didn’t you tell me you’re famous on social media?”

Lafayette made a hushing motion at her with both his hands.  “I know, I know.  I could feel myself becoming the same way.  I didn’t like it, I already told this to John.”

Peggy leaned back in her seat and watched him carefully.

“What I mean is that I like the people I have met here.  I feel much more whole with you all, even when you’re all in one big group.”

Peggy’s mouth curled up, one side more dramatically than the other.  “I like you too,” she told him.  “And that actually means something because unlike you, I don’t want to be friends with just anyone.”

 

“These are all maples,” Laurens told Jemmy, gesturing at the bare trees lining the walkway.  “It’s too bad that you didn’t come here last month.  They were really brilliant.”

“Are all the deciduous trees on campus maples?”

“No.”  Laurens pointed to their left, grinning a little at his brother’s wording.  “Those are London planetrees.  And the ones on either side of that sandstone building are lindens.  That’s the art building,” he added.  “The studio I have classes in is in the basement.”

Jemmy looked thoroughly impressed.

“If we have time, I’ll take you both to Central Park,” Laurens promised.  “It’s iconic and there’s plenty to see there.”

“Do you go there a lot?”

“No, not really.  It’s nice though.  When Lafayette’s girlfriend was visiting she went there several times.”

“Maybe we can get an early breakfast in that part of town before we fly out,” Henry Laurens said.  He was walking a few paces behind the other two, looking admiringly around the campus.  “That might be nice, Jack.  Give you the opportunity to say goodbye and show your brother the park.”

Laurens nodded.  “Yes.”  He turned to Jemmy.  “What do you say?”

“Okay!  Are we going to see your art building?”

Laurens shook his head.  “I could,” he said.  “It’s open.  But I wanted to take you somewhere neater.  One of my teammates is studying medicine and he showed me something I think you’ll like.”

“Medicine?”  Henry Laurens laughed.  “He must have no time at all, the poor boy.”

“Yeah, I hardly ever see him out,” Laurens admitted, turning to face his father.  “And our second-string kicker is good so a few times they’ve had him not come to games so he can study.”

“That doesn’t seem like the way to do it.  I’m glad you’re not caught in that position, Jack.  Just enough on your plate without overloading yourself and needing others to help move things around for you.  Besides, this way you still have time for a healthy social life.”

“I think he’s coming this weekend,” Laurens said.  “To the study party.”

“Isn’t that just studying?”  Jemmy asked.

Laurens shrugged.

“It is still seeing friends,” Henry Laurens acknowledged.

“Right,” Laurens said.  “I guess it’s toeing the line.  But the point is that there’s this neat exhibit I wanted to take you to.  We have to turn this way,” he said apologetically, stopping and turning around at a fork in the path.  “The buildings my classes are in are up there, but I need to head down to the gym already in a little bit and I don’t have time to show you both.”

“That’s all right,” Henry Laurens said.  “I remember which they were.  After you head off, Jemmy and I can make our way back up and take a look around ourselves.”

Laurens nodded.  “All right.  That sounds good.  Thanks.  Come on,” he said, putting his hand on Jemmy’s shoulder.  “The medical library is down this way.”

“There’s a medical library?”

“There are a bunch of different libraries,” Laurens explained as they walked.  “There’s the regular one, then medicine, law…”

“Whoa.”

“The school’s got a ton of resources,” Laurens said, feeling pride swell his chest unexpectedly.  “The law library is several stories—I haven’t used it all that much yet because it’s mostly for graduate students, but I’ve had classes take us there to do research.”

“Which one do you use the most?”

“The regular undergraduate library.  There should be campus maps at the circulation desk at the one we’re going to,” he said.  “I’ll ask for one and mark things on it so you can find them easier.”

“Okay!”

“Are you meeting up with your coach so early because you’re the captain now?”  Henry Laurens asked.

Laurens grinned.  “Pretty much.  Usually I still get out of my later classes, unless it’s an away game, then I obviously can’t make it to any of them.  But Coach told me he wanted to see me early.”

“He probably wants to go over the game plans, isn’t that right, Jack?”

“Something like that,” Laurens agreed.  “I know he preps the captain first about anything significant for the game and any key changes or plays that he wants run.  I’m not sure what he wants to go over, but it should be interesting.”

“That’s so cool,” Jemmy enthused.  “Are you going to get to do the interview at the end of the game, too?”

“I don’t know,” Laurens laughed.  “Maybe.  It depends on who they can get, I guess, and if someone did something really noteworthy.”

“Being captain at the last minute is noteworthy.”

“Maybe,” Laurens said again.  “If they do interview me, I’ll give you a shout out.  Okay?  Do your friends know you’re up here for the game?”

Jemmy nodded.  “Yeah.  I was bragging to everyone.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens felt years of practiced nervousness about the direction he was steering their conversation in, even though he knew it was perfectly safe.  “What about that bird girl, did you tell her too?”

“She’s not a bird girl.”

“Sorry.  You know who I mean, though.  Are you guys friends?”

“Mm.”  Jemmy nodded.  “I think so.”

“Did you talk to her more?”

“Like in class and stuff.”

“Come on,” Laurens said, wishing it was just the two of them and letting his steps fall a little heavier than they would have normally, as if that created any kind of sound barrier.  “How’s it going with her?”

“I dunno.”  Jemmy half-shrugged.  “She talks to me at recess.”

“That’s good,” Laurens said.  “Did you invite her to do things as a group like I said?”

“No.”  Jemmy squirmed.  “I don’t know what kinds of things and she’s really cool.”

Laurens privately harbored suspicions about that but didn’t question it.  “What do you do with your friends?”

“Hang out at their houses or they come over to our house.”

“Right, okay, but what do you do?”

“Play games?”

“Look,” Laurens said, cutting to the chase.  “Just ask her if her friends want to go to the movies with you guys or something.  It’s winter break, it’s a good time for it.  Didn’t I suggest that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you chicken?”

“No,” Jemmy protested.

“They follow college sports at all?  They must, because you’ve been talking their ears off.  If you’re so concerned about being cool, how’s this? You’re getting out of class to go to our last game of the season and afterwards you’re going to come down to the sidelines and get a picture with everybody, okay?  We can do signatures and everything too, the whole deal.  I’ll get André to sign something special for her.  He’s the quarterback and girls love him.”

“All right,” Jemmy said, back to his usual enthusiasm.

“Good.  You and Dad figure out how many people you want to get stuff for and who you want to sign what and just let me know and I’ll herd everyone.  One of the perks of being on my good side.”  Laurens heard himself saying the words and wondered if they sounded enough like him and if not, how to change it.  “But then when you’re giving things out back home you _have_ to ask her to hang out with you and your friends.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

Laurens held out his hand sideways as they walked and looked at him as seriously as he could manage.  Jemmy took his hand and shook it awkwardly, having to half-hop sideways along the path in order to do so.

“Done.”  Laurens released him.  “That’s your word,” he reminded him.  “So you can't go back on it.”

“I won’t.”

“That’s the building with the medical library,” Laurens said, pointing out the building as it came into clearer view and moving away from their previous conversation.  “I think I’m going to have to leave you guys there because it’ll take a while to walk back over.  I know it’s a little out of the way,” he said by means of apology, turning back over his shoulder to address his father.  “But I thought Jemmy would like it and the law buildings are all in a cluster so they’re easier to navigate without a guide.”

“That’s fine,” Henry Laurens said.  “Although we would like to see where you have class.”

“Yeah,” Jemmy added eagerly.

“Got it.  Like I said, I’ll mark out the buildings for you.”

“It’ll be like a treasure hunt,” Jemmy said.  “Like a treasure map.”

“A boring one.”

“We’ll have fun,” Henry Laurens said.  “Won’t we, Jemmy?  By the way, Jack, where is the best place to get lunch on campus?”

“There’s the mess hall,” Laurens said, “but I don’t know if you’d like it…  There are some places that sell food to go or in more of a bistro sort of setting,” he added.  “I’ll point those out on the map, too.”

“Where do you usually eat?”  Jemmy asked.

“The mess hall.  Or off campus.”

Jemmy looked impressed that he could come and go so freely.

“This is it.”  Laurens led the way up the stairs and into the building.  He looked around the white halls, needing a moment to orient himself, then found his way through them more easily than he had anticipated, talking to his father as he pushed open the doors to the library.  “In here.  I’m going to get a campus map, but the display is just—”

“Whoa…”  Jemmy slipped around him and gaped at the rows of thick books and the weight with which the library carried itself.  “This is _nice_.  I thought you meant it was going to be like someone’s office library or something.”

“What?  No.”  Laurens shook his head.  “It’s research texts for the department.  The exhibit is in those glass cases down there,” he said, pointing as he opened his coat now that the heat of the building was sinking in and crossed to the front desk.  “I’ll be there in a second.  Sorry,” he told the librarian.  “We’re just passing through.”

Laurens took a couple minutes to make careful notes on the campus map, circling the buildings related to law or political science as well as his dorm and one of the nicer places to get food.  He drew a neat black line leading the way through them and starting at the library, then an arrow in the direction of the stadium.

“Here,” he said, walking up to his father and handing him the map.  “I think I got everything.”

“Thank you, Jack.”  Henry Laurens scanned it, then folded it up.  “This was a good idea,” he told him.  Jemmy was several cases down, engrossed in reading a descriptive card in front of a model of a dissected squid.

“I’m glad he likes it,” Laurens said.

“Oh, he’s all over this sort of thing.”  There was a clear fond if bemused note to his voice.  “Do you remember going through a similar phase when you were a boy?  You loved things like this.”

Laurens wasn’t quite sure why that made his shoulders tense.  “I still like them.”

“Oh, sure.”  Henry Laurens was only paying him half attention, distracted by watching his younger son.  “He’s got a good mind for this,” he said.  “I know we all weren’t sure…  He’s doing very well in school, as I’m certain he’s told you.  We did have to start paying for a tutor for him this year.  He has a hard time concentrating and sitting still and it was affecting his performance.  But the extra attention seems to have worked, at least for now.”  He sighed.  “We’re all very excited for you,” he said, changing topics.  “The golden boy.”  He put his hand on Laurens’ upper back in a gesture of obvious pride.

He looked at him and Laurens shrunk away from his smile.

“I need to head over,” he said, finding his excuse to brush him off.  “Give me a call if you need anything but otherwise I’ll see you after the game.”

 

“It’s a very slow day,” Lafayette complained in a hushed voice in spite of the empty room.  “I had hoped that André would at least rearrange his schedule so he could share this shift with me…”  He sighed.  “So boring.”

“When are you going to the game?”  Adrienne asked.  The tablet showed that she was outdoors, walking quickly down the sidewalk with her coat done up all the way against the cold and the cord of her headphones and strands of her loose hair getting blown and caught by the wind.

Lafayette adjusted the volume to compensate for the background noise.  “Not until after classes.  It’s a slightly later game today.  Did you get the pictures I sent you of how Angelica and I decorated their house?  I think it looks very festive.”

“I loved them.”

“I’m glad!  Maybe you will get to see them when you visit, since you will be here for a little bit.  I hope you at least get to meet up with the others again, I know they all miss you.”

Adrienne laughed, amused.  “Is that so?”

“Of course.  It’s been a while since they last saw you.”

“Mm.  I’d like to see them again.  Do you think we can meet up with Adelaide and Aglae at least?”

Lafayette sat up straighter, moving the tablet with him.  “Of course!  I’ll see Aglae at least in a few hours, so I will arrange something with her then.  She and Peggy are so funny,” he went on.  “They both know the other likes them and they do things together but I don’t think they really know what to do with that.  Aglae definitely wants to date her,” he continued, “I think in part to stick it to her family.  And Peggy’s family has no problem with it, but she’s just awkward and doesn’t know what to do next.  I don’t think either of them to,” he amended.  “Aglae is just more impulsive.”

“I think they’re cute,” Adrienne said as she ducked into a store and put Lafayette in her purse.  The screen cut to off-black.

“I do too, but it is like Alexander and John all over again.”

“I thought you missed that.”

“I did, but this is more difficult to help with.  I don’t live with either of them and I’m afraid I will come across as too pushy since I have even less in common with their situation.  Maybe you can help,” he said.  “You can talk to Aglae at least.  Girl talk.”  He slouched against his chair, letting his head rest on the top of its plastic back.  He stared up at the ceiling.  “With lesbians.  Very girly.  Please don’t decide you like them more than me.”

Adrienne laughed off-screen.  “ _Gil_.”

“I’m serious,” he protested, not moving.  “Girls are so much prettier.  You're all soft and nice smelling.”

“Gil, you’re not serious.”

“I am,” he continued emphatically, taking full advantage of the empty language center to talk as loudly as he wanted.  “No offense to either John or Alexander, but they are missing out.  Ah, just John is, actually.  Sorry.  Alexander understands.  You have all the…”  He gestured messily.  “Curves and the nice skin.  And the pretty clothes.  You’re so much prettier than I am,” he added.  “It’s unfair.”

“You’re very attractive.”

“I try.”  He sighed and sat back up properly.  “I like to think that I do a good job.”

“You do,” she said reassuringly.

“Thank you.  You are very supportive.  I have an important question.”

“What is it?”

“Do you think my hair will look good in our vacation pictures?”  He opened the camera on his tablet and inspected himself on the screen.  “I am enjoying it but I don’t know it if it will be too…  I don’t know.”

“Tacky?”

“Do you think?”

“I like it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”  He frowned and turned his head from side to side.  “It’s just not very…  Festive.  Or tropical.  Or Southwestern?”

“We’re going to different places,” Adrienne pointed out.  “I don’t think you can style yourself for all of them.”

“That is a good point, my Dearheart.”  Lafayette switched back to the call and put his tablet down on the table.  “I really thought André would be here today,” he complained.  “I even tried getting in contact with him, but he wouldn’t respond.”

“Maybe he is with Mina.”

“Maybe,” Lafayette agreed.  “I hope he is all right.”

 

Laurens undid the top clasp of his coat as he walked into the gym.  He hesitated by the front desk, suddenly second-guessing if he was expected there or at his coach’s office.  Before he could take his phone out to double check, he heard his name being called.

“Laurens.”  Walker waved to him from across the room.  He motioned in the direction of the conference room he had met with him in earlier.  “The four of us are going to be talking in here.  Do you need anything to drink first?  Water?  Coffee?”

“Uh, water would be good.”

“Can you get us a couple of bottles?”  Walker asked the student employee behind the desk.  “Mark them as for Friedrich.”

Laurens was handed two bottles of water.

“Thank you.”  He tucked one under his arm and opened the other as he walked over.  “Four of us?”

“Yeah, about that.”  Walker turned away to lead him to the room.  “I’m going to need to request that you turn your phone off.  Is that okay?”

Laurens slipped both bottles to the crook of his arm so he could comply.  “Sure.  Is this standard?”  As his screen switched to black he was hit with the realization of who the fourth must be and the skin on his shoulders and neck crawled, his stomach suddenly dropping.  This was his first and only week as captain, a job that had previously been filled by Lee.  _Lee_ , who Walker had been so shifty about and who was still hanging in limbo, who was clearly being given some kind of quiet and respectable out in order to not draw attention and enable them to continue to use him since he did not yet know what he was doing or how to properly take over—

Walker opened the door and Laurens almost dropped both bottles and his phone to the floor.

“Hey, man.”  André, sitting casually at the table and already in uniform, raised his hand.  “What’s up?”

Laurens slowly turned.  Walker was grinning smugly.

“Caught you by surprise, right?  Get in.”

He closed the door behind them.

“I don’t…”  Laurens put his things down on the table but remained standing.  “What’s going on?”

“Hell of a question.”  Walker sat opposite André and motioned to the seat at the end of the table and directly between them.  “Sit.”

Laurens sat.

“Right,” Walker said.  “I think it’ll be quickest if I tell this one.  Friedrich should be here soon and there’s a lot to go over for the game today.  André can fill you in on whatever I miss later.  Is that okay?”

Laurens nodded, still dumbstruck.

“Sorry for the exposition.”  Walker cleared his throat and picked up the unopened bottle.  He broke the seal on it with a sharp turn and took a drink.  “André came to us with a complaint about Lee,” he said, “a little after fall break.”

Laurens looked at André, who nodded.

“He said Lee had been causing some problems,” Walker went on.  “Making inappropriate statements.  He told us that the other guys agreed and were upset about it as well.”

Laurens remembered his coat and started to undo it again.

“Ben Tallmadge he said would back him up.  Tench Tilghman.”

“Others too,” André added.

Laurens looked at him again and he gave him a little nod.  Laurens wasn’t quite sure how to read it.

“Anyway,” Walker said.  “The way the system works is you have to get several strikes, each officially recorded and each meeting with the officially sanctioned response for their severity.  As we told him then, Friedrich was going to pull Lee aside and talk to him.  We asked him to keep an eye out and let us know if Lee didn’t take the reprimand to heart.  The plan was to have the two of us—Friedrich and I, that is—try to open up dialogue with people about the climate on the team more generally.  See if anyone had anything else to add if we didn’t name names.”

“Coach talked to me,” Laurens said, the realization dawning on him as he pulled his arms out of his sleeves and letting his coat fall against the back of the chair.  “After practice one day.”

“Right.  And right around the time he talked to you guys is when everything went off the rails.  André, as it turns out, really took that ‘keep an eye out’ thing to heart and heard about this—”

“I told him about this part already,” André jumped in.  “I had a sense from before that Lee was screwing with me and then when Margaret and I broke up she confirmed it.  That’s when I found out that he was trying to manipulate the outcome of the games and that he had an invested interest in eventually throwing them.”

“We were going to meet on Monday to discuss the issue,” Walker said, cutting back in.  Laurens had been looking at André as he talked and he turned back to Walker, feeling the narrative of the last week slowly form around him.  “Which caused some problems when you kids preemptively went all Hardy Boys on Scooby Doo.  You and your friend actually dragged him all the way out to the president of the university’s house,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.  “Everyone was kind of ticked off, and because you guys pulled him in before the _actual_ meeting where he was supposed to explain this all to the president, the big question was what to do about André?”  Walker took a drink.  “Long story short,” he continued, “he got separated from the team for a week while the school confirmed his story.  Rush job,” he admitted, “really only made possible because Friedrich was pushing to get him reinstated in time to play this afternoon.”

“So then…?”

“He’s getting everything squared away right now so it will be fully legit and he’ll be on the field this afternoon.”

The door opened as he talked and they all looked over as von Steuben carefully closed it behind him.

“Ah, was that my cue?”

“Just on time.”

“If we are talking about timing,” von Steuben said, taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack.  Laurens looked at it enviously, his own coat bunching on the back of his chair.  “then I have something else to discuss.”  He sat next to Walker and addressed the group.  “You know how people talk.  Have you seen the report that came out this morning?  The other team has been expecting a very different lineup.  We should take advantage of that.”

“Right,” Walker agreed, angling his body towards him.  “So the question becomes, do we use André right away or do we hold off and let them think we’re really going to use someone else?”

“Laurens?”

Laurens started, not expecting von Steuben’s question.  “Yes?”

“It’s his decision,” Walker said, nodding at von Steuben.  “But you get some input.  What do you think?”

Laurens felt his surprise grow into a swell of pride.  “I think we should play him right away,” he said.  “they’ll see him on the sidelines anyway and once they know that it’s a possibility they’ll be able to start readjusting their plans for it.  The longer we wait, the more we lose the element of surprise.”

“I agree,” von Steuben said.  “André.”

André was sitting to attention.

“You’re back up.”

André grinned, an almost feral sharpness to it, and Laurens noticed for the first time just how pointed his canines were.  “All right,” he said, the words more of a mark of excitement than an agreement.  He switched his gaze from their coach to Laurens.  “Ready to win?”

Laurens leaned forward, putting both fists down on the table and looking at von Steuben.  “What’s the plan, Coach?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also today 12/8/17 is the same date irl and in fic! Whoa! We finally caught up to ourselves!


	212. Pre-Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Stands; In the Lockers

“Remember the first time we were here?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette, carefully balancing a paper boat of loaded nachos on the armrest between their seats.  “Did we just… leave all the food in the stands?”

“I think so,” Lafayette said, taking a chip drenched in queso.  “We were a little distracted when we left.”

“Hopefully this game will go better.”  Hamilton tugged his scarf further down so he could eat as his stomach growled.  “Fingers crossed no stupid injury.  As sexy as all this is,” he went on through a mouthful of nachos, “I’m gonna rest a lot easier when the season’s done and John’s just, I dunno, hitting up the gym or something.”  He swallowed.  “Thank God he doesn’t play another sport in the spring.”

“Do they do that?”  Aglae asked, turning around in her seat in front of them and leaning her arm on its back.

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “It’s a thing, I dunno.  Sports.”  He gave a half-assed attempt at one handed jazz hands.  “It’s a thing.”

“Grayson is on the track team,” Lafayette offered.

“See?”  Hamilton motioned at him with his thumb.  “Lafayette knows.”

“Running.”  Aglae made a face.

“He could be doing a field event.”

“No,” Lafayette said, “it’s running.”

“Gross.”

“I think doing yoga in a room hot enough to broil you is gross,” Hamilton said, getting himself another chip.  “To each their own.”

Peggy tried to hide a laugh behind her drink.

“Peggy knows.”  Hamilton kicked at the back of her chair just hard enough to be felt.  “She gets it.  You and me, Pegs,” he said when she turned, and he motioned between them.  “Cut from the same cloth.”

“I don’t think Peggy is lusting after football players enough to be cut from the same cloth.”

“Not everything’s about sex, you know,” Hamilton said, mock scolding Lafayette.  “C’mon, Peggy, you know I’m right.”

“Do I?”

“Totally.  Uh, we both think running and hot yoga sound like not fun times,” he said, counting dramatically off on his fingers.  “We both think that art is _sexy_ , we’re both having to deal with the problems of long hair that tangles easily getting fucked up by sitting out in these bleachers.”

Peggy twisted the side of her mouth and attempted to readjust her hat over the messy flyaways framing her face, an act inhibited by her mittens.

“We both think she’s an amazing photographer…”

“I have four finals next week,” Peggy complained.  “I’ll send you your picture after that.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Is that them?”  Aglae asked, patting Peggy on the shoulder and pointing.

Peggy stood and waved her hand aggressively in the air.  “Angelica!  Eliza!”

“The Schuyler sisters,” Hamilton said.  “Lafayette, you and Aglae are going to be out numbered.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Three of them and Angelica said that I’m her brother now.  You two are just the plus-ones at a family reunion.”

“Oh, are we pretending to date again?”

“Seems like a football tradition,” Hamilton said, angling his body to the side to let them pass him and draping his arm over Lafayette’s shoulders.  “ _Bon après-midi, mes soeurs_.”

“Happy end of term,” Angelica replied, taking her seat with Eliza between them.  “Glad to be done with classes?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.  I’m living for getting through this next week.  This right here,” he said, pointing with his free hand at the ground, “is all the break I’m taking between now and getting everything in.  I need to work my ass off after this.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“That’s studying,” Hamilton told Eliza, taking his arm off of Lafayette.  “Seriously.  I’m coming over but I’m getting work done.”

She looked skeptical and he doubled down.

“I mean it, I don’t have time to blow off two days in a row.  I’ve got a chunk of work that I need to get done.”

“I’m sure we’ll all be productive,” Eliza said.  “Right?”  She turned to Angelica.

“I have a paper to write.  The same one as you, actually,” she said to Hamilton.  “We can go over each other’s.”

Hamilton scowled.  “He-who-must-not-be-named.  I wish he’d release the prompt already.”

“It wouldn’t be a take home test if he sent it out early.”

“I’d set a timer,” Hamilton protested.  “I’d take the same amount of hours.  It’s over the weekend anyway.  I just wish I could have worked on it earlier, I hate having things all piled up like this last minute.”

“Don’t you always have things piled up?”  Lafayette asked.

“Not last minute,” Hamilton said, turning his body to include him.  “Having to wait like this until right before this looming deadline is the worst.  Even if there was a—a shared deadline or something, if it was earlier in the semester at least it wouldn’t—it’d just be better, okay?  Seriously,” Hamilton said, “this time of year I feel like I need to drink an extra cup of coffee just to calm down enough to stop running in circles chasing all this crap.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Caffeine releases dopamine and can help with anxiety and depression.”

“Caffeine encourages neurotransmitters to release dopamine,” Lafayette corrected.  Peggy rolled her eyes at him.  “There’s a difference.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton looked surprised.  “Huh.”

“But it can also make people more anxious because it is a stimulant,” Lafayette went on, clearly taking the conversation as an opportunity to review for his final.  “Similarly, people with ADHD have depressed dopamine levels and raising those levels with caffeine can have a similarly seemingly paradoxical calming effect.  But because it is a stimulant it can also cause agitation and trigger other anxiety.  So it is situational and depends on the individual’s caffeine sensitivity, dopamine levels, and other interacting psychiatric conditions.”

Peggy leaned her cheek against her fist.  “Show off.”

“I’m just studying,” Lafayette protested.  “You can add in anything I missed.”

“That’s not the point,” Peggy complained without lifting her head.  “You’re a show off.  Alex,” she said, “if we’re supposed to be on the same page or whatever, tell him.”

“Hm?  Oh, right.”  Hamilton shook his head, bringing himself back to the present.  He took the nachos away from Lafayette.  “You’re a show off.”  He passed them down to Eliza and Angelica.

“Is anyone else supposed to come?”  Eliza asked, carefully picking a chip that had an even array of toppings.

“To this?”  Hamilton shook his head.  “Not that I know of.  Mulligan’s going on vacation soon, so—”

Lafayette made a muffled noise, like he was biting back a comment, and Hamilton looked over at him suspiciously.  “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Hamilton watched him for another few seconds while Lafayette carefully did not make eye contact, instead staring up at the overhead display still flashing ads instead of player stats.

“…Anyway,” Hamilton finally said, reluctantly turning back to Eliza.  “He’s going on vacation soon so he wasn’t able to take off.”

“He works stupid hours,” Peggy said.  “I hear him coming back really late.”

“It’s the shifts,” Hamilton said, nodding.  “His hours are actually better now than they were when I met him.  Seniority.  Does he still do that thing where he comes in at like two in the morning and then blasts sports for a couple hours while he makes and eats dinner?  I slept on the _couch_ ,” Hamilton said.

Peggy shook her head.  “Mostly he’s just on his computer.”

Hamilton snorted.  “Getting old, I guess.”

“Says you,” Eliza teased.  “Alex, you’re always online.”

“Hey, am not.  That’s Lafayette.”

Lafayette jerked his head up guiltily and tried to unobtrusively shove his phone back in his pocket.

“You’re hardly any better than he is.”

“It’s true,” Angelica piled on.  “I don’t know how many times you’ve messaged me because I’m the only one still up.”

“That means that you’re online too,” Hamilton argued.  “Your accusation falls apart, Ms. Schuyler.”

“Actually, she never said that she wasn’t online,” Peggy pointed out.  “Just that you were.”

“And she could have just gotten the messages,” Aglae added.  “Like, what if she had her phone on but was reading a book or something?  She might still hear your text but that wouldn’t mean she was really online.”

“Yeah, she’s just switching over and responding to you to be nice.”

“Hey, hey,” Hamilton protested.  “They weren’t pity responds, okay?”

“How do you know?”

“Because she’d get back to me right away, okay?  If she really wasn’t plugged in it would take longer.”

“That sounds like something that only someone who was addicted to his technology would know,” Lafayette said loftily, turning around the camera on his phone and putting his arm over Hamilton’s shoulders.  “Group selfie.”

 

“Ist everyone here?”  Tench stood by the door to the locker room under the stadium, hands on his hips and putting on a fake German accent.  “Sehr gut.”  He got scattered laughter and took it as encouragement to keep going.  “Now,” he said, the accent getting harsher and v’s somehow getting inserted into words where they should not have fit.  “Wir sind hier today to overlook unsere unfortunate circumstances, ja?  We are going to go aus there on das field, without our regular quarterback, which ist ein mark against us.  But we will rise back from die ashes like die phoenix.”  With his hands he enacted an egg rising into the air and then turning into fluttering wings.  “Our grossest victory ist auf dem hund!”  He clenched his hand dramatically before his face.

“I’m pretty sure ‘hund’ means ‘dog,’” Grayson said.  “Like ‘dachshund.’  Not ‘hand.’”

“Come on.”  Tench looked over his shoulder at Laurens.  “I’m just trying to set the stage.”

“For what?”  Grayson asked.

Tench shushed him and took a step back to put his hand on Laurens’ shoulder, trying to draw him forward and closer to the rest of team.  Laurens resisted, wanting to stay next to the doors and Tench relented, instead patting him on the chest with his other hand.

“We will achieve totales victory with John Laurens, unsere neues captain,” he announced, pounding Laurens’s chest enthusiastically again.  His hand thudded against the hard protective padding.  “Throw out the old,” he declared, the fake accent faltering and starting to sound more faux-Russian than German.  “And—”

The doors behind them opened and Tench jerked away from Laurens, already backing guiltily towards the others.

“All right,” von Steuben said, looking down at his clipboard and pages of notes as he entered.  If he had heard Tench he gave no indication.  “Is everyone here?”  He scanned the room.  “Yes?  Good.  Come on.”  He motioned behind him.  “Laurens,” he said.  “Announcements, go.”

Laurens cleared his throat, his heart thumping with excitement and nerves in his chest.  “Thank you.  And thank you, Tench, for the introduction.”

Tench lifted his hands, palms out, and leaned silently back against one of the lockers.  “There’s actually one big thing that we wanted to clarify,” he went on as Walker and André entered to a sudden overlapping murmur.  “André’s still going to be starting for us today.”

“Where’ve you been?”  Humphreys asked, cutting Laurens off.

“I thought you got suspended.”  Trumbull looked in obvious confusion around the room.  “Right?”

“Well,” André started, then he looked at Laurens and gave him a deferential nod.

“Not technically,” Laurens said, picking up the thread.  “He got caught up in—in some stuff, some of the money stuff with Lee.  The short version is that he found out about it and the whole thing blew up right before he could tell anyone else, so he got implicated as well.  They had him separated for a few days so they could check out his story but he’s back now.”

“We were keeping it quiet to make things as efficient as possible,” Walker said.  “We were trying to avoid cross-contamination with different stories.”

André nodded.

“Were you still training?”  Grayson asked.  “I haven’t seen you.”

“They told me to use the private facilities in my building,” André explained.  “Uh, and to go during off hours, just to try and keep a low profile.  It’s been really weird working out only from like ten at night to five in the morning.”

“Anyway,” Laurens said, “I think only the guys up to fill in for him were told he might be back in time for the game.  I didn’t know until today that he would be joining us, either.  But we’re glad to have him back,” he finished, putting his hand on André’s shoulder, consciously imitating what Tench had done to him.

André patted his hand and then stepped away, going to stand with the others.  “On to reviewing the plan for today?”

Laurens nodded.  “Right.”  He moved to the side to center von Steuben.  “We’re ready,” he said.  “The floor is yours.”


	213. Ready, Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Game Start

“Did they pull Lee’s slide?”  Hamilton asked, arms folded and looking up at the display.  “I haven’t seen him yet, have you?”

Lafayette shook his head.  “I want to know if they edited John’s.”

“Oh, good point.  Hopefully.”  Hamilton shivered.  “Fuck, I need the game to start already.  Get the energy levels in here elevated, something.  Why couldn’t John be into an indoor sport?  Like judo.  Or chess.”

“Angelica could kick your ass at chess,” Peggy said.

“Did I say I was looking for a fight?”

She shrugged.  “I’m right.”

“No you’re not.  You can’t make a judgement just like that.  You haven’t even seen me play.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Oh, come on.  I’m sure Angelica is good,” he said, then leaned forward to include Eliza and Angelica in the conversation.  “I’m sure you’re good, but don’t you think this is a little unfair?”

“It’s rude,” Angelica said.  “But it’s not unfair.  I would win.”

“What, you don’t think I’m good just because I didn’t grow up learning off my dad’s expensive marble set?  Well, guess what, I didn’t need to and now I have my own.” He gestured an explosion with one hand.  “Gauntlet thrown.  Name a date after finals and I will kick your ass.  I’ll even provide the board because it’s fancy as sin and I need to break it in.”

Angelica’s laugh was akin to the unsheathing of a dagger.  “All right.  If you insist.”

“I do.”

“Next Saturday,” she said.  “That should give you enough time to read up.”

“Look,” Lafayette said, pulling excitedly at Hamilton’s sleeve.  “There he is!”

“John?”  Hamilton turned, his challenge already forgotten, and grinned broadly at the screen.  “I hate that picture,” he told Lafayette with a conspiratorial air.  “Old haircut.  And when they do it like that it looks like a prep boy mugshot.”

Lafayette laughed and nodded.

The stats appeared one line at a time next to the picture and Hamilton leaned in a little closer in anticipation, punching Lafayette on the arm when the words “team captain” appeared in bold.  “That’s him!”

Almost as if on cue, Lafayette saw Henry Laurens and Jemmy make their way down the flight of stairs one section over, proceeding all the way down to the bottommost group of seats and vanish into the rows somewhere near the very front.

“I like it in bold,” Hamilton was saying.  “Makes it stand out more.  More force behind it.  Catches the eye.”

Lafayette strained to see them without standing but couldn’t tell which spectators they were from behind and at a distance.  Still, he told himself, it was good that he had spotted them.  Now he knew where they were in general and where they wanted to make sure to avoid.

“I would have gone for italics,” Peggy said.  “Bold is so tacky.”

“Bold is so…  Yeah, maybe, but take a look around.  We’re not exactly sitting in some friggin’ fine arts museum.”

“Is it starting?”  Agale asked as the marching band suddenly kicked into the theme from Rocky.

“This is so weird,” Peggy complained, the team running out onto the field below them.  “Like, _seriously_.”

“Cultish.”

“Definitely.”

“Hey, hey, Statler and Waldorf.”  Hamilton leaned forward, putting his hands on the backs of their seats.  “I agree with you, but save the heckling for when we’re making fun of people I’m not dating.”

“You’re not dating everyone in the stadium.”

“I could, they'd be lucky to have me.”

“You could not,” Lafayette pointed out.  “Not everyone here is interested.”

“Hey, come on, I’m talking here.”

“I’m just saying,” Lafayette complained.  “Straight men don’t want to date you.  Women who only like women don’t want to date you.  Some people don’t want to date anyone so they definitely would not want to date you.”  He leaned back to talk to Eliza over Hamilton’s back.  “Not even either of us want to date him.”

Hamilton sat up, separating them.  “Let me have my hyperbole, Lafayette.  I know you’re not dense enough to actually be that literal minded.”

“You were overlooking a lot of people.”

“Shove it.”

Lafayette huffed and got back on his phone.  Hamilton glanced nervously at Eliza but she was ignoring him in favor of rummaging through her bag.

“All right,” Hamilton said, turning back to Lafayette.  “You were right.  Stop complaining to Adrienne, we all know she’s going to side with you anyway.”

“I’m not texting Adrienne.”

“Adelaide, whoever.”

Lafayette put his phone down.

“It was a joke, okay?  Can we get back to the actual work of keeping an eye on that thing to see if they flash Lee and André or not?  The seats we had last time were so much better,” he complained.  “I can’t see the sidelines right, which means that if John gets taken out I don’t have any visual proof that he’s not dead.”

“They’d stop the game for that,” Eliza said with a straight face.  “If he died on the sidelines, I mean.  But realistically they’d take him all the way off the field first and then having a better view wouldn’t help.”

Hamilton grimaced.  “Okay, can one of the other Schuylers tell me that your sister is messing with me?  Because right now she’s the one with the most comprehensive knowledge of how any of this works and that’s scaring me a little.”

“It was a joke,” Angelica said.

“Thank you.”

“If anything happens I will go with you to make sure he is okay,” Lafayette promised.  “Peggy can come, too.”

Peggy turned around from her own conversation at the sound of her name.  “What?  Why me?”

“You are John’s friend, aren’t you?”

“Um, I guess?”

“That’s more than what any of the others can say,” Lafayette said.  “So it counts.”

“You should like John more,” Hamilton said, tipping his head towards Eliza and Angelica as he continued to watch both the screen and the field.  “He makes up for sometimes being an asshole.  And if you point it out to him he feels really bad.”

“Like you, then.”

“Yeah, exactly.  We’re complementary like that.”

“That means you’re opposites who make a whole,” Angelica pointed out.  “Not that you’re the same.”

“Fine, I’m being sloppy today, you caught me.”  Hamilton didn’t look at her.  He worried his lower lip.  “I’ll be more precise after this is over.”

“You’ll be very busy after this,” Lafayette said, winning himself a laugh.

“Got me there.  Tomorrow,” Hamilton promised as the screen cut suddenly to a waving flag pattern.  A voice over the loudspeakers introduced the teams and then the student who would be singing the national anthem as the crowd quieted in anticipation.  “I’ll bring my A-game.”

Lafayette frowned and got up, stepping out into the aisle.  “Is that André?”

“What?”

Lafayette pulled Hamilton over next to him and pointed.  “There.  Number nineteen.  That’s his jersey.”

Hamilton stared.  “You’re right.  That has to be him, they wouldn’t just swap numbers like that.  Shit.”  He looked at Lafayette, having to talk loudly to be heard over the music.  “Do you think that means that Lee…?”

Lafayette shook his head, not knowing the answer, and Hamilton took advantage of the anthem to rise up as high as he could and try to pick out the players on the sidelines, looking quickly between the field and the screen.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I don’t see him, but I can’t…  Hold on.  I’m going to get a closer look.”

Hamilton slipped past Lafayette and quickly headed down towards the lower section of seats.

“Alexander, wait!”

“It’s fine, I’ll be right back!”

Lafayette hesitated, then hurried after him.  “Peggy,” he called, stopping several stairs down and turning back around.  “Come on, we need to catch up to him!”

“Wait, what—”  Peggy climbed out of the aisles and started to follow after him in spite of her protests.  “No one got hurt yet!”

“Peggy,” Lafayette pleaded, turning again a few more steps away.  He grabbed her by the wrist once she reached him and pulled her after him through the fortunately-still stadium.  Hamilton was significantly ahead of them, already down on the lower level, but at least easy to follow as he hurried past largely immobile waiting spectators.  The seats nearest to the field were paid tickets, not the free student section, and Hamilton squeezed in front of the very front row as the anthem ended.

“‘Scuse me—”  Hamilton looked over the players, frowning, then took a gamble.  “John!”  He leaned over the bar separating the seats from the field and shouted down at the team.  “John Laurens!”

Tallmadge heard him and turned around and then hit Laurens on the arm to get his attention over the noise of the crowd and the announcer.

“Alex?”  Laurens looked out at the field again, then stepped back to stand below him.  “Alex, the game’s about to start.”

“André’s playing?  What’s going on?  Is Lee here too—Hey!”

Lafayette and Peggy crashed into him.

“André yes, Lee no.”  Laurens shouted up at him.  “Look, I can’t talk.  I’ll fill you in after the game.”

“Hey!”  A security guard unsurprisingly materialized behind them and put his hand on Lafayette’s shoulders.  “What are you kids doing?  Get back to your section!”

“We could have tickets for these seats,” Lafayette protested, unable to not, in the moment, make things worse.  He drew himself up to his full height, visibly standing several inches taller than the guard.  “You should ask us—”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Laurens shouted to the guard.  “They’re just asking a question—”

“Laurens!”  Von Steuben yelled, motioning him away with a quick violent gesture.  “Stop that.  We won the toss,” he said, reminding both him as well as the players closing ranks around them, “get on the field, _now_.”

“All right,” the security guard said, “let’s go.”

“Put those two back in their seats,” von Steuben instructed with a curt gesture at Lafayette and Peggy.  “They were talking to their friend but are done now, yes?”

“Definitely,” Peggy answered quickly, clinging the back of Hamilton’s coat with wide eyes.   “Come _on_ ,” she hissed at Lafayette, letting go of Hamilton and grabbing Lafayette’s hand, looking in fear between the guard and the noisy crowd.  “Let’s get out of here.”

Lafayette huffed but held his tongue and let the guard escort them away.

“Alexander,” von Steuben called after him as he started to follow the other two back up the stairs.  “If you want to, go around to the back.”  He indicated one of the entryways several sets of seats over.  “Go downstairs.  Someone will meet you at the tunnel.”  He turned away, both teams already lined up on the field.

Hamilton hesitated, Lafayette and Peggy several yards away, then hurried in the direction he had indicated.  He heard the announcer say John André’s name with surprise—Hamilton wondered if it was feigned or real—and explain that he would be playing the final game of the season after all.  He was too on edge to make out the tone of the murmur that seemed to run through the crowd but then the whistle blew and the game began.

Hamilton turned and almost tripped over his own feet as he walked backwards while trying to watch as the game launched into play.

Like some kind of rehearsed event on an empty field, the kicker on the other team launched the ball into the air, sending it in a long arc down to the ten yard line where a younger player he didn’t know neatly plucked it from the air.

Hamilton was knocked into a full stop as the aisle he needed to cut across suddenly became a wall as almost an entire half of the stadium leapt to its feet.

The noise was something tribal and desperate and it only increased in volume as the player, identified by the enthusiastically shouting announcer as Hays, one of the wide receivers, started forward at a half-run, evaded the two nearest defenders with uncanny ease, and then abruptly broke into a full sprint down the field.  The crowd screamed, almost frantic, as Hays spun and seemed to dance in the air over an attempted tackle, veering towards the edge of the field, then dipped back in and pushed the play over the end zone for a touchdown.

The board flashed stats—this was the player’s first touchdown of the season—before going to a feed of Hays looking almost bewildered in the end zone and then a replay of the unexpected run.

Hamilton pushed his way through the still-celebrating crowd, losing sight of what was happening on the field as the players reset.


	214. Chatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Up Close; Boy Crazy

“Alexander Hamilton?”

Hamilton came to a stop at the start of the tunnel.  Another of the members of the team that he didn’t know was standing there next to the security guard.  Hamilton nodded.

“Right.  You can follow me.”

With a glance at the guard, Hamilton did so, walking alongside him through the dark corridor.

“Sorry,” he said, craning his neck to try and get a glimpse of his jersey.  “Which one are you?”

“John Trumbull.  JT.”  He didn’t sound particularly talkative but Hamilton pushed further anyway.

“Oh, right, sorry.  Everyone looks different up on the screen.”

He made a face for just a moment.  “I don’t play often.  You’d recognize my brother.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said again.  “Uh, right.  Sorry.”

JT shrugged.  “You’re not really supposed to sit on the sidelines,” he said.  “But Coach doesn’t think anyone will really care as long as you’re quiet and don’t distract anyone.”

“Right,” Hamilton said, making an attempt at a joke.  “Quiet and no distractions.  Obviously I’m really good at that.”

JT snorted in amusement and Hamilton cracked a grin, nervous but trying not to show it.

“So I just sit down and shut up?”

“Basically.

“Got it…”  Hamilton trailed off as they stepped out into the cold and the light again.  The angle was different, with the action all the way down at the other end of the field, and he had a flash of obvious realization that this was a view that Laurens would be familiar with.

JT led him over to his teammates standing on the sidelines, and Hamilton looked around, then stood up against the wall, wrapping his arms around himself and wondering what on earth he was doing there.

“Hey.”

He recognized the voice before the face behind the helmet.

Humphreys stood next to him.  “What was going on up there?”

“I don’t…”  Hamilton shrugged, not sure what to say.  It seemed excessive now.  “André’s here?”  The words were tense.  “What about Lee?”

“André yes, Lee no.”  Humphreys stopped for a moment to watch the action, then started talking again as the line of scrimmage reset.  “Coach likes you,” he said.

“Hm?”

“To bring you back here.  It’s not like this is a common occurrence.”

“Oh.  Well.  Good.  I like him too.”

“Are you coming tonight?”  Humphreys asked.  For a split second Hamilton considered giving the joke answer.  “No matter what the score is we’re going to go out after.  You’re welcome to join us.”

“I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s fine.  We’re just going to get stupid.”

“I’m going to a friend’s house to study in the morning.”

Humphreys was distracted by the play on the field and didn’t immediately respond.  Hamilton put his hands in his coat pockets and turned over his phone.  Would it be rude to take it out right now and text the others to say where he went?  Were they still talking?

The whistle blew and he took the opportunity to dig his phone out as Humphreys clapped and walked forward, forgetting about any continuing conversation.

 

> G. Lafayette: Where did you go?

> G. Lafayette: Alex?

> G. Lafayette: ???

> A. Hamilton: Sorry 

> A. Hamilton: The coach asked if i wanted to come down stand on the side

> A. Hamilton: hope i dont get beamed in the head w a ball

 

“Alex.”

Hamilton snapped his head up.  Laurens was approaching him, already off the field, taking his helmet and mouthguard off, his face flushed pink from the cold and the initial exertion of the opening play.

“What are you doing here?”

Hamilton put his phone back in his pocket, grinning in spite of the weather and their audience at how obviously happy to see him Laurens sounded.

“Oh, you know,” he began coyly.  Laurens only stopped walking when he was a foot away.  “Your coach asked if I’d like a better view of the action, no big deal.”

“Some view,” Laurens said.  “You weren’t even paying attention.”

“I was just letting Lafayette know where I went.  You know how he is.”  Hamilton wasn’t even sure which one of them was closing the remaining distance.  “He worries.”

“Does he?”

Laurens' tone sounded like the prelude to a kiss and Hamilton had to force himself not to grab him, instead balling his hands and tipping his face down slightly.

A shout from von Steuben caught Laurens’ attention and he looked quickly away.

“Shit.  Sorry, I need to…”

“Go,” Hamilton said, half finishing his sentence and half giving him a command.  “It’s fine, I’m not supposed to be a distraction.  Go kick ass and shit, I’ll be over here.”

A roar from the crowd alerted him to the developing play on the field and he took the opportunity to very quickly lean up and plant a kiss on the side of Laurens’ mouth, relatively hidden as they were behind the other players and up against the wall.  Laurens looked at him with clear surprise but then flashed a pleased and surreptitious grin.

“Later,” he promised, taking and squeezing Hamilton’s hand for a brief second, before putting his gear back on and hustling to his coach’s side.

 

“Which numbers are we looking for?”

“John is number eighteen,” Lafayette said, sitting in Hamilton’s vacated seat next to Eliza and offering the last of the nachos down to Peggy and Aglae.  “James is sixteen and André is nineteen.  Oh,” he said, mildly and pleasantly surprised, “you met the others that John brought to the party.  Humphreys—”

“Wait, wait.”  Aglae took the nachos and shook her head.  “You’re going too fast.  Sixteen, eighteen, nineteen…”  She leaned forward to study the field.  “Where are they?  I don't see any of them.”

“No, they’re not out right now.  Humphreys—”

“Why aren’t any of them out?  I thought we were coming to watch John play?  Isn’t he supposed to be good?”

“They’re all good, but—”

Peggy turned around in her seat.  “Do you mean ‘they’re good’ like ‘they’re my friends so of course I think they’re good’?  Is this the equivalent of you dragging us to see some stupid class play?”

“They’re _offense_ ,” Lafayette said, exasperated.  “If you will let me finish, David Humphreys is number ten, and he’s right over there in the line.”

“Oh.”

“Why do they all call each other by their last names?”  Peggy asked, taking one of the last chips.  “None of Eliza’s teammates call her Schuyler.”

Lafayette shrugged.  “Machismo.”

Eliza snorted.

“You saw James,” Angelica pointed out to Peggy and Aglae.  “He was the one who kicked the ball.”

“Oh, right.  He’s easy to find,” Aglae said.  “That’s nice.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Lafayette said, “as I am not from _des États-Unis_ , but isn’t American football supposed to be very popular in Middle America?”

“Yes,” Aglae said.  “But I still think it’s stupid.”

“Fair enough.”

“What did you do in high school instead?”  Angelica asked, leaning forward and putting one hand on the back of the empty seat next to Aglae.  “If you didn’t go to games.”

“Um.”

Lafayette waved his hand at Angelica, frowning.  He leaned forward as well and put his hand on Aglae’s shoulder.

“Were you in any extracurriculars?”  Angelica asked, not deterred and in fact making a pointed effort to not acknowledge Lafayette at all.  “Eliza used to play piano.”

“Angelica,” Lafayette cut in, ducking his head and leaning more of his weight on Aglae to force himself into Angelica’s line of vision.  “We’re here to watch the game.”

“They’re barely moving the ball.”

The other team managed to push about three yards further down the field before being stopped and Lafayette gestured with his free hand at the game, accidentally smacking Peggy upside the head.

“See?  We almost missed that!”

“ _Ow_ ,” Peggy complained, rubbing her cheek.

“I’m sorry.”  Lafayette put his hand briefly and lightly on top of her head, then sat back.  “Now let’s all watch the game.  It’s too noisy to talk about things like high school, no one even likes high school anyway.  Everyone is socially awkward and no one wants to relive it and anyone who tells you that they do is either a sociopath or a liar.”

Eliza gently pulled Angelica back as well.  “You’re just saying that because you had a rough time.”

“Who told you that?”  Lafayette asked.  “Did Alexander say that?  Or was it Peggy, because that wasn’t supposed to leave the class—”

“Calm down.  James told me.  He said that you were showing around pictures at the cafeteria one day.  It didn’t seem like a secret.”

“Oh.”

“It sounds like you were popular enough anyway.”

“Be that as it may,” Lafayette said with a sniff, “I still would not want to go through it again.”

“Angelica was popular,” Eliza teased, nudging her sister.  She said something else but it was lost by the noise of the crowd.

“What?”

“She had all the boys wrapped around her little finger,” Eliza repeated for Lafayette’s benefit.

“I believe it,” Lafayette said with a nod.

Eliza laughed—for a second Lafayette thought it was at him—and leaned forward again to push the back of Peggy’s head playfully.

“What?  What did she say?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Peggy protested.

“No, you just gave this _look_.”  Eliza imitated it for the others, slouching back against her seat and rolling her eyes dramatically.

“You really shouldn’t talk about boys,” Angelica said.

“I don’t have anything to say about them.”

“Yes, you do.”  Angelica leaned over and whispered something in Eliza’s ear and they both started to laugh.

“No, I don’t,” Peggy insisted.  “They always liked you two better anyway.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It isn’t.”

“Well, I didn’t like any of them.”

Her sisters both laughed again and Peggy turned more in her seat, visibly irritated.

“Will you cut it out?”

“Sorry,” Angelica said with an attempt at placating her.  “It’s just funny.”

Peggy rolled her eyes again, pointedly this time, and turned back around to face the game.

“Oh, come on.”  Eliza said, leaning forward again and folding her arms on the back of the seat.  “You’re being too touchy, Peggy.”

Peggy made an annoyed noise and tipped her head away from Eliza.  “No,” she insisted.  “I never liked any of the boys I went to school with, so don’t act like I was all over them like you two were.”

“You’re so salty,” Eliza said, putting her head on her arms.  “Also you definitely liked at least one.”

Angelica bit back a laugh behind her.

“No,” Peggy repeated.  “I didn’t.”

“Were you both boy crazy?”  Lafayette asked, partially to take the heat off of Peggy.

“Please.”  Angelica shook her head with an amused smile.  “I went out with a few of them so she thinks I was a bimbo.”

“Eliza’s always on the phone with the kicker,” Peggy insisted.  “And she liked Alex.”  She tensed as soon as she said it, bracing for impact.

“Peggy,” Angelica said sharply.  She shot a glance at Lafayette and leaned forward to scold her.  “Knock it off.”

Peggy slouched down guiltily.

Eliza had stayed where she was and now flicked the back of Peggy’s head with her forefinger and sat up, the motion smooth and controlled.  Lafayette couldn’t help but watch with great interest.

“He’s cute,” Eliza said, admitting just enough to allow her to shrug the rest of it off.

“I think so,” Angelica said, stepping in and strengthening her point.  “I like his eyes.”

“He does have nice eyes,” Lafayette agreed, willingly helping them out.  “Very sharp.”

“Hungry.”

“Oh, yes.  May I tell him that?  He’ll like it.”

“Why not?”

“I had a little bit of a crush on other girls when I first came here,” Lafayette said, delicately shifting the conversation onto himself.  “Ah, no, that’s not the right word.  I cannot have had a crush on them because I love Adrienne too much.”

“Lafayette,” Angelica reminded him, “we’ve been over this already.  You can skip it.”

“Ah, right.  I’m sorry.  My point is that it does not really matter.  It is not a big deal.”

“Exactly,” Eliza said.  “And that’s why it’s not important but it is funny that Peggy was the actually boy crazy one.”

“Oh my God,” Peggy complained, breaking off her own conversation with Aglae.  “ _Stop_.”

“Are you two just teasing her or is there a story here?”

“They’re being mean.”

“But are they just teasing, or—”

“You’ll see,” Eliza said, sounding irritatingly pleased with herself.  “Angelica and I have someone to introduce you to tomorrow, Peggy.”

“Yay.”  The word was dripping with sarcasm.

“She’ll have a much better attitude than that when they meet,” Angelica assured Lafayette with a smug smile.

Lafayette looked at her blankly.  Both she and Eliza seemed very sure of themselves all of a sudden, but he couldn’t see why or over what.  He reasoned that, being her sisters, they probably knew something that he didn’t and he decided to just settle in and enjoy whatever was coming down the line.


	215. Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I Spy; Too Far

“Hamilton.”

His name was said sharply and Hamilton jumped, wondering for a second what he had been doing wrong.  He turned and saw von Steuben motioning to him and he hurried over, getting to his side after he had already turned his attention back to the field.

“Uh.”  He wasn’t sure if he should alert him to his presence or not.  He cleared his throat.

Hamilton was ignored as von Steuben shouted at the field and into his headset.  Von Stuben ran his thickly gloved hand over his mouth and left it there for a moment, brows furrowed.  He dropped his hand and breathed out a cloud of steam like smoke.

“If they don’t hold that line I am going to go onto the field and hold it for them,” von Steuben muttered to Hamilton.

Hamilton almost started again, then cracked a smile.

“I thought John would be sure to perform well if he was forced to remember that you are watching,” von Steuben said.  “I need him to stay on task today.”

“That’s why you invited me down?”

“And I told him earlier this year to say that you are welcome to be around more.  I wanted to give you the opportunity at least once.”

“Got it.  Thanks.  In case anyone asks I can tell them I’m doing an interview and that’s why I’m here.”

Hamilton thought his joke fell on temporarily deaf ears as von Steuben paced several feet back down the field.  He leaned over the to inspect the line of scrimmage and to Hamilton’s surprise he responded to him once he walked back.

“You don’t need to do that.  Just tell them I gave you permission.”

Hamilton had to ask.  “Do you bring a lot of dates down?  Or just like the…”  He untucked his hands from where he had his arms wrapped around his chest and made air quotes.  “‘Friends.’”

“Occasionally.”

That wasn’t really an answer and Hamilton wasn’t sure if he’d have any luck pushing it.  He glanced around the sidelines, wondering if he could ask someone later.  Who would he even ask?  Someone straight.

 _Okay, but that’s probably all of them except John_ , he thought to himself with a mental eye roll.  _Jesus, but this is a heterosexual sport._

“When he returned to the field after his injury this year,” von Steuben said, and Hamilton realized that he was switching his headset on and off to have their conversation, “it meant a lot to him that you came to watch.  I don’t think he had friends off of the team until last year.”

“Oh, well.”  Hamilton shrugged, not really sure how to respond.  “You should meet Lafayette.  It’s impossible not to be best friends with that guy.  I think he’d take it as a personal attack and challenge if you tried.  He’s actually the one who insisted I come to any of the games in the first place.  Uh, no offense.”

Von Steuben didn’t respond, busy again with running the game.  He walked away, following the action down the field, and giving Hamilton the opportunity to try to find his footing in the piecemeal conversation.  Should he be more vocally enthusiastic or flattered?  He wasn’t sure what part he was supposed to be playing and was very aware of how he was trying to balance what he could genuinely say with what Laurens might be comfortable with.

Hamilton stared blankly at the field, his mind wandering over to the reviewing he needed to do for finals.

“I wanted to apologize,” von Steuben said back at his side again.  Even though Hamilton had seen him walk back he still had to repress his startle reflex.

Hamilton stared at him.  “For what?”

Von Steuben breathed out slowly, frowning at the cluster of players on the field.  “Earlier this semester, I thought the two of you were dating and that it was an open secret.  That he thought he was being clever and keeping it quiet from the adults.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said.  “Yeah, no.  Yeah, he—we, I guess—”  He tripped over his words and fell silent for a moment.  He tried again.  “I’m not really sure when we started dating.  It wasn’t something we were sharing around until more recently.”

Von Steuben nodded.

“It’s okay,” Hamilton said.  “I mean, he’s okay.”

Von Steuben shrugged and folded his arms over his chest.  “It was my mistake.  I felt bad about it.  I’m glad he is fine.”

“I think you’ve been really helpful,” Hamilton offered impulsively.  “He’s had a weird semester and he’s told me a little about your conversation.  I know he respects you.  A lot.  So,” he finished clumsily, aware that he would be more articulate under other circumstances, “thank you.  You’ve made all of this easier for him.”

Von Steuben laughed in a short exhale.  “He is a good boy.”

“I think so.”

Von Steuben glanced at him and Hamilton caught his gaze and saw the amusement in it.

“Can I ask something?”  Hamilton decided to take advantage of whatever shared connection they had.  “We were all surprised to see André on the field.  I thought he was in trouble?”

“No,” Von Steuben said with a shake of his head.  “Not over any of this.”

“I saw him panic when I mentioned Lee,” Hamilton said.  “I know he knew about it.  And it looked like no one bought his excuse.  Besides,” he went on, “we talked to his girlfriend at her house and then at his apartment.  She seemed pretty pissed that he was being penalized for all this.  He sounded upset, too.”

“They were lying to you.”  Von Steuben said the words with a flatness that made them hard to argue against.  “I told André when I met with him that night at Washington’s that he was potentially going to be in a lot of trouble if he didn’t sit down and shut up and let me handle it.  I knew that he had been keeping an eye on Lee.  But he poked the hornet’s nest and he was going to get stung if he didn’t get out of the way.  It took me all week to prove that his version of events was correct.  To speed things along we wanted to minimize his contact with everyone else in athletics.  I told Laurens all of this,” von Steuben said.  “He can tell you it again later.”

Hamilton turned that all over in his mind.

Von Steuben cleared his throat and nudged Hamilton in a manner that he, Hamilton imagined, thought was gentle.  “Good blocker,” von Steuben said, pointing across the field to where Laurens was holding back a player on the other team.  Done answering Hamilton’s questions, he moved into a detailed description of game mechanics, comparing Laurens to his teammates and members of the opposing team.

Hamilton nodded along, working to make sense of the information rather than just memorize it and trying to file it away alongside the rest of what he had heard.  The band in the stands behind them switched songs and Hamilton turned automatically to look at it.  He felt the ground lurch under his feet and he spun back around quickly, eyes wide and mouth in a tight line.  He hoped he had by some miracle not recognized him, but he had made eye contact with Laurens’ father at the very front of the crowd.

 _Oh shit_ , he thought.  _Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit._

He took a long shaky breath and tried to force his expression flat, as if doing so would not only calm his racing heart but also neutralize whatever larger disaster was brewing.

The run ended and offense and defense switched positions.  Hamilton stepped back towards the bench, trying to keep his back to Henry Laurens as he walked and hoping that if he could get to where he was standing before he could prove to himself that it was out of the line of sight of the seat.

No one stopped him and there was so much chatter around him that he felt almost reassured.  Maybe he really was easy to overlook in the middle of all the players and in the general noise and chaos of the stadium.  Maybe the coat and the hat acted as camouflage somehow.  Maybe the turf would open up underneath him and allow him to plummet straight to hell where he’d at least be warm as he died.

He stopped at the wall and took a steadying breath, then turned in one swift motion, like the ripping off of a bandaid, towards where Henry Laurens was sitting.  To his dismay he could still pick him out of the crowd now that he knew where to look.

 _He probably didn’t see us_ , Hamilton told himself.  _He’d have to practically lean out over the railing and he’s not about to do that—he probably just saw John come off the field, but it’s such a sharp angle…_

Hamilton wasn’t at all sure if he believed himself or not.

 

Lafayette swore colorfully in French.  “It’s too cold out.  The line keeps cutting.”

“It’s too noisy,” Eliza said.  “Even if you got Adrienne on the phone, she wouldn’t be able to hear you.”

“I wanted to show her the field.  I let her watch part of the other game.”

“You let her?”  Peggy asked, turning around in her seat again.  “Or she was really polite and didn’t hang up on you?”

“Definitely the second one,” Angelica agreed.  “Lafayette, just send her a video.”

“She won’t be watching it in real time,” Lafayette complained.  “I wanted her to watch it in real time.”

“She’s so far ahead of us anyway,” Peggy said.  “It’s like the middle of the night over there.”

“Record her the halftime show,” Aglae suggested, turning around as well.  “That’s fancy and American, right?  Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll make a bird eat a dick.”

Lafayette looked confused.  “Do they do that?  Is that a thing?”

“I don’t think any of our rival schools had birds as mascots, but people get really bored in the Midwest.”

Lafayette looked satisfied with that answer, but Eliza leaned forward.

“I thought you said you didn’t go to games in high school?”

“I didn’t,” Aglae said, “but I went to a ton of parties.”

Peggy looked at her, surprised.  “Really?”

“Well, yeah.  There really wasn’t much to do.  I’m pretty sure half my classmates actually turned alcoholism into a hobby.  I used to hang out at the box store on the main street because at least there was stuff to look at there.”

“I’d probably just stay home.”

Aglae shrugged.  “I got bored.”

“You didn't get bored at the store?”

“Well, that too.  The first guy I dated got arrested for shoplifting there once, so it’s not like _nothing_ ever happened.”

Peggy looked even more surprised, sitting up at a slight remove and putting her hand on the rest between them.  “I didn’t know you dated boys.”

“I didn’t think that was the strange part of that sentence,” Lafayette commented to Eliza.  “Did you think that was the strange part?”

Aglae shifted uncomfortably.  “Uh, yeah.  I mean, I was kind of with someone when we first met.”

“I know,” Peggy said, “but he was old and I thought that was a fluke.”

“He wasn’t that old.”

“Old enough.”

“Peggy,” Eliza began, trying to insert herself into the conversation and smooth it back down.

“What?”  Peggy sounded slightly aggravated.  “I’m just saying.  He was.”

“It doesn’t matter who she dated.”

“I just didn’t know,” Peggy insisted.

“Isn’t that the point?”  Angelica asked, her question skipping over Peggy’s intention entirely.

“It doesn’t matter what she knew,” Eliza said, “or when she knew it.”

“I know that,” Angelica said, sounding slightly annoyed at the lecture.  “What I meant was that Peggy shouldn’t be so concerned about it.”

“I’m not concerned,” Peggy insisted again.  “It’s fine.”

“All right,” Angelica said with a tone that clearly indicated she remembered her initial reaction.  “As long as we’re all in agreement.”

“You’re not dating her,” Peggy snapped abruptly.  “And if you're so jealous because you don’t even like your boyfriend then maybe you should dump him and go have your stupid lesbian experience like you know you want to!”

The stadium continued its blessedly noisy existence around them as Peggy reddened with embarrassment at her own words and faced forward in her seat again, the movement jerky and forceful.  Lafayette stared without seeing anything down at the field, expression too blank to be properly neutral.  He held his phone up in front of him as if he was still trying to get it to connect or record.  Out of his peripheral vision he saw Eliza lean towards Angelica and then after half a minute movement again as Angelica got up.  She walked past him and up the stairs.  When Eliza didn’t immediately follow her he glanced over at her and saw that her head was ducked as she typed rapidly on her phone.  In front of him Peggy and Aglae were talking quietly, their heads together and their conversation completely obscured by the noise of the game and the crowd.

Lafayette put his phone away.

“Is Angelica all right?”  He asked Eliza.

She made a noise that might have been a cut-off sigh and put her phone down in her lap.  “Yes.”

“She seemed upset.”

“Yes,” Eliza repeated.

The second quarter ended and the field cleared as the speakers announced the start of halftime and ran through a list of advertisements to lead up to the introduction for the school’s marching band.

“I’m going to get a drink,” Lafayette said, standing.  “And I think I will go see if I can find Alexander.”

Eliza was texting again.  “That sounds good.”

“Do you want anything?  Coffee?  Hot chocolate?”

“Hot chocolate would be nice, thank you.”

“Peggy?”  Lafayette asked, stepping out into the aisle and having to quickly move aside to get out of the way of the sudden foot traffic.  “Aglae?  Hot chocolate?  I will buy for everyone,” he said, deciding for them and following the flow of people out of the stands.

Out of the bleachers, Lafayette wandered through the crowd with his head up until he spotted the sign for the restrooms.  He tracked them down and had only just settled in against the wall to loiter when Angelica walked out of the women’s room.

“Oh,” he said, straightening back up and chasing after her.  “Wait!”

She turned.  “Lafayette?”

“I told them I was getting us drinks,” he said.  “But I’m not.  Well,” he amended, “I think I am.  But will you come with me?”

“Did you come looking for me?”

“We’re friends,” he said.  “So—Yes.”

She shook her head slowly.

“It’s all right,” he reassured her.  “A lot of people don’t know what to make of me.  I don’t know why it’s so hard,” he added.  “I’m very up front about it all.”

“You are.”

“Are you all right?  Do you want to talk about it?”

Angelica laughed with a brittle dryness.  “Where?”

“In line for drinks?”

“Are you paying?”

“Yes.”  Lafayette put out his arm and she took it automatically.  “We’re all getting hot chocolate, unless you want something else.”  He led them through the increasing mass of people, craning his neck to look for an appropriate food booth.

“Hot chocolate is fine.  Thank you.”

“What a good descriptor in that name.  We could be very petty and get them only for ourselves,” he joked, still a little distracted by the crowd and his general disorientation.  “I think we are the most attractive of our friends.”

Angelica snorted and shoved him with her shoulder.

Lafayette grinned to himself.  “It’s the height,” he told her.  “We’re both very statuesque.  It is a gift and a curse.”

“You should see JC,” Angelica said.  “He’s even taller than you are.”

“Really?”  Lafayette looked mildly impressed.  “The two of you must be almost as good looking a couple as we would be.”

“Mm.  He’s quite attractive,” Angelica said.  “I wouldn’t have agreed to go out with him at first if he wasn’t.”

“What does he look like?”

“Tall,” Angelica said.  “Boney.  Glasses.  Darker than you.  He’s from London,” she went on.  “So he has an accent.”

“How exotic.”

“You’re from France.”

“And therefore England is a foreign country,” Lafayette said.  “Full of strange people and customs.  Our food is better,” he said as they got at the back of a long line.  “Ah, but that is a stereotype.  Maybe he is a good cook?”

“He is.”

Lafayette clicked his tongue, not pleased to have been proven right.

“Peggy’s right,” Angelica said, her words calm and controlled.  “I know you wanted to ask.”

“You don’t owe me any answers,” he said.  “Friends don’t require things like that.”

“Friends are supposed to share things.”  She unhooked her arm from his.  “I’m not very good at that.”

“That’s all right.”

“I’ve just been dating him for a long time,” Angelica said.  “I didn’t realize that I would.”

Lafayette nodded.  “You said that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“I believe you.”

“And it’s not like I don’t like him.”

“I like Adrienne very much,” Lafayette said.  “I love her very much.  But—I think I was a little afraid,” he said.  “I think, deep down, when I came here I was afraid of what it would be like to have never been with another girl and to have married her and never, ever touched anyone else.  Then I thought that I was going to lose her and that frightened me even more,” he added.  “So now I at least know which of the two options is worse.”

Angelica was silent for a moment.  “I’m glad you figured that out for yourself,” she finally said.  She offered him a thin smile.

“I think you still have time to figure that out too.”

“I know.”  Angelica looked forward again, at the back of the head of the man in front of them.  “Intellectually,” she clarified.

“Maybe you could have a mistress.”

Angelica laughed.

“People do that,” Lafayette said.  “It’s quite common.”

“I don’t think it’s ‘quite common.’”

“No,” Lafayette insisted.  “Adrienne’s father has one.  And my father and grandfather used to.  Almost all of my friends dated multiple girls at the same time, some even with permission.  You would just be bringing gender equality to it.”

“Somehow I don’t think JC would be open to that.”

“He could have one too.  Or you could even share one.”

“I don’t think that’s very practical.”

“You never know until you ask him.”

“Mm.  You do remember that you promised not to say anything like this to him tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Cross my heart.”  Lafayette drew an x over his chest with one finger.

“Thank you,” Angelica said.  She looked at him.  “I know you're trying to help.”

“Did I?”

“A little.”

Lafayette debated if he could be satisfied with that or not.

“Get Peggy’s with salted caramel,” Angelica said, pointing up at the menu at the head of the line.

Lafayette nodded and took his wallet out in anticipation.  “Oh,” he said, “if Eliza asks we were going to find Alexander but did not have time.”

“You lied to her?”

“Only a little.”

“She wouldn’t have tried to keep you from talking to me.”

“I know,” Lafayette said.  “But I thought that you wouldn’t want anyone to know that I was planning on it.”

“You’re a sweetheart.”  Angelica hooked her arm through his again.  She leaned easily against him.  “Thank you.”

Lafayette tipped his head against hers for a moment, the side of his face pressing against her tightly curled hair.  “You deserve to make mistakes,” he told her.  “I did, and that gave me the opportunity to meet many people I wouldn’t have otherwise and to learn many new things.  I think that making all of the smartest choices would actually have been less enlightening and, to that point, further from a perfect truth.  Sometimes,” he said, “the stupid thing to do is actually the more fulfilling one.”

Angelica didn’t say anything.

“You’re very smart,” Lafayette went on.  “Anyone who doesn’t already know that wouldn’t be convinced by any proof you could reasonably offer them.”  They inched forward in line.  “If you made a few mistakes,” he said, “I think we would all be excited for you.”

“I’m going to go to England,” Angelica said after a beat.  Her voice was level and that almost hid how uncertain she sounded.  “I applied to this program and I just found out that I got in.”  She glanced at Lafayette and the motion betrayed her anxiety.  “I haven’t told anyone yet.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I won’t say anything,” he promised.  They moved one space closer to the front of the line.  “Why did you tell me?”

“I knew you wouldn’t ruin it because I knew that you would understand,” Angelica said, looking forward and making her words crisp around the edges.

“Yes,” Lafayette admitted.  He touched his hand to one of his earrings in embarrassment.  “That’s true.  I do.”


	216. Touch Wood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second Half

“That was a good opening run,” Laurens said, sitting down next to Hays on a bench in the locker room.  “You think you can pull that off again in the second half?”  He was joking and he saw from Hays’ nervous grin that it wasn’t entirely coming off.  They had never talked, never really had reason to actually interact directly and Laurens knew that he was being a little fake and sentimental by striking up a conversation now.  “Hey.  You did a good job, that’s all I meant.  Looks like Coach’ll be bumping you to first string next year.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Yeah, you do.”  Laurens took a gamble, made easier by how the game was going.  “You can miss me with that fake modesty, Will.  I’ve seen you ham it up for your friends.”

“Dude, don’t scare the freshman.”  Tench sat down on Laurens’ other side.  “You’re fancy and intimidating now.  So am I,” he added after a moment’s consideration.  “I’m a senior too.  You’re just a super senior.”

“Thanks,” Laurens said sarcastically.

“I’m trying to bring you back down off your pedestal a little.  Was I successful?”

Hays shrugged but seemed to relax some.  “What’s a super senior?”

“More than four years.  That’s what they used to call it at my high school.”

Hays snorted.

“Are you done helping?”  Laurens asked.  “I think you’re done helping.”

Tench waved a hand at him.

“Seriously,” Laurens said to Hays.  “That was really neat.”

Hays’ grin was more self-assured this time.  “Thanks.”

“I’m going to a thing on Saturday,” Laurens said to Tench.  “A study party.  Do you remember Eliza?  It’s at her place.”

“Yeah, I remember her.  She’s pretty cool.”

“You can come if you want,” Laurens said.  “They said I could bring some people.  McHenry’s coming, too.”

“Yeah?  What time is it?”

“Pretty early.  I can text you the details.”

“Thanks.  Should I pick something up?”

“I think it’s supposed to be dry.  It’s at her parents’ place.”

“Got it.”

“You should come too,” Laurens said spontaneously, turning back to Hays.  “You’re friends with McHenry, aren’t you?  If you’ve got time you’re welcome to join us.  It should be pretty low-key.”

Hays nodded.  “I think I have time.”

“Good.”  Laurens tried to keep a straight face and not betray how accomplished being able to extend a casual invitation like it was a favor made him feel.  “I’ll text you too.  Do I have your number?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll get it from you after the game,” Laurens promised.  “Or I can just get it out of one of the group chats.  My kid brother’s here,” he told Tench, changing the topic.  “My Dad flew up with him from Columbia to see the game.  I promised Jemmy that I’d get him signatures from everyone afterwards.”

“I’ll shrink mine a little to make room for Will,” Tench said, reaching over behind Laurens and slapping Hays on the shoulder.  “You’re going to need to make sure there’s space to squeeze him in there too now.  What are we signing?”

“Not sure.  Whatever he brings over.  I don’t know if he was going to buy a jersey or something.  I haven’t even seen them in the stands.”

“Maybe they got lost.”  Tench popped the nozzle on a reusable plastic sports bottle and took a drink.  “Maybe they couldn’t figure out to follow the noise to the stadium.”

“I drew them a map.”

“Then they have to be here.  You are an artist.”

“Are you a cartographer?”

Laurens looked at Hays, who looked almost embarrassed about presuming to join into their conversation.  “Amateur,” Laurens said.  “It’s not like I ever took a class or anything.”

“Too bad.”  André came up behind them and Laurens tipped his head back, looking at him upside down.  His hair was drenched in sweat and fell in thin curls away from his face.  “I bet you’d be good at it.”

Laurens laughed, feeling almost high from the residual adrenaline and the flattering back and forth.

“Seriously,” André said.  “You’re good at scale.  I bet you could do a good job.”

“Something to think about if the dual football/law career doesn’t pan out,” Tench joked.

“Better than you and your mimes.”

“I’d be a portraitist.”

“You’d be a double agent,” Tench said, rolling his eyes dramatically at André.

“I don’t think we have time to get into this,” Laurens said, getting up as he saw von Steuben clear his throat and motion for attention.  “Argue about it tomorrow.”

“Oh, I will.”  Tench got up as well.  “Except I seriously need to study.  Are you going to bring work or are you just going to suck face?”

Laurens shushed him but somehow couldn’t stop smiling.

 

“Lafayette.”  Hamilton dropped into a crouch and gripped the armrest of his seat, his name a hiss between his teeth.  “ _Help_.”

Lafayette had been halfway through raising his hot chocolate to his lips and he had jumped and spilled it over his hand.  He made an annoyed sound and put his hand out, groping for a napkin from Eliza.  She handed him one.  “What is it?”  He wiped the chocolate from his hand and the side of the paper cup.

“I saw John’s dad.”

“In the front row?”

Hamilton hit him.  “You knew he was there?  Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lafayette rubbed his arm.  “Stop hurting me!  I didn’t get the chance to tell you.  You just vanished!”

“You could have told me when I messaged you!”

“Alex,” Eliza said, leaning forward with one hand on Lafayette’s shoulder.  “I think it’s okay if he saw you there.  We can come up with an excuse for you to have been down there.”

“I kissed him.”

“John’s dad?”  Peggy asked, a look of disgust on her face.

“No,” Hamilton said, anxiety making him short.  “ _John_.”

Aglae rubbed Peggy’s arm.

Lafayette winced.  “And he definitely saw that?”

“Yes.  No,” Hamilton corrected himself.  “I don’t know.  I didn’t realize he was there until later and we were kind of off to the side so the angle wasn’t great.  He knows I’m there for sure, though,” he went on.  “I turned around and caught him staring right at me.”

“Did he look upset?”

“I can’t read the guy.  I don’t know what he thinks.”

“Don’t let John know,” Eliza said.  “Not until after the game.”

Angelica nodded.  “You’ll just throw him off and there’s nothing he can do about it now anyway.”

“Right.”  Hamilton stood and stared down at the field, worrying his lower lip.  “Do you think I should go talk to him?”

“Henry Laurens?”

“Yeah.”

“What would you say to him?”

Hamilton shrugged.

“I don’t think it’s your place,” Lafayette said.  “You’d need to know what John would like you to say before you either confirm what he may have seen or lie to him.”

Hamilton swore.  “I hate this,” he finally said, a solid minute later.  His cheeks were tinted red.  “I hate having my hands tied.”

“I know,” Lafayette said sympathetically.

“If it was my father or—or whoever, you know I’d handle it on my own.  Get whatever I needed and get the fuck out.  None of this fucking flaking out on both accounts.”

“Family is hard.”

“I know family is hard, Lafayette.  Fuck.  I might not have any but I’m not stupid.  We’ve gone over the reasoning here before.”

“I never said you were stupid.”

“Maybe you implied it.”  Hamilton bit his lip again.  “Shit.  Well, I’m not going back down there.  This is enough sports for me up here, thank you.”

“Can you just leave like that?  Isn’t that rude?”

“I talked to the coach.  I think it would be weirder to come back on with all the staff.”

Lafayette and Angelica both looked to Eliza.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “I suppose so.  But he invited you down in the first place.”

“Did you say goodbye to John or the coach?”  Angelica asked.

“Waved at John.  Told the coach I enjoyed the game when he asked and that I was going to go find you guys.”

“I think it’s fine.”

“Okay, so just sit up here with you all and try to hide behind someone when we say hi to John after the game.”

“Can you manage that?”

“Not going to lie, Eliza, I’d much rather one of you found a very convincing Alex suit and wore it down to talk to him so I didn’t have to go.”

Lafayette patted his leg reassuringly.

Hamilton climbed over them to get to the empty seat on Angelica’s other side.  “So I don’t get a hot chocolate?  I’ve had a very stressful day so far.”

“You missed out,” Angelica said.  “Sorry.”  She offered him her paper cup.

“Thanks.”  Hamilton took a slow drink.  “You know what this needs?”

“Peppermint schnapps?”

“No, milk.”  He made a face and handed back the cup.  “This is just hot water.  You can taste it.”

“Since when are you picky?”

“I know, right?  It’s like only being friends with rich people is rubbing off on me.”

Eliza leaned forward.  “They’re coming out again.”

Hamilton took Angelica’s hand.  “Do you see John?  Does he look disappointed?”

“It’s hard enough to pick out individual people from up here, much less tell their expressions.”

“Yeah, okay, but body language or…”  Hamilton trailed off upon spotting Laurens talking to one of the other players.  He saw him stop and look around, then go right back to his conversation.  He relaxed in his seat.  “At least he doesn’t seem offended.”

“Maybe he was worried that you were going to freeze down there,” Lafayette offered.  “It’s more exposed.”

“Actually there were these heating vents along the side—It’s not important.”  Hamilton shook his head decisively.  “The point is that John’s not upset.”

“That is the most important part,” Lafayette agreed.  “If his father is going to murder him then he might as well have a good night before that.”

Hamilton leaned closer to Angelica to talk in her ear without taking his eyes from the players on the sidelines.  “Angelica,” he said as the loudspeaker announced the imminent start of play, “please tell your sister to appropriately punish Lafayette for tempting fate.”

“Eliza,” Angelica said.

“Got it.”  She flicked Lafayette on the side of the face.

“I did not _jinx_ it,” Lafayette complained.  He looked around, one hand partially extended.  “ _Je touche du bois_ ,” he said, touching his own head and lowering his hand.

“Thank you.”  Eliza sat back.

“Oh.”  Hamilton leaned forward.  “They’re going to kick the ball away.  Look, eighteen, look.”  He gripped Angelica’s hand at the same time that Angelica took Eliza’s.

“Didn’t we already do all this?”  Peggy complained, turning around in her seat.

Eliza shushed her but put her hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.  Peggy turned back and held her arm over her shoulder.

They watched as the ball went out at the ten.  Eliza kissed the top of Peggy’s head and sat back.

“Okay,” Hamilton said.  “Okay, they’re going to reset.  The other guys are on offense.  John plays both and he’s a senior and it’s the last game so they’re going to be using him a lot.  Let him get his last—There he is.”  He took Angelica’s hand again.

“I don’t know how he is not tired,” Lafayette said.  “Alex will have a very easy time of it tonight.”

“Or very hard,” Peggy said.

Lafayette laughed.

“Was that a dick joke?”  Agale asked.

“No.  Kind of?  I meant that if he’s exhausted then they’re not really going to be able to do anything.  He’s really into that,” she explained with a short nod.  “Lafayette told me he’s the worst.”

Lafayette kicked at the back of her seat frantically but Hamilton had not heard.  He was engrossed in the game, watching as Laurens grappled with another player on the field.

“Fuck,” Hamilton said to Angelica, “but he’s hot.  Sheer terror of turning around and seeing Congressman Laurens boring a hole in the back of my head aside it was a great view down there.”

“That’s the good thing about Eliza’s games,” Angelica said.  “The seats are closer to the field so you can actually see what’s going on.”

“Yeah, bet McHenry likes that,” Hamilton said without looking at her.  He sounded a little distracted and he brought his hand up to his mouth to tease the fabric at the tip of his thumb between his teeth.  “Up close and personal.”

“I know you mean well,” Angelica said, “but could you possibly not sound like a pervert when talking about my sister to me?”

“Sorry.”  Hamilton shook his head.  “What’re we saying?”

Angelica patted him on the shoulder with her free hand.  “Nothing,” she said affectionately.  “Let’s just watch the game.”

“ _Je toucher du bois_ ,” Lafayette muttered again, rapping his knuckles lightly on his head.  Eliza looked over at him and tapped her hand lightly to the side of his head as well.  He blinked, then smiled at her, feeling more assured by her participation that he had not thrown unfairly loaded die on either of the evening’s gambles.

 

On the field Laurens caught a glimpse of Jemmy bundled up in his coat, hair tousled by the light wind.  He lost sight of him again in the fray, feeling the shock reverberating through his body from his impact against his opponent.

The cold air on his face was a shock against the heat of his skin and it cooled his sweat rapidly, reminding him in a brief flash of how uncomfortably hot their earlier games had been.  He saw himself momentarily on the same field in the rending sun that September, then back several years prior, participating in his first game as a freshman.

The whistle blew and he could barely hear it over the pounding of blood in his ears.

Laurens gathered himself and lined up again, crouched over and breathing heavily, in through his nose and out through his slightly open mouth.  He heard someone else’s breath hiss rhythmically past their mouthguard.  A drop of sweat ran into his eyes and stung, but the play was starting before he could even fully recognize the pain and he was pushing forward to block, realizing that he was moving on autopilot and when was the last time he had checked in or given a command?  He swung his head to the side to look for his coach and in doing so weakened his stance.  The ground hit him hard from behind, knocking the air momentarily and painfully from his lungs.  The weight of his opponent was mercifully brief on his chest as he just tackled him to the astroturf and rolled off of him.  Laurens coughed and shook his head and leveraged himself back to his feet in what he could most approximate to a single motion.  His vision jumped jerkily with the movement of his head, especially curtailed behind the rim of his helmet, and his blood continued to pound.

This time the whistle was sharp and it cut through his disorientation.  He heard von Steuben shouting from the sidelines and he moved on instinct off of the field as the direction of the run switched again.

“Laurens!”

Laurens scanned the sideline without thinking about it, not remembering at first that Hamilton was no longer there.

“Listen to me!”

Laurens caught himself and turned to look at von Steuben.

“Get your head back in the game.  You need to—”  Von Steuben punctuated his command with a two-fingered gesture between their eyes.  “—pay attention to the plays.  You have to remember what we are doing.  Do you hear me?  We let them get all the way down to the fifteen.”

“We’re winning,” Laurens said, spitting out his mouthguard so that it hung on its link from his helmet, but even so still unable to get out more than short sentences.

“We’re up by seven,” von Steuben said.  “We have almost half the game left to go.  That’s not a comfortable lead, we do not sit back and rest on that.”

Laurens had a strong desire to point out that he was hardly resting, but the amount of effort it would take did not seem worth it, especially considering how well it would go over.

“Get back out there,” von Steuben said.  “Offense.  You can take a break after this.”

“Yessir.”

Laurens’ legs were heavy but he turned and jogged back onto the field.

“Coach wanted me to throw it.”  André fell into step beside him.

Laurens looked back at von Steuben.

“We’ve been outrunning them from the opening play.”

Laurens nodded.  “Right.”  He hit André on the back as they got in position and as he passed him made eye contact through their helmets and gave him a half nod.  André nodded in reply and popped his guard in, leaning over and slapping his hands on his thighs.

Laurens put his guard back in as well and faced forward, mapping out possible routes forward between the line of players on the opposing team.

The whistle blew, the ball was hiked, he heard the largely unintelligible roar of the announcer, and he sidestepped the player immediately in front of him, grappling with and forcing his way past another and breaking into an opening.  He turned in time to see André throw the ball and reached out for it.

What felt like a brick wall collided with his side, knocking his hip forward and foot off the ground as it pushed him several feet out to his left and out of the ball’s trajectory.  Laurens stumbled and turned back around with a sick feeling as the scream of the crowd raised to a crescendo.  The linebacker who had knocked him out of the way was already racing down towards the end zone only just over fifteen yards away.  Laurens could tell he was out of his reach but he took off after him anyway.  He was barely able to get up to speed when he crossed the line and turned, raising the ball up over his head in a celebratory gesture.

Laurens slowed to a stop between the five and the ten.  Reaching up and sticking his fingers between the bars of his helmet he pulled his mouthguard out with a short frustrated yank.

“Fuck!”

He saw his teammates heading for the sidelines, their turn on offense abruptly over.  One of the other players was congratulating the one who had intercepted and run the ball, hitting him on the back and shepherding him to the opposite side of the field.

Laurens swore again and spat angrily on the astroturf.  He turned away from the nearest referee, not trusting himself in that moment to look him in the eye, and forced himself to walk to the sidelines.

“Humphreys,” von Steuben was saying, directing the next batch of players onto the field.  “Watch your man.  He’s successfully run it before—”

“Let me go,” Laurens interrupted.  “Back on the field.  For the kick at least.”

Von Steuben shook his head.  “Break.”

“I can block the kick and then—”

“ _Break_.”  The word was barked and von Steuben pointed aggressively over at the bulk of the players.

Laurens felt his face contort without his wanting it to, then he walked roughly past them, grabbing a plastic sports bottle from the bench with unnecessary force.

 

“ _Je touche du bois, je touche du bois_ ,” Lafayette repeated, one hand on his head, his fingers securely in his hair.  He looked around.  “Does anyone have any wood?  Please.”

“I have a pencil in my backpack,” Peggy said, reaching down and then stopping.  “Oh.”  She sat up again.  “I forgot we weren’t allowed to bring large bags in here.  Sorry.”

“I might have something.”  Angelica opened her purse and began to sort through it.

“These cups are paper,” Eliza offered.  “That’s a kind of wood.”

“Barely.”  Lafayette leaned forward to look across her to Angelica.  “Did you find anything?”

She shook her head.  “Just a pen, not a wooden pencil.”

“This isn’t actually going to do anything,” Hamilton said, one of his legs crossed at the ankle over the other and jiggling with nervous energy.  “It’s not like your knocking on wood is actually going to force them to block better or score a touchdown.”

“You could cross your fingers,” Aglae said.  She turned around to demonstrate the gesture for Lafayette.  He immediately crossed his free hand.

“Is that a Christian thing?”  Hamilton asked.  “I mean, technically.”

“It’s Pagan and pre-dates Christianity,” Lafayette answered promptly.  “The cross was a significant symbol in other religions as well.  Don’t be so presumptuous.”

“I have to ask,” Aglae said, “how did you learn words like ‘presumptuous’?  Is that just, like, normal vocab to teach students in France?  Because the most anyone at my high school learned was how to ask for directions.”

“It’s a different standard," Peggy said, slurping the last of her hot chocolate.  “We got screwed.”

“You went to a private prep school,” Eliza reminded her.  “You had teachers introducing you to foreign languages from Kindergarten.”

“I was forced to study languages, though,” Lafayette said, stepping in diplomatically.  He was not keen on sitting through another incident.  “I did not have the option to skimp on it.  Oh, and I went to a fancy school, too, so we are the same there.”

“Am I the only one who went public?”

“Yup,” Hamilton said, answering Aglae’s question.  “Sucks.”  He crossed his fingers on both hands in his lap as the game started up again.  A player on the opposing team took the ball and made a run for it.  Hamilton jumped up with half the people around him, as if the energy would tip the scales in his side’s favor.  He had barely gotten to his feet when the player forced his way across the line, dragging three people with him.  Hamilton felt a wash of disappointment and anxiety as he sunk back down in his seat.  He ran his palms over the tops of his thighs.  Their team was now down by one.

“They would have kicked it crooked,” Hamilton said after a minute, unnecessarily critiquing the untaken kick.  “I bet McHenry would have gotten it straighter.”

Eliza laughed.  The sound broke the tension.

“I didn’t go to a private school,” Lafayette protested.  “You and I are the same,” he assured Aglae, leaning down and patting her on the shoulder.

“Okay, but you can't have it both ways and, besides, you don’t count,” Hamilton said.  “You went to school in France, everything’s different in Europe.  You actually _want_ to go to public school there.”

“It was a good school,” Lafayette agreed.  “It was one of the best public schools.  Ah, after I moved to outside of Paris, that is.  I had to get into the correct district.”

“Told you.”  Hamilton continued to press his hands against his legs.  “Technically not the same but similar idea.  He still played the system to get the best stuff.”

“It was a good school,” Lafayette said agreeably, talking to lighten the mood a little as the players rearranged themselves on the field.  He had to half-shout in order to be heard.  “It was founded in 1796 and is just across from the Pantheon.”

Hamilton winced.  “I know you’re showing off a little and I hate how I’m falling for it anyway.  That’s pretty cool.”

“Your country’s buildings and institutions are all so young,” Lafayette said.  Under better circumstances his words would have been airy.  “ _Mignons_.”

“Yeah, well, all the older stuff got wrecked.”  Hamilton made his hands into fists and bit the inside of his lip as he watched the field.  “Shit…  They need to score again,” he said.  “John’s not playing anymore.  He got back up right away when he got tackled and he went back in at first…”

“I see him standing on the side,” Angelica said.  “He looks fine.”

“Do you think the coach is sitting on him?  I mean, do you think he’s holding him back?”

“What?”  Lafayette leaned forward to look at him.

“Do you think…”  Hamilton waved his hand at him.  “Never mind.”

“It’s just loud,” Lafayette complained.  “I can hardly hear you.”

“He wanted to know why John isn’t playing,” Angelica told him.  Lafayette looked satisfied and turned back to the field.

“I wish Mulligan could have made it,” Hamilton said.  “He’s good at stuff like this.  He watches a lot of sports.  And he’s got this…”  He gestured with both hands, rolling his wrists.  “This presence.  Very reassuring.”

“And I’m not?”

“Of course you are,” he said, flashing a brief distracted grin at Angelica.  “But you know what I mean.”

“I do,” she confirmed.  Anything else she was going to say was cut off by the announcement that the third quarter was over and the sudden uptick in volume from the band.

Peggy started to stand up and got tugged back down by Aglae.

“One more quarter.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded.  Peggy groaned.

“What song is this?”  Lafayette asked, tipping his head to the side and frowning in bemusement.  “Is this _My Sharona_?  This is an old song.”

“Why do you know _My Sharona_?”

“I’m right, aren’t I?”  Lafayette asked Peggy by way of response.  “We used to have theme parties.”

“Okay…”

“I’m okay with not having the band perform at our games,” Eliza said, wincing at one trumpet that was just a little off.  “I think it would be distracting.”

“I wonder how well they can hear it from the field.”

“Pretty well,” Hamilton said.  He leaned in against Angelica to be better heard over the noise.  “It’s noisy af down there and that definitely wasn’t helping.”

Eliza winced again at the trumpet.  “Don’t they need to audition for this?”

“It’s not that bad,” Angelica told her.

“What’s wrong?”  Lafayette looked around, confused.

Angelica leaned over with her hand on Eliza’s shoulder.  “My sister was almost a music major.”

“Ah.”  Lafayette nodded.  “Do you play brass?”  He asked her.

“Piano.”  Eliza turned to Lafayette and wiggled her fingers straight out in the air between them.  “Angelica’s exaggerating.  I’m decent but I only briefly thought about seriously studying it.”

“You’re good.”  Angelica nudged the back of her head with her own.  “Unless Lafayette or Aglae play, you’re better than the rest of us here.”

“Hey…” Hamilton protested.

“I was never good at things like that,” Lafayette said.  “I don’t think I’m graceful enough.  Aglae.”  He reached over and tapped her on the head.  She turned around and he continued.  “Do you play an instrument?”

She shook her head.  I was in choir in school.”

“There you have it.”  Lafayette sat back.  “Eliza wins.”

“Vocals count.”

The band suddenly quieted in the middle of a bar as the announcer came back on and the teams reset themselves on the field.

“Can I have some of that?”  Hamilton asked anxiously, taking the cup from Angelica before she had time to properly say yes.  He took a drink.  “Can’t believe you guys went and got things without me.”

“We didn’t know you were coming back.”

“I don’t think I could do the pressure down there right now.”  He continued tapping his foot.  “The energy’s bad enough up here.  Standing around awkwardly in the middle of a bunch of pissed off and on edge people, fun times.  Also, way to make me feel like a nerd.  It was neat to get the celebrity treatment, but I definitely don’t belong down there.”

“Neither do we,” Angelica assured him, rubbing his shoulder.

“Maybe Eliza.”

“Maybe Eliza,” Angelica agreed.

“I bet she could take some of them.  Wreck them with her thighs.”

“I can’t hear you again,” Lafayette complained, raising his voice even higher.  “I feel left out.”

Eliza patted his hand.  “It’s all right,” she said.  “You’re not missing anything important.”

“But I can’t know that!”

She squeezed his shoulder.

Hamilton gave Angelica back her drink and leaned forward to watch the game, his hands on his knees and his back straight.  “How many more chances do you think they’ll get, assuming there aren’t any interceptions?  Three?  Four?”  He bit his lip.  “John’s still not on the field.  I don’t think he got injured.  Do you think he’s in trouble?”

“Why would he be in trouble?”

“For letting the other guy get the ball.”

“He’s probably just giving him a chance to catch his breath.”

Hamilton shook his head without really knowing why he was disagreeing.

“It’ll be all right,” Angelica said.  “One way or another the game will be over soon and even if they lose, he’ll be disappointed but he’ll move on.  It was a good season.  You know that this isn’t the most important thing, Alexander.  It’s just for fun.”

“I know.”

“It will be fine,” she said with a self-assured and removed air.  “Trust me.”

Hamilton made a less-than-convinced noise and slouched down in his seat, leaning back against Angelica’s armrest.  “You better be right.”  He settled in.

Angelica pet the top of his head and brushed a loose strand of hair out of his face.  “I’m always right.”

 

“They’re trying to run the clock.”  Laurens paced along the side of the field, hands on his hips.  “They’re just trying to…”  He trailed off, too tense to finish his sentence.  It wasn’t necessary anyway.

André stepped up next to him.  “We still have time.”  His tone was intentionally and falsely hopeful.

“Five minutes.”

André didn’t say anything.

Laurens waited and then when it became clear that he wasn’t going to get a response, forced himself to apologize.  “Sorry.”

“I’m nervous too.”

Laurens nodded.

André sighed.  “I mean,” he said.  “Depending…”

“I don’t care about championships,” Laurens said.  It didn’t feel like a lie in the moment.  “I want to win _now_.”

“Dude.”

Laurens looked up at the gray and darkening sky.

The whistle blew.  The referee announced a penalty and loss of yardage and Laurens pressed his eyes closed.  The loudspeaker repeated it and it felt like salt in the wound.  He swore.  His brother and father were watching.

“Personal foul,” André said unnecessarily.

Laurens could hear Hamilton in his mind, asking if that wasn’t his speciality and the little bit of bite when he said that at least he wasn’t the one who threw an elbow this time.

The line of scrimmage moved forward with the penalty and when Laurens could bring himself to look at the field his heart sunk.  He looked at André but André was staring at the seconds vanishing from the clock on the screen over the field.

“Four minutes.”

Laurens couldn’t stand still and went back to pacing.

“Laurens.”

Laurens looked up.  Von Steuben was motioning him over.

“Sir?”  Laurens came up to him.

Von Steuben didn’t take his eyes off the field.

“Sir?”

“I’m sending you out again.”

Laurens nodded.

“We need to keep the ball.”

Laurens nodded again.

“If André can run it, let him.”

Laurens remembered the interception and felt his chest tighten a little with guilt.  “Yes,” he said.  He saw footage of the two of them flash up on the screen above them, filmed from one of the cameras being wheeled by behind them.

The whistle blew again and von Steuben unfolded his arms and barked out  commands, picking out the offensive line up.

Laurens motioned them into a quick huddle just off the side of the field as the defenders came off.

“Look,” he said.  “We’re close.”  The sky overhead was sinking properly into dusk and the lights over the stadium were blindingly stark in contrast.  “We’re really close.  And I know we’ve had a—weird end of the season, but, damn it, we’re _this_ close.  I’m not even talking about going to championships.  That would be great, but it doesn’t matter right now.  Right now it’s just about finishing the year strong.  And—you know what,” he said with a little more force as he remembered his father and Thanksgiving and the train ride back up to New York, “this year has _sucked_.”  He made eye contact with Tench and saw him nodding.  “There have been some good things.  Right?  But I don’t think I speak for just myself when I say that there have been parts of this year that I wish I could just…”  He trailed off with a very dry laugh and heard at least one other person echo it back.  “Look,” he said, aware that he was out of time.  “One more good thing.  Balance it out.  We can do this.”

Tallmadge pounded him on the back.

“We can outrun them,” Laurens said.  He took a step back and towards the field.  “If André can get free, he’s running it.  Otherwise, we need to just focus on getting the first down.”

 

“He looked okay in the screen.”  Hamilton had his legs stretched as far out into the aisle as he could, his knees bent up against the seat in front of him with his feet planted securely on the ground.  “With their coach.  They were talking,” he said.  “That’s a good sign.”

“I told you that he wasn’t in trouble.”

“I know you did, and you’re always right.”

“Mm.”  The noise was almost completely hidden under the noise of the stadium.  At the end of the aisle Lafayette got to his feet to shout down at the field.

“I hope they win,” Peggy said.  “This is a _stupid_ long time to sit here if they lose.”

Aglae laughed and squeezed her arm.

Hamilton looked alert and then sat up properly as the players crashed into one another, André attempting to run the ball but only gaining a single yard before being forced to the ground.

“Fuck,” Hamilton said.  “That looked painful.”

“They have a lot of padding.”

“Still.”  Hamilton took Angelica’s hand.  “John had a lot of padding when they knocked his shoulder out.”

They watched as the line of scrimmage reset and then as the second play went just as well as the first.

“I can’t watch this,” Hamilton said without taking his eyes off the field.  “One more down.  I don’t think they can get it back in time.  Stop the fucking clock,” he yelled at the game as several more seconds vanished from the time remaining before the play was called.

Angelica squeezed his hand.

Both of Hamilton’s feet were tapping on the ground as the third down began and he leapt up, pulling Angelica up with him and drawing their interlocked hands up to his mouth.

Lafayette was still standing and Eliza got up as well, interlocking her arms with him and Angelica and bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“They’re going to make André run it again,” Hamilton said.  “He can’t get past them, don’t make him run it again, don't do it, don’t—”  He cut himself off as the players scrabbled on the field then yelled incoherently as André pressed into the fray again and then managed to break free and run for several yards before being tackled to the ground.

“Was that ten?”  Hamilton’s voice was shout to be heard over the generalized scream of the stadium and it cracked.  “Was that far enough?”

Lafayette pointed up at the screen with excitement as André’s run was replayed, the footage showing him tripping right over the digitally added line they needed to pass.

Hamilton whooped as the players on the field reset themselves without having to turn over the ball.  He heard Angelica yelling next to him and he grinned, feeling manic and desperate and like screaming until his voice gave out.

 

“One more,” Laurens said, not sure if André could even hear him, slapping him hard on the back as he passed him.  His heart was racing, more from how little time was remaining and how much distance they still had to cover than from exertion.  “One more,” he repeated, as if they could realistically push the ball yard by yard in runs like the ones they had just managed, even if they had all the time in the world to spare.

André flashed him a brief OK sign, his forefinger and thumb meeting and forming an o.

They lined up, André caught the hike, Laurens threw himself forward against the player directly opposing him, and he caught a glimpse of André pushing past him.  For a fleeting second he thought he had gotten free but then he was met with such resistance that he was actually pushed back to before where they had started before being tackled to the ground.

The whistle blew and André climbed shakily to his feet.

Laurens thought he saw him mouth the words “one more” back to him as they reset, the lost yards weighing heavily on him.

Again André caught the ball and again he was forced to the ground.

When he got up again he visibly held up one finger and tipped his head questioningly to the side, causing Laurens’ heart to sink.  Laurens nodded and as he passed him clapped him on the shoulder.  He left his hand on him heavily and for a moment longer than he needed to, willing him to pay attention and remember.  André looked at him.  He put his hand on his own shoulder now and rolled it.

They lined up.  When the ball was hiked, Laurens met the played opposite him and then threw his arm up over his shoulder and ducked under it, breaking free and into the open field.  No one was immediately between him and the far end of the field.  He turned and saw André already drawing his arm back.  Only a couple of seconds had passed and the other team still hadn’t properly reacted to André not pushing forward into the fray.

The ball flew in a perfect arc through the air and Laurens did not have time to see if André was sacked after it left his hand.  He caught it and sprinted in a straight line for the end zone.

 

In the stands Hamilton screamed.

He couldn’t pick out his own individual voice out of the tangled mess of noise but he thought that he could somehow hear Lafayette three seats to his left.  Whoever it was, he could hear him shout Laurens’ name and encourage him frantically to keep running faster, faster.

He and Angelica were still holding hands and his fingers hurt from how tightly she was squeezing them.  Elation flooded his body as Laurens raced past the thirty, the twenty-five, the twenty…  He slowed to a lope as he crossed into the end zone and one foot after another deliberately decelerated until he was standing still.

Hamilton was still yelling when he turned and hugged Angelica.  He felt her wrap her arms around him and he rocked her back and forth with hysterical laughter.

 

The stadium was a circle of incoherent noise, simultaneously deafening and muffled by the pounding in Laurens’ ears.

He thought that somehow he should be able to pick out his brother’s or his friends’ voices but he couldn’t find the wherewithal to turn and look.  Instead he kept staring in a daze towards the narrow end of the stadium until he heard Grayson whoop right by his ear and tackle him from behind, hugging him and knocking the back of his helmet.  Two more people crashed into him and Laurens finally turned around, a grin breaking out on his face.  He threw the ball against the ground and it bounced off at an angle, then he pounded his fist against his chest and extended his hand out towards the quadrant of the stadium that his family and friends were sitting in.

“Run the clock out,” Tench was shouting next to him.  “As long as we can run the clock out we win!”  He put both his hands out, palms up, and Laurens slapped them.

Von Steuben was motioning them over from the sidelines and Laurens hit Tench on the back and encouraged him out of the end zone, the shouting around them sounding like confetti.

McHenry was already jogging onto the field and Laurens took his place in the line up.  They were five points up again; a successful kick would be six total and running it across the line would be seven.  One way or another they just needed to hold the line for the last minute of play time.

Laurens got into position and while he was still running through what had last happened McHenry kicked the ball up and through the goalposts.

Seven points total—six points up.

Laurens turned back around, grinning broadly, and scanned the seats for familiar faces.  He saw Jemmy standing next to their father, his hands cupped around his mouth as he cheered.  He could hear the announcer rehash the touchdown and the kick and he imagined his run as it would be portrayed on the screen.

He looked up at the sky as he headed off the field and saw that it was fully night behind the stadium flood lights.

 

Hamilton pushed past Angelica and Eliza to hug Lafayette and then quickly reach down and ruffle Peggy’s hair.  “We won!”

“There’re still fifty seconds left on the clock,” Lafayette protested, rapping on the side of Hamilton’s head.

“We scored,” Hamilton amended, grabbing Lafayette’s wrist and pressing his hand harder against his head.  “Twice!”

“I don’t think that really counts as twice,” Peggy said.  Hamilton ignored her and she turned to Algae instead.  Aglae shrugged and nodded in agreement.

“Fuck,” Hamilton said, standing in the aisle one step up so he could better grip Lafayette’s shoulders as he stared down at the field.  “They’re kicking away the ball again.  There it—Out at the twenty.  That’s okay, that’s fine.”  He tightened his grip on his shoulders, his voice strained.  “How much longer left?”  He looked up at the clock, now featured more prominently on the screen and flashing a steady countdown.

Lafayette yelped and twisted free of his grip.  “Ow,” he protested.  “A little more gently, please!”

“Sorry,” Hamilton apologized.  “Sorry.”  He wrapped his arm around his instead, practically vibrating.  “Block,” he said.  “Block, block…”

“Are you going to come down to see James after the game?”  Lafayette asked Eliza, pulling Hamilton forward as he turned.

“I was thinking about it.  I wonder if we’ll have to wait long since it was the last game.”

“He’s not going to just leave, though,” Lafayette said.  “John said that they were all going to go out after, so I’m sure you can catch him if you don’t mind waiting.  We’re going to wait for John,” he went on, motioning between himself and Hamilton.  “You can wait with us.”

“That would be nice.  Thank you, Lafayette.”

“ _Block_ ,” Hamilton hissed, yanking Lafayette back over.  He gripped his shoulder with his free hand again.  If they weren’t both wearing clothes for cold weather his nails would have bit into his skin.  “Don’t let him break away…”

“Twenty seconds,” Angelica said as the ball was forced out.

Lafayette dug his phone out of his pocket and held it up over his head, trying to get a stronger signal.  “I should let Adrienne watch…”

Hamilton made an undignified frantic noise as Lafayette dialed Adrienne.  The noise of the call going through was completely inaudible.  She picked up and Lafayette waved enthusiastically at her.

“Dearheart!  We are just finishing up the game now, we are newly in the lead again!”

“What?”  Adrienne flinched at the noise and appeared to quickly try to turn down the volume on her end.  “I can’t hear you, Gilbert.”

“We are finishing up the game,” Lafayette tried again, then shook his head.  “Never mind.  Look!”  He flipped the screen and pointed her at the field, angling the camera to show an attempted forward pass that went long and hit the astroturf, bouncing and rolling across the green field.  The last couple of seconds flashed by on the screen and then the final score exploded in navy and white as the band kicked up once more and the players on the sidelines erupted in obvious cheers, even though they were too far away to hear.

Hamilton threw his arms around Lafayette’s neck, shaking him and the camera violently.

“Now you can say it,” Lafayette told him as best he could over the chaos.

“We need to get downstairs to wait for them,” Hamilton said with a broad smile, pulling him out of the aisle.  “Eliza.”  He leaned over Lafayette to get her attention and waved her with them.  “Come on!”


	217. Post-Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interview; Splitting Off

“We opened strong,” Laurens said, trying to come off composed and professional to the reporter holding the microphone in front of him.  “And we just did our best to carry that through.  It was the last game of the season and we all really wanted to make it count.”  He saw Jemmy waving at him from his seat in the stands and he put his hands on his hips, smiling as he continued to give the interview.  “My father and kid brother flew up to see the game,” he said.  “I know the other guys had family and friends in the stands as well.  It was definitely an incentive to give that extra effort.”

He was still in his uniform and soaked with sweat from playing and there was a shout behind him as the other seniors upended the cooler over von Steuben.

Laurens waited while the reporter eagerly instructed the cameraman to get a shot of that.  When she turned back to him he had to force himself to make eye contact instead of continuing to watch the celebration.

“For a lot of you, you went into this not knowing if this would be your last game or not.  Isn't that so?”

“Yes.  Well,” Laurens said, “it looks now like we’re going to be playing one more game this winter, which we are so thankful for, but even so this was the last official game for many of us.”

“Yourself included.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“This has to have been a special evening for you.  You filled in as team captain for the penultimate game of your collegiate career, and not only did you win but you scored the winning touchdown.”

“Yes ma’am.  It’s been a wild night.”

“How do you feel?  Do you have any plans for celebrating after this?”

Laurens shook his head, at a partial loss for words.  It was taking a lot of concentration to have such a coherent conversation when he was still coming down from the physical exertion.  “I feel great.  This whole thing has been like a dream,” he said honestly, sounding momentarily in awe.  “As for celebrating,” he went on, pulling himself together and getting back into the semi-contrived tone he had been using as a prop for his words, “I do still have finals coming up, so I can’t really cut loose yet.  I know some of the guys want to get together, but it’ll be pretty low key.”

As the reporter turned back to the camera and wrapped up the segment, Laurens caught a snippet of another interview and had to force himself not to turn around.

“Nah,” Grayson was saying, “that was just Alexander.  He goes here too, it’s whatever.”

Laurens couldn’t make out the response but he heard Grayson sound a little more irritable in reply.

“Look, I’m not involved in that sort of thing.  You’ll have to see if you can catch Coach.”

The reporter thanked Laurens for his time and he kept a smile on his face as he turned carefully around to see Grayson, helmet under his arm and body angled away indicating that he wanted the conversation to be over, talking to someone from the student paper.

“Everyone will still be on campus next week,” Grayson said.  “I need to go.”  He broke away and Laurens, not wanting to get roped in, quickly headed for the wall to talk to his father and brother in the stands.

“How’d you like the game?”  Laurens asked, looking up at them from the astroturf.

“You won,” Jemmy enthused, standing and leaning with his hands on the railing.  He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, pushing down on the bar and rocking on it.  “And Martha said that she saw us in the audience!”

“Good game,” Henry Laurens said, reaching down over the bar to hand Laurens a sealed envelope.  “This is from all of us at the office,” he said as Laurens opened it.  It took him a second or two longer with his protective gloves.  “I knew you’d win.”

Laurens felt something stick in his throat as he pulled out the card, a large “congratulations” splashed across the front.  Inside were signatures from his father’s staffers and a short penned message from Henry Laurens himself, praising him for the game and the season and his hard work.  Laurens looked up, heat pricking at his cheeks and eyes.

“Thank you.”  He couldn’t form anything longer and just looked back down at the note.

“Can you please get this signed for me?”  Jemmy asked, dangling a team shirt over the bar.  “Can I also get a signature from the guy who made the first touchdown?”

Laurens took the shirt.  “Sure thing.  I’ll pass this around and give it back to you when I see you tomorrow.  Are we still getting breakfast before you fly out?”

“I think that would be nice,” Henry Laurens said.  “I know you need to wash off and go out with your teammates, but it would be good to talk to you about break.  Maybe we can purchase the tickets tomorrow when we meet up.”

Laurens nodded.  That seemed logical.  “Sure,” he said.  “Thanks for coming,” he said.  “It meant a lot to me.”  He took a step away, the card in his hand and the shirt draped over his arm.  “I’ll call in the morning and we can meet up,” he promised.

“Please,” Henry Laurens said.  “Don’t forget.”

 

“You guys want to head out?  We can split up,” Hamilton said.  “It’s fine.  You’re not waiting for anyone.”

Peggy and Aglae looked at each other.

“Do you want to leave?”

“I guess it’s getting late.”

“Ugh, and the apartment is far…  Angelica,” Peggy said, “let’s just go back home.  Eliza can catch up later.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”  Hamilton put his hand on Peggy’s upper back and led her off to the side, away from the entrance to the tunnel to the lockers.  “Peggy.  Margarita.  Hermanita.  What are you doing?”

“Um,” Peggy said, giving him a sideways look.  “Trying to go home because it’s dark and cold out?”

Hamilton was shushing her before she even finished giving her answer.  “Listen,” he said.  “You’re doing this all wrong.  You’re supposed to invite your ladyfriend back to your apartment to hang out for a while.  It’s Friday,” he explained, drawing his words out.  “It’s _night_.  You both just came from some high energy activity and need to wind down.  Plus,” he added.  “It’s a shared apartment and there’s a common room.  It’s not blatantly sexy.  Just tell her you’re going to play video games or watch tv and invite her to join in.  You can even pick up a pizza.  Or eat all of Mulligan’s leftovers.  It’s perfect.”

Peggy gave him a skeptical look up through the curled locks of hair that were falling over her eyes.  “Seriously?”  She twisted to look over Hamilton at Lafayette.

Lafayette, having only caught about half of what Hamilton said, nodded and smiled enthusiastically and held up two thumbs.

“See?”  Hamilton said.  He spun Peggy around and shoved her back at the others.  “Peggy’s decided to go back to the apartment,” he announced.  “Netflix, Hulu, whatever.  Someone should join her.”

Peggy shot him a glare for being so obvious and brushed herself off.  “Do you want to hang out for a while?”  She asked Aglae.

Aglae laughed and linked arms with her.  “Sure.  Let’s head over before it gets too late.”

“Um.”  Peggy nodded, flustered.  “Okay.”

Lafayette raised both thumbs high again.

“See you two later,” Hamilton called as they left.  “Tell Mulligan I said hello!”

“We can go back in a little bit too,” Eliza told Angelica.  “If they’re not out soon we can even just leave a message with these two.”

“Eliza, it’s fine.  I don’t mind heading home on my own if you want to stay out longer.”

“Are you sure?  I don’t want to make you walk by yourself.”

“Please.  It’s not actually that late yet.  I’ve caught the subway between campus and home much later than this.”

Eliza looked uncertain.

“If I head home before you I can tell them that you came back with me,” Angelica said.  The offer was obviously tempting.  Eliza took lipstick and a compact out of her purse and toyed with both for a second before reapplying.

“Well?”

“We are already down here,” Eliza said.  “I think we should wait for everyone to come out.  It would be nice to say hello to all of them before tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Hamilton said.  “That’s the reas—oof.”

Eliza had elbowed him and was now putting her things back in her bag.

“I will walk with you,” Lafayette said to Angelica, patting her on the back.  “I won’t be sticking with Alex and John anyway and I can take Adrienne with me anywhere.  Oh, we can just call a cab.  It’s very scenic to drive through the city in a cab in winter.  All the lights and the complaints about the poor weather and roads from the driver...”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Nah,” Hamilton said, “you should let him.  The last time he went out with the team he was complaining about the arbitrary American drinking age for a week.”

“You can go to war and die for your country before you can drink,” Lafayette immediately said.  “If you were drafted I would like to be able to buy you a glass of wine before you go.”

“There isn’t a draft,” Hamilton said.  “And if there was I hope you’d buy me something stronger than that.”

“If there was a draft I’d hope he’d throw around some of his millions to get your name off the list,” Angelica said.

“You’re right,” Hamilton said, checking the time on his phone and not really paying attention anymore.  “What else are friends like Lafayette for?”

“I don’t think you can ever have another friend like Lafayette.”

“You’re friends with Adrienne,” Lafayette protested.

Hamilton laughed and turned to Eliza but she was looking down the hall and not at him.  A split second later her face lit up and she waved one hand in the air over her head.

“James!”

“Hey,” McHenry said, breaking into a half-jog to reach them sooner.  “Are you guys waiting for Laurens?”

“They are,” Angelica said with a tip of her head towards Hamilton and Lafayette.  Eliza threatened to elbow her too but she leaned with practice out of the way without even bothering to look at her.

“It was a good game,” Eliza said, stepping forward.  “We had fun.”

“Good.”

“Are you going out with the guys?”

“For a while at least.  It was the last game of the season after all.  Are you all coming too?”

“We don’t want to intrude,” Lafayette began gracefully.

“It wouldn’t be a problem,” McHenry said quickly.  He seemed to catch himself in his enthusiasm and get a little embarrassed.

“I don’t know.”  Hamilton caught Eliza’s eye.  “If John doesn’t want to just go back to the apartment, I’d like to go out for a while.  You?”

“It could be fun.”  She looked to Angelica.  “What do you want to do?”

“We can stick together,” Hamilton said.  He motioned between himself and Eliza, talking directly to Angelica and wondering if this was what it felt like to beg a later curfew from a parent.  “Buddy system.”

“I don’t want to be out all night,” Eliza clarified.  

“We still have the party in the morning.”

“Just a couple hours, then,” Hamilton said with a nod.  “That sounds good to me.”

“All right.”  Angelica squeezed Eliza’s hand as more people began to filter noisily past them.  “Let me know when you’re coming home and I can let you in the back.”

Eliza rose up on her toes and kissed her cheek.  “Oh," she said, laughing behind her hand.  “Shoot.”  She rubbed at her lipstick on Angelica’s cheek.

“Where’s John?”  Hamilton asked.  He recognized and flagged down Tallmadge.  “Hey.  Hey, where’s John Laurens?”

“Just getting out of the shower.  He should be out soon.”

“Are you coming with us tonight?”  Tench came up behind him, adjusting his bag over his shoulder.  “Lafayette?”  He pointed at him, palm up.

Lafayette opened his mouth to give an affirmative, then remembered and shook his head.  “Just those two,” he said with a gracious motion towards Hamilton and Eliza.  “Angelica and I have a prior engagement.”

“Some prior engagement.”  Hamilton ignored the brief annoyed look Lafayette shot him.

“Too bad.  See you tomorrow, though?”  Tench asked.

Lafayette nodded.  “Tomorrow!”

“Let’s go get the table,” Tench said, tapping Tallmadge.  “See you there.”  He waved to them as they left.

“Just getting out of the shower…”  Hamilton checked the time on his phone again.  “I’m a guy.  You think they’d let me in there?”

“Probably not.”

“Why?”  Hamilton asked McHenry.  “Do you guys have a security guard in there or something?”

“Wipe the drool off your face,” Lafayette scolded him.  “Don’t be trashy.”

“There’s Laurens now." McHenry raised his hand to get his attention.

Hamilton spun and broke away from the others, running towards Laurens as he approached.  “J.!”  He skidded to a stop in front of him and paused for a moment before grabbing his hand and then throwing his free arm around him.  “Congratulations,” he said against his ear.  “I can’t believe it.”

“What do you mean, you can’t believe it?”

Hamilton pulled away.  “You know.”  He pulled Laurens by the hand over to Lafayette.  “Lafayette and Angelica are heading home but wanted to congratulate you as well.”

Lafayette took Laurens by the shoulders and planted a kiss on each cheek.  “One from each of us,” he declared.  “Now we do need to get going.”  He offered Angelica his elbow.  Before she took it she touched Laurens on the arm.

“Congratulations,” she said.  “It was a good game.”

Laurens, feeling the weight of still needing to make nice, nodded.

“Are we going?”  Eliza bounced up next to Angelica and gave her a hug goodbye.  She quickly gave Laurens one as well, then stepped back.  “… _Where_ are we going?”

“There’s this sports bar off campus,” Laurens said.  He slipped his hand down to rest on Hamilton’s lower back.  “We should head over.  I know some of the guys were already going that way.”

“We talked to them.  It’s not weird if we tag along for a while, is it?”  Hamilton asked, suddenly not sure.  He stepped away from Laurens to more easily look him in the eye.  “I don’t mind seeing you later tonight or tomorrow, even.”

Laurens shook his head.  “It’s fine.  I know a couple of the other guys’ girlfriends are going to stop by.”

Hamilton made a face at being implicitly lumped in with them but Eliza cut in.

“I think I can only stay for an hour or two.  Alex, you’re leaving with me, right?”

“Right.  So we won’t really be imposing.  We can get our own table, even.  Sit there with our virgin drinks.”

“I’m twenty-one,” Eliza pointed out.

“Damnit.”

Laurens laughed.

“Should we?”  McHenry asked, motioning towards the exit.

“Let’s,” Laurens agreed.


	218. Senior Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of Season Party

  
“Jesus.”  Hamilton looked around the very full, very noisy bar.  “I thought they were saying they needed to get a table, not—Did you guys rent out the whole bar?”

“Yeah, we do this every time.”  Laurens led them towards one of the tables by the front.  “We rented the stereo equipment too.”

“And the lights?”

Laurens didn’t hear him and Hamilton didn’t bother asking again.  He lowered his gaze from the ceiling, where color changing lights were hooked up.  A projector was playing highlights from the season on the bar and the wall behind it, any commentary completely drowned out by the loud party soundtrack playing from the speakers around the room.

“You could give someone a seizure with this,” Hamilton said to Eliza, falling a step back to talk to her.  “The lights seem like a hazard.”

“No,” McHenry said, cutting in.  “It’s fine.  The original ones were—We switched them out.  These’ll just give you a headache after a while.”

Hamilton looked skeptically back up at the equipment but didn’t question him.

“Hey, you guys made it!”  Tench waved them over to the table.  “We saved you seats!”  He moved down the bench, making room for four people, two on each side.  Laurens sat next to him and Hamilton quickly took the seat at the far end.  McHenry and Eliza sat opposite them.

“What do you want?”  Tench asked.  “You can only get one drink at a time but we’ve got touch screens now and can order right from the table.”  He passed a small tablet down to Laurens.

Hamilton held up his exposed wrist to show them the stamp as a reminder.  “Coke?”

Laurens punched in the order for both of their seats, then handed the tablet across the table to McHenry.

“Beer, I guess.”  He looked to Eliza.  “You don’t have to get anything if you don’t want.”

“Let me see the menu.”

She took it from him and flipped through the options.

“We half thought you wouldn’t show.”  Grayson leaned across the table to talk to Laurens.  “André isn’t here.”

“He’s picking up his girlfriend,” Laurens said.  “He’ll come.”

“Did she not come to the game?”  McHenry asked.

Laurens shook his head.  “She’s a performing arts major.  André said she had some production today.”

“Humphreys is outside giving directions on his phone,” Tench said.  “Anne’s bringing a bunch of the other girls but they split up and not all of them know the way.”

“Anne?”

“His girlfriend,” Tench clarified for Hamilton.  “She’s on the cheer squad.”

“Right, of course.”  Hamilton turned forward and watched Eliza ponder her selection.  What an awkwardly in-between position to be in and not even a drink to help smooth things over.

Eliza finally passed the screen back down the table and folded her hands on the table, giving Hamilton a bright smile.  “I’m getting a Cuba Libre.”

He made a face at her.

“I’ll buy you one in a month.”

“Thank you,” he said sarcastically.  “I’m looking forward to it.”

“At least you’re not as young as Lafayette.”  Laurens put his arm over his shoulders and pulled him against him.

“Ha, ha.”

Laurens kissed his temple impulsively and Hamilton shrugged him off, then put his hand on his thigh.

“If you’re going to kiss me you should do it right.”  He injected some firmness into his voice and leaned up, kissing him on the mouth, lips only slightly parted.

One of the other guys at the table oohed and Laurens tried to hide how embarrassed he was.

Hamilton gave him a cheeky wink and took his hand off of him.  Before he could turn back to Eliza, Laurens had caught him by the wrist and put his hand back.  Hamilton grinned and settled in next to him, resting his chin on the backs of his fingers and his elbow on the table.

“So did the entire team turn out?”

“Pretty much.”  Grayson looked around the room.  “I know a few people aren’t here but I think they’re coming later.”

“They better come,” Tench said.  “We rented this place until three.”

Hamilton had to stop himself from attempting to calculate costs.

A waiter brought their drinks to the table and Laurens raised his.

“Cheers to the end of the season.”

Tench laughed.  “That’s a boring toast.”

Tallmadge, on his other side, raised his glass anyway.

“Come on,” Laurens said.  “It gets the job done.”

Hamilton lifted his glass and took a drink.  “No,” he said as he put it down.  “I agree with him.  That sucked.”

Laurens nudged him.  “You think you can do better?”

“Uh, yeah, but it’s not my event.”  Hamilton took another drink.  “That would be weird.”

“Don’t you know your toasting protocol?”  Tallmadge teased.  “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that he’s bullshitting me.  Tell you what,” Laurens said, talking to Hamilton again.  “I’ll take you out for your birthday in January and you can one-up me with the toast.”

Eliza laughed.  “Just the two of you?  You need a proper audience for a really fancy toast.”

Hamilton nodded and pointed his straw across the table at Eliza.  “I’m with her.  That wouldn’t be any good, either.”

“Fine,” Laurens said.  “We’ll get some people.  Happy?”

“It’s not going to happen,” Hamilton said.  “My birthday’s over break, remember?  No one’s ever around for it.  Lafayette will be on vacation and you’ll be down practically in the tropics outside Columbia and I’ll be freezing my ass off all alone.”

“You should do Christmas with us,” Eliza said, halfway through her Cuba Libre.  “Angelica and Peggy won’t mind and my parents really liked you.”

Hamilton was caught off guard.  “Uh,” he said.  “Thanks, but I really don’t want to impose.”

“I’m staying in the city too,” McHenry told Hamilton.  “If you get bored we should meet up.”

“I’m going to be back by January,” Tench said, leaning across the table.  “When’s your birthday?”  Before Hamilton could say anything he turned enthusiastically to the rest of the table.  “John’s boyfriend is having his twenty-first over break, who’s here in January?”

“Now you did it,” Laurens said to Hamilton as the table erupted into excited confirmation.  “I hope you actually wanted to go out.  You just gave them an excuse for something to fill the void after New Year’s.”

Hamilton shrugged, aware that he was still posturing a little.  “Yeah, sure,” he said.  “That’d be cool.”

“When’s your birthday?”  Tench asked again.  “What day?”

“The eleventh.”

“Got it.  Do I have your number?  I’ll get in touch with you.”  He reached out his fist and Hamilton, after an awkward pause, bumped it.

“Don’t worry,” Grayson told Laurens across the table, “we’ll take good care of your boyfriend while you’re stuck rotting down in South Carolina.”

“You’re from Virginia.”

Grayson scoffed.  “So?  We’re way better than the Carolinas.”

McHenry moved his drink away from him.  “Let’s not get into a fight at the table and spill everything yet.  I just got this.”

“Hey,” Laurens said, changing the subject while he still had the topic on his mind, “what was that guy asking you after the game?”

Grayson looked confused for a moment.  “Ben Walker?”

Laurens shook his head.  “The guy from the paper.”

“Oh.”  Grayson shrugged disdainfully.  “That’s just James Callender.  He’s been hanging around all season.  I have a class with him so he thinks I’m his in or something.  It’s not like it’s even a real newspaper,” he went on.  “Like, who even reads that thing?”

“I saw a girl in class with it.”

“Cool, she just doubled it’s audience.  Now it’s two people instead of only him.”

Laurens laughed, reassured.

“You don’t celebrate after all of your games like this, do you?”  Eliza asked, leaning in a little to McHenry so that she didn’t have to raise her voice over all the noise.  “The girls and I have fun, but this is something else.”  She looked towards the back of the room where a caterer was setting up a steak station.

“No,” McHenry said with an awkward laugh.  “This is special.”

“Would you have cancelled it all if you had lost?”

He laughed again, more genuinely.  “No way.  We’d lose all the deposits.”

“What do you guys do?”  Hamilton asked.  “You’re still going to be on the team next year, right?  I need to come watch you play eventually.”

“Yes,” she told him, lowering her head and looking at him wryly through strands of loose black hair.  “I will still be playing and you should definitely make time in your very busy schedule to come see me.  I would be _honored_ if you managed to carve that time out.”

“Hey, hey.  I only went to, like, three of John’s games,” Hamilton protested.  “If I was dating you I would have worked something out.”

“Angelica comes to all of my games and she’s not dating me.”

“She’s your sister,” Hamilton said.  “That’s different.”

“Lafayette comes.”

“Yeah…  Well.”  Hamilton felt backed into a corner and he tried to ignore McHenry nodding deadpan at Eliza’s side.  “You know Lafayette.  He’s a special kind of something.”

“He’s European,” Laurens said, jumping out of his conversation with Tallmadge and into theirs.  “That’s why he likes soccer so much.  You should just be glad he’s not literally setting parked cars on fire after you lose a game.”

“I think you need more than just one rabid fan for that,” Hamilton said.  “Mob mentality.”

“Can you imagine a whole stadium full of Lafayettes?”  Laurens shook his head.  “That’s too much.”

“I like Lafayette,” Hamilton said.  “He hooked us up, after all.”  He linked his arm through Laurens’.  “You should make sure you get him something for Christmas.  You haven’t done shopping for anyone other than your family, right?”

“Uh,” Laurens took a drink with his free hand.  “Sure.”

Across the table McHenry caught his expression and snorted into his mug.

“Did you go shopping yet?”  Eliza asked Hamilton.

He shrugged.  “Kind of.  I got Mulligan a…”  He made a fiddly gesture.  “Dinky thing for the bathroom.”

“You should come with me,” she offered.  “I haven’t had time to do anything yet.  We can go out after finals.  Do you want to come too?”  She asked McHenry.

“Oh, uh, all right.”

“Can you invite Angelica or Peggy?”  Hamilton asked Eliza.  “I want someone to talk to so I’m not just third-wheeling it.”

“You wouldn’t be a third wheel,” Eliza assured him quickly as McHenry laughed awkwardly and looked away.  “We’re all friends.”

“Mmhm,” Hamilton said.  He briefly thought about pushing it further but almost immediately decided against it.  “Anyway.  If they need to come too, then they should.  Maybe I’ll get an idea of what to get them.  At least I don’t have to shop for family, that makes it easier.”

“Really?”  McHenry asked.  “Why not?”

Eliza turned to him, hand on his arm, but Hamilton cut her off.  “Not around.”  He shrugged.  “My mother died when I was a kid.”  He let the lack of answer about his father answer for him.

“Oh.”  McHenry looked embarrassed.  “Sorry.”

“Eh.”  Hamilton shrugged again, this time in order to reassure him that he had not crossed any lines.  “It’s sort of funny,” he said.  “Me, Lafayette, John…”  He indicated Laurens with the back of his hand on his arm.  Laurens put his hand over his shoulders and continued his conversation with his friends, not listening.  “Eliza…?”  He pointed at her, head tipped to the side.  She shook her head, face neutral.  “Right,” Hamilton said.  “Not Eliza.  Still,” he added, “it kind of counts.  The point is that we’ve got some kind of Disney thing going on.”

Eliza considered that and then nodded.

Hamilton watched for approval and nodded as well as soon as he had it.  “It’s just weird.  Lazy writing if you ask me.”

“Who wrote this?”

“I dunno.”  Hamilton turned his drink between his hands.  “God?”

Eliza laughed, only a little bitterly.

“You’re right,” Hamilton said.  “This isn’t good party talk.  So you scored the final point of the season,” he said to McHenry.  Before he could get any further there was an additional burst of commotion as Humphreys opened the doors and escorted a group inside.

Hamilton twisted on the bench in time to see Humphreys put his arm around a girl and kiss her lightly as her friends streamed past them.

“I brought the cheer squad,” Humphreys announced as the doors closed.  “Together again at last!  Do we have any footage of the routines?”  He asked one of the guys by the laptop and projector equipment, pulling his girlfriend over to help him set it up.

“We only do things with them a couple times a season,” Grayson said.  He hesitated, like he wasn’t quite sure if he was trying to preemptively defend McHenry or Laurens.  Hamilton inclined his head towards Eliza.

Eliza rolled her eyes at him from over the top of her glass as she took another sip.

The projector switched to showing footage of the cheer squad and an excited whoop went up from the girls on the team.  Humphreys put both his hands up to accept the credit and took a dramatic bow.

“Noisy.”  Laurens looked around the room and took a long drink.

Hamilton pressed briefly against him.  “It’s a party, J.  It was noisy at the stadium too.  Do you know how hard it was to have a decent conversation there?  Poor Lafayette was blowing his voice out by the end.”

Laurens laughed and finished his drink and made like he was going to kiss him.  Instead he touched the side of his face to the top of Hamilton’s head, in a gesture that was still intimate if not as bold.  His phone went off and he moved away to check it.

“It’s André,” he said.

Hamilton nodded in relief.

“He should be here in a minute.”  Laurens turned and looked back towards the door.

“Is there space?”  Hamilton put his hand on the bench next to him.  There wasn’t really room for one more person, much less two.

“He can grab a chair.”

“What about—”

Hamilton was cut short by Tench giving an exclamation, then quickly finishing off his drink and jumping up.  He almost tripped over the bench in his rush, then crossed to the sound equipment, bending hastily over the laptop and typing.

“What’s he doing?”  Hamilton asked.

Laurens shook his head.  His confusion only lasted a second before the video cut to an open YouTube search and then a colorful kpop video.

“Sorry ladies,” Tench called out as his change elicited a round of boos.  “Sorry.  We’ll go back to you after this, I promise.  But before our star senior quarterback gets here I need—”  He found a microphone on the table and turned it on.  It screeched and the yells of protest grew exponentially.  “Sorry,” Tench said, taking a step away from the nearest speaker, his voice now amplified.  “I’ll switch back to your stuff in a minute, but I need to introduce tonight’s entertainment before he gets here.”  The video continued to play in the background.  “It’s senior night,” he went on, earning himself a whoop from the receptive crowd, “and you’re all familiar with our star quarterback.”  Another cheer.  “John André is on his way so I’ll have to be brief.  How many of you know when he started playing football?  No,” he said, pointing to whoever had shouted out the wrong answer.  “No.  No.”

“Seventeen,” Laurens called, cupping his hand to his mouth.

“Bingo!”  Tench swept his finger across the room to Laurens.  “Seventeen!  And who knows what he was doing before that that kept him too busy to play sports?”

There were a few more shouted answers (“Girls!”  “Drawing!”), and Tench shook his head.  He raised the microphone back to his mouth.  “All right, who was with me at the party in Boston?  One of you answer.”

“Dance group,” Humphreys called from the other end of the room.

“Correct!”  Tench said, vibrating with obvious excitement.  The music video continued to play behind him and he turned and looked over his shoulder at where it was being projected on the wall.  “This is actual footage of our very own John André before he made it big up here in New York.”

The incongruity of the statement with André’s obvious larger fame in his earlier career made Hamilton almost choke on his drink.  He watched as Tench pointed out André in the group and attempted to follow him through the video, tracking him as best he could for the audience.

“He’s here,” Tallmadge called suddenly, looking up from his phone.

Tench quickly cut the video and loaded another one, hand hovering over the laptop’s keyboard as he stared at the door.

The door opened and on cue overly dramatic pop music blasted out of the speakers and the music video started up again with a burst of artificial smoke and falling glitter as André and Mina walked in, André already visibly cringing.  Tench tipped an invisible hat to him.

“Ha ha,” André shouted from across the bar.  “Very funny.”

Tench stepped forward into the open space, motioning Tallmadge to join him.  Tallmadge tossed him a pair of cheap mirrored sunglasses, already wearing a matching pair.  He popped his collar and struck a pose next to Tench, angling his face away from their audience and hiding it behind the stiff collar.

Hamilton looked back at André and was relieved to see that he was starting to smile.  He watched as André ducked his head down behind his fist to hide a laugh.

“Come on,” Tench called, holding a similar pose to Tallmadge and extending one hand to point at André.  “We learned the backup dance.”

“Did they really?”  McHenry asked.

Grayson shrugged.  “It’s recognizable.  Ish.”

Hamilton had turned to them to listen to the conversation and he looked back at the front of the bar as people cheered and someone at another table shouted out a joking command to strip.  It was hard to tidily pick out over the high volume of the music and the same singing voice, but André was strutting across the makeshift stage area, crooning into the microphone and stopping in his paces to thrust and pivot his hips.  Behind him Tench and Tallmadge were doing what looked like a very simplified set of dance moves, only mostly in sync with one another.

Hamilton couldn’t help but laugh, gripping Laurens’ thigh and leaning in towards the table.  Laurens took his hand off of his leg, intertwining their fingers and tugging him towards himself, wearing a broad grin.

“Wait, wait,” Tench called to the room, breaking character.  “Watch this!”  He took a couple of quick steps out of the way, using both hands to motion to and present André.

André stopped in his paces, running a hand back through his hair and looking around with a sheepish grin, face flushed from the performance and embarrassment.  Tench gave him an encouraging nod, both hands still extended.  At the start of the next bar of music as the base dropped, André fell to the floor as well, catching himself on his hands, chest to the ground.  He pushed his weigh up onto his arms, kicking one leg over his head and rolling his body, using the momentum to smoothly stand up again.

His teammates whooped and one of the girls shouted for him to take off his shirt.

Hamilton, finally managing to get control over himself, turned to Laurens and put his hands on his face, drawing him down and kissing him.

The people around them continued to shout at the performance and so Laurens returned the kiss, sliding one hand around to his lower back as Hamilton angled himself closer on the bench.  One of Hamilton’s hands slipped up into his hair.

Laurens broke the kiss.  His voice was low and if Hamilton wasn’t so attuned to it, he would have had a difficult time hearing him.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Hamilton bit back another laugh.  “How long have we even been here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not that long.”

“We made an appearance.”

“It’s the end of the season, J.  Don’t you want to celebrate with your friends?”  Hamilton moved his hand from his face to his chest.  “I don’t mind staying here for a while longer.  Really.  I’ll still be into you in a few hours.”

Laurens looked around.  At the front of the room André was taking multiple bows as the song changed.  His friends at the table were applauding and the air was crowded with cheers and more general conversations and shouts.  He saw Mina call out to André.  Humphreys and Anne were conspicuously missing.

Hamilton followed his gaze.  “We can stay,” he reiterated.  “I know that you’re enjoying yourself.”

“I am,” Laurens agreed.  He slowly looked back at him.  “But I want to go back with you.”  He gave him another soft kiss.  “I’ve been to this party before,” he said.  “Every year.  It’s fun.  But I want to spend tonight with you instead.”

Hamilton started to ask if he was sure, but he changed his mind and smiled at him.  “All right.  Let me just…”  He reached across the table and tapped the wood in front of Eliza.  “How much longer did you want to stay?”

“I don’t mind going.”  She finished her drink and stood.  “I shouldn’t be here all night if I’m helping host tomorrow.  Congratulations,” she told McHenry with a brief squeeze of his shoulder.  “I’ll see you in the morning?”

McHenry got up quickly.  “I’m going to head out too,” he said.  “I can walk you back to your place.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m already getting a headache from the lights and the noise.”  He took a step away from the table.  “I’ll get our coats.”

“There.”  Hamilton took Laurens’ hand and stood, pulling him up next to him.  He pressed his body up against him and lightly kissed his jaw.  “We’re good to go.”

They were suddenly put in the bright glare of a portable spotlight.  Hamilton took a quick step back and Laurens shielded his eyes, unable to step out of it.

“Before he slips out of here unnoticed,” Tench said, in possession of the microphone again and clearly enjoying having the powers of the MC for the evening, “let’s take a moment to recognize John Laurens, who was kind enough not to become a Gamecock and instead flew up here to join us for the past five years.”

Laurens raised an awkward hand as the room reacted.

“Through a series of unfortunate events, Laurens has ended his career here as team captain,” Tench went on, leaning cheekily on the spotlight and readjusting it to center Laurens every time he moved.  “But I think we all know what’s more important to point out here.”

Laurens’ stomach knotted itself with sudden anxiety, but then Tench clicked onto a pre-made list of all his injuries and penalties in order of occurrence since he joined the team.  That got a laugh from the room and Laurens felt a warm wash of relief, one that made him charitable enough to join in and even call out, “You missed one from junior year!”

“You see what I mean?”  Tench asked the room.  “He’s a damn liability!  We love you, but get out of here before you get us another violation somehow.  Jeez!”

The spotlight switched off and the projector went back to playing cheer footage.  Tench shot Laurens a finger gun from behind the laptop and Laurens shook his head, smiling.  He took Hamilton’s hand.

“So much for quietly slipping away.”

“I liked this better.”

“Yeah,” Laurens admitted as he led him towards the coats.  “So did I.”


	219. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee of Shame?; Coffee of Guilt.; Cooking with Gouvs

“Good morning!”  Lafayette said brightly as soon as the door to the Schuylers’ house opened.  He shifted the tall paper bag of ingredients up as it slid slowly through his arms.  His coat, while just warm enough for the freezing temperatures, did not make it easy for him to carry bulky items.  “I brought things for pancakes.  And cookies,” he added, stepping in past Eliza and scraping gravel and salt from his boots onto the mat.  “To tell you the truth, I don’t really want to study.”

“How many finals do you have?”  She asked, covering her mouth as she yawned.  She was still wearing pajama pants and a sweater and her hair was falling out of its ponytail.  “Do you need help with any of that?”

“I got it.”  Lafayette walked, semi-blind behind the bag, to the kitchen.  “I have three finals,” he told her.  “And two papers.”

“That many?”  Eliza darted around him to steady a vase as he brushed past it.  “Are you sure you don’t want to work on some of that here?”

“I have time.”

“Isn’t Adrienne coming in soon?”

“Yes.  I’ll do it before she gets here.  I did bring one textbook,” Lafayette said.  “It’s in here under the eggs.”

“All right.”  Eliza yawned again and wrapped one arm around herself, her other hand covering her mouth.  “Do you know when the others will be here?”

“John has breakfast with his father and brother,” Lafayette said.  “But more importantly I didn’t see him last night so I don’t know where he is now.”

“Okay.”  Eliza got the kitchen door for Lafayette and stood to the side to let him through.

“When do you think I should get started with the pancakes?”  Lafayette set the bag down on the kitchen island.  “Angelica told me—Oh.”  He looked up and was startled to see McHenry sitting across from him with a cup of coffee.  He wished he had gone to the party just so he would have known what shirt he was wearing under his coat the previous night.  “Good morning.”

McHenry nodded.  “Good morning.  So, uh, pancakes?”

“Ah, yes!”  Lafayette looked back to Eliza, her expression carefully neutral.  “Pan?  Bowl?”

“How large a batch are you going to make?”  She passed him and knelt at one end of the island to open up hidden cabinet doors and sort through cooking supplies.

“How many people are coming?”

“That’s a good question.”  Eliza stood up again with a set of three bowls of different sizes.  “Just don’t make a huge mess.”

“Understood.”  Lafayette couldn’t help but flick his eyes between Eliza and McHenry, now holding his mug and looking curiously around the kitchen.  He took the bowls from her after she slid them towards him across the island.  “James,” he said, “did you have breakfast already?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”  Lafayette pressed.  “Did you already eat?”

“Lafayette?”  Angelica asked from the doorway.  “You’re early.”

Lafayette turned on his heel to talk to her.  “I said I would help set up.  Would you like a pancake?”

Angelica combed her fingers through her hair, pulling it over her shoulder.  “That would be nice.  Thank you.”  She took a seat next to McHenry and Lafayette scrutinized them for clues.

“I have a paper I need to work on,” Angelica said.  “It’s almost finished, but I want to wrap it up before I move on to anything else.”

“You’re so methodical,” Eliza teased.  “I’m all over the place.”

“Peggy’s all over the place,” Angelica corrected.  “And Alexander.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette said as he mixed the batter.  “None of you have seen his room when he is at his worst.  It is impressively bad.”

“I can imagine.”

“It’s worse than that,” Lafayette told Angelica.  “Books everywhere.  No bed.  He asked me to leave his sandwich in the mail.”

Eliza laughed, then left the room as the front bell rang.

“I didn’t do it,” Lafayette assured Angelica and McHenry.  “He probably had not collected his mail in several days.  It would have leaked all over his bills.”

“I hope you still gave it to him,” Eliza said, coming back into the kitchen with Peggy.  “It sounds like he needed it.”

“I did.  Why did you ring the bell?”  Lafayette asked Peggy.  “Don’t you have a key?”

“It’s in my bag.”  Peggy pulled off thick mittens and tossed them on the kitchen island.  “This was faster.”

Lafayette nodded.

“Are you making waffles?”

“Pancakes.”

“We have a waffle press,” Eliza said.  “We could do both.”

“Oh.”  Lafayette looked at her in surprise.  “There would be options.”

“I’ll get it out.”  Eliza vanished back down beneath the top of the kitchen island.

“Can I have a waffle?”  Peggy asked.  She sat at the island as well and gave McHenry a short wave.  “Hi.”

“Do you know when the other guys are coming over?”  Eliza asked as she dug around.  “I mean…  Like John’s friends?”

“No,” Lafayette said.  He looked at McHenry.  “Do you know?”

“I can text them and find out.”

“It’s fine,” Eliza said, bringing the waffle maker out with a clatter.  “It’s not a big deal.”

“Are you sure.”

“It’s fine.”  She put the waffle maker on the island and then gave McHenry’s arm a brief squeeze.  She leaned in a beat later and kissed the side of his head.  McHenry raised his mug to his mouth, red behind it.

Lafayette watched and nodded slowly to himself as he went back to setting things up.  That seemed to settle that.

 

“Jack,” Jemmy called, waving at Laurens from over his menu at a breakfast cafe near the airport.  “Jack, did you get the stuff signed?”

“Some greeting,” Laurens said, taking off his coat and pulling out an empty chair.  “No ‘hello.’  No ‘good morning.’”

“Sorry.  Hello, Jack.  Good morning, Jack.”

“That’s better.”  Laurens unzipped his backpack and took the shirt out.  He handed it across the table to Jemmy, who unfolded it to make appreciative noises over it.

“Good morning,” Laurens said to his father. “Do you know what you want?”

“We’re still looking over the menu, aren’t we, Jemmy?”  Henry Laurens flagged down a waiter.  “Jack, did you want something to drink?”

“Coffee, please.  Thank you.”  Laurens turned back to Jemmy.  “Did you enjoy getting to see campus?”

“Yeah,” Jemmy said, putting the shirt down in his lap.  “Your map was really useful.”

“Jack,” Henry Laurens said, cutting into the conversation.  “I’d like to buy your flight home before we go to the airport.  When do you think you’ll be leaving?”

“Oh,” Laurens said, glancing up and trying to mentally weigh how long he could get away with staying in the city.  “Like I said, I’d like to spend some extra time here.  With my friends and Peggy.”

“Of course.  But we’d like to see you too, Jack.”  He looked encouragingly at Jemmy, who caught his eye and nodded.  Laurens felt his heart sink.  He remembered the discussion the previous night about Hamilton’s birthday and acquiesced.

“Yeah, sure.  Finals end on the fifteenth…  What about the twentieth?”

“Let me see what flights are available…”  Henry Laurens took out his phone and typed.  “Who taught you to draw?”  He asked.  “I don’t remember ever paying for lessons.”

Laurens was confused by the change of topic.  “I took some classes at school.  It was one of the options for an elective.”

“I see.  I’m thinking about your art class here.  You’re not needing to stay over break to work in the studio, are you?”

“No.  It’s a life drawing class so we do use models,” Laurens explained.  “But our final project was supposed to have been done on our own time with our own subjects.  André was initially going to do his girlfriend,” he said, sensing that they were headed into a dangerous area, “but they broke up.”

“I found a good flight for the nineteenth,” Henry Laurens announced.  “Nice and early.  You’ll be home in time for lunch that afternoon.”  
Laurens’ heart would have sunk again.

“I lost my hat,” Jemmy said as the server brought Laurens his coffee.  “I need a new one.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“For a new one or for my old one?”

“Both,” Laurens promised.  “Lafayette is looking for a nicer tablet case,” he told them, “and I still need a present for him.  He’s going on a trip over Christmas, though, so there’s no rush.”

“Mm.”  Henry Laurens did not say anything about Lafayette’s plans to spend time away from family and instead took a sip of coffee, his menu open before him and his phone in his free hand.  “Now until the nineteenth…  That’s a week and a half,” he said.  “That should be plenty of time to see Peggy.”

Laurens nodded.

“I left a message for her father,” Henry Laurens went on.  “Just reminding him that we have some slight connection and asking him to consider taking you on this summer.”

Laurens nodded again, not sure how he felt about that.  _It was a good thing_ , he told himself.  “Thank you,” he said out loud.

“It’s better that you come home before Christmas,” Henry Laurens said.  “I think I can get you a proper introduction to a couple other men that you might consider interning with.  One of them is in Columbia and the other is up in Philadelphia.”  He was watching Laurens as he spoke and Laurens knew to look interested and nod in agreement.  “They may be even better placements for you than with Philip Schuyler.”

“I like New York,” Laurens said.

Henry Laurens’ mouth curled up, thin and sad.  “It’s a very active city,” he said.  “I’m sure it’s fun to be a student here.”

That was encouraging and Laurens pushed his point.  “I like being somewhere a little—different,” he said.  “And I like the feeling of living in a big city.”

“Columbia and Philadelphia are both cities,” Henry Laurens said.  “Have you ever been to Philadelphia?”

Laurens shook his head.

“It might be good to visit sometime.  It’s quite an exciting place as well.”

Laurens nodded, just once, aware that he was in danger of agreeing to more than just a short trip.  “You thought interning here was a good idea yesterday,” he said, trying to get a sense of the lay of the land.

“Oh, Philip has a good firm,” Henry Laurens said.  “You could learn a lot from him.  I’m just telling you about some other possibilities that I remembered,” he explained, leaning forward and putting his hand on Laurens’ in what was intended to be a comforting gesture.  Laurens was loathe to admit, even to himself, that it did reassure him.  “It is important to have options.”

“Yes,” Laurens said grudgingly.  “Thank you.”

 

“Uh-oh.”  Lafayette wiped batter off of the screen of his tablet.  “We are okay,” he assured Gouverneur.  “How much of this should I add?”

“Not much.  And not to all of the batter,” Gouverneur said, watching Lafayette handle a small container of marijuana.  “I have a card so technically that’s medical.  I’m just being very generous with you all.  And I know someone else,” he added.  “So I can touch up if needed.”

“Are you sure you don't want one?”  Lafayette asked McHenry as he filled his glass with water from the fridge.  “It might help you to relax.”

“No, thank you,” said McHenry with the air of someone actively choosing not to hear the entirety of the conversation around them.  “I need to study.”

“You just seemed a little tense out there,” Gouverneur said, nodding to where several of Eliza’s friends had joined her in the living room.  “Not that I know you from Adam or anything.”

“He was tense,” Lafayette confirmed.  “Do you think their parents will be able to smell this cooking?”

“Crack a window and don’t make them as potent as the brownie.”

“We need to make sure that we save one for André.”

“Oh yeah?  He like stuff like this?”

“He liked the brownie,” Lafayette said.  “I gave him the leftovers.”  Giving the mixture to Gouverneur to stir and sign off on, Lafayette peeked out of the kitchen.  Peggy and Agale were reading quietly and Angelica was typing on her laptop while Eliza, now fully dressed for the day, was talking rapidly with her friends.

“Their review looks fun,” Lafayette commented.

Kitty asked a question that none of them could hear from the kitchen but that seemed delightfully scandalous, judging by the table’s reaction.

Lafayette leaned slowly back into the kitchen and nodded solemnly at McHenry.  “That is a lot of women.  You’re better off in here with us.”

“I’m telling you,” Gouverneur said.  “Just steal from this first batch and you’ll be set.  Going back out there will be a piece of cake.  Well,” he corrected himself, “you might have problems but being relaxed enough won’t be one of them.”

“I need to study,” McHenry repeated.

“Oh, it won’t help with that.”  Lafayette looked at the mixing bowl.  “No one was really expecting to get a lot of work done, were they?  Besides James and Alexander.”

“If they don’t want to have any they don’t have to have any.”

Lafayette nodded.  Fair enough.

“Do we have syrup?”  Gouverneur asked.  “And whipped cream and butter and whatever else people want on these things.”

“I brought all of those,” Lafayette confirmed.  “And powdered sugar.”

“Great, they’ll look like crack pancakes instead of just weed ones.”

“Cracked?”

“Never mind.”  Gouverneur dumped one of the extra bowls in the sink and started fiddling with the stove.  “I’m glad this is electric,” he said.  “I don’t think we really need to toss gas into the rest of this mix.”

“One time when I was in France,” Lafayette said, continuing to stir the mixture, just in case.  “My good friend and I wanted to go camping but we did not want to leave the house, so we took the, ah, the metal part off of the top of his mother’s gas stove and we turned the flame up and tried to cook things.”

“Neat.  Did it work?”

“It did,” Lafayette confirmed.  “We made a tiny sausage, but then his mother came home and got mad at us and banned us from the kitchen.  We tried to roast marshmallows over a scented candle in the bathroom,” he went on, “but I think that was a bad idea.  It coated the marshmallows with a black film and later both of our stomachs hurt”

“Chemicals, I guess.”  Gouverneur shook a can of cooking spray and lightly greased one of the pans.  “Whatever it is they put in there to make them smell like vanilla and flowers.”

“This one was cranberry.”

“Same idea.”

“It seemed more edible than the floral ones.  We thought it would work.”  Lafayette looked to McHenry to back him up.

McHenry shook his head.  “Yeah, you shouldn’t do that.”

Lafayette sighed.  “We did not have medical training.”

“I don’t think you need that,” Gouverneur said.  “I think you just need common sense.  Not that I can talk,” he added.  “I went on an actual camping trip one time with the Scouts and we made these cooking surfaces out of old coffee cans and my buddy and I got into a pissing contest over who could make their flames shoot up higher.  You know what lights real well?”  He asked.  “Eucalyptus.  The fire went a solid three feet up into the air and was going green.  Plus, the smell.  It was like lighting bug spray.  Anyway, that’s how we learned that eucalyptus is poisonous.”

Lafayette blanched.  “From inhaling the smoke?”

“Nah.  Well, maybe that too.  No, we still ate the stuff we cooked and then got sick.”

“You guys really aren't making me want to try any of your cooking,” McHenry said.

“Yeah, fair enough.”  Gouverneur stepped away from the stove to give Lafayette room to pour out the batter.  “This is probably why you’re the one on track for the fancy degree.”

“Adrienne eats my cooking, and she’s very smart.”

“Adrienne is your girlfriend and that alone indicates she’s got some sort of blind spot,” Gouverneur pointed out.  “Plus, she probably feels obligated.”

Lafayette considered this, head cocked to the side.

“To each their own,” Gouverneur said.  He tipped the bowl in Lafayette’s hands over the pan, letting go when they had a good-sized circle of batter.  “Have you ever had these before?”  He asked Lafayette.

“No.”

Gouverneur looked at the pan skeptically.  “Right.  Well, they won’t kill anyone at least.  Let’s just hope they don’t taste like ass.”


	220. Mingle All the Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a Lot of Studying

“These taste like ass,” Peggy said, standing over the plate of pancakes in the kitchen, one stabbed on a fork and bitten and still in her hand.  She made a face and wiped her tongue on the back of her hand.  “Ugh.  I need a drink.”

“They’re not that bad,” Lafayette protested.  “Are they that bad?”

“They’re weirdly dry,” Gouverneur said through a mouthful.  “Maybe they just need syrup.”

“I don’t think that’s going to fix it.”  Peggy took a bottle of orange juice out of the fridge and poured herself a glass.  She chugged it.

“I bet that if you eat one, the taste will grow on you.”

“That’s because you’ll be fucking stoned.”  Peggy put the bottle back in the fridge.  “I’m voting no.”

Lafayette looked down at the plate, disappointed.

“They’re really dry,” Gouverneur repeated.  He swallowed.  “Maybe you can mail one to France.”

“I think that’s illegal.”

Peggy gestured at the pancakes on the plate pointedly.

Gouverneur cracked a grin.  “Yeah, okay.”

Angelica walked back into the kitchen, shaking a can of air freshener.  “You better hope this works,” she warned.  She covered her nose and mouth with the long sleeve of her sweater and sprayed the air freshener in an arc.

Lafayette caught some of it and coughed behind both hands.

Peggy waved her hands in front of her face, nose scrunched up.  “Stop trying to suffocate us!”

“Peggy, the smell’s going to get into everything and Mom and Dad are going to come in here eventually.”

Peggy hesitated, then snatched the can from Angelica.  “Give me that.”  She sprayed it more vigorously around the kitchen.

“Crack a window,” Gouverneur suggested.

Peggy hurried to do so.

“We’re going to freeze,” Lafayette complained.  “Can’t we do this after we are done in the kitchen?”

“I can get a fan,” Peggy said, ignoring him.  “If I point that out the window will that help?  Or, um, a wet towel?”  She turned around but Angelica had already left.

“You looked like you had it under control,” Gouverneur said.

Peggy made a complaining noise.

“I think she went to get the door,” Lafayette offered.

As if on cue Angelica called for Peggy from the other room.

Peggy looked around, still mildly distressed, and tossed the can to Lafayette.  “Fix it.”

Lafayette fumbled the can, barely managing to catch it, and followed Peggy out into the living room.  He had to stop short almost immediately as she backed up, not having gotten very far before being confronted with both Angelica and Eliza.

“Peggy,” Eliza said, linking arms with her and turning her to the side, away from the entrance.  “Do you remember that summer when you spent all of your allowance on band merchandise from Korea?”

Peggy made a face and shook her head.  “No.”

“Come on,” Eliza pressed, squeezing her arm a little tighter.  “You had to go through a third party buyer to get their latest album.”

“You bought a glow stick,” Angelica added.

Peggy shook her head again, obviously getting embarrassed.  “No,” she repeated.  “Whatever.”

“You’re not following them anymore, are you?”

“No.  Why?”

Eliza turned Peggy around quickly and grabbed her arm with her free hand in excitement.  Angelica was standing in front of them, smiling broadly, her own hands on André’s upper arm and shoulder.

“I found him in Boston!”

Peggy made an undignified squeak and covered her face with both hands, what was still visible quickly turning deep red.

Eliza was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet and she shook Peggy by the arm.  “It’s John André!”

“We were hoping you wouldn’t notice at the game,” Angelica said, squeezing André and still holding onto him like he was an inanimate prop.  “But they weren’t using his stage name, of course, and it’s been so long since you followed them that we figured it must have slipped your mind.”

André’s smile was equal parts embarrassed and resigned, both factors making it appear painted on.

“Ohmigo—”  Peggy started, then caught herself, managing to sound annoyed behind her hands.  “This is so _stupid_ , I don’t even _listen_ to them anymore, plus he _left_ so why would I care, _can I get your autograph?_ ”  She finished in a rushed and abrupt u-turn.

“Oh,” André started, previous practice kicking in.  “Sure, I’d love to.  Do you have a pen?”

Angelica proffered one, along with a piece of paper.

“You never got a signature, did you?”  Eliza asked.

Peggy shrugged her off finally, trying to regain some dignity.  “I had signed albums!”

“Ah, but they do those en masse.”  Lafayette decided which side of this event would be the most fun to insert himself on and he leaned in behind Peggy to watch André sign the paper, writing his name in Roman characters.  “This is personalized.”

“Peggy,” Eliza asked, “do you want a note, too?  He’s right here and he’s a friend, we could ask him to write you something longer.”

“She had both of your albums,” Angelica told André.  “She played one of your singles for a month straight to help rise it on the charts.”

André laughed, professional and tidy.  “Oh, wow.  Thank you so much,” he told Peggy.  “I appreciate your help.”

Peggy made a little choked mortified noise.

“André was in a boyband like seven years ago,” Lafayette explained to Aglae, looking over at them in clear confusion from the table.  “He was very very pretty.”

“Ooh,” Aglae said, nodding.  “Got it.”

Peggy hid her face in her hands again.

“Celebrities don’t really count,” Aglae assured Peggy, obviously trying to bite back a laugh.  “It’s not like they’re really people.  Um, no offense,” she added quickly.

“It’s a performance,” Lafayette explained for her.  He looked over at André, but wasn’t given a clear yes or no.  “It’s like, ah, how pictures on social media are very staged.  I should know about that,” he added.  “I’m very good at that.  It is one of my less interesting talents.”

“What, managing to make every conversation relate back to yourself?”  Hamilton scraped slush from his boots on the welcome mat just inside the front door, holding onto Laurens’ arm for balance.  He sniffed the air.  “Smells like a Christmas candle and some bad weed in here.”

All three of the Schuylers turned to look at Lafayette and he held his hands up helplessly.

“I tried to fix it.  Maybe it will fade.”

“I’m not having any of that,” Hamilton declared.  “Do you have any normal food?  I’ve got way too much to get done to get stoned.”  He undid his coat.  “Can I hang this somewhere?”

“Here.”  Eliza stepped away from Peggy to lead Hamilton and Laurens to the closet.  “Let me show you.”

“I’m sorry,” André apologized to Peggy, more to try and ease the awkwardness than anything else, “that’s just my legal name.  I’m not technically allowed to give an official signature anymore.”

Peggy just shook her head quickly and took the paper from him.

“What kind of music did you do?”  Aglae asked.

“Uh, really saccharine stuff mostly,” André said, sounding more like himself as he crossed over to sit next to her.  “We were going for the sort of upbeat pop-y stuff.  It was all pretty generic,” he admitted, a little sheepish.  “But we did decently well.”

“Oh, I’m not judging you,” Aglae said quickly, putting her hand playfully on his arm to reassure him.  “I mean, you need to go where the money is, that’s totally half of it, and there’s nothing wrong with music that makes people happy.”

“Well,” André said, trying to find the balance, “that’s true.  It was a little dumb, though.”

“André is a jaded ex-idol.”  Lafayette sat dramatically on the table next to them.  He clasped André’s shoulder and nodded solemnly at Aglae.  He caught a glimpse of Peggy slipping out of the room with the signature and kept talking in part to keep the attention on himself.  “That’s why he could not even tell me about it.  He and I are such good friends and I still had to find out through a third party with Angelica.”

André’s smile was almost more of a wince.

“Well, I think it’s really cool,” Aglae declared.  “Besides, Lafayette only isn’t jaded because he tries really hard to act like he’s not, but his posting has gone _way_ down since he came to America.”

Lafayette looked at her, surprised.  “Oh, do you follow me?”

“Um, duh.”

“Does everyone follow Lafayette?”  Hamilton asked, coming back and joining them at the table.

“Not everyone.”  Aglae got her phone out and opened the app.  “His numbers definitely took a tumble, too.”

“Did they?”  Lafayette tried to sound unaffected.  “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Bull.”  Hamilton shifted to the side to check her screen.  “There’s no way you didn't know that.  You were on Instagram and shit all the time when I first met you.  Seriously, John and I were talking about staging an intervention.”

Laurens, back with Eliza, tried to look innocent.

“Even if you haven’t checked recently, you had to know that,” Hamilton went on.  “You’re smart.  You gave me a lecture once about how to best use tags.”

“That reminds me,” Aglae said, turning her camera on and around.  She leaned in to center herself between Lafayette and André.  “Can I get a selfie?”  She hit the camera button when neither of them objected, flashing a peace sign.  “I’m definitely tagging both of you in this, if that’s okay.  André, what’s your handle?”

“Oh, I don’t have an Instagram.”

“What?”  She looked surprised.  “Really?  It’s just that you have that look,” she explained.  “I figured you at least had one for food.”

André rubbed the back of his neck.  “I prefer not to have a really big online presence.”

“He still has fans,” Lafayette said, realization dawning.  He sat up straight and was encouraged by how André looked up at the ceiling.  “I knew it!  Are you more famous than me?”  He asked, the question genuine if not entirely willing to own up to that.  “No, it cannot be.  I had never heard of you or your band and I was an influencer.”

“Jeez,” Hamilton said, the word muffled through a mouthful of caramel popcorn.  Eliza put the bowl down on the table next to them.  “I’ve stumbled into a really weird friend group.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Your dad’s a congressman,” Hamilton told Laurens.  “You don’t get to talk.”

Laurens half-laughed without any real amusement.  For a moment the notion that he should tell Hamilton at least about how breakfast went and about his plans for break flashed through his mind but then Hamilton had turned away and was arguing with Lafayette over the definition of “influencer” and he let it pass.

He felt someone behind him where he was standing at the table and he turned, mildly surprised to see McHenry already at the house.

“Hey,” McHenry said, obviously trying to make small talk and unusually awkward.  “Weather bad out?” 

“Freezing.”

McHenry nodded and took a stiff drink from the mug in his hand.

“Was it better when you came over?”

McHenry took another drink and shrugged.

“McHenry?”

“Hey,” he said, unintentionally repeating himself.  “Do you want a drink or something?  I think the kitchen is free.”

Confused, Laurens followed him into the cold kitchen, the scent of attempted breakfast and air freshener greeting him, along with street noise through the half-open window.

“Shit,” he said.  “I guess they had fun.”

“It’s getting better.  Coffee?”

“I had.”

McHenry had been reaching for a mug from the cabinet, and he closed the door instead and lowered his hand.  He turned back around.  “I stayed here last night.”

Laurens hadn’t expected that.  “Really?”  He asked before thinking.  “Uh,” he tried to recover, “not that I didn’t think you…  would…”  He trailed off.  McHenry looked even more uncomfortable so he lowered his voice and aimed for encouraging.  “That’s cool, though.  How’d it go?”

“…Well?”

“When you say that with a question mark, it’s not really convincing.”

“Sorry.  It went well,” McHenry said.  “We didn’t do as much as you probably did,” he added in an attempt at a joke.  “But it was good.  I’m not really sure what’s going on now, though,” he said sheepishly.  “So…”  He looked at him hopefully.

Laurens shook his head, starting to see where this was going and not liking it.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I don’t think you should be asking me about this.”  When McHenry looked let down, he tried to continue.  “I mean, Lafayette likes relationship stuff.  Or Alex, he’s—he likes girls.”

“Yeah,” McHenry said.  “I guess.”  He paused.  “I don’t really know them,” he admitted.

“I…  Okay,” Laurens said.  “Uh, so what’s the problem?”

McHenry turned one of his hands over in the other nervously.  “Do you think I should ask her out?”

Laurens raised his shoulders helplessly and held them, stiff, against his neck.  “You made out with her?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s assumed and you can just…”  He realized he was drawing a blank.  “What do you do with her normally?”

“I’ve gone to a bunch of her games.”

“Yeah, okay.  So ask her out.”  Laurens felt confident with that answer.  “That’s good.  Assertive.  Shows that you can take control.”

“Right, got it.”  McHenry nodded.  “Uh, so you had a girlfriend before and you’re dating Alex now…”

“Dude,” Laurens said, more forcefully than he needed to, “I have no idea how to ask her out.  I don’t even know how I asked out Alex.  I asked the girl I dated in high school to a formal.  Just—tell her you’d like to go get dinner or something,” he tried.  “Just be smooth.”

“This is her house,” McHenry said.  “And both her sisters are here and they’re always all together.  And they both know I came home with her last night and that I was here with her in the morning.”

Laurens winced.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Good point.  There’re a lot of them.”

McHenry made a frustrated noise and put both his hands on the back of his head and turned to the side, looking out the window.

“What about André?”  Laurens asked after a moment.  “He always has girls.  Right?”

McHenry nodded slowly.  “That’s true.”

“If anyone can help, it’s him.  He has way too much experience talking to girls, so he has to have tips.  You want to come back out and we can grab the coffee table before anyone else gets here?  I think Lafayette put about fifty holiday candles on it, but they’re fake so we can just dump them on the floor.”  He pushed the door open—the conversation outside had meanwhile jumped to Peggy and Lafayette arguing over movie genres—and held it for McHenry.  “Go set up and I’ll grab him.  I think it’s out of the way enough that we can have a conversation, especially once the other guys show up and it gets impossible to get any actual studying done.”


	221. Guy Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cleaning Up; Dating Advice

“You don’t understand,” Lafayette said as he scrubbed the frying pan in the kitchen, the sink filled with soapy water and his hands and forearms covered by thick rubber gloves.  “I was just trying to, how do you say, lighten the mood.”

“Uh-huh.”  Hamilton leaned against the counter, arms folded, not offering to help.  “Looks to me like you were trying to take advantage of a private kitchen.  Didn’t you say that Adrienne doesn’t approve of this sort of thing and that she always knows when you disobey her?”

“I wasn’t going to have any,” Lafayette insisted.  “They were presents.”

“For who?  This is the Schuyler house, not the Morris one.”

“Angelica smoked with me in Boston.”

Hamilton pulled a skeptical face.  “All right, Peggy maybe.  She’s got a look.  But not the other two.”

“You elevate people too much.”

Hamilton snorted.  “Not likely.”

Lafayette took the pan out of the water and looked at it critically. “It’s so early.  Do I want to get into an argument with you already?  I know I am right, but it would be such a pain.”

“If you know you’re right—which you’re not, by the way—then you should know that you’ll win.”

“I think I will avoid the argument,” Lafayette said.  He went back to scrubbing the pan.  “I burned some of the batter,” he explained.  “It’s a nuisance to get off.”

“Maybe you should have burned some of the regular pancakes.  That might have covered up the rest of the smell.”

“Maybe,” Lafayette agreed.

“Anyway,” Hamilton said through a mouthful of regular pancake.  He had picked up one with his bare hand and was holding it like a burrito as he talked.  “When you’re done in here I need you to come back out and quiz me.  I’ve got a whole system.  I’m trying out to take advantage of all the people.  I made flashcards and everything.”

“All right.  That sounds fun.”

“You don’t need to lie about the entertainment value, you just need to tell me if I’m getting these definitions right or not.”

Lafayette nodded.  “I can do that.”

“Great.  Hey,” Hamilton said, switching tracks.  “Did John say anything to you about how breakfast went?  He didn’t really want to give me any details.  Just said that it went okay.”

Lafayette examined the pan again.  “No,” he said.  “I haven’t spoken to him about it.”

“Damn.  Well, he seems in a good enough mood, so my guess is they talked about absolutely nothing as usual and his father praised him for the game.”  Hamilton took another bite of the pancake.  “Could be worse.”

Christmas music switched on outside in the living room.

“That was my idea,” Lafayette said happily, inclining his head back towards the door.  “I told Angelica that as long as  there weren’t any vocals it wouldn’t be too distracting.  I think I’m right, don’t you?”

“Was the the mistletoe in the foyer your idea too?”

“I wanted the real plant but Angelica convinced time to settle for plastic.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the actual thing.  Or real holly, for that matter.  I guess probably,” Hamilton said.  “Not that I was paying attention.  I notice they’ve got a real pine tree by the piano,” he went on.  “Also: I notice that they’ve got a real piano.  You think the keys are ivory?”

“You should ask Eliza,” Lafayette said.  “She plays.”

“Yeah?  Neat.”  Hamilton fell silent as several girls he didn’t know came in, talking to one another about finals.  He leaned out of their way when they walked by to refill their mugs with hot cider from a pot on the stove.

“It’s getting busy,” he commented as they left.  “I didn’t think this many people would show.  I guess the three of them inviting people, then us…”

“I’m glad I’m extroverted,” Lafayette said happily.  “This would not be as much fun.  Kitty told me she likes my hair and I’m going to help her do the underside of hers later this week.”

“Kitty?”

“The one who was just in here talking about her American Studies final.  She’s one of Eliza’s friends.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton shoved the rest of the pancake in his mouth.  “Cool.  You know what’s almost a weight off?”  He said after he swallowed.  “All these pretty girls here and I don’t need to worry about trying to talk to them.  I can just make small talk with them if I want to and go and make out with John otherwise.  It’s so liberating.  No obligations.”

“I don’t think you were obligated to hit on them before.”

“And the same with the guys,” Hamilton went on, ignoring him.  “I don’t need to be worrying that I’m not being, I dunno, _progressive_ enough by not flirting with them if they’re cute.  I’ve got a built in excuse to not risk that and at the same time it’s not even like I’m hiding anything.  No obligation,” he repeated.  “I still get to be visible and without all the drama.”

“Good for you.”  Lafayette decided the pan was clean enough and began to dry it with a dishtowel.

“I know.  Political statement made and with metaphorical the effort of going around in sweats instead of actual pants.  Love it.”

“You’re a funny sort of person,” Lafayette said fondly as he dried the pan.  “I don’t think I know anyone else who would think of any of that like you did.”

“Gotta keep it interesting.  Besides, I bet Burr would—”  Hamilton jumped away from the counter like it had burned him.  “Fuck!  Burr!”  He raised both hands in front of himself, fingers curling in at the empty air as he grasped at the mistake he had made.  “Shit.  I was supposed to pick him up this morning and come over with him.  Fuck, fuck, fuck!”  He patted his pocket for his phone and keys as he rushed out of the kitchen.  “It was a pain to get him to agree to come.  I can’t believe I forgot!  I’ll be right back,” he called to a more-or-less stranded Lafayette.  “Save me some cider!”

 

“The trick is to pick something that you know that she likes,” André said, sitting next to McHenry and Laurens at the coffee table tucked away in the back of the living room, around a corner and tidily sequestered from the flow of traffic between the front door and the larger sitting area and the kitchen.  A ring of battery-operated candles of varying sizes in reds, whites, and greens sat around them like some kind of festive seance.  “Then there’s no way she’ll say no and you don’t have to worry about being turned down.  So what’s something that she’ll for sure say yes to?”

“Uh,” McHenry said, obviously drawing a blank.  “I don’t know.”

“Dinner and a show is a classic,” André said.  “She’s over twenty-one, right?  You could take her for drinks after, too.”

The side of McHenry’s mouth twisted in on itself.  “That’s going to be expensive.”

“Laurens,” André said.  “Where did you take Alex on your first date?”

“I took him to…”  Laurens trailed off, his memory failing him.  The other two looked at him expectantly and he leaned away slightly, putting one hand down next to himself and knocking over a plastic candle.  “We got breakfast, I think.  Or maybe lunch?”  He frowned.  “We did _something_.”

“…Right.  Well,” André said, taking control of the conversation again, “my first date with Mina, I picked her up and took her to that revolving restaurant that looks out over the city.  The weather was still pretty nice out, so after we walked down over to get drinks at one of the bars she’s played at before.  It was during the semester still, so we didn’t have time to stay out forever, so it had to be a pretty rushed affair.  You’ve got the advantage of being on break now,” he went on, “so you can spend more time with her and really show off.”

“Great,” McHenry said, looking like he didn’t see this as an advantage.  “Lucky me.”

“It’s too cold to do anything outside,” André went on, “so that narrows it down some.  If you don’t think she’d be interested in a show, there are tons of other events you can take her to.  Like, we can see about last minute tickets to a concert, or one of those escape rooms, or even just the movies, but that’s not as creative…”

“Alex and I went to play laser tag,” Laurens said.  “That was pretty fun.”

“There’s this really good French-Laotian bistro I used to go to with Margaret,” André added.  “You can do a four course for I think sixty, but it might have been a little more…  The servings are a little small, which worked out well because then we had room to get something with drinks later.”

“I know that place.”

They all looked up as Gouverneur dropped down to a crouch next to them.

“Good food.  You should stay for dessert and get the chocolate pyramid.  I’m hiding out with you,” he explained, just as nonchalant as the rest of it had been.  “I know one of Eliza’s friends and let’s just say that we both wish that I did not.”  He shifted into a seated position.

Laurens rolled his eyes.

“So what are we talking about?  Food?”

“We’re trying to help him figure out where to go on a date,” André explained, indicating McHenry with his open palm.

Gouverneur nodded.  “Got it.  What does she like?”

“I don’t know,” McHenry said, sounding a little frustrated to be getting asked the same question and forced to give the same answer.  “Soccer.  Poetry.”

“You really should get a sense of what she’s into before you try to plan anything.”

“It’s hard when you’re on the spot like this,” McHenry said, not without a little bite, to André.  “It’s not like we don’t talk.”

“Do you do more than talk?”

“Uh,” McHenry gave Gouverneur an uncomfortable glance.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I mean, last night we didn’t just talk.”

“Nice.”  He put out his hand for McHenry to slap.  “That changes everything,” he said after collecting his high-five.  “Do you live on campus?  Do you have a roommate?”

“I’m in a single.”

“Excellent.  Just buy her a coffee and invite her over to watch a movie or listen to a record.  That's what I would do.”

“That’s not very classy.”

“Who said anything about classy?”  Gouverneur asked André.

“It’s their first date,” André argued.  “You have to leave a better impression.”

Laurens stood, trying to shake the conversation off of himself like an ill-fitting garment.  “I’m going to get Lafayette,” he said.  “He’s actually in a relationship, so he should have better advice.”

“Hey,” André protested.  “I’m dating Mina.”

“Your track record is a mess,” McHenry told him as Laurens walked off.

André looked only mildly offended.

Laurens wove through the increasing crowd of people, most of them at least making an attempt to look like they were studying, to get back to the kitchen.  “Lafayette?”

“Can you pass me that towel?”

Laurens handed it to him.

“ _Merci_.”  Lafayette dried the bowl that had been used for batter, everything else already either sitting neatly on the counter next to the sink or actually put away.  “Alexander went back to campus to get Burr.”

“I wasn’t looking for him.”

“Oh.  I just assumed.”

“A couple of us are trying to give dating advice and I thought you could help.”

Lafayette’s face lit up.  “Of course,” he enthused.  “Let me get Adrienne—”

“Actually,” Laurens quickly cut him off, “if you could do this without her.  Like, just you.”

“Ah, a boys’ conversation.”  Lafayette nodded, taking his hand away from his pocket.  “I understand completely.”  He clapped.  “So!  Lead the way and I will follow.”

“Thank you,” Laurens said, hoping he hadn’t just made a mistake.  He led them back out into the living room before he caught up to what Lafayette had said before.  “…Alex went back to campus?”

“To get Aaron Burr.  He said he invited him but forgot to collect him.”

“I would have gone with him.  He should have told me he was going.”

“You are busy,” Lafayette reminded him, hand on his shoulder.  “Remember?”  They reached the table where the others were gathered and Lafayette stepped away from Laurens, bringing his hands together in front of himself with an air of one about to take rightful control of the situation.  “So.  Where are we?  Who is in need of my assistance?”  He was already looking at McHenry, who raised his hand awkwardly.  “What—”

“I don’t know what she’d like to do,” McHenry interrupted.

“Maybe you can just tell us what you did for your first date with Adrienne,” Laurens suggested delicately, trying to redirect the conversation slightly.

“An excellent idea.”  Lafayette nodded and took Laurens’ spot at the table.  Laurens sat on the couch behind him.  “For our first date, Adrienne and I took a walk with her chauffeur in her garden.”

Across the table, Gouverneur choked on his own spit.

“That’s not a _date_ ,” André said, almost indignant.  “That doesn’t count!”

“It does too count,” Lafayette protested.  “I had to beg permission!  They  sat me down and we had a discussion!”

Laurens covered his face momentarily with his hand.

“All right,” McHenry tried, more out of obvious common courtesy than actual belief that Lafayette could say anything helpful, “what happened after that?”

“He had to turn in notes.”

“The chauffeur?”

“Of course.”

“I’m getting a drink.”  Gouverneur stood up abruptly, still coughing.  “ _Jesus_.”

Laurens couldn’t help himself.  “The chauffeur had to turn in notes about what you two did on your… date?”

“He always had to take notes on what happened while he was on the clock,” Lafayette said, sounding genuinely puzzled about the reaction he was getting.  “It was just an extension of that.  We were still quite young.  I did not think it was strange!”

“It’s kind of strange,” McHenry told him.

Lafayette looked a little deflated.  “John,” he said, turning around to Laurens.  “John, call Alexander and make him agree with me.”

“I don’t think he’s going to agree with you,” Laurens said.  “In fact, out of all of us I think he will agree with you the least.”

“He’s my friend, so he has to agree with me.”

“You know that’s not true.  Have you even met him?”  Laurens dialed anyway, then, awkward under the eyes of everyone else, handed the phone to Lafayette.  “You talk to him.”

“Gladly.”  Lafayette took the phone and stood automatically, beginning to pace the area as soon as Hamilton picked up.  “Alexander!  No, it’s me, not John.”

Laurens sighed and took his seat back on the floor.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I guess after I first—You know, with Alex, we just kept doing that for a while?  So maybe you’re already set and you don’t even need to do anything.”

“First what?”  Gouverneur came back with a steaming mug.

Lafayette covered the bottom of the phone.  “Is there still more cider?”

“Like half a pot.”

Lafayette made a relieved sound and went back to the call.

“First what?”  Gouverneur repeated.

“Kissed him,” Laurens said, trying not to feel so on edge but not sure how he conversation was about to go.

Gouverneur scoffed lightly and took a sip.  “I thought you were going to say something else.  Wasn’t he naked?  He said he was in the shower.”

Laurens felt himself turning red.  “He wasn’t literally in the shower.  He had just _come_ from the shower.”

“Alexander is with Burr,” Lafayette said.  “Burr says to surprise her with a present the next time you see her.”  He listened to the voice on the phone and nodded, then repeated back to the others.  “But be nonchalant about it and act like you just happened to see it and thought of her.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“He doesn’t know what she likes,” Lafayette said into the phone, turning away.  “I know,” he agreed, “he should have done his research first too.”

Laurens watched as McHenry shot a scowl at the back of Lafayette’s head.

“Look,” Laurens said, not really sure where he was going with it but trying to distract McHenry.  “The thing is that you’re both here, right?  And you were here last night, too, and it doesn’t seem like she wants you to get out.”

McHenry nodded.

“So,” Laurens paused.  “If it was me,” he said, genuinely trying to think about how he would feel if Eliza had been replaced in this situation by Hamilton, “I’d just go talk to her.  This is a good time for that.  See if she wants help setting things up or studying or something.  Even if you don’t get to talk to her on her own today, you can always call her later.”

“It’ll look better on her end if you’ve been interacting with her at this,” André confirmed.  “Laurens is right.”

McHenry hesitated.  “Yeah.”  He got up.  “All right.  I’ll catch you guys later.”

Gouverneur gave him a thumbs up as he walked away, then turned back to Laurens.  “Seriously,” he said, “you just kissed?  The way he tells it, I always assumed he at least gave you a handy.”


	222. Hamilton Is Sometimes Helpful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What It Says on the Tin

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, hands in pockets, scarf open and forgotten around his neck.  “So I forgot to pick you up this morning.  That’s true.  But you know what else is _also_ true, Burr?”  He took one hand out to jab at Burr’s chest.  “I came back to campus to walk you over.”  He put his hand back in his pocket.  “I could’ve just send you the address and told you to map it.  But I didn’t.  Hah.”

“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

“Not verbally.  Your eyes,” Hamilton said, hands out of his pockets again, flat on either side of his face, palms in, tipping up towards the sky and then across at the sidewalk they were walking along, almost as if they were flares for a plane.  He squinted.  “I could see it.  You’re not as completely unreadable as you like to think you are, you know.  I could tell you were judging me.”

Burr shrugged.  “You said it, not me.”

“Besides, you wanted to come.  You were waiting.  You’re way too color-coordinated to have not cared about going.”  Hamilton looked Burr over.  “Coat and shoes, that’s whatever, both black anyway.  But your pants match your scarf and they both offset your jacket.  I’m onto you.”

“I buy things that look good together.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, sounding surprisingly genuine.  “I should start doing that.”

Burr snorted, barely able to hold back the laugh.

Hamilton grinned.  “Okay.”  He rubbed his hands together.  “So.  When I left people were still arriving, so you’re still just fashionably late.  But three of Eliza’s friends were there already and Lafayette knows at least one of them if you want an introduction.  She’s pretty cute,” he added, gesturing vaguely as he talked.  “Kind of this cute… trendy… bob thing going on.  Lafayette may have dyed it by the time we get back, you never know with that guy.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be studying?”

“Yeah.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “But, you know.  Lafayette.”

“I don’t actually know Lafayette.  I’ve only met him a handful of times.”

“Then you know Lafayette.  As much as he lets most people know him, anyway.  The point was that if you want I can give him a head’s up to talk you up to the girls.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Because you’re so smooth that you don’t need a wingman or because you’re too hung up on unattainable cougars?”

“Because I want to study,” Burr said, impossibly dryly.

Hamilton nodded to himself and kept walking without looking at Burr.  “The latter.”

Burr scoffed but did not argue.

“I’m not saying anything—”

“That is demonstrably untrue.”

“—but you’re a legal adult.  You should really think about hitting her up after graduation.  What’s the worst that could go wrong?”

“I’d rather not pull at that thread, Alexander.”

“Hey,” Hamilton said.  “I’m dating a guy whose father is on the voting record for screwing me over from, like, four different demographics.  And he’s got massive daddy issues and is obviously desperate for his approval, so when it comes to things going potentially wrong, I’m pretty good proof that sometimes the universe is kind or distracted enough to look the other way.  Senator Laurens was even front row at the game yesterday,” Hamilton went on.  “And you know what I did?  I wandered down onto the field and kissed his son right there in front of everybody.”  Hamilton turned around, still walking, and put his hands out in a dramatic shrug.  “Sometimes when things could go wrong, they just don’t.”

“How are you so sure of that?”

“John had breakfast with him this morning.”  Hamilton slipped on a patch of wet sidewalk and threw both his arms out to steady himself.  He turned back around to look where he was going.  “Trust me, if anything bad came out of that there’s no way I’d have the time to go collect you for some party.”

“That,” Burr said, “I do believe.”

“ _I do believe_ ,” Hamilton said, making his voice high and mocking him with a fake accent.  “You sound like a fuckin’ Southern belle.”

“You’re taking it all out of context.”

“ _I do declare_ ,” Hamilton continued, “ _that scoundrel is distorting my words.  Lord have mercy_.”  He paused.  “Do they say that?”

“I don’t know, I’m from New York.”

“I thought you were supposed to be cultured.”

“You’re the one actually from the South, Alexander.”

“Yeah, geographically, not regionally.  Besides, I bet you don’t know any stereotypes about the Virgin Islands.  At least not any that you’ll say because they’re probably all racist.”

Burr sighed.

“We have a lot of cruise liners,” Hamilton said, after a brief silence in which he was half-expecting Burr to surprise him by offering up something he couldn’t refute.  “So you can just toss something out about tourists and how obnoxious they are.  That’s a tip,” he added.  “In case you ever get cornered like that again.”

“Somehow I don’t see that happening.”

“I dunno.  I might do it.”

“Fair point.”  Burr studied the street signs they were approaching.  “Do we turn here?”

“Yup.”  Hamilton cracked a grin.  “You definitely mapped it yourself.  And went over it.”

“I didn’t trust you not to get us lost.”

“Come on, I know the way.”  They turned at the corner and Hamilton waved one hand down the street of narrow but well-maintained townhouses marching past them.  “They’re the ones right past that one with the two trees out front.  You see it?  Steps going up.”  His hand tipped up in front of them with his words.  “It’s three floors,” Hamilton went on, not quite able to keep himself from talking about the wealth represented while he was still outdoors, not now that it was in sight again.  “And I’m pretty sure at least one more below ground.  Proper floor below ground, not just a shitty crawlspace.  They don’t have an elevator—which is good, you don’t need one on the inside, that’s just tacky—but you should see their staircase.  I don’t know how to date these things but it looks old.  Original moldings or whatever crap you hear people say on those home improvement shows.  We’re hanging out down on the first floor, there’s a kitchen and then like… a living room and a half?  Kind of L-shaped.  You’ll see.  They have a piano,” he added, sounding softly in awe.  “I mean, none of it’s as super sized as what John’s going home to, but it doesn’t have that edging-on-McMansion vibe, if you know what I mean.”

“Mid-1800s,” Burr said, looking the townhouse over as they approached.

Hamilton snorted.  “Of course you can tell.  Well, just find me later and let me know if that staircase is a later addition.  I’m curious.”  He went up the few steps before Burr and rang the bell.  The door opened a moment later, Angelica letting him in.

“I saw you two coming up the street.”

“Yeah?  Trying to spy on our private conversation?”  Hamilton scraped off his shoes on the mat and entered.  “Very sneaky.  You know Aaron Burr.”  He motioned behind him as Burr cleaned off his shoes as well.

“You have a lovely home,” Burr said, hand out to shake as he walked in.  “Gorgeous façade.”

Angelica took it, visibly a little wary at his choice to use it.  “Thank you.  Alexander,” she said, “there’re hot drinks in the kitchen if you two want to warm up.”

“Thanks.”  Hamilton was already taking off his coat.  “Come on, Burr, I’ll show you where to dump all this.”

“The music choice is very festive.”

“Hm?  Yeah, I’ll tell Lafayette you approve.   Watch the mistletoe, though.”  Hamilton leaned comically to the side as they passed under it, as if that negated any supposed magnetic pull it possessed.  “I didn’t even get to make use of that with John yet, so I’m not letting you wreck that for me.”

“Duly noted.”

“There’s a coat rack by the door but with so many people we’re just saving time and putting everything in here,” Hamilton explained, opening the door to a larger closet where multiple coats and assorted pieces of winter wear were already stored.  “Here.”  He passed him a hanger.  “Don’t trade your stuff up when you leave.  Although,” he added, “if you were going to do that, I’d suggest nicking Lafayette’s coat.  That’s the only one I know the price tag on and even with depreciation it’s still pretty killer.”

“I’m not coming to your friends’ party just to steal from people.”

“I know, I know, don’t take me so seriously all of the time.  Jeez.”  Hamilton led Burr back to the noise of the living room and scanned the area.  “I think they got rid of the weed smell before it got into the upholstery.”

“What?”

“Not important.  Look, there’s John.”  Hamilton spotted him, sitting facing the other way, around the corner.  “Let’s study there.”

“Are we actually going to study or are you going to make me watch while you show off how long you can hold your breath?”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, “I’ve got a lot of work to do.  I keep telling people.”

“And how much have you actually gotten done?”

“That’s not fair, I had to leave to get you.  J.,” Hamilton said, dropping to the ground and sliding up next to him.  He pressed against him and put his hand on his thigh.  “Tell the nonbeliever that I’ve got work to do.”

“Heavy innuendo,” Gouverneur said.  Hamilton shushed him.  “Aaron Burr.”  He raised his hand in a brief hello.  “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Apparently Alexander and I are friends again.”  Burr sat on the couch.  “Or did he not tell you?”

“I dunno.  He talks a lot.  I don’t always catch all of it.”

“What are you doing?”  Hamilton asked, tipping his head to the side and watching as Laurens typed on his phone.  “You’re not texting your dad, are you?”

“No.  Just giving better directions.  I invited a couple other guys from the team to come.”

“Tallmadge?”

“And Tench and Hays.”

Hamilton tipped his head the other way.  “I don’t know that one.”

“He’s the guy who scored the first touchdown yesterday.”

“Oh.”  Hamilton relaxed.  “I guess I should’ve remembered the name.  The announcer only said it like a dozen times.  Where’s Lafayette?”

Laurens looked around.  “He went off with André somewhere.  I thought they were coming back.  I hope they’re not bothering McHenry.  He’s supposed to be talking to Eliza,” Laurens explained.

Hamilton looked away, pushing aside the whatever it was that was threatening to bite at the inside of his chest.  “Cool, cool.  Whatever.”  He squeezed Laurens’ leg and got up.  “I’m getting a drink.  Do you want anything?  I’ll get to studying when I get back.”  He left Laurens at the table and headed towards the kitchen, turning sideways to slip past a group of people he did not know who were deep into an argument about whether their final was cumulative or not.

“Where’d you go?”

“Hey, Peggy.  Nice to see you, too.”  Hamilton walked past where she was seated on the kitchen island.  “There is still cider, right?  That was the one thing I wanted.”  He took a mug out of the dish rack and eyed it.  “Guess this is okay.”  He used the ladle in the sink to fill it.  “So what’s up?”

Peggy shrugged.  “Not much.”

“Why’re you hiding in here instead of out—”  Hamilton indicated the rest of the floor with a jerk of his head.  “—there.”

Peggy glared at the door, not quite convincingly.  “Ugh.”

“Is it the André thing?  It’s really not that bad.”

Peggy shrugged.  “Whatever.”

“No, seriously.”  Hamilton put his mug down carefully and then hopped up next to her.  “Everyone goes through an embarrassing phase like that.  Don’t tell me you don't have dirt on your sisters.”

“They’re older than me so they remember all of that better.  Besides,” Peggy added, finding her sense of sisterly solidarity, “I wouldn’t rat them out to you.”

“Worth a shot.”  He took a drink.  “This is probably way more embarrassing for André than for you,” he said.  “No, seriously.  No one’s got videos of _you_ dancing around like some kind of vampire puppet.”

Peggy snorted.

“I’m pretty sure there’s a reason why even John is only finding out about this this semester.  If you go back out there he’s definitely not going to be bringing it up.”

“Eliza and Angelica are there.”

“Eliza’s busy being embarrassing herself,” Hamilton said.  “And Angelica and I actually do want to get work done, so she’ll probably be distracted too.  Look,” he said.  “If they get weird, let me know and I’ll go ask them to proof read stuff for me.  I’ve got an essay that’s the roughest draft known to man right now, that’ll take up all their spare time.”

“Yeah,” Peggy said.  “Okay.”  She hesitated.  “Um, you, um, you dated people before John.  Right?”

“Thousands.”

She gave him a skeptical look.  He held her gaze innocently.

“…Right.  You don’t, like, think about them still or anything, do you?”

“I dunno.”  Hamilton turned his mug in his hands so he could better soak up the warmth and shrugged.  “Not really.  Occasionally.  But just stuff like, ‘she used to like that TV show I’m seeing an ad for’, stuff like that.  Nothing real.  Why?”

“No reason.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Hamilton said.  “Or, well, it doesn’t mean anything bad.  Just that I had those experiences in the past.”  He looked over at her but she was watching her feet kick against the side of the island.  “It’s not like I’m comparing him to them.  I guess I would, if I didn’t really like him, but I do, so there’s no need.”

“Do you like…  Miss girls?”

“Jesus, you and Lafayette both.  You know,” Hamilton said, “this is how I can tell that you’re both at one end of the spectrum or the other.  You know what I miss?  Sometimes I miss not having a blanket hog in my bed, that’s what I miss.  We should really divide the world up like that, that’s the new binary.”  The mug was down on the countertop between them and he gestured two distinct spaces with his hands in the air.  “Half of us go in the pile of people who _don’t_ steal the sheets and the other half go in the pile that _do_.  That’s it, those are the new groupings.  When you get hitched you get a bunch of tacky presents embossed with BT and Not BT.  That’s ‘blanket thief,’” he clarified.  “I’m not entirely set on that name but it’s what we’re working with here.”

Peggy laughed, tucking her hands under her legs.  Hamilton grinned.

“Anyway.  It’s not like I’d seriously trade him in for someone else with the common courtesy to not steal the warmth from me while I sleep.  I like other stuff about him too much.”

Peggy nodded.

“…You’re making me think I need to go talk to Aglae, though,” Hamilton said, looking over his shoulder at the kitchen door.  “It sounds like she’s got some fun stories.”

“She had a sugar daddy.”

“Seriously?”  Hamilton turned quickly back to Peggy.  “Like, a real one?”

Peggy nodded.

Hamilton whistled.  “What happened there?”

“I don’t know.  She called it off with him just after Halloween.”

Hamilton bit back a laugh, leaning forward a little and rocking on the edge of the island.  “You’re a dork.  She broke it off with him because she met some cutie at a Halloween party.  If you’re going to keep unnecessarily moping in here at least bring in some shit to study.”  He hopped off the ledge and picked up his mug.  “I’m going to go back out there.  Want to come with?”

Peggy climbed down off the counter.  “Yeah,” she said.  “I think so.”


	223. Under the Wing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette Is Trying Very Hard to Be Helpful Too

Lafayette looked over his shoulder at the front door, distracted from his conversation with André in French by the noise of more people arriving.  His face lit up and he waved brightly, pleased to recognize Tench and Tallmadge and another, he assumed, student at the university.

He got up from his seat at the bottom of the steps, catching tinsel on his sleeve from the railing as he did so.

“You found us!  Would you like breakfast?  There are leftovers.”

“Uh,” Tench said, looking at André, still seated on the stairs and quietly waving his hands no.  “I think we’re good.”

Lafayette deflated slightly, then perked back up.  “We have other things as well,” he said.  “There are candies and popcorn and many drinks.”

“Cool.”  Tench unzipped his coat and clumsily took his backpack off.  “Uh, where should…?”

“I’ll show you.”  Lafayette patted him on the back as he led them around to the closet.  “My name is Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier,” he told the third member of their party.  “But you may call me Lafayette.”  He held out his hand and after a brief, and frankly to be expected, pause it was taken.

“Will Hays.  Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Lafayette replied cheerfully, taking it upon himself to keep the conversation running smoothly until everyone was integrated properly into the party.  He remembered how Hamilton had referred to him as a golden retriever before and envisioned himself putting his hand over Hamilton’s mouth and pushing him away.  He was just trying to be friendly, jeez.  “Are you on the team as well?”  He looked Hays over with a glance—about as tall as Tench with shoulder-length brown hair, fluffing out from the weather and partially pinned back.

Hays looked uncomfortable and shrugged, one hand shooting up to touch the fake-copper bobby pin.  “Yeah.  Laurens invited me.”

“Ah, a friend of John Laurens,” Lafayette said with an encouraging nod.  “I’m his roommate.”

“Lafayette’s going to rush with you next year,” Tallmadge told Hays.  “He was asking around about Greek life.”

“Do they have fraternities in France?”  Tench asked.

“There was one created in 2003,” Lafayette answered promptly.  “It has houses in France as well as Quebec.  And a colony in Belgium, but I’m not quite sure what that means.”

“Neat.  Is it big?”

“Wikipedia says that there are currently four active chapters.”

Tallmadge laughed.

“I looked it up,” Lafayette explained, making sure to include Hays as he looked from one of them to the other.  “Laurens asked me earlier.”

“Cool.”  Tench took a hanger from the closet once Lafayette opened the door and passed two more to the others  “Is McHenry here yet?  We were just saying that we should have messaged him first.”

Lafayette nodded and forced himself not to say anything.  “He’s here.  Shall we find him?”

“Can we find coffee first?”  Tench asked.  “Or—I don’t know, what do they have?”

“There is definitely coffee,” Lafayette said, remembering McHenry drinking it that morning.  “The kitchen is this way.”  He guided them towards it and fell into step alongside Hays as best he could while still trying to neatly weave through people.  “Will—or do you go by Hays?  I’m never sure.  That one is Tallmadge but the other is Tench…”  He pointed to both of them, one after the other, and then looked back, expression open.

“Hays is good.”

“All right,” Lafayette said with a nod.  “I didn't know if it was a team thing.  Maybe I can ask you,” he went on, hand briefly to his mouth.  “‘McHenry’?  ‘James’?  Does he have a preference?”

“Uh…”

“Dude, stop scaring the freshman.”  Tallmadge glanced back at them as they went into the kitchen.  “He’s a lot to take in,” he assured Hays, “but he’s a nice guy.  Just very talkative.”

“It’s okay.”

“See?”  Lafayette put his hand on Hays’ back.  “He said it’s fine.”

Tallmadge shrugged.  “Do you know where the mugs are?”

“Ah, right…”  Lafayette moved around the kitchen, getting out four mugs and then quickly putting one back once he remembered that he already had one, somewhere.  “Do you all want coffee?  There is also hot chocolate and cider and—I suppose there is water.”

“Coffee’s fine,” said Tallmadge.  He turned to Hays, who just nodded and went back to looking around the kitchen curiously.

“This is all right, isn’t it?”  Tench asked.  “I mean, we don’t want to impose.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine.  I helped Angelica set this up.  I’m just continuing to co-host.”  Lafayette set about making three cups of coffee, one after the over.  He leaned against the counter as he waited.  “What are you all studying today?”

“I have an electrical engineering final.”  Tench put his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, pulling his shoulders back.  “So that’s mostly what I want to focus on.”

“History.”

Lafayette nodded and looked at Hays.

“I have a short answer final for this class I’m in on early American folklore.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting,” Lafayette said encouragingly.  “What sort of things do you cover?”  He felt distinctly like he was trying to make nice with a small child and hoped that he wasn’t coming off as condescending.

“What kinds of stories were popular and their tropes and what they said about people at the time,” Hays said, touching the pins again as if uncertain that they would stay put.  “Like, why is it important that people made up stories about things.”

“Very interesting,” Lafayette said, agreeing with his previous statement.  He handed Hays the first finished mug.  “I’m not sure where McHenry is right now, but I left Laurens at the coffee table.”

Hays accepted the mug and nodded and didn’t leave.

Lafayette felt, for a fleeting second, socially off of his footing, and fiddled with one of his earrings.  “Oh,” he said, finding something that he could talk about and feeling relief that it did not take any longer.  “Have any of you been to California before?  I’m going to be there for a few days with Adrienne.”

“You’re going on a trip?”

Lafayette nodded.  “We are going to Phoenix and LA and Hawaii and Seattle and—Kansas City, I think.”

Tallmadge gave him a quizzical look.  “That’s an… interesting selection.  Layover?”

“No,” Lafayette said with determination.  “I wanted to see it.  I picked it specifically.  It is just as interesting and worthy of tourism as those others.”

“All right.”

“But I need something to do in California besides go to Disneyland and neither of us can drive so it should still be in LA.”

“I don’t think you really want to drive in LA anyway.”

“Well, they won’t let me.”

“You could go see the Hollywood sign or the Walk of Fame,” Tench offered.  “That’s pretty iconic.”

“I went there as a kid with my family and the zoo was pretty neat,” Tallmadge added.

Lafayette took down notes in his chat with Adrienne, sending the ideas straight to her one after the other.  “Zoo, Hollywood…  Can you go right to the sign?”  He pulled up a search online.  “Oh, you can.”  He nodded, pleased, at his phone.

“There’s a lot of good food, too.  Actually, I guess that’s true of all of those places,” Tallmadge said.  “Kansas City is supposed to have good ribs.”

“Ah, is it?”  Lafayette typed quickly.  “And those aren’t seasonal?”

“Ribs?”  Tallmadge shook his head.  “No, I don’t think so.”  He looked at Tench, who shrugged.  “I don’t see why they would be.”

“Sometimes foods are.”

"I guess.”

“Where are you from?”  Lafayette asked Hays, aware that once again he was automatically changing the timbre of his voice as he tried to encourage the conversation along.

“Trenton.”

“Ah, New Jersey.”  Lafayette nodded.  “I have been there.  I’m trying to visit all the states,” he explained, handing off the next mug of coffee to Tench.  “So far I have been to everything between South Carolina and Vermont.  Mostly.  And also Illinois.”

Hays gave him a confused look.  “Why Illinois?”

“I wanted to see the eclipse,” Lafayette said, eager to be engaging more.  “So I flew out to watch it.  Many of the other states I have been to I was only really passing through.  I properly visited Vermont and Massachusetts and South Carolina.  Oh, and New York,” he added.  “I’m technically just visiting here too.  Do you think it counts as visiting if I didn’t leave the road and or train tracks?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Tench said.  “That’s only half-credit.”

Lafayette clicked his tongue.  “That’s what Aglae said.  That’s still five,” he said, reasoning with himself more than with the others.  “That is one-tenth.  And I’m going to double that over break.  That’s one-fifth.  So I’m doing quite well.”

“Jersey is easy to get to,” Tench said.  “You could check that one off, too.”

"I thought about going the last time Adrienne was in town,” Lafayette admitted, “but I didn’t want to take a boat.”

“You could—Oh, I guess you can’t drive.”  Tench leaned against the kitchen island.  “Can you drive in France?”

“No.”  Lafayette shrugged.  “It never seemed to be important.”

“I guess when I picture a Frenchman it’s a guy on a moped,” Tench said.  He glanced at Tallmadge.  “With a beret.”

“And a baguette.”

“Exactly.”  He motioned between them with one finger.  “You get it.”

The door to the kitchen opened, letting in both louder music and conversation from outside as well as Eliza and McHenry, halfway through a teasing argument.

“—I’m just saying, if you were taller maybe you wouldn’t _need_ the stool—”  McHenry cut himself off as soon as he saw the others and gave a short embarrassed nod, his hand grasping his opposite arm, just above the elbow, as if doing so would hide his old clothes.  “Hey, I didn’t hear you guys come in.”

“They just got here,” Lafayette said, sparing him the pain of anything longer than the one beat of silence.  “We’re making coffee.  I hope that is all right?”

“Of course,” Eliza said, weaving through them to stand next to him.  “Thank you for getting that for them.  Do you need cream or sugar?  Oh,” she said, her eyes falling on Hays.  She held out her hand politely.  “I’m Eliza Schuyler.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Lafayette watched and wondered if there was again just a moment’s hesitation before Hays accepted her hand.  “Hays.”

“Will’s on the team with us,” Tench said.  “Your house is beautiful, by the way.”

Eliza gave a short laugh.  “Thank you.  What do you play?”  She asked Hays.

Lafayette let Eliza take over the smalltalk for the moment and opened the refrigerator door.  He found a small carton of half and half and a taller bottle of non-dairy hazelnut-flavored soy creamer.  He stared blankly at them, wondering if he should offer both and faintly amused at how he imagined Hamilton would react if he tried to push the second one off on him.  He took both of them off of the shelf and closed the door.  As he waited for a suitable lull to reinsert himself into the conversation, he noticed McHenry studying Hays carefully.  After a couple of seconds, McHenry glanced at him, saw that he was being observed, and looked immediately away from both of them as if that did anything other than confirm that he had been caught at something.

Tallmadge was talking, explaining the commute they had taken and their debate between the bus and the subway, and Lafayette interrupted as Hays took a drink from the mug.

“Ah, pardon me.”  He held up the two creamers.  “We have options.”  He turned from Hays to Tench.  “Would you like any?”

“Sure,” Tench said.  “Thanks.”  He took the hazelnut one.  “More festive, right?”  He looked to Eliza for confirmation and when she nodded he popped the lid and poured a little into his mug.  “Do you want?”  He held the creamer out to Hays.

“Thanks.”  Hays juggled the mug and the bottle, eventually putting the coffee down on the island in order to pour the creamer in.  “Thank you,” Hays repeated, handing the bottle back to Lafayette.

“Not at all.”  He turned to Tallmadge, who took the same bottle from him and held onto it as he waited for his coffee to finish.  “Alexander would not approve,” Lafayette commented, putting the half and half away.  “But then, I think that is just because he is a snob about things sometimes.”

“I thought it would be because it would be filling up space that could have been more coffee instead.”

Lafayette nodded at Eliza.  “That too.  Oh,” he said, eyes lighting up, “since he is here and we both know him, I have a very fun game for you.”  Lafayette handed Tallmadge the final mug of coffee.  “I think you will pick up on it very quickly.  Shall we go find him?”  He looked at McHenry.  “Were you busy?”

“Hm?”  McHenry hadn’t been paying attention.  He quickly brought his gaze back to Lafayette.  “—No,” he said, catching back up to where the conversation had been.  “Should we find him?”

“That’s what I just suggested,” Lafayette said, not quite complaining as he shepherded them out of the kitchen.  “Come,” he said to Hays at the back of the group, “you can come too.”  He put his hand on Hays’ elbow as a gentle urging and noticed in that moment that there was a raspberry-tinted print in a half moon at the rim of the white mug.  He paused.  Hays smeared it off, finger and thumb on either side of the rim.  Lafayette looked up and they were making eye contact and he kept talking, the words flowing smoothly and without trouble.  “Did you meet Alexander when he went down to the field yesterday?  We have a game where we see who can make him go off on a tangent for the longest,” he said.  “I’m the current champion but André has done quite well.  My record is almost twenty minutes,” he went on, turning away to guide them into the living room.  The others had continued on ahead, but McHenry was holding the door for them and once again watching closely.  Lafayette saw his eyes flick from Hays’ hand to his own to their faces and he felt an unexpected and uneasy pulse of nerves.  He slung his arm over Hays’ shoulders in a motion of—hopefully unnecessary, he thought—defiant solidarity.  “I will teach you how to win,” he said reassuringly.  “Or if you want we can leave them to their own devices once I set them up and find you an actual place to study.  I think I’m going to dye a Miss Kitty’s hair in the bathroom later,” he went on, tipping his head just an inch to the side to indicate his own colorful hair, “if you would like the other half of her box dye I can pencil you in after her.”

As they passed him, Lafayette caught a glimpse of McHenry’s face, eyes slightly narrowed behind his glasses and features just drawn enough to indicate something other than neutral observation.  Lafayette flicked the fingers of his free hand out and casually examined them.

“Perhaps I will even see if Peggy or Aglae will do my nails.  Now is the time to be festive, don’t you think?  I think it is quite, how do you say, macho.”

“Lafayette—”

“You can come too,” Lafayette said courteously to McHenry.  “If you don’t mind that sort of thing.”

McHenry sounded mildly exasperated but looked like he was trying to bite back a laugh.  “Right.  Uh, come on, you’re supposed to show us this game first.  Alexander’s pretty cool,” he said to Hays, almost coaxing both of them over to the coffee table the others were at.  “He’s from the Virgin Islands originally and he’s friends with Eliza and her sisters, that’s how the rest of us ended up knowing them.”

“I knew Peggy from class,” Lafayette pointed out, still carefully monitoring the situation.

“Sorry.  All right, apart from Lafayette.”

“You’re wearing the same shirt as last night,” Hays abruptly pointed out.  “What, did you get lucky or something?”

This jarred a little with what Lafayette had been trying to protect and if that kind of mental surprise corresponded with physical clumsiness he would have tripped into the wall.  As it was, he bumped into the back of Kitty’s chair and apologized, missing the next part of the conversation as he did so and kicking himself for it.

“Yeah, I guess,” Hays was saying when Lafayette tuned back in.  “It’s not like you’ve never done that before, right?”

McHenry laughed.  Lafayette wished he had the full context for the laughing.

“No way, I did _that_ when I was like fourteen.”

Lafayette couldn’t help himself.  “Did what?”

“A gentleman does not kiss and tell,” Hays said on McHenry's behalf, almost aloof.

Lafayette looked to McHenry.  “Did what?”  He repeated.  “We are all gentlemen here, it cancels out.”

“Nah,” McHenry said with a shake of his head.  “You’re the only one, Lafayette.  Did he tell you that he’s actually titled?”  He asked Hays.  “He’s got a castle.”

“I’m just a marquis—”  Lafayette began, then stopped.  “…Oh, that makes it sound worse.”


	224. Odd Man Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No One Will Tell Lafayette Anything

“Jean Baptiste Point du Sable,” Hamilton said, sitting between Laurens’ legs and leaning back against him as Laurens himself leaned against the front of the sofa, alternating between toying with his hair and turning pages in his notebook.  “Okay, picture this.  We’re talking 1779, arrested by the British army in North America.  You got it?  You’re already wrong.”  He squeezed Laurens’ leg, just above his knee, as he talked.  “Point du Sable was the first permanent resident of Chicago, so you need to pack up and move that background like, eight, nine hundred miles west.”

“How did you know that we were thinking that this took place in New England?”  Lafayette asked.

“Weren’t you?”

No one argued otherwise and Lafayette looked around the low table, miffed, but fell silent.

“So he’s arrested by the British as a rebel spy, basically, and he ends up later moving downriver to St. Charles, Missouri.”

“I’m going there,” Lafayette said brightly to Eliza, seated on the ground next to him.  She patted his hand.

“Guy with a name like that, we can assume that he came from French territory, right?”  Hamilton continued.  “Especially since he’s living in Chicago and moving along the river.”  He paused, but no one ventured a guess.  “French territory in Canada is pretty close,” he prompted.

“Quebec?”

“Wrong again.  This guy actually moved up north from Louisiana.”

“I don’t think that makes a very big difference in how I am picturing this,” Lafayette said.  “I have never been to either.”

“Okay, but there’s this.”  Hamilton leaned forward a little, talking with his hands.  “Louisiana’s not this cut off piece of land on the gulf, the coast is heavily tied into the trade and migration patterns of the Greater Caribbean.  It’s all—there are goods and peoples traveling back and forth across that whole area, the ocean’s not a _wall_ ,” he said, “it’s a _freeway_.  And cities on the coast like New Orleans, for example, they’re points of entry.  They’re contested spaces.  Again, just talking about New Orleans, that city changed hands four times between its founding and Point du Sable’s death in the early nineteenth century.  1799, it was part of the Spanish Empire, and they of course were allied with us, so that helps to explain some of the British suspicion.  That was a fairly recent transaction, though, it only got ceded to Spain in, uh, 17—1760s, sometime in there.”  He waved one hand, tipping it from side to side.  “So we’re talking a metropolitan,” he said, shifting and sitting on his knees.  “In the sense of great diversity of peoples, lots of political, uh, and economic contact with other parts of the globe.  Because that’s the thing,” he went on, one hand on Laurens’ leg, “when we’re saying ‘France’ and ‘Spain,’ it’s not just white guys up in Europe—in Spain in particular, that’s not a _white_ —seven hundred years of Arabic rule—that’s not—”  He shook his head, going too fast even for himself.  “They’re _empires_ ,” he said.  “And, kind of by default, they’ve got a lot of different kinds of people in them.  1779 is before the mass migrations from Haiti, but that region is already multicultural, and not just in the sense that you’ve got your white boss up in the big house on the hill and Black and brown masses working for him.  Point du Sable was Black,” Hamilton said, “probably originally from Haiti.  And he moved himself up to Chicago, frickin’ _founded_ the place, married a Potawatomi woman, was educated, and worked as a trader.  He was still interconnected with all these other people—Native, British, whatever—all throughout that region.”  Hamilton intermeshed his fingers, then drew them slowly apart.  “He owned _art_ ,” he said, sounding half-awed.  “He put it up in his house.”

A quiet hung around the table, placing it at a strange angle to the chatter throughout the first floor of the house and the festive Christmas music.”

“I think we learned about him in school,” Tallmadge finally said.  “I recognize his name.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton sat back down properly, stretching his legs out under the table.  The spell was broken and he leaned back against Laurens again, slowly stroking his thigh.  “That’s cool.”

Laurens wove his fingers through his ponytail again and Hamilton tipped his head against his hand.

“Five minutes,” Tench said to Lafayette, disappointed.

Lafayette hurriedly motioned him to keep his voice down.

“What was that?”

“Until the food is ready,” Lafayette said quickly.  “We’re, uh, we are reheating the pancakes.”

“Pass,” Hamilton said.  “I need to study.”

Lafayette noted that he had no books or notes out in front of him, but as Hamilton was looking up at Laurens and stroking the side of his face, he decided not to say anything.

“What are you working on, babe?”

That got Laurens’ attention and he tensed slightly in surprise and embarrassment.  “‘Babe’?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d see if I could freak you out in front of your friends.”  Hamilton pushed away from him and turned to sit facing the side.  He asked again, “What are you working on?”

“French notes.”

“I can help you study,” Lafayette offered.  “If you would like.  I am good at French.”

“I know you are,” Laurens said.  “But you weren’t in class and you didn’t do the reading and we’re doing essays based off of those.”

“You should go over it with André,” Hamilton said.  “Compare outlines or something.”

“Yeah.  I’ll hunt him down later.”

“Where is André, anyway?”  Hamilton asked, looking around.

“Oh, Mina arrived,” Tench said.  “I think they’re ‘studying’—”  The invisible quotes were very audible in his tone.  “—in the back.”

“That is a very nice nook,” Lafayette said.  “I helped to decorate it.  It’s very comfortable for studying in.  Or—or whatever they are doing.”

Eliza twisted, frowning and unable to see them from where they were seated.

“…I’ll call him,” McHenry said.

“If he’s being inappropriate we can switch the soundtrack to one of his albums,” Lafayette suggested.

Across the table, Hamilton leaned up and said something quietly in Laurens’ ear.  Lafayette couldn’t make it out, but he saw Laurens shift his position with embarrassment, drawing one of his legs up and putting a hand with mock casualness to his mouth.  Lafayette leaned back, his hands on the rug and his weight on them.  He looked to Eliza.  “I miss Adrienne.”

She patted his hand again and stood.  “I’m want to ask my friends about the final we have together.”

“I’ll—”  McHenry started to stand as well, then obviously caught himself and had to quickly change what he was saying.  “—go get my charger.  My laptop’s going to die soon.”  He stood and then hesitated again.  He glanced back over his shoulder, saw that the others were watching him, and was forced to head up the stairs to the second floor under their gaze.

Hamilton snickered and reached over, poking Burr on the couch.

Burr took off his headphones and looked up from his laptop.  “Yes?”

“Did you see that?”

Burr shook his head.

“You’re no fun today.”  Hamilton waved his hand and looked at the others across the table.  “So,” he said, fronting a little to wrap his desire to know what had happened entirely in machismo.  “Did he score?”

Laurens looked up from his notebook, unable and not bothering to try to hide his own interest.  “He didn’t want to say earlier.”

“Suspicious.”  Tench was watching where McHenry had left, his thumb tapping his mouth.  “He obviously stayed the night and it looks like he did so in her room.”

“He slept in her younger sister’s room,” Hays said.

“What?”  Tench turned.  “Did he tell you that?”

Hays nodded.  Lafayette nodded as well.

Tench looked back towards the stairs.  “Still,” he said after a minute.  “She’s really hot,” he added.

“Yeah.”

“Did he tell you if they did anything else?”  Tallmadge asked.

“They sucked face.  He didn’t tell me the details.”

“Let’s ambush him later,” Tench said to Tallmadge.  “We can leave with him and try to get the dirt on the way back to campus.”

“I’m going to find Angelica,” Lafayette said, the idea forming suddenly.  He got to his feet.  “Enjoy your studying,” he said.  “And your…”  He waved his fingers to convey a general and messy sense of ambiguity at Hamilton.  “…Whatever you busy yourself with.”

“Shut it, Lafayette.”

“Hey, Alexander,” Tallmadge said casually.  “My rhetoric class has a final essay where you need to pick a topic and argue both for and against it.  I was thinking of doing gerrymandering, what do you think?” 

Lafayette actually winced in anticipation of how many minutes Tallmadge stood to rack up and wove his way through the downstairs floor of the house on his mission.

He found Angelica talking to Gouverneur at a table by the cheerfully crackling fireplace and he excused himself to the other student whose chair he had to push past in order to lean on their end of the table.

“Angelica,” he began.

“Lafayette,” she cut him off, dropping her conversation with Gouverneur.  “I meant to come get you.  This is my boyfriend.”

For a moment Lafayette didn’t understand, and he did a double take at Gouverneur in confusion.  Then he heard someone clear their throat and he looked up at the third person at their table.

“Oh!”  Lafayette took the hand that was already being offered him.  “Oh, you are JC!”  He felt at a loss for words, not having expected to meet him right then, still wanting to gossip privately with Angelica, and embarrassed at having so completely overlooked him.  “…I like your turtleneck,” he told him after a stumbling silence.  “That is a very nice green.  Forest,” he clarified for himself.  “It is very nice.”

“Lafayette is a clotheshorse,” Angelica said with a flippant air.

Lafayette looked at her blankly, completely unsure if he was being complimented or insulted.  Gouverneur nudged him and gave him a subtle thumbs up.

“Ah,” Lafayette said, giving Gouverneur a relieved nod.  “Yes, thank you.”  He was torn between stealing Angelica away and getting a better feel for JC, but it only lasted a moment.  “May I join you?”

They made room for him, moving books and drinks away from the unused fourth chair.

“What have you been working on?”  Angelica asked.

“Nothing.”  Lafayette dropped into the chair.  “Well, nothing that I will receive a grade on.  I have been very busy otherwise.”

“I’d like to be that relaxed about things,” Gouverneur commented, tipping his head towards Lafayette and looking at the other two.  “He’s living the dream.”

“No,” Lafayette said, “but I will be in a week when Adrienne comes to visit.  Do you have much work to do?”  He asked JC.

“I’m editing the draft of my honor’s thesis.”

“Oh?”  Lafayette asked.  “What are you getting an honors in?”

“History,” he said.

“Economic history,” Angelica clarified, her words bright but very dry.

Lafayette nodded.  “I see.  Is that interesting?”

JC looked at Angelica, obviously in continuation of some old debate.  “It doesn’t matter if it’s interesting, it matters if it’s useful.”

“Yes,” Angelica said, “but he asked if it was interesting.  How useful will it be if no one reads it?”

“I’m very interested in the early American Republic,” Lafayette said, almost as a knee-jerk reaction to the invisible tension at the table.  “I was thinking of getting another major in American Studies?”

“What are you majoring in now?”  JC asked.

“Political Science,” Lafayette said.  “Ah, but against my wishes.”

“Did your parents want you to do that?”

“No, it is a favor to a friend.  It is not important.  You are from England?”

“Suffolk, originally.  Angelica tells me that you are from Paris.”

Lafayette brightened up, flattered and pleased to have been mentioned in conversation without his knowledge.  “I was living in Paris most recently but I am from a small town south of there.  Have you been to France?”

“Of course.  It’s a lovely country.”

“It is, I love it just as much as here but with less novelty.”  Lafayette made the rough shape of France with one hand, spreading his fingers to try to indicate its northern edges.  “If this is Paris,” he said, “this is Chavaniac.  This is where my family is from.”

“Is that south of Lyon?”

“Yes,” Lafayette said eagerly.  “Lyon would be, ah, about there…  Do you know Saint-Étienne?”

“I’ve gone all around that region on vacation.”

Lafayette’s eyes lit up and he edged his seat in.  “Have you?  The next time you are in the country you should come to Chavaniac.  My family can easily put you up, it would not be a problem at all.  In fact, I insist.  If you are ever in the region you must let me know and I will arrange for everything.”

“He’s never offered me this,” Gouverneur remarked to Angelica.  “You?”

“It goes for both of you as well,” Lafayette quickly added.  “What good is a castle if you cannot host your friends in it?”

“Now that is a question I’ve never heard before,” Angelica quipped.  “I don’t suppose there are too many people who have had reason to ask it.”  She pushed her seat back from the table.  “Enjoy your vacation planning.  If we are taking a break from working then I’m going to track down my sister.”

“Ah,” Lafayette said, conflicted once again.  “Wait!”  He hesitated, feeling like he had to actually pull himself away from the magnetic draw of the conversation, then hurried after her.  “Angelica,” he said, catching up to her.  “I actually wanted to talk to you in some privacy.”

“Oh?”  The syllable sounded faintly irritable and Angelica paused and took breath and tried again in a fairer tone.  “About what?”

“I love gossip,” Lafayette began, straight to the point.  “Are Eliza and James dating now?  We are all very confused.”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“So…  So yes?  Or—or no, because he never asked her, but they are doing things that some people think you should only do if you are dating?”

Angelica patted him on the shoulder and didn’t answer.

“Your sister was giving me that same look,” Lafayette complained.  “You should stop taking pity on me and instead tell me what I want to know.”  He caught a glimpse of André across the room past the door to the kitchen and quickly averted his eyes.  “And so—”  He was distracted and couldn’t quite remember how he had been planning on starting his next sentence.  “And so you should…  be… nice.  I was nice to your boyfriend,” he said.  “I did not say anything inappropriate that would get you in trouble.”

“I know.”  Angelica folded her arms, dropping one shoulder in an annoyed slouch.  “You were fine.  He was fine too.”

“I think you were fine as well.”

“I’m sorry,” Angelica said after a beat.  “I’ll be in a better mood after finals.”

“I like you better than him.”

Angelica smiled wanly.

“I would like a snack,” Lafayette decided.  “In case the pancakes did not work out I also brought regular cookies.  Oh, those would have been useful if they _did_ work out.”

Angelica laughed.

“I’m going to get them.  I will pass them out.”

Lafayette left Angelica and opened the door to the kitchen, stopping short in the entrance when McHenry and Hays both looked up from an obviously private conversation, eyes wide with surprise.

“…Hello,” Lafayette tried.  He waved in a slow arc.

McHenry took his arms off of the kitchen island he had been leaning over and stood up straight.  “Hey.”  The word was a little stiff, a little uncomfortable.  “What’s up?”

“I was, ah, getting food.”  Lafayette pointed to his bag.  “Because this is the kitchen.”

“Oh, right.  I just got my charger.”

It was, true to his word, sitting on the island with the cord still wrapped around it.  It also did not answer what they were doing in the kitchen.

Hays moved slowly back towards the counter, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

“All right,” Lafayette said after another pause, in which it became clear that neither of them were going to let him into their conversation.  “I will go back to the coffee table.  With cookies.”  He took the plastic container of cheap store-bought cookies from his bag of ingredients.  “If you would like any?”

“The other guys left,” Hays said finally.  “It’s just Laurens and his boyfriend making out.  Also Tallmadge wants you to know that he got about eight minutes but thinks he deserves a do-over because Laurens found mistletoe under the couch and Alexander got distracted.”

Lafayette made an exasperated noise and looked despondently out the door.  He glanced back over his shoulder.  The other two were clearly waiting for him to leave.

“…Maybe I will keep these for myself and call Adrienne,” he complained under his breath as he left.  “Maybe I have no luck today.”


	225. Two's Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party Crash; Setting the Record Straight

“Did you eat that entire package?”  Aglae sat down next to Lafayette, halfway up the stairs.  “You could have at least asked if I wanted one.”

“Would you like one?”

“I shouldn’t.”  She took one anyway, delicately picking a Christmas tree shaped sprinkle off the thick white frosting and eating it first.  “So what are we doing up here?”  She put the cookie itself carefully on the step next to her.

“Watching the so-called festivities.”  Lafayette broke off a piece of another cookie and gestured with it at the people below them.  “None of it quite went to plan.  I tried,” he said, taking a bite and letting his hand with the remainder of the cookie hang limply on his knee.  “ _C’est la vie_.”

“What’s wrong with the party?”  Aglae asked, frowning a little as she looked it over as well.  “I was having fun.”

“At least someone was.”

She linked her arm through his and leaned against him, getting comfortable.  She picked at the fabric of his sleeve with her free hand as she waited for him to talk.

“I just had a lovely idea of what it would be like,” Lafayette said after a minute.  He shoved the rest of the cookie into his mouth.  “And it was so close,” he said, his words muffled.  He swallowed.  “It would have been better if it was a disaster.”

“Seriously?”

“We could not get authentic mistletoe,” Lafayette said.  “I should have known at that point that it would go all upside down.”

“I think I missed something.  What went wrong?”

“Everything.”  After a dramatic pause, Lafayette continued.  “I can’t connect to the wifi because there are so many people on it already.  André was made into a spectacle and has been too busy with his girlfriend to spend time with me.  You’re with me right now, not with Peggy.  I upset Angelica and none of the boys will tell me what their secrets are and the pancakes were a failure and the kitchen still smells a little.  I don’t know if I need to tell McHenry the secret code from Angelica to date Eliza because no one will fill me in properly on things and Alexander isn’t even getting any studying done which means he’ll be complaining about how he was forced to attend this all week.”

Aglae rubbed his arm sympathetically.

“And I don’t know if I’m still supposed to dye anyone’s hair so I am stuck just waiting in limbo until they decide one way or the other.”  He sighed.  “It’s all very depressing.”

Aglae picked up her cookie and took a thoughtful bite.

“And I bought these on sale and they taste like clay,” Lafayette added, motioning with a short sweep of his hand towards the plastic package.  “It is an insult to my injury.”

“I think they’re good.”

“Americans,” Lafayette muttered under his breath.

Aglae shoved him with the side of her body, her arm still locked with his.

“I think people are enjoying themselves,” she said.  “I am.”

Lafayette shrugged moodily but didn’t argue with her.  He looked down into the room, watching as people sat and talked.  The Christmas music playlist continued peppily in the background.

“Peggy was going to study for your guys’ psychology final.”

“I wasn’t planning on studying.  I didn’t bring my books.  I planned on being too busy keeping everything flowing smoothly to study.”

“You’re not doing that sitting up here.”

“I know.  It’s all a waste anyway and I have clearly given up.”

“You should come help Peggy,” Aglae said firmly.  She stood, dragging Lafayette up with her.  “And bring the cookies.  I was impressed by how much you memorized already at the game yesterday.  You will be very useful.”

“Angelica did say that she thought Peggy should study more,” Lafayette said, slowly winning himself over to the idea that Aglae had presented to him.  “All right,” he said, going down the stairs arm in arm with her.  “It will be helping two sisters out at once, so that is twice as many birds with one stone.”

“That’s the spirit,” Aglae said encouragingly as they stepped out onto the first floor landing again.  She guided him towards where she had left Peggy.  “We wouldn’t be able to do it without you.”

“You’re too kind to me,” Lafayette said, looking down at her.  “I was being very difficult.”

Aglae squeezed his arm.  “I know.”

 

“You wanna meet on campus on Monday?  I need to be there by two, so I was thinking of going down earlier, picking up the copies and shit, and studying for a while.”

“My exam is at ten.”

“I’ll be there by then,” Hamilton assured Angelica.  Laurens made a skeptical face behind his back but didn't say anything.  “I’ll meet you—Were you thinking of cramming in the library or just heading straight to the room?”

“I need to return some books.”

“Cool, cool.”  Hamilton pulled his scarf on and looped it in a loose knot.  “Just give me a call when you’re at the library, I’ll come find you.”

“Sure, Alexander.”  She leaned on the wall, arms crossed and one foot hitched just in front of the other and watched with a fond smile as he struggled to get his fingers into the right holes of his gloves.

“Did I forget my—Shoot,” he turned, looking back into the house.  “My phone.”

“Got it.”  Laurens held it out to him.

“Oh, great.  Thanks.”  Hamilton took it and kissed his cheek.  “Do you have everything?”

“I think so.”

“I can give you two anything you're missing on Monday,” Angelica reminded them.

“Keys, wallet, phone…”  Hamilton put his phone in the pocket of his coat and patted himself down to find the rest of it.  “Yeah, I think we’re good.”  He took Laurens’ hand and waved goodbye cheerfully as they stepped out into the cold.  “Good seeing you guys.  Good studying,” he said, walking down the steps and out onto the sidewalk.  It was still the middle of the afternoon and still light out, but already colder than it had been on way over.  “So,” Hamilton said, once they were headed the right way down the sidewalk, “your dad got you the tickets?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens swung their hands between them, a little playful gesture.  “If you want to come I’ll pay for your seat.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton shook his head.  “I think I’m pretty sorted here.  I got plans with your friends, apparently, and I’m going to be hanging out with the Schuylers.  No guilt.  Unless you spam me with tons of pictures of you hanging out in the sun, then I’m going to guilt trip your ass like hell.”

“It’s not that warm back home in winter.  You were there in November, remember?”

“Better than here, probably.”

There were dry leaves on the sidewalk and they crunched underfoot.  A delivery truck crept slowly by, cars backing up behind it, unable to pass on the parked up street.

“You should see my portfolio submission for art,” Laurens said.  “It’s on display in the studio, I mean,” he backtracked, “no one really comes to see that sort of thing.  It’s not advertised or anything and it’s not an honors class.  But the professor has us put them all out for each other to look at and give feedback on.”

“Hm…  Is André’s work up?  Kidding,” Hamilton said.  He squeezed his hand clumsily through their gloves and grinned at him.  “Yeah, I’d love to see it.  This is the portrait you did of Lafayette, right?  We should take him too.  He’d be real flattered.”

“Actually, I changed it.”

“Really?  When did you do that?”

“Right after Thanksgiving,” Laurens admitted.  “I didn’t tell you.”

“Rude.  Not telling me every single little detail about your life.”

Laurens laughed.

“I guess there was a lot going on,” Hamilton mused.  “Between the captain thing and getting to bang me again…”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I try.”

One of the cars in the line began honking at the truck.  It did not inspire any faster movement.

“You coming back to my place?”  Hamilton asked, looking from the traffic back to Laurens.  “We could hang out for a couple hours before figuring something out for dinner.”

Laurens felt the sprig of plastic mistletoe in his pocket and nodded.  “Sure.  Did you want to study more?”

“Ugh.  I do.  I should have known that I wasn’t going to get anything done there,” Hamilton said, scowling.  “Everyone’s too distracting, always talking to me.  They’re so noisy.  If they’re going to have a study party then they should actually _study_ , you know?”

Laurens briefly weighed the pros and cons to disagreeing with him and then just nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Two or three people,” Hamilton went on, “I can do.  So here’s the new plan.”  He let go of Laurens and clapped his hands together in front of himself.  “We go back to the apartment, we study.  We break for a meal because I’m not so stressed yet that I can’t keep track of that sort of thing.  We study some more.  We fuck?  We fuck,” he said, more decisively.  “Sunday: more of the same.  Monday I go down to campus, do some office work, cram with Angelica, wish her luck on her exam, go see your exhibit, review some more, final.”  He looked at Laurens again.  “Does that sound good?”

“Yeah.  I don’t have anything on Monday.”

“Excellent.  I was thinking of putting off going to look at your stuff until after I’ve got everything in for the semester, kind of as a reward for myself, but I didn’t want to make it sound like I wasn’t actually interested.”  Hamilton nodded to himself, pleased with his decision.  “This is better.  No sense dragging it all out for you and plus I don’t know if you’ll need to collect your stuff by the end of the week.  I’ll just have to not get driven to distraction by how sexy it is that my boyfriend’s an artist,” Hamilton said, emphasizing the teasing lilt to his voice in order to compensate for how much he actually did mean the words.  “Sloppy make out with you right there on the desks.”

“André did that,” Laurens said.

Hamilton laughed.  “What, really?”

“Yeah.  With Mina.  I was finishing stuff up one evening and they were there too.”

“Oh, man.  Was she all over him?  Did you _see_ them today?  I’d say that they need to have a little class except who am I to talk?  Still, though,” Hamilton said, “I kept to second base.  Hands above the belt.  And it’s Lafayette or whoever’s fault for planting mistletoe on the couch.  Obviously there’s going to be kissing.”  He ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip as he remembered.  “Yeah,” he said, distracted, a few seconds later.  “There has to be kissing.”  It was cold out but he could feel the heat rise to his cheeks and he cleared his throat and looked back at the road.  “So, uh, so, how’s your brother?  I meant to tell you to say hi from me.”

“He’s fine.  I think he’s looking forward to winter break.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“There’s this girl in his class that he likes,” Laurens said, deciding on the spur of the moment that he didn’t need to keep that private.  “He keeps asking me what to do about it.”

“Cute.  What’d you tell him?”

Laurens shrugged.  “Just generic shit.  Get her involved in some group activity or something.”  They continued walking and each step tugged Laurens’ mood a little further down.  “McHenry wanted to talk about that sort of thing too,” he finally said as they rounded the corner.

“Yeah?”  Hamilton gave a light punch to a streetlight without thinking about what he was doing.  “Dating advice?”

“Girl advice.”  Laurens watched the tops of his shoes.  “I told them both to talk to André.”

Hamilton snorted and managed to suffocate a laugh.  “Seriously?”  He shook his head when Laurens looked up, his expression a little confused and hurt.  “J., why?”

“Well,” Laurens began, “he actually has experience with girls.  I could have told them to talk to you,” he said, not sure if he was apologizing or not.  “It’s just that Jemmy met André before this semester and he and McHenry are on the team…”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hamilton said.  “Yeah, I get it, they know André.   You realize they were asking you, though, right?  Not him.”

“Jemmy’s my brother,” Laurens said.  “And McHenry’s…”  He trailed off and shrugged.  “It came up before.  I don’t know if he had talked to André about anything like that.  I thought it’d be more helpful if they spoke with someone who actually knew what they were talking about.”  He tried not to sound bitter.

“J.,” Hamilton said, “you’re a moron.  Come on, they’re obviously asking you because you're in a super amazing relationship with me.”  He patted his own chest.  “Can’t help it if they’re jealous.”

“It’s not the same, Alex.”

“Uh, agree to disagree.  It’s still a relationship, isn’t it?  Like, with the making out and the…”  He trailed off and made a face.  “Shoot, I forgot about your brother, I was only thinking about McHenry for a second there.  Sorry.”  He shook his head aggressively to clear the slate.  “Point is, you’re still dating someone and they’re not and they think that’s cool.  Although, really, you’re right, they should be asking me if they want tips on how to get the other person to go out with them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hello,” Hamilton said, giving him a glance that was just short of incredulous.  “I asked you out, remember?”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You did not.  When did you supposedly ask me out?”

Hamilton grimaced at his inability to pull out an easy answer.  “In… France?  I think?”

“See?  You did not ask me out.”

“Okay, fine, when do you think you did it?”

Challenge extended, Laurens failed to meet it.  He folded his arms.  After a moment’s stubborn silence he shrugged again.

“Hah.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.  At the window,” Laurens said suddenly, looking at Hamilton as they reached the entrance to the subway station.  “Also in France, that’s why you were thinking of that.  Remember?  We were fighting and I went to apologize to you and I asked you out.”

“We were fighting and you definitely did not ask me out.”

“Of course I did.”

“No way.”

Laurens followed Hamilton into the station.  “Why wouldn’t I have asked you out then?  That’s the logical time for it to happen.”

“I think I asked you out when we, you know, actually went on our first date,” Hamilton said.  “You know, when I took you out after you dislocated your shoulder.”

Laurens frowned.  “Yeah, okay,” he acknowledged after a moment.  He went through the turnstile.  “That would make sense, too.  But we were definitely already dating at that point, we just hadn’t had the chance to do anything that formal yet.”

“I dunno.  We were fucking.”

“Come on,” Laurens said, lowering his voice in embarrassed recognition of the other people scattered around them.  Fortunately it was not a crowded stop and no one so much as glanced up.  “We were definitely dating.  At least a little.”

Hamilton put his metro card and wallet away and stamped his feet, arms wrapped around himself.  “How is it even colder in here?  There’s not even any wind chill.  This is a rich people station, why does it suck so much?”

“I don’t know if any station is really a rich people station.”

“You know what I mean, John, it’s got the neighborhood.”  Hamilton frowned.  “Shoot.  If I’m invited to do holiday stuff with the Schuylers then I need to get presents for them.”

“There’s time after finals.”

“Yeah, I know.”  He stamped his feet again.  “Whatever, I’ll figure something out.”

A rumbling noise signaled an incoming train and Hamilton in anticipation walked down the platform towards the far end, seeking out a spot in one of the front cars without being able to see into them yet.  Laurens followed him and put his arm over his shoulders, rubbing his upper arm as if that would really do anything against the cold.

“I’m hungry.  Lafayette said there would be food today.  Do you mind if we make a detour for burgers on the way back to your place?” Laurens had to raise his voice to be heard.  “I’ll get you one.  Shake too, or whatever you want since I’m dragging you along.”

Hamilton half-laughed, the sound completely drowned out by the approaching train, but leaned into him and without objecting.  He reached up and squeezed Laurens’ hand, then took it and stepped away from him once the train had stopped and the doors had opened, and pulled him into the car.


	226. Merry Dickmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Getting Up; String Lights; Epilogue

Hamilton woke to the sound of Laurens sleeping next to him and muffled thudding and dragging noises overhead.  Light was coming into his apartment from outside and he threw his arm over his face, as if that would shut out the noise.

There was another thud and the heavy creak of floorboards from the apartment above his, then the dragging passed out into the hall and loud approaching voices brought the commotion down the stairs.

Hamilton sighed and drew his arm away, trying for a moment to check the time on a watch that was not there, then rolling over on his side to face Laurens’ back.  He slipped one arm over him, wrapping it under his and gripping his shoulder, pulling himself to him.  He was awake now and his laptop and books were pressing in on his mind, prodding him out of bed.

Laurens tensed his arm against him in acknowledgement of his presence, just for a moment and without waking.

Hamilton breathed in and out slowly, then gave him a squeeze and rolled onto his back again, wishing he was still asleep.  As impatient as he was to get up and get to work, the bed was comfortable and warm and he didn't want to leave…

He started to transfer his weight to one side as if he were about to push off the bed and sit up, his left leg tensing as his right foot slid up under the covers and planted itself on the mattress.  The movement tightened the muscles in his thigh and groin and he held the position for a long second, then relaxed back onto the bed, right leg still up.  He brought his hand down under the covers, fondling himself lazily over his boxers and enjoying the compromise.

This first, then work.

Keeping his eyes closed, Hamilton tugged the fabric to the side so that the opening in the front of his boxers was across his shaft and he rubbed his thumb over the velvety skin.  He was semi-hard, nothing he couldn’t and hadn’t in the past ignored, but it was Sunday morning and he could more easily imagine that his hand was Laurens’ when he was asleep beside him.

Patches of images flickered through his mind, memory mixed with fantasy.  Laurens’ mouth hot on his neck as he lay on top of him, Laurens’ hand tight and demanding as talked low in his ear…

He was fully hard, his shaft in his hand as he jerked himself off under the covers.  He let his lips part slightly as his heart rate rose, pressing the tip of his tongue to the back of his teeth to keep himself from making noise.

His upstairs neighbors must have returned to their apartment because the sounds of moving furniture started up again.

The thought crossed his mind that he should drag it out, take his time, wake up Laurens and make his imagination reality, but the hungry pressure was already reaching its easy climax and instead he let it come, pulling the cotton fabric of his boxers over his cockhead and arching his hips off the mattress.  They jerked twice and a calm settled over him, strangely at odds with the pounding of his heart.

He lay on his back for a moment, then carefully got up, making sure to leave the blankets over Laurens and stripping off his underwear.

Another loud thump from overhead made him look up and frown, then check with a glance that Laurens remained undisturbed.  He hadn’t moved and the side of Hamilton’s mouth twitched up fondly as he got dressed for the day.

 

“I’m very much looking forward to winter break,” Lafayette said brightly as he pulled his chair out and into the space between his and Laurens’ desks.  “I’m going to have so much fun.  The one thing is that I promised Adrienne I would find appropriate church services for Christmas Day and _l’Epiphanie_.”

“What’s that?”

“It is another holiday,” Lafayette said, taking one end of the string of lights from Aglae.  He knelt.  “Do you not have it in America?”

Aglae shook her head.  “When is it?  Is it a Church holiday?”

“Yes.  It is to mark the day when the Three Wise Men found the Holy Family in Bethlehem.  Supposedly,” Lafayette added.  “May I have a piece of tape?”

Aglae shifted the bundle of lights under one arm and tore him off a strip of painter’s tape.  She handed it to him.

“Thank you.”  He taped the lights to the large window spanning almost the entire length of the wall, then drew them out, getting up on the chair as they made a diagonal and rising line.  “Are you Christian?  I’m not.”  He had reached as far as the line would go on the window and he stopped.  “Tape.”

Aglae handed him another piece.  He had to stretch down one arm to take it from her, holding the string of lights up with his other hand.

“Thank you.  I’m not anything,” he went on.  “I never quite know if that will offend people or not and it seems like no matter where I go, people can be so touchy.”  He clicked his tongue and made a short arc with the lights, getting several more pieces of tape from her to hold them as he formed it.  “I don’t mean to be rude about it.  I don’t really care what anyone believes.  I have no proof of anything myself, after all.  Adrienne is Christian,” he went on.  “Her relatives can be very annoying about it, which is funny,” he added, “since not all of them should be casting stones.”  He leaned back to inspect his work.  “Does that look right?”

“I think so.”

“Good.  I don’t mind _l’Epiphanie_ , though.”  Lafayette set about making a long line, parallel to the first one.  “It is on January the sixth and we have, ah, cookies.  They are like thin… thin cakes.”  He frowned.  “I don’t know how to translate food names.”

“What are they like?”

“They have a crust on the bottom and on the top and sugar and on the inside they are filled with _frangipane_.”

“What’s that?”

Lafayette was frowning at his description again.  “A pie…?”  He gave a short shake of his head and set his vocabulary problem aside to focus on new one.  “It is a kind of paste made out of sugar and almonds.”

“Oh, marzipan.  I thought that was German.”

“It’s French,” Lafayette said, fully assured of that.  “And inside the pie we place a little prize and whoever gets the slice with it wins and is king or queen for the day.”

“Nice.”

“I wonder if they sell them here,” Lafayette mused.  “I did not stay in New York last winter.”

“I’ve never seen them.”

“But you are from the Midwest.  Maybe they are a coastal thing.”

Aglae looked skeptical.  “Maybe.”  She unspooled more lights.  “Make sure you leave enough space to plug this in.”

“I know.  I’m going to use the outlet at my desk.”

“My grandpa said that they used to have cakes for New Year’s,” Aglae said.  “They all had a sweet filling, except one that was hot mustard, and whoever bit into that one lost.”

“Germans,” Lafayette said with a shake of his head.  “I feel like I would always be given the mustard-cake.  But,” he said after a thoughtful pause, “I would be sparing my friends from having to eat it themselves.  How noble of me.”

Aglae offered him more tape.

“It is coming along very well, don’t you think?”  Lafayette hopped off the chair to continue to tape up lights from the floor.  “Would you back up and make sure it looks correct from the door?”

Aglae walked as far back as she could while still holding onto the Christmas lights.  “Nice.”

“Do you think John will recognize it right away?”

“As a giant dick?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Lafayette looked satisfied.  “Good.”  He finished taping the last of the lights he needed and took the tail-end of the cord from Aglae, plugging it in at his desk.  It lit up and he walked backwards and put his arm over her shoulders as he admired his handiwork.

“It’s beautiful.”  Aglae folded her arms, the tape hanging on one wrist as an oversized bracelet, and leaned her head against him.

Lafayette hummed a pleased note to himself.  “I think John will like it very much.”

“Will he?”

“No, he will think it is childish and immature but won’t take it down because he’ll actually find it funny but won’t want to admit that after calling me out on it first.  He’s very easy to read.”

“Aw,” Aglae teased.  “Are you going to miss him over break?”

“No, because Adrienne will be there.”

Aglae laughed.  “Right.”  She let go of him and took a picture of their display with her phone.   “I seriously considered joining a convent,” she said, sitting on his bed next to her bag and pulling it into her lap.  “Didn’t I tell you that?  When I’m home we go to Sunday services.”

“You don’t seem like the type to be happy in a convent,” Lafayette said, sitting on the floor against Laurens’ bed.  “No offense, of course.”

Aglae took out her laptop and a plastic bag of salted mixed nuts.  “It was my rebellious phase,” she said.  “I thought that if I joined up then it would be this big dramatic gesture and everyone would have to admit how good I was.”  She tossed Lafayette a pecan.  “Oh, but that’s dumb, because I’ve done way more rebellious things since then.”

“I was about to say.”

“I guess I didn’t have too many options to stick it to the man?  Other than, like, hard drugs or getting knocked up or something.  I did fool around with a lot of guys back in high school,” she said, pursing her lips and tapping them with one finger.  “So, I guess, really, getting pregnant wouldn’t actually be proving anybody wrong.”

“Probably not,” Lafayette said delicately.  “Thank you, that was good.”

“Here, take more.”  Agale sealed the bag and tossed it to him.  “Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t diagnosed as bipolar until after I had at least one manic episode, so I had a few dumb different ideas.  Fortunately I didn’t go through with any of the really stupid ones.  Like, can you picture me in a habit?  So not cute.”  She shrugged and frowned at her screen.  “Oh my God, if this didn’t save I am going to _murder_ something.”  She looked up when Lafayette didn’t say anything, her shoulders curling slightly in and her legs pressing nervously together.  “I’m okay,” she said.  “I mean, I’m not crazy or anything.”

“No, no,” Lafayette said, very quickly.  “I don’t think you are!”

“It’s just kind of a pain but if I didn’t have it under control then, like, there’s no way my parents would have let me go all the way to New York, and I definitely wouldn’t be going _back_ —”

“I’m sorry,” Lafayette said, cutting her off.  “I’m very sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”  He lobbed the bag gently back onto his bed.  “I did not want to pry, that is all.  I like you and I am glad that you found something that works well for you.”

Aglae’s shoulders relaxed and she nodded.  “Yeah.  I mean, like I said, it’s a pain.  But, you know, I’m just doing my thing.” She rubbed the back of one leg with the top of her other foot.  “I don’t tell a lot of people,” she said.  “Um, because, you know.  Everyone back home knows.  They kind of—Word gets around.  So, like, whatever, I’m the crazy one, I guess.”  She sounded artificially nonchalant.  “The good part was that it’s not like my parents could really act that surprised when I told them about the guy I was seeing here.  Or when I said that actually I only like girls.”  She shrugged again.  “…I really would have made an awful nun.”

“They would have been lucky to have you,” Lafayette declared.

Aglae smiled, then laughed.  “You’re very sweet,” she said, her voice back to her familiar lilt.  “Please be my friend forever.”

“Of course,” Lafayette said, getting into a crouch and taking a couple low steps forward to take her laptop as she passed it to him.  “How could I live without you?  Who else would come to my room to help me make a penis out of lights?  What am I looking for in this?”  He scrolled through the recovered document.

“Can you just check that it flows okay?  I can’t tell anymore.”

Lafayette nodded and settled back down against Laurens’ bed to read it.  “I will miss you over break,” he said after a moment.  “But don’t tell John that.”

“Oh, Lafayette, I am so flattered,” she said, her teeth flashing in an amused smile as she leaned back on his bed and sorted through the bag of mixed nuts for what she wanted.

“I mean it,” Lafayette assured her.  “I like almost everyone, but you are one of my favorites.”

 

“I need to go back to the dorm,” Laurens said, walking around Hamilton’s apartment to gather his things.  “I need to shower.”

Hamilton didn’t look up from his notes.  “Shower here.”

“I need to change.”

“Change here.”

“I’m out of clothes.”

Hamilton clicked his tongue.  “That’s your own damn fault, J.”

“Did you want to come over with me?  You can study at the dorms.”

“I dunno.  Yes, but I also don’t want to waste the time it’ll take to head over and then Lafayette’ll be there, so that will be distracting…”

“You can stay here and work.”  Laurens picked up his bag and slipped his shoes on.  “I don’t mind.  Shit,” he said, staring at the closed door.  “I think I need to do laundry, too…”

“Go back to campus, stick in a load, shower, change, and let me know when you’re done,” Hamilton said.  “Are you coming back tonight?”

“I can.”

“Maybe I should stay at your place,” Hamilton said.  “That’ll be less of a trip in the morning, since I want to get stuff done at the office early.”

“You should come over.  We can watch a Christmas movie with Lafayette since he’s leaving after finals.”

“Hm, that’s true.  All right,” Hamilton agreed.  “I’m going to stay here and study and then I’ll meet you guys for dinner and, uh, _Die Hard_ , or whatever.”

“Great.  Hey.”

“Huh?”  Hamilton finally looked up and saw Laurens waiting expectantly by the door.  “Oh, shoot, sorry.”  He put his papers aside and scrambled to his feet.  “Sorry,” he repeated, putting his hands at his waist and kissing him softly.

“That’s better.”

“Nerd.”

“Should you really be calling me that?”  Laurens asked as Hamilton sat back down, surrounded by books and laptop and folders.  “I’ll let you know when I’m done and when we’re going to get dinner,” he promised.  “See you tonight.”

Hamilton blew a distracted kiss at him as he left, only looking up from his work again when he received a text of the dorm room from Laurens.

 

> A. Hamilton: omg

> A. Hamilton: please leave that up

> A. Hamilton: It is festive!

> A. Hamilton: MERRY DICKMAS

> J. Laurens: jfc I love you


	227. Helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art Studio

“Do you need a second blue book?  I don’t know how much you’re planning on writing.”  Hamilton leaned on the ancient metal vending machine, paper cards with the names of different testing supplies taped up next to the various coin slots.  “I always bring a spare.  I’ve run out of lines before and had to use the inner covers.”  He looked at Angelica, brows slightly knit.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have one and the professor said she’d have extras, just in case.”

Hamilton nodded, indicating that he heard her even if his body language didn’t relax any.  “All right.  Pen?  Pencil?”  He tapped his quarter on the front of the machine.  It slipped out of his fingers and arced off to the side, rolling in narrowing circles on the library floor.  “Shoot.”  He dropped to his knees to catch it.

“It’s fine, Alexander.”  Angelica continued to pack up her bag at the long table behind him.  “I have everything I need.”

“It’d just suck to not—”  The quarter rolled under the machine and didn’t come back out.  Hamilton swore and flattened himself on the ground, squinting as he tried to look underneath.  The carpet smelled faintly musty up close and he couldn’t see where the quarter had gone to, only dust and cobwebs.

“Do you need anything?”

“I dunno.  A valium?  That’s a joke,” Hamilton said quickly.  He managed to get his hand under the machine and fumbled around.  “Even if I were into that I am _not_ doing today drugged.”

“It might calm you down some.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what valium’s supposed to do.”

“Is he trying to get high?”  JC asked as he walked back up to the table.

“No,” Hamilton said, still unable to get the quarter out and aware that he was being unreasonably snippy.  “That’s actually the opposite of what I’ve been talking about.”  He couldn’t see them from where he was lying but he had the distinct impression that Angelica was silently telling JC to drop it and for some reason that was frustrating as well.

“I’m fucking tired,” Hamilton said, before anyone could say or not say anything to make it worse.  “Slept all right on Saturday.  Mostly.  Kept waking up last night, don’t think I managed more than an hour at a time and Washington’s out of the really potent coffee.”  He didn’t see the need to clarify that he was the one who had drunk it all.

“Worried about finals?”

Hamilton grunted, trying to angle his arm for the coin.  “Mostly.  That and I was staying at the dorms and some _fucker_ was arguing in the hall.  I would’ve gone and yelled at them but it was like three in the morning and I was dead tired.  Couldn’t manage to convince myself to climb over John,” he went on, aware suddenly that he was talking to Angelica’s boyfriend as well as to Angelica herself, and not quite sure if he was comfortable with that.  “Plus, the RA showed up at like eleven to tell them they had to take the penis down—”

“The what?”  JC asked.

“—because it’s really visible from the walk outside and he and Lafayette got into this whole thing about it.  I thought Lafayette might actually win when he claimed it was a tradition from his culture, but no dice.  Anyway, long story short, now Lafayette wants to be an RA next year.”

“A resident advisor?  I thought he was going to join a fraternity.”

“I guess he can’t do both.”

“No.  If anyone would manage somehow, though, it would be him.”

“It would be,” Hamilton agreed.  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he jerked, hitting his arm on the underside of the vending machine.  He winced and cursed again.  “Ow, _Jesus_ …”

“Are you all right?”

“Phone.  John was gonna text when he got here.”

JC cleared his throat, interrupting them.  “Speaking of people getting places, we should head out.”

From his position on the floor, Hamilton could hear him picking up his things.

“It’s going to take ten minutes to walk over.”

“I know.”  Angelica sighed and put on her coat, then hoisted her bag over her shoulder.  “Alexander, do you want help with that?”

“I can get it.”

“Move.”  She got on the floor next to him and reached for the quarter, the sleeve of her coat catching on the edge of the machine at first, then sliding under.  Her bag slipped with a heavy thud onto the ground.  “Here.  She pulled her arm out and sat up.  Hamilton followed her and she put the quarter into the palm of his hand.  “I’m going to be done in about two hours.  Do you want me to come back and meet you?”

“Nah.”  Hamilton stood and used the quarter to buy himself a pen, more out of the sense that he needed to purchase something after all that than anything else.  His phone vibrated again, alerting him to the missed message.  “I won’t be here anymore.  I’m leaving with John in a sec, too.  Good luck with your final, though.”

“You too.”  Angelica put her hand on his upper arm and gave him a quick hug.  She pulled away as Laurens came into view, phone in hand and looking around for Hamilton.  “John.”  She raised one hand over her head.  “John,” she repeated, her other hand still on Hamilton’s arm.

Laurens started at his name and turned.  “Oh,” he said.  He pocketed his phone.  “Hey.  Alex, are you…?”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “Let me just grab my shit.”

Laurens nodded.  He put his hands in his jacket pockets and gestured awkwardly, pulling them forward and letting them fall back against his legs.  “Lafayette’s meeting us there.”

“Where are you going?”

“To John’s art class,” Hamilton told Angelica.  “Uh, not the class itself,” he clarified, looking up from shoving things into his bag.  “The classroom.  The studio.  To see his stuff.”

“I got that.”

“Angelica,” JC began, angling his body impatiently away from them.

“Right.  We have to run.” 

“See you.”  Hamilton waved as they left, then wrestled his bag on over his coat.  “You said we’re meeting Lafayette?”

“Yeah.  He might be there already.”

“I believe it.  He’s got long legs.”  Hamilton yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.  “‘Scuse me.”

“You’re tired?”

“Yeah.  Didn’t sleep well.  I’ll grab a coffee after this.”

“You could have woken me up,” Laurens said, following Hamilton out of the library.  The sky was blue and sunny and only the bare trees indicted that it was going to drop back down to below freezing once night fell.

“Didn’t want to disturb you.”

“I wouldn’t have minded.”

“Come on, J.”  Hamilton fiddled with his keys in his coat pocket.  “It’s not a big deal.  I just kept waking up.  If I had gotten you up too it would have cut into my busy schedule of trying to fall asleep again.  Besides,” he went on, “Lafayette was there.”

Laurens was quiet for a minute.  “Would you rather stay at your place tonight?”

“Hm?  Nah, I don’t mind.  It’s not like the dorm isn’t comfortable enough.  Look, I’m just going to be, uh, high strung for a few more days.  Then finals will be over and I’ll have all my shit turned in and I can just crash for a month.”  Hamilton breathed out heavily.  “It’ll be great,” he said, sounding almost dreamy.  “Once you’re gone too I’m just going to sleep for like two days straight.”

Laurens laughed.  “Sorry to get in the way of that.”

“No you’re not.”

“Not really.”

“We’ll have fun before you leave,” Hamilton promised.  “I gotta, like, make sure you remember to book your ticket back up here.”

“Trust me,” Laurens said, “I’m going to be in a rush to get back.”

“Hah, probably.  Remind me about how stiff and awkward everything is when I’m inevitably jealous.  I’ll drop the act real fast.”

“Will do.”

“So,” Hamilton said, “did you want to do present stuff before you leave?  I’d rather not mail you anything and I figured that you didn't want to receive stuff back home anyway.”

“Sure.  Whenever you want.”

“Before break is better than after, I guess.  Or do you need more time?”

“I can give you your present whenever.”

Hamilton clicked his tongue. “So just me, then.  Right, uh, day before you leave?  Is that the nineteenth?”

“I leave on the twentieth.”

“Yeah, so we’ll do presents on the nineteenth.  Not this Friday,” Hamilton said for his own benefit, “next Friday.  Is that right?  I think that’s right.”

“I think so.”

“Hm.”  Hamilton was silent for a minute.  “…Well, I have something…  _Will_ have something, if it, uh, shows up in time.  Did I make plans with someone to go shopping for you?  Shoot.  I need a…”  He trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence.  He had a scheduler; he hadn’t touched it since returning from South Carolina.

“You don’t need to get me anything,” Laurens said, misinterpreting where he had been going.  “It’s fine.  And there’s no rush, anyway.  I’ll be back in January.”

“Shush.  I’m going to get you something good.  Real good.  …And if I can’t find anything, you’re getting hella laid.”

“Who needs to shop?  Everything is so expensive.”

Hamilton snorted and laughed, putting his fist to his mouth.  “Fuck, J.  We’re in public.”

“You started it.”

“Yeah, and that’s to be expected from me.  I’m garbage like that.  You’re the one who got taught manners and shit.  You’re _cultured_.  Even if your dad got over the, you know, the rest of it, this is why he would end up not liking me.”

“I don’t care if he likes you.”

Hamilton snorted again.  “Yeah, right.”

“—Well, it doesn’t matter,” Laurens said.  “You’re not coming on break aned he doesn’t live here.  They’re two separate things.”

Hamilton wondered, without feeling any real desire to ask, if he meant that their locations were separate or that the parts of his life were.  He changed the topic instead.

“Is André’s stuff up?”

“Yeah.  It’s pretty neat.”

“Good.  I can have something to look at if I need to escape the crowd of admirers and amazed art critics around yours.”

“We’ll probably be the only people there.  It’s not like it’s a real showing.”

“So modest.”

“I’m just telling the truth.  It’s only technically on display.”

They approached the building and went in, descending into the basement and heading down the hall towards the studio.  Hamilton undid his coat in the face of the dry heat blowing from the vents all along the wall.

“Is that Lafayette and Peggy?”

On cue, Lafayette turned and waved, Peggy’s bag slung over on shoulder and his own over the other.  He nudged her as she reapplied lipstick with her phone as a mirror and she made a noise of complaint and took a step away.

“Hey, Peggy,” Hamilton said as they walked up.  “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, this is John’s show, right?”  She dropped her phone and lipstick into her bag but when she tried to take it back from Lafayette he simply hitched it up higher onto his shoulder.  “We’re here to see his stuff.”

Hamilton elbowed Laurens.  “I told you.”

“You didn’t—”  Laurens caught the thought and inspected it.  Of course she didn’t have to come.  She had wanted to.  “How did your project come out?  Is it up anywhere?”

Lafayette smiled brightly at Hamilton as Peggy gave Laurens directions and an explanation of all the tribulations she had faced since taking their pictures.  “Shall we?”

“Sure.”  Hamilton followed Lafayette into the studio.  “So are you just being a pack mule today?”  He looked around curiously.  The center of the room was taken up with several long tables, unnaturally empty, and lining the walls were matted and simply arranged collections of drawings, each with an index card carrying the student’s name and brief summary of their work.  Tacked up next to most of them was a longer stapled reflection on the artistic process and what they had been trying to accomplish.

“Can you draw?”  Hamilton asked Lafayette, picking one end of the room to start at and casually making his way down the line.  The room was not designed as a display space and many of the pictures were posted over shelving or cabinets, keeping their viewers a couple feet away.  He had to lean in to make out the penciled comments on the drawing’s notecard.  “I’m shit.”

“It is not my speciality.”

“I bet you’re better than me.  Was this not the sort of thing they made you take fancy lessons in?”

“I had to take dance lessons,” Lafayette said.  “I cannot dance, either.”

Hamilton nodded, already moving on to the next set of pictures.  “Fair enough.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, pointing ahead.  “That one is André’s.”

Hamilton gave only a cursory glance at the next couple as he walked past them, stopping in front of André’s collection.  He hesitated over the self-portrait, then grinned and looked back at Lafayette.  “This is at his apartment.  I’m pretty sure.  I think I recognize that chair.”

“And it says so in the reflection,” Lafayette said, leaning over the cabinet to page through it.  “Oh, this one is very detailed.  He has four pages.  Some of the others barely make it onto the second.”

“Nice.”  Hamilton continued to study his work admiringly.  “What’s he say?”

Lafayette flipped pages.  “He says that he had to redo a lot of his work in the last couple of weeks…  I bet that is because he broke up with Peggy and did not want to use her work anymore.  Do you think that’s why?”

“Because he broke up with Peggy?”

“Who broke up with me?”

Hamilton turned.  Peggy was standing behind them.

“No, not you,” he said.  “Different Peggy.  You met her.  At the Halloween party.”

“The girl who was crying.”

“Right, that one.”

Laurens listened to the others talking, surprised by how natural it felt.  He was struck by the realization as he bent down to retie his shoe, that a year ago this week he had walked out of one of his finals to an obscene number of messages from Hamilton about something he couldn’t even remember anymore—some stupid argument with Lafayette or inside joke—and that it had taken him the entire walk back to the dorms to read them through.  He remembered how annoyed he had been at the time, the sense of “why are you even telling me about this?”, and how surprised he had been to find Hamilton waiting for him with a poised nonchalance that seemed laughably awkward now.

He looked over at the others and heard his brain automatically classify them as friends and quietly marveled at that as well.  His world seemed so—open, suddenly, like there were a million directions it could go, like he was being offered not just one chance to find something good, but more than he could make sense of.  It was overwhelming.

“Am I allowed to take pictures?”  Lafayette asked, phone out.  He looked around for a placard or supervisor.  When he didn’t find either he shrugged and set about documenting the display.

“For Adrienne?”

“Of course.”

“You’re seeing her soon,” Hamilton said, arms folded casually as he watched Lafayette.

“Yes?  And?  What is your point?”

“Nothing.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “It’s just nice, that’s all.”

“It is,” Lafayette agreed, shifting his hold on his phone to take pictures one-handed and draping his other arm across Hamilton’s shoulders.

“John,” Peggy said, turning back to the door.

Laurens quickly stood and tried to look as if he had always been present.

“Where’s yours?”

“Uh,” Laurens began, putting his hands in his pockets and inclining his head in lieu of pointing, “on the other side.”

They all looked, then hurried as a unit across the room.

Laurens saw them pick it out, heard the surprised and appreciative noises from Peggy and Lafayette, and let them fade out of his attention to watch as Hamilton slowed in his steps, for once not rushing ahead to be the first to comment or respond.

Hamilton both felt and heard a ringing in his ears, his chest and face both suddenly sparking into flame.  That was _him_ on the wall, all of the pictures in the cluster, both posed nude and artificial as well as carefully, lovingly, drawn in moments of distraction or sleep.

“This is from a picture I took,” Lafayette said excitedly, pointing at one of the larger ones.  “I took this one,” he told Peggy.  “We went down to Coney Island.”

Peggy tugged at Lafayette’s sleeve and he took a step to the side, making room for Hamilton as he came to a slow stop next to them.

Hamilton reached out to touch the drawings, then curled his fingers back at the last second.

“I took off your face,” Laurens said after a beat.  “On the full-body.”  He walked over to them.  “I didn’t know if—I thought it might be better that way.”

Hamilton nodded, mute.

“If you look at the reflection, I just say that one was a model,” Laurens went on nervously.  “We had male and female nudes in class during the semester, so I figured I didn’t need to specify and no one really needed to know…”

“I would have known,” Lafayette said under his breath to Peggy.  “I walked in on that.”

“I thought you were drawing Lafayette?”  Hamilton finally said, looking at Laurens.  “You said that was easier.”

“I did.  And it was.  But then, after Thanksgiving…”  Laurens shrugged, his hands still in his pockets.  “I missed you.  Besides,” he added, “I already had that posed one and those sketches, so I could build off of that.”

Hamilton turned and slid his arms through his, wrapping them around his waist.  He kissed him, slowly and quietly, then dropped his head, burying his face in the front of his jacket.

“Fuck,” Hamilton said, his voice muffled.  He tightened his hold on him.  “We should have gone here later, I’m not going to be able to pay attention to my test today _at all_.”

Lafayette laughed and patted him on the back, saying something that, while probably in English, Hamilton was not able to make sense out of over the distracting rush of emotion.  He finally let go and stepped away, then took Laurens’ hand, his face red.

“So,” Hamilton said, still feeling distinctly like the ground was not, as it turned out, under his feet after all.  “So, uh, should we—should we look at the other ones?”

“Let’s start at the end,” Laurens said, pulling him gently down towards the first set of drawings on that wall.  “Lafayette, you’ll like this one…”

His voice dried up when his eyes fell upon a dark shape placed on one of the tall metal stools they used in class and left standing next to the tables.  He changed directions abruptly, pulling Hamilton with him to the table and feeling his throat close in on itself with conflicting disbelief and absolute certainty.

“J.?”

Laurens picked it up.  It was a knit beanie, clearly dropped and forgotten and then put neatly aside for its owner.

“This is my brother’s,” Laurens said, turning towards Hamilton and then the others without actually taking his eyes off of it.  “He and my father were here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy second birthday to this stupid fic! Thank you for reading this far!! I am very grateful for all of your enthusiasm and patience and support <3


	228. Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Strange (Gay?) Day

“What do you mean?”  Hamilton asked, breaking the stunned silence in the room.  He knew what he meant.  He couldn’t manage to form any other words somehow.

“I mean this—this is Jemmy’s,” Laurens said, tightening his grip on the hat.  “I saw him with it, then at breakfast the other day he didn’t—they must have come here.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because I mentioned it to him,” Laurens said, his voice rising and cloaking itself in anger.  “I didn’t think they’d actually stop by.  None of them were ever interested in any of my—This is bullshit.”  He turned to the door as if it would tell him anything or reveal his father still standing there and watching his outburst.  He turned back to the others again, still holding Hamilton’s hand.  “The _one_ fucking time he wants to see—”

“Maybe he didn’t see,” Lafayette offered.  “It’s just…”  He motioned blindly at Laurens’ project.  “It is just drawings.  They are all drawings.  It looks the same as the rest of them.  Look,” he said, hurrying down the row of pictures to one of the other student’s arrangements.  “This one has a male model, too.  So does this one.”  He indicated another picture with both hands.  “You do not have Alexander’s face in the posed one.”

“He has it in the others,” Hamilton said, slowly drawing his free hand to his mouth.  “God.”

“But you just drew your friend,” Lafayette said, almost pleading.  “What is so wrong with that?  Peggy took pictures of Alexander, too.  Did you say anything in your reflection?”

Laurens slowly shook his head.

“See?”  Lafayette nodded encouragingly.  “It is all right.  It is just, ah, a little awkward, but if you do not make anything of it, then it is fine.”

“I should’ve drawn Peggy,” Laurens said, shaky, after a moment.

“You should have,” Peggy agreed.

“What?”  Hamilton looked between them.

“My father maybe thinks I’m dating her.”

Hamilton groaned and moved his hand to rub at his temples.  “John, you’re an idiot.”

“What would you have done?”  Laurens asked, voice rising again.  “I didn’t tell him anything, he just assumed.  And weren’t you the one who told me not to say shit to him about what’s actually going on?”

“Yeah, because I’m trying to keep my nose out of it,” Hamilton said, his words a flash of heat.  “Not because I think that’s actually an effective long-term strategy!  I told you that I didn’t think I’d be able to actually do it if it were me, but since he’s the one paying for shit…”

Laurens let go of Hamilton’s hand and sat heavily on the stool the hat had been on.  “He bought my ticket home.”

“Did he buy you one back?”

“I don’t remember.  I don’t know.”

“I will buy you one if you need it.”

“Not now, Lafayette,” Hamilton said, verbally pushing him away.

Lafayette folded his arms, anxious and put out.

“Look,” Hamilton said, forcing his emotions to an even keel.  “Let’s just…  Maybe Lafayette is right.”

Lafayette perked up.

“You had breakfast with him and he didn’t say anything.  Did he seem upset?”

Laurens shook his head.  “No.”

“All right, so maybe he didn’t notice anything.  You said he doesn’t care about your art, so maybe he just let Jemmy come here by himself.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Maybe he waited in the hall, I don’t know.  The point is that maybe he didn't see what we’re seeing and therefore there’s no reason to panic.  He didn’t even force you to fly down right away,” Hamilton pointed out.

“I might have implied I was going to be seeing Peggy after finals.”

Hamilton grimaced.  “Yeah, sure.  I’m just going to…”  He took his hand out of Laurens’ and motioned picking up an invisible item and moving it to the side.  “There’s nothing to do about this right now, J.  Either he saw it or he didn’t, but it looks like he didn’t.  He’s always been pretty blind about you.”

Laurens nodded slowly.  “All right,” he said, even as Hamilton realized with creeping horror one time when that had not been true.  “Yeah.  I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Hamilton said quickly, needing to talk to push away the sickening feeling gnawing at his stomach, the vision of Henry Laurens watching him from the crowd rising unbidden like bile.  “Hell, I’d be nervous too.  Right?”  He turned to the others.  “Peggy, back me up here.  You’d freak if your dad saw you with Aglae, right?”

“No.”

“Oh.  Well, good to know that our future employer is legit,” Hamilton said, almost brightly.

“Did you tell your parents about her?”  Lafayette asked, unable to not be curious.

“I told my mom.”

Lafayette nodded, pleased.

“…Are you going to tell her that?”

“Do you not want me to?”

“Okay, okay, okay.”  Hamilton waved his hands at them.  “Getting a little too distracted here.  Can we stay on topic for a few more minutes?  John.”  He turned to him.  “Are you okay?”

Laurens stared at his final project and shook his head.  “I have to be,” he said anyway.  “You’re right, there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“You could ask Jemmy about it,” Hamilton said, the idea dawning on him.

“I’m not asking Jemmy.”

“He could tell you if your father came in at all, or if he seemed weird about anything.”

“I’m not asking him,” Laurens said, more sharply.  “I’m not going to drag him into all of this.  It’s bad enough that I told him in the first place.  I shouldn’t be making him keep secrets for me.”

“He already was here,” Hamilton pointed out.  “You’re not asking him to do anything that wasn’t already done, it’d just be to find out about what happened.”

“No, I’m sorry.”  Laurens’ words were heavy and final.  “I’m not doing that.”

Hamilton sighed.  “Okay,” he said, his mind already running down options, looking for a workaround.  “It’s probably not necessary,” he said, lying to himself.  “I mean, like we said, your father seemed to have been in a good mood and he certainly didn’t bring it up, so…”  He shrugged.  “Lucky break.”

“Jesus.”  Laurens exhaled slowly, running his free hand over his face.  “Yeah.”

“Aglae told her parents about you,” Lafayette said, striking up conversation with Peggy again.  “She said so.  Oh.”  He frowned and tipped his head to the side.  “I think she told them about you.  Maybe she did not get into the specifics.  She talks a lot though,” he said, “and she told them the liking girls part, so I don’t see why she would not have said the rest of it.  They probably would have asked,” he concluded, “and she would have told them then.”

“I feel left out,” Hamilton said.  “I don’t have any parents to tell that I’m dating Peggy.”

Laurens laughed awkwardly.

“John,” Hamilton said, nudging him.  “You need to get Peggy something good for Christmas.  You owe her and it goes with the part.  Peggy,” he said, motioning between her and himself, “you and I should work out something good that he can buy that we can both make us of.”

“Um, why?  He owes me a present so I should get to keep it.  I like makeup,” she told Laurens bluntly.  “There’re a bunch of new sets out that I want.  I’ll link you.”

“Great, that’s exactly the kind of teamwork I was hoping for.  Jeez, J., you should have fake-dated Eliza, I bet she’d be more supportive here.”

“Don’t you need to study?”  Laurens asked, unable to fully shake his discomfort with the room and its contents.

“Yeah.  Okay, uh, I guess I’m… heading back to the library.  You guys want to come?”

Lafayette and Peggy both shook their heads.

“Don’t blame me when you’re stuck on a question halfway through your test.”

“We’re going to go study in an empty classroom,” Lafayette explained.  “It better mimics the actual testing environment and that similarity makes it easier to recall information.”

Hamilton opened his mouth to retort, then shut it again.  “That’s pretty smart,” he admitted.  “Shit.”

“But of course.”

He looked torn.  “Are you going to be loud?  Can I study with you?  J.?”

Laurens didn’t answer immediately.  He walked over to his final project and carefully took it down.  “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

“Hey.”  Hamilton followed him and put his hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t destroy that, yeah?”

“I’m not.  It’s just that it’s already been graded and I don’t want to have to come back down here again to collect it.”

Hamilton looked skeptical but let it go.  He took a step away.  “Right.  That makes sense.”

Laurens put the drawings and the reflection and the hat all carefully in his bag and turned around.  “I realized I need to go do something.  I’ll find you after your test.”

Hamilton nodded.  “Sounds good.  Hey,” he said again, stepping in.  “Kiss good luck?”  He wasn’t sure which one of them he was requesting it for and he pressed his lips quickly against Laurens’.  “I’ll see you later, J.”

Laurens nodded.  “Text me when you’re done.”

He loitered in the room, then left the building once the others had enough time to be properly on their way.  The clear sky and relatively empty campus both disconcertingly jarring.  He wondered if it would have been more reassuring to find the weather overcast and threatening to storm.  The few students he passed on his way towards the administration building didn’t so much as glance at him, save for one biker who called out brightly to let him know he was coming up behind him.  He shrugged his bag up a little higher as he went up the stairs, one hand holding tight to the strap as if it was full of contraband.  He tried to look casual as he made his way through the building and successfully maintained the almost-bored expression until he reached the semi-public waiting area outside his coach’s office and heard two familiar voices talking, sotto voice.

“So it probably won’t really affect anything, but he’d know better than I do.  I mean, you got _onto_ the team for the scholarship so they’re not going to want to just drop you.  You should ask if staying means that you’ll have to be in some sort of weird administrative limbo—”

“Okay.”

“—and what that’ll actually look like, like if everyone relevant will see things correctly and they’ll just, I don’t know, just won’t file you as female in the system—”

Laurens felt a wave of something almost like fear as McHenry and Hays both whipped their heads up from the seats they were huddled in.

The three of them stared at each other.

“I—just got here,” Laurens said, gripping the strap of his bag even tighter and forgetting for the moment why he was there at all.  “I wanted to see—is that why you’re here?”

McHenry sat up a little straighter and motioned with with clearly artificial nonchalance between himself and Hays.  “Mary and I needed to talk to Coach.  She wanted to talk to him about, uh, about next season.”

“And the playoffs,” Hays said.  The words were just dropped into the air.

“Right.”  McHenry nodded.  “And the playoffs.”  He looked at Laurens with a quiet, frantic, desperation.

It took Laurens a moment to find his footing.  “Oh,” he said.  “Right, yeah.  Okay.”  He paused for a beat, still feeling completely out of place.  “…I think my dad found gay pictures I drew.”

The words were clumsy and for a moment he was already kicking himself for them, then McHenry snorted and suddenly they didn’t seem so bad.

“Sorry,” McHenry said quickly.  “I’m sorry, that’s not funny.”

“It kind of is,” Laurens admitted, biting back a nervous and relieved laugh himself.  “Can I…?”  He gestured at the third chair.

“Go for it.”

He sat, swinging his bag off and into his lap.  “It was an art project,” he said, not even really feeling like he needed to clarify, but doing so anyway.  “It’s not like it was porn.”

“I was going to ask.”

“If my dad found my porn I wouldn’t be going to see Coach,” Laurens said.  “I’d be six feet under already because I would have immediately _died_.  That’s the absolute worst thing I can think of.”

“He could have walked in on you.”

Laurens winced.

“Too far?”

“You found the line,” Hays joked awkwardly.  “Now you know.”  She seemed to reconsider her wording and quickly fell silent again, looking down at her lap where her clasped hands were pressing in tight against one another.

“Did I tell you that my dad also thought I was maybe dating Peggy?”  Laurens asked, trying to keep away the uncomfortable silence.  He wished that he was as adept at filling the void as Hamilton or Lafayette and attempted to rally.  “I accidentally implied it and he just ran with it.  Almost as good as you and the ball on Friday,” he said, leaning forward a little to look at Hays around McHenry.  “I don’t know if I told you, but my brother was very impressed.”

Hays cracked a nervous smile.  “Thanks.”

“So you’re fake-dating Peggy?”  McHenry asked.

“I’m not sure.”  Laurens shrugged, finding that he could be blunt and upfront about such things.  “I don’t know what the deal is now.  I don’t really want to ask him.”

“Of course.”

“That seemed like a great way to ruin Christmas.”

“Right.”

“Alex said I should have pretended to date Eliza instead,” Laurens went on, “because Peggy wasn’t willing to act like she wanted a Christmas present that was really for him instead, so now I guess I need to go buy makeup over break.  She said she’s going to send me things she wants.”

“Wait, you have to get her things?”  McHenry asked.  “You’re not actually dating her.”

“That was what I figured.”  Laurens turned in his seat a little, angling his body to better face him.  “I figured that since it wasn’t real anyway and she doesn’t actually have to _talk_ to him…”

The office door opened and von Steuben stepped out.  “Hays.  Oh, Laurens.”  He frowned.  “Did you want to meet as well.”

McHenry stood with Hays and Laurens leaned back to be able to meet his coach’s eyes around them.

“Yes.  But after them.  There’s no rush.”

“Are you sure?  This might take a while.  We can make an appointment.”

Laurens shook his head.  “It’s fine.  If I have to leave then I will.”

“All right.”  Von Steuben stood to the side and held the door for the others to go through.

“Mary,” Laurens said abruptly, just before she followed McHenry into the office.  “I don’t know if McHenry told you, but some of the guys are going to throw Alex a thing for his birthday towards the end of break.  If you’re in town and free you’re should go.”

Hays quirked a grin, something a little more natural than her nervous smiles from before, and pointed out, “How are you inviting me?  It’s not even your party.”


	229. Maybe a Calm Before the

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *More Gay Stuff

“I’m going to miss you.”

Laurens said the words against the smooth skin of Hamilton’s neck, his pulse beating rapidly under his lips.  He pulled him a little closer with one arm under his bare shoulders, his other hand cradling the back of his head, his fingers not tangled but laced gently through his hair.

Hamilton’s breath caught and skipped over itself.  “Yeah?”  He squeezed his arm.  “Figured you would.”

Laurens kissed his skin once, twice, his hand on his naked thigh and stroking up towards his hip.

Hamilton moaned softly and pressed towards him, squeezing his arm again.  “J…”

“I’m glad I’m not leaving yet.”

“Y-yeah, me too.  No shit.”  Hamilton flicked his tongue over his dry lips and leaned his head back against the floor of his apartment.  Laurens’ hand moved against the carpet and pressed lightly at the top of his neck.  “J.,” Hamilton said again.  When he tipped his head to the side he brushed against his jeans, hastily discarded, and turned his face away.  “J., please…”

Laurens kissed him on the mouth and Hamilton hungrily parted his lips, pressing his tongue past Laurens’ and preventing either of them from saying any more.

Laurens breathed in sharply, not exactly surprised but definitely excited, and pressed his naked body closer to Hamilton’s, feeling him hard against his abdomen.  He kissed him back, meeting him in energy, feeling a surge of wild energy that craved an outlet more demanding than only kissing.  He forced it under control and broke away abruptly—Hamilton gasped and whined a complaint—and rolled off of Hamilton and to his knees.

“John…”

“I’m just…”  He looked around.

“You know where it is.”  Hamilton propped himself up on his elbows impatiently.  “Or…”  A felt a flash of frustration and fear.  Surely Laurens didn’t want to talk about things right _now_?

“Where did you put that bag of stuff?”

“What?”

“From my friends?”

“Oh.”  Hamilton breathed a sigh of relief.  “Uh, it’s somewhere…”  He motioned towards the clutter around his desk.  “Sorry,” he added as Laurens dug through the piles of books and papers and clothes and mail.

“Don’t you want to toss—Found it.”

“I just haven’t had time to go through it yet,” Hamilton protested, unable to not throw in at least one line defending himself, even as Laurens took the roll of tape out of the paper bag.  “I’ll get to it once the semester’s over.”

“Sure.”  Laurens pulled off a strip.  “Give me your hand.”

“Kinky.”  Hamilton moved closer and offered his arm.

Laurens put his hand on his chest and carefully pushed him down on his back again, taking him by the wrist and binding it over his head to one of the legs of his chair.

“Now the other one.”

“Come on, J., half the fun’s in you—”  Hamilton cut himself off sharply as Laurens grabbed his other arm and pulled it forcefully into position, holding him in place as he bound him.  “—That.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens crouched over him.  He tipped his face up with two fingers under his chin and kissed him, moving away and climbing off just as Hamilton started to return it.

“H-hey…”

“How is that?  Can you get free?”

Hamilton tested one wrist, then the other.  “Probably not.  I might pull the chair down on top of you, though.”

“Don’t.”

“I’ll try not to—”  Hamilton’s words turned into a moan, Laurens’ hand on his shaft.  He planted his feet on the floor and arched his hips into his touch, eyes closed.

Laurens was kneeling next to him and he trailed his eyes down his body, lingering over his bare chest and then down to his cock and thighs.  He could see the quivering muscles in his leg as he arched off the ground, his body obviously craving contact.

Laurens slowly stroked him, tracing his other hand down the side of his body.  Hamilton gasped at the touch and bit his lip when Laurens slid his thumb over the slit in his cockhead.  Laurens toyed with the sensitive skin, running his thumb around his rim and then moving his hand back down to give mounting pleasure without the almost painful teasing.

“I want to taste you.”

A groan escaped Hamilton’s lips.

“Is that a yes?”

“O-of course.”

Laurens leaned down and took just the head of Hamilton’s cock into his mouth, sucking on it like he had done to his tongue earlier.  Hamilton moaned louder and jerked, pulling the front two feet of the chair momentarily off the ground.

Laurens pulled away, giving it another slow lick.  “Careful.”

“S-sorry.”

Laurens took it into his mouth again, his hand still at Hamilton’s base and half buried in warmth and hair.

Hamilton groaned, unable to keep silent in addition to trying to keep still, and balled his hands into fists, his nails pressing sharp against his palms as some kind of counterbalance to not being able to move.

Laurens slid carefully further down, taking about half of his cock into his mouth and pressing his tongue against it.  He could feel a vein on his shaft, and the blood pounding through it.  Heat spread to his own cheeks, fueled by a heady desire.

“J…”  His name was more of a plea, and Laurens moved his hand over what he could still reach of Hamilton’s cock, hearing him dissolve into short needy gasps.

He moved his hand and mouth in unison, pulling almost all the way off to let his hand travel higher, the process slicker and easier as it followed behind his mouth.  He sucked harder against his cock as he moved up it again, tasting salt against his tongue.

“J., I—  Ah…”  Hamilton’s words were coming in between whimpers and the chair rocked again, then lifted higher and threatened for a second to not fall back into place.  “J-John, _please_ …”

Laurens tightened his grip at his base and Hamilton moaned.

Laurens pulled off of him to another gasp and whimper, then rummaged through the bag with shaking hands.

“Bath—”

Laurens got quickly to his feet, disappearing into the bathroom while Hamilton lay on the floor, head tipped back and spinning with desperation.

“Sorry,” he said, returning a rushed thirty seconds later.  “I’m back.”

“Good.”

“Sorry,” Laurens repeated, kneeling between his legs and kissing him up his body from the crook of his thigh and hip to his neck.

Hamilton made a low pleased sound and clenched and unclenched his fists, still bound above his head.

“Hey.”  Laurens just breathed the word into his ear at the same time that he pressed a finger into him.  Hamilton groaned.  Laurens sucked lightly on his earlobe, his own cock aching as he worked his way up to three fingers, his heart pounding in his chest with the building anticipation.

“J…”

Laurens sat back, reapplying lube to his hand and watching with hungry arousal as he moved his fingers back and forth and the sharp lift of Hamilton’s hips forward, his thighs straining as they arched him off the ground.  Impulsively, he applied even more lube and _pushed_ , meeting yielding resistance as first his fourth finger and thumb, then his entire hand entered him, and then closed into a fist.

Hamilton gave a startled gasp and tipped his head first forward, then back, his hair tangling on the carpet.

“Is that…?”

“Yes.”

“Laurens carefully pushed a little further in, then stopped and put his other hand back on Hamilton’s cock, stroking it rhythmically.

“God…”  The word was a strangled moan.  “Yes…”

“Faster?”

He was answered by an insistent whine.

Laurens sped up, frowning slightly as he concentrated on maintaining a stumbling half-time for his fist.

“J.,” Hamilton said impatiently.  He turned his head to the side, his cheek on the ground, then forward again.  “ _Faster_.”

Laurens obliged.  He moved both hands to the same tempo, then slid forward, sitting at an angle and slipping his knee under Hamilton’s lower back to offer some support.

Hamilton put weight on him gratefully and gasped as Laurens pushed a little deeper.  He bit his lip.  Ordinarily he would be clawing at his back.

“Soon?”

“Y-yes.”

“Should I…?”

“No,” Hamilton said quickly.  “Don’t stop.”

Laurens wanted to laugh but it caught in his throat and he doubled down, pressing into him and working his shaft as it slowly leaked precum until he could tell by the desperation in Hamilton’s voice and how flushed his face and cock were that he was on the verge.  It was somewhat expected, then, to hear the strangled moan and feel the pulse and release of his orgasm in his hand.  Even so, it gave Laurens a sense of heady power and control, one that stayed as he put his hand from his shaft to his side and gently kissed his waist.

Hamilton was breathing heavily, blood pounding in his head, and he hooked his leg around Laurens as best as he could to pull him closer.

Laurens kissed him again and after a pause pulled his hand out.  Hamilton gave a sharp breath.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”  His voice was shaking slightly.

“Good.”  Laurens kissed him again, then moved up, putting his weight on top of him and then rising up and slowly pushing in.  He breathed out slowly and bracingly, then began to thrust, losing himself to the sensation and the urge to pleasure.

It was only a couple of minutes before he felt his own orgasm washing over him and he didn’t try to hold it off, instead pushing harder into him and gripping him tightly at his sides as he came.

Laurens was still posed there, chest rising and falling heavily, when Hamilton spoke.

“You need to untie me.  Untape me.”

“Right.”  Laurens freed him with only slightly shaking hands and Hamilton got quickly and stiffly to his feet.

“I need to clean up.”  He put his hand under Laurens’ jaw and turned his face to his, kissing him quickly.  Laurens tried to deepen it and Hamilton pushed him away, cum starting to run hot down the inside of his leg.  He stepped into the shower before turning it on and letting the water heat up and flinched when the cold spray hit him.  “You didn’t wear anything.”

“Sorry.”  Laurens followed slowly after him into the bathroom.  “I got one.”

“Yeah, yeah.”  The water was steaming now and Hamilton breathed out an extended sigh of relief and exhaustion.  “I gotta fix some shit,” he said.  “This shower’s too small for two people until I finish washing off.”

Laurens nodded and washed his hands and forearm in the sink, staring into the basin with a familiar gnawing hollow feeling, one that threatened to  overpower his earlier enjoyment.

“How do you do it?”  He asked, the water still running.

“How do I what?”  The words were strained as if said from an uncomfortable position.

Laurens shook his head.  Never mind.  “Did you ever want to be a girl?”

“No.  Why?  Are you trying to tell me something?”

Laurens frowned, not sure which direction the joke was pretending to cut.  “No.”

“Why’d you ask?”

“I just learned…”  He stopped and put more soap on his hands, partially to give himself an excuse to think.  “I know someone who does.”

“Neat.”  There was a thud like Hamilton had slipped against the shower wall.  “I’m fine, thanks for asking.  Who is it?”

“I don’t know if I should say.”

“Okay.  Do I know this person?”

“Hardly.”

“I’m not going to run around _telling_ everyone, J.  And you already know anyway.  We’re dating, people probably kind of assume that you finding something out means I find out.  They definitely assume that the other way around.”

Laurens gave a short laugh.  He turned off the water and dried his hands with his towel.  “It’s Mary.”

“Who the fuck is Mary?”

“Sorry.  Uh, do you remember the freshman who made the first touchdown and came to the party on Saturday?”

“Yeah.  That’s Mary?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.  Cool.  How’d you find out?”

Laurens hesitated.  “I was at my coach’s office,” he said, trying to talk around the details of it.  “And—she—was there with McHenry.  I heard them talking about it.”

“They know you know?”

“Yes.”

Laurens could hear Hamilton opening a shampoo bottle.

“Why was McHenry there?”

“He’s trans too.”

The shower curtain was yanked aside suddenly and Hamilton leaned out from behind it to stare at Laurens, shampoo in his hair.

“…What?”

Hamilton shook his head incredulously.  “Your team is so gay.”  He pulled the curtain shut again.

“They’re not _gay_ —”

“You know what I mean, John.”

“And not all of them.”

“You,” Hamilton said, obviously counting on his fingers even though Laurens couldn’t see him.  “McHenry.  Mary.  Tallmadge thought I was cute and let’s be real if he’s going to bother saying that he’s probably at least fantasized about stuff for fun.  I bet André’s bi.”

“André only dates girls.”

“I bet André’s bi and super fucking closeted.  Closeted like he doesn’t even realize it.  He dresses too nice to be straight.”

“That’s a stereotype.  And he’s Korean.”

“Another stereotype.”

“He was famous or whatever.  I’m sure he had to learn.”

“Yeah, probably,” Hamilton conceded.  “Do you want to get in here?  I’m done.”

“Yes.  Thank you.”

Hamilton left the water running as he climbed out, giving Laurens a quick kiss and taking his towel off the rack.  He dried himself off and then wrapped it around his waist, sinking down to the floor, his back to the door.  “Your coach and your assistant coach,” he added.

“I get it.”

“I don’t think you do.”  Hamilton looked straight ahead at the shower as if he could track what Laurens was doing through the curtain.  “What I’m saying is that you’ve practically got a club going over there.  Maybe being not-straight and not-cis makes you good at sports.”  He snorted.  “Yeah, right.  That would’ve been nice.”

“Do you even want to be good at sports?”

“It would have come in handy.”

“You could bulk up if you lifted.”

“Yeah, but that means I’d have to actually, you know, lift.  Besides, you think I’m hot and I think I’m hot and that’s about all I need.”

Laurens laughed and didn’t respond and Hamilton sat in thoughtful silence for a minute.

“When did you go to your coach’s office?”  He asked.  “Did you go today?”  He heard the pause before Laurens answered.

“Yes.”

“To talk about the art stuff?  Did he have anything good to say?  What did he say to do about it?”

“He said I could go to his place in Jersey if I wanted.”  Laurens turned the water off and left his hand on the knob.  “He has a property down there and he has—people—stay sometimes.  It’s like a guest house.”

“It’s his safe house for queer youth,” Hamilton said bluntly.  “I know what that is, I told you I saw the papers on it.”

Laurens felt frozen in place, his words strangely stuck in his throat.  “Yeah.”

“Do you want to stay there?”

“He said I could say it was a training thing, since we’re going to championships.  Like, I could tell whoever I needed to that he wanted me to stay back to keep working over break.  I’d have to be hitting the gym every day anyway, so it’s believable.”

Hamilton nodded.  “Do you want to go?”  He asked again.

“No.”  Laurens got out of the shower and took his towel.  He dried off his hair and then worked his way down his body.  “I want to go home.”


	230. Collegiate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Art Show?; Hanging Out; Art Show

“Twelve-twelve,” Lafayette said.  “It’s lucky.”

Peggy looked at him skeptically.

“It is,” he insisted.  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because you’re just making it up.”

“Someone has to.”

Peggy snapped her gum and shrugged begrudgingly.  “I hate finals,” she stated.  “So it being December twelfth doesn’t really seem to be working out for me.”

“I offered to study with you more last night.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I don’t think I could take any more.  My brain already feels like it’s going to explode.”

“I feel fine.”

“Okay, but you’re, like, a genius or something.”

“I didn’t study for all of my tests,” Lafayette said.  It was intended as an admission but he said it so brightly that Peggy just rolled her eyes.  “There are more important things in life.”

“Like calling your girlfriend?”

“Precisely.  Speaking of,” he said, “how is Aglae?”

Peggy glanced at him and then away.  “Fine.”

“I thought you said that you did not mind talking about it?”

“When did I say that?”

“You said that you told your parents.”

“Well, yeah.  But you’re Angelica’s friend,” Peggy said, hunching her shoulders slightly as they walked towards the classroom their test was being held in.  “That’s different.”

“I’m your friend too!”

Peggy made a skeptical noise.

“Peggy,” Lafayette said, with as much seriousness as he could muster, “I am a very embarrassing person.  I have done many stupid things, especially in love.  I’m not going to tease you.”

Peggy was silent for a moment.  “Tell me one thing.”

“I made my friend call Adrienne to ask her to meet me so that I could ask her out,” Lafayette said promptly.  “Because I did not want to call her myself and accidentally give it away.”

“Don’t you think that him calling her for you was suspicious?”

“Probably,” Lafayette agreed.  “That’s why I know this counts as something embarrassing.  And you should know,” Lafayette went on, “that I am in full support of your relationship because I am Aglae’s best friend in the city.”

“Really?”

“I like to think so.”

“I guess you might be,” Peggy said after a pause.  “She does talk about you a lot.”

“Oh, does she?  What does she say?”

“Shouldn’t you know if you are her best friend?”

“In the city,” Lafayette clarified.  “I’m sure she has better friends outside of it.”

“I don’t know,” Peggy said, snapping her gum again.  “She doesn’t have a lot of nice things to say about her hometown.”

“That is just because it is small,” Lafayette said quickly.  “That does not mean anything.”

Peggy shrugged.  “I guess so.  It just sounded like it was a huge bore.  And like people were kind of mean.”

“People are mean everywhere,” Lafayette declared as he held the door to the building open.  “Oh, not you,” he said quickly to the girls walking out past him.  He followed Peggy inside.  “People were mean to me in France—”

“Yes,” Peggy said cutting him off.  “I heard.”  She took the gum out of her mouth, moving her fingers carefully past her painted lips, and dropped it in a trashcan as she walked past it.  “You’re, like, humble-bragging about that all the time.”

“I am not bragging,” Lafayette protested, picking up his pace to catch up to and walk next to her.  “How am I bragging?”

“They were still your friends,” Peggy pointed out.  “Even if they were dicks.  You’re like, ‘oh no, all of my dozens of really rich and popular friends didn’t get me.’  You said that one guy still called Adrienne for you.”

Lafayette considered this.  “You’re right,” he said finally as they walked in through the back door to the classroom.  “That has been very rude of me.  Even if I was not as close with them as I would have liked to be, they are still my friends and they meant well.  Mostly,” he amended after another brief pause.  “And I should not be rubbing my social life in people’s faces.”

“Yeah,” Peggy said.  “That’s rude too.”  She sat at one of the chairs lined up in artificially stiff rows and put her hands in fists on top of the half-desk attached to it.

“Did you finish your photography project?”

“Huh?”  Peggy turned around to talk to Lafayette in the seat behind her.  “Is Alexander bugging you about that?  I swear I’ll give him a print—”

“No, no,” Lafayette said, quickly interrupting.  He put one of his hands up to stop her.  “I’m not asking you about that other picture.  I wanted to see your final project.  Is it on display somewhere?  Like how John’s was.”

“Oh.  Um, yeah.  We’re using one of the little conference rooms at the back of the library,” Peggy said.  “They’re still getting it set up but if you want to go look later…”

“Are you free?”

“To go down?”

“We should make a day of it!”

“I have another test tomorrow.”

“…We should make an hour of it!  It will be fun,” Lafayette said.  “We can dress up like we are going to a proper opening.  I will wear sunglasses and cologne.  I will bring Aglae,” he added.  “We can be your art bitches.  We will start a bidding war.  I’ll win,” he concluded, “unless someone there would really like to fight me on it.  In that case I will be courteous and let them buy it right out from under my nose.”

“It’s just a bunch of stuff tacked up on the wall,” Peggy said.  “You know there’s gonna be, like, three other people there.  Maybe.”

“I’ll bring cheese and crackers,” Lafayette went on.  “And grape juice, to stand in for the wine.”

“Are you trying to make me forget everything right before the test?”

“I’ll stop talking if you agree that we can go.”

“Ugh,” Peggy said, but she was grinning as she turned to face forward.  “Fine.  Whatever will get you to shut up.”

 

“So, like, I’m supposed to be packed to fly to Zürich as soon as I’m done with finals and I’m definitely not.”  André rolled his head back, working a kink out of his neck.  He rubbed it with one hand.  “My mom’s gonna kill me.”

“Why?”

“She’s going to call me this afternoon,” André said, staring up at the ceiling of the strangely empty cafeteria.  “She thinks I’m putting it off too much.”

Laurens resisted the urge to point out that she might be right.  “Shouldn’t she just be glad that you’re not in any actual trouble anymore?”

“Nah,” André said with a shrug.  “She knew all along that it was going to work out fine.  I told her when I talked to people initially.”  André looked at Laurens quickly and guiltily.  “I, uh, I didn’t know you guys were going to come to my place.”  He winced and looked up at the ceiling again.  “…That wasn’t the point.  Sorry.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I don’t know if I should have told you,” he said, “but I shouldn’t have lied about it when you were just trying to be nice.”

“It wasn’t my idea to come by.”

“Still.”

They sat in silence for a minute.

“When’s your last final?”

“Tomorrow.  I’m leaving that night.  Hey,” André said, looking at Laurens again, “are you free to hang out before then?”

Laurens indicated with the flick of one hand that that was what they were currently doing.

André gave a sheepish grin.  “Yeah, okay.  Later, though?  I’m supposed to be working on a paper too, but I’m waiting to get feedback on the draft.”

“Yeah, I guess so.  I thought you’d be busy with Mina.”

“Oh, shoot, you’re right…”  André pulled his borrowed phone from his jacket pocket.  “It’s weird to be on this thing.  I keep forgetting stuff.  I did get really good at Snake, though.”

Laurens laughed.

“It’s challenging,” André protested.  “And then it made my thumb hurt.”  He typed on his phone, going very slowly to account for the T9.

“Are you going to get your old phone back soon?”

“I hope so.  I wanted it back before break.”

“I don’t think that thing will be very useful in Switzerland.”

“Maybe I should ‘accidentally’ forget to bring it.”  André raised a hand and waved it, flagging down McHenry.  “What’re you on campus for?”

“I’m just grabbing lunch and then going back to my place.”  McHenry, looking tired, sat next to André with only a tall paper cup and a straw.

“That’s not lunch.”

“Yes it is.”  McHenry stabbed the straw in violently and took a long drink.  “There’s two extras of energy powder in here and I need to finish a lab report in the next—”  He shook his wrist free of his sleeve and checked his watch.  “—four hours.  I’ll have actual dinner after that.”

“You’re like Alex,” Laurens said.  “I mean, with the weird last minute hours,” he clarified quickly, feeling like he needed to explain before anything was somehow taken the wrong way.

McHenry shook his head.  “I have a lot of things due and I’m going out tonight.”

“Party?”

“No.”  McHenry took another drink.

“Date?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice.”

Laurens, for a moment, couldn’t possibly see how Hamilton could assert so confidently that people on his team were just like him.  Listening to McHenry and André continue to talk only seemed to confirm that there was a huge and dizzying gap between them.

“I’m going to take her to this show I got tickets for,” McHenry was saying.  “It’s off-off-Broadway, but it’s supposed to be good and, uh, the tickets were only fifteen each and we still need to get dinner after.”

The embarrassed admission brought Laurens back to himself and he felt faintly ashamed at the turn his thoughts had taken.

“I bet she’ll like it,” he said, not having anything at all to ground that claim on but feeling like he would owe McHenry if he didn’t offer it.

McHenry smiled.  “Thanks.  I hope so.”

 

“Ooh my God.”

Lafayette grinned, stepping forward and extending both his hands, palms up, for Peggy as she turned away and hid her face behind her bag.  “You made it!”

“What are you guys doing?”

Lafayette gently but firmly took Peggy’s wrists and pulled her bag away from her face, turning her towards Aglae and the conference room door.  “We got dressed up for the occasion,” he said, indicating somehow with an incline of his head his full smart suit and Aglae’s crimson and dramatically plunging dress.  “I told you we would.”

“I did his eyeliner,” Aglae announced.  “ _And_ I’m wearing new shoes.”  She extended one leg, balancing on narrow four-inch heels.

“We went shopping,” Lafayette said happily.  “We did not get crackers and juice because we thought that they might not let us in with those, but we did we buy these to look more chic.”  He took out a bundle of small colorful lollypops and held one between his fingers, the gaudy pink of the candy standing out against the sleek black leather of his gloves.  “I think we clean up very well,” he said to Aglae.

Aglae slipped up to Peggy and put her arm through hers, pressing her body against her side and giving her just the barest brush of a kiss on her cheek, clearly basking in the reaction their appearance had gotten.

“We are your entourage,” Lafayette told Peggy, taking her bag off of her and slinging it over his own shoulder.  “Lead the—ah, one moment.  He took a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses and a beret out of the pocket of his suit jacket and put them both on.  He adjusted the beret to a rakish angle.  “Zere,” he said in a very heavy, very fake accent.  “Lead ze way.”

“This is just the art show for a couple of the photo classes,” Peggy protested, even as Aglae pulled her into the room, her arm intentionally tucked under the side of her chest.

“I had wanted to get, ‘ow do ‘ou say, ze fake candy cigarettes,” Lafayette said, continuing to play up his bad accent as they passed two other students wandering slowly around the room.  He draped his arm over Peggy’s shoulders.  “But zey are so bad for ze health.”

“The candy ones?”  Peggy asked skeptically.

“Ah, mon amie, non.  Ze real ones.  Adrienne does not approve of le smoking.  Except for zis kind,” he said, giving a short tug to his lapel.  He laughed, highly amused at his own bad bilingual pun as the other two stared at him.

“How are you even more embarrassing than usual?”  Peggy asked under her breath, offering a wincing smile to an adult professor.  “I thought we had, like, _maxed out_ already.”

“I think he is _darling_ ,” Aglae said, turning the word almost into a drawl with a fake sophisticate accent of her own.  She reached across Peggy, pushing herself even more into her, to swat playfully at Lafayette’s hand.

“Ze smoke gets into her hair,” Lafayette went on with a kind of detached earnestness.  “And into le mine.  And into _everyone’s_ lungs.”  On the emphasized word he swung his free hand out, gesticulating wildly with the lollypop and almost knocking it into the carpeted wall.

Aglae nodded solemnly and Peggy groaned.

“Ah,” Lafayette said, with sudden real excitement.  “Zere it is!”  He steered them towards three portraits matted on black and tacked up in a row.  “Lafayette,” he announced dramatically, pointing at his own picture, “ _nous sommes ici!_ ”

Peggy shrugged him off and buried her face in Aglae’s shoulder.

“These are very good,” Lafayette said, the accent completely dropped.  He was leaning in slightly to look at the pictures more closely, his hands on his thighs.  He tipped his head to the side and raised his chin, mimicking the angle he was holding in the portrait, and looking at the false flowers nestled in his hair.  He looked back at Peggy.  “These are very good,” he repeated, his voice gentle.  “Thank you for taking them.”

“You’re welcome,” Peggy said, her voice muffled against Aglae’s skin and the satin of the dress.

Aglae laughed and pet her hair.  She gave Lafayette a thumbs up.

Lafayette grinned and straightened up, popping the candy back into his mouth.  “You are très talented,” he said, fumbling back into the false accent.  “Please give to us le lecture about your process artistique.”


	231. Who Knows What

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calling Home & Gossip

“Does Eliza like plays?”

Hamilton, leaning his elbow on his desk with his hand against his forehead and fingers into his hair, tensed at the question and how it had interrupted the string of formulas he was muttering under his breath.

“I don’t know,” he said, a little short.  He didn’t look up from his textbook.  “My econ final’s in less than twelve hours, John.”

Laurens was lying on his back on the futon, tossing a tennis ball up into the air and catching it repeatedly.  He focused on the flick of his wrist and how the ball spun on itself.  “I thought maybe you’d know,” he said, as casually as possible.

“I don’t know.”

Laurens caught the ball and checked the time on his watch.  “McHenry took her to one tonight.”

“Peggy took Lafayette to an art show,” Hamilton said, resisting looking away from his book.  “Bully for all four of them.”

Laurens started tossing the ball again.  “You’ll do fine, Alex.”

“I need to have these memorized.  I was focusing on the _later_ chapters, but I think she might want us to…”  Hamilton tightened his fingers in his hair and stopped talking.

Laurens looked over at him after a minute.  He was engrossed in the textbook again.  The ball hit him on the chest and bounced across the room.  Laurens sighed and got up.

“Not tonight,” Hamilton said, his voice clipped and tense.  “Seriously, I can’t believe I didn’t think to look at this before.  We can fuck tomorrow.  Pencil it in after lunch.”

“I have an exam at one.”

“—Closer to dinner, then.”

Laurens crouched and picked up his ball.  He looked at it without seeing anything for several long seconds, then stood.  “I’m going to make a call.  I’ll be outside.”

“Just leave the door unlocked.”

“You’ll do fine,” Laurens reiterated, unlocking the door and stepping outside.  He closed it as quietly as possible behind him and looked around the familiar narrow hall.  He took his phone out of his pocket and flipped through the names he had saved, putting it to his ear as it rang and cradling it there against his shoulder.

“—Hello?”

“Martha.”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.”  Laurens walked away from the door.  “Why are you asking?”

“I dunno.  Seems like you only call when something’s wrong.”

“Why call when texting is so much easier?”

“Again, I don’t know, Jack, you’re the one calling me.”

“Yeah, but not because anything’s wrong.”  He leaned on the railing and looked down the zig-zagging stairs to the first floor.  “What’s up?”

“I’m doing my nails.  Why did you call?”

“I need you to help me buy a present,” Laurens said, inspired by her response.  “It’s for a girl.”

“So don’t get her a cup.  What do you expect me to do with that?”

“It’s a friend of mine,” Laurens said.  “She sent me a list of makeup but it’s way too long for me to make sense of.  Can you just look at it and tell me what’s good?”

“I guess.  Forward it to me.”

“Thanks.”

“You better credit me.”

“I’ll tell Peggy.”

Laurens heard the slight pause and the shift in her tone and he closed his eyes in a silent wince, leaning his hands harder against the cold metal bar.

“Oh, Peggy.  Is she in class with you?”

“Dad told you.”  Laurens took one hand off the rail to hold the phone.

“He _called_ , like, the day he got to New York.  He said that you said that you’re dating this girl and that you’re going to work for her father.  He made it sound like you’re practically going to be betrothed.  You know, you’re really supposed to run stuff like this by me if you want me to lie convincingly.”

“What did you say?”

“Not a lot.  I didn’t know if this was supposed to be a new development or not.  I just told him that we don’t talk.”

“Did he buy it?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

Laurens felt the cut those words were intended to make and he leaned back against the wall.  “Yeah,” he said.  “It is.”

“So, seriously, what’s the deal?  No one’s home,” she added.  “Well, Dad and Harry aren’t, anyway.”

“I didn’t tell him anything.  I just mentioned her and he did the rest.”

“Made up a whole perfect story about you?”  Martha snorted.  “That sounds like him.”

“I can’t do it,” Laurens said abruptly.  The words were out of his mouth before he had the time to check himself and to his horror they sounded less frustrated and more scared, even without any build up to them.

“Jack.”

He could picture her sitting on the floor of her room, the brush of her nail polish still in her hand, her hair back in the same messy braid she wore it in around the house since she was ten.  He knew the way she would have sat up straighter, her brows rising and knitting in concern.  To his surprise he didn’t correctly guess what she would say next.

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

“No,” Laurens said, the word coming just as quickly as his previous sentence.  “Jesus.”

“I can.”

“Don’t.  I’m just…”  He knocked his head back lightly against the wall, trying to get the words he wanted to fall into place.  “I don’t know.  It’s been a weird few days.  I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m just not looking forward to this.”

Martha snorted again.  “No shit.  Maybe work will eat him and he won’t be around as much as he keeps promising to be.”

“You should visit here one year.  It’ll be better than being stuck at home.”

“I think this year was my last shot,” Martha pointed out.  “You’re graduating, _finally_.”

Laurens managed a short laugh.  “Right.”

“Unless you’re planning on staying in New York?”

“Yeah, with my girlfriend, Peggy.”

“At least you’re buying her shit.”

“That’s why, actually.  She wanted me to reimburse her for her part in this.”

“What part?  She’s barely even involved.”

“That’s what I said.”  Laurens motioned in front of himself with one hand, as if she could actually see him.  He wondered why he hadn’t vidchatted her.  It would have been nice to actually see her face.  “It’s not like they have to interact at all.”

“At _all_.  I dunno, Jack,” Martha played the line straight, “it sounds like she’s just into you for your money.”

Laurens laughed again, more genuinely.  “She’s really not into me.  Not like that.”

“You don’t know that.  Maybe she’s a secret admirer.  Pfft,” Martha said, cutting herself off before Laurens could form a protest.  “Yeah, right.  She’d have to be real dumb and if she’s clever enough to semi-blackmail you into buying her shit then probably not.”

“You’d like her,” Laurens said.  He wandered up the flight of stairs, planting his feet as quietly as possible and looking curiously out onto the next floor as it came into view.  He had never gone higher in the building in spite of how often he came over, and he was almost surprised to see that the landing looked more or less identical to the ones below it.  “She’s pretty cool.”

“I figured she was.  You tend to have good taste in friends.  Can’t say the same for _them_ …”

“Ha, ha.”  Laurens stood at the top of the stairs.  The apartment directly over Hamilton’s had an envelope taped to the door.  A dingy-looking microwave was sitting on top of a worn armchair just next to it.  Laurens was wondering how anyone had managed to get the chair up three flights of stairs in the first place when Martha spoke again.

“So does this mean you changed your mind about speaking with him?”

Laurens flinched and turned his head as if he could really look away from her.

“Last time you called you said you were going to.  I mean, like I said, if you want me to…”

“Don’t.”

“I just want to help, Jack.”

Laurens forced himself to exhale slowly.  “I know.  I don’t want your help.”

“Well, that’s kind of your too bad because you’re going to get it anyway.  You might as well give me suggestions.  I got all my college apps in,” Martha went on, “I’m a second semester senior.  Take advantage.”

“Did you already finish finals?”

“Mostly.”

“You know, if you flunk out after they accept you they can still withdraw their offer.”

“It’s _fine_ , Jack.”

They were both silent for a second.

“I don’t know,” Laurens said finally.  “I don’t know… any of this.”

“I guess not.  Look,” she said, her words faltering between flat and pleading.  “Will you at least promise that you’ll tell me if you need something?  I’m not saying I can do if, but if you don’t at least let me _try_ , I’ll—”

“Yes,” Laurens said, giving her the word as a support.  “I will.”

“Jack.”

“I promise.  It’ll be fine,” he said, immediately lying.  He knew that both of them knew there was no way to guarantee what either he or his father would do.  It was an empty reassurance and hinted at how hollow the other one was, even as it tried to sturdy it.  “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not.”

Laurens, alone in the hall with just his own words, rolled his eyes.

“Shoot.”

Laurens heard Martha moving around her room.

“My ride’s here.  I need to go.”

“Your ride?”

“My friends are picking me up.  We’re going out.”

“It’s a Tuesday.”

“Don’t be such a hypocrite, Jack.”

“I’m in college.  I’m allowed to go out.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t exactly have a curfew when you were my age, either.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Okay, not one that was enforced.”

“They—”  Laurens forced himself to stop.  “Shit,” he said.  “Yeah, okay, whatever.  Have fun.”

He hung up and leaned again on the metal railing, his phone in his hand.  He rocked his weight back and forth slowly, listening to the floor creak softly underneath him.  The fluorescent light overhead hummed audibly and someone in one of the other units raised their voice in conversation, their words incomprehensible through the wall.  The building seemed very self-contained, a couple dozen little worlds, some empty, all tethered to the same flight of stairs and all functionally invisible to one another.

Laurens heard the opening of a door directly below him, and then Hamilton’s voice.

“John?”

“I’m up here.”

Hamilton leaned out over the stairwell, craning his head up.  “What are you doing?”

“I just got off the phone.  I was just walking around.”  He pushed himself off the railing with his forearms and headed back down.

“Did they move out?”  Hamilton asked.  “I heard them dragging furniture around yesterday.”

“Maybe.  There was a note on the door.”

Hamilton nodded and held the door for Laurens.  “Everything okay?”

“Martha asked me the same thing.”

“Yeah, well, what does that tell you?”

“That you both worry too much.”

Hamilton closed and locked the door behind them.  “Did you ask her about your father?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Laurens shrugged.

“…Right.”  Hamilton stepped up behind him, sliding his arms around his waist.  He kissed the curve of his spine over his shirt and sweater.  “I love you.”

Laurens put one of his hands over Hamilton’s.  “I love you too.”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, raising his face and pressing his chin into Laurens’ back.  “I got a question.  Do you know if McHenry told Eliza?”

“Told her what?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know what he told her.  I didn’t ask.”

“I thought maybe he would have said something.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“Well, yeah.  I just…”  Hamilton shrugged.  The movement was constrained and awkward.  “You said they’re on a date?”

“They were, at least.  I don’t know if they’re finished by now.”

“And he spent the night.”

“Alex,” Laurens began, the name almost a warning.

“I’m just curious.”  Hamilton closed his eyes and turned his head down, his forehead against Laurens’ back instead of his chin.  “I could—I shouldn’t ask her.”

“Why does it matter to you what he told her?  You’re not the one dating him.”

“I know.  I just—wanted to know—what she knew.”

The thought dawned upon Laurens, cold in its simplicity, that Hamilton was less interested in McHenry than in Eliza.  The question wasn’t really what McHenry had said; it was what had Eliza had reason to find out.

“You want to know if they slept together.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s what you wanted to know, though.”  Laurens slid his hand to Hamilton’s wrist and held it tight as he turned around.  There was no surprise or confusion in Hamilton’s face and that hit him like a blow to the gut.  “Why do you care if she slept with him?”

“Because she’s my friend and I’m curious about her life.”

“But you can’t ask her yourself.”

Hamilton didn’t answer, other than to meet Laurens’ gaze steadily.  That increased his sense of urgency.

“Are you _jealous_?”

“John.”

“Are you?”

“I just told you, John, I love you.”  Hamilton didn’t make any effort to take his hand away and Laurens, in recognition of that, lowered it slightly.  “We went over this.  I have friends besides you and Lafayette.  And I just got done with this stupid fight with Eliza and I don’t want to push my luck.  With her or Angelica.”

“…Yeah.”  Laurens relaxed his hold and to his surprise Hamilton cracked a smile and didn’t pull away.

“I’m going to miss you when you leave next week.  I don’t want to fight over nothing.  I just want the dirt and I thought you might have some clues to it,” Hamilton said soothingly.

“You should ask Lafayette.”

“I really should,” Hamilton agreed.  He took Laurens’ hand and led him to the desk, where he grabbed his book, and then to the mattress.  He sat, tugging Laurens down next to him.  “Tomorrow.”

Laurens thought of the empty apartment above them and the ones in use scattered around them, full of people living lives in parallel to one another.  “Yeah,” he agreed, trying to ignore how certain he had felt when he had turned around and seen the expression on Hamilton’s face, how he had been the only one caught off guard.  Maybe all it had been was that Hamilton had anticipated how Laurens would take it.  He sprung the question on him.  “Am I that transparent?”

Hamilton, curled up next to him and already reading from the book again, snorted.  “About how you’re jealous of everyone?  No,” he said with obvious sarcasm, “even though we’ve talked about this before I still just can’t see it.  Remind me again when it happens?”

“Hey…”

“Sorry.”  Hamilton slipped his arm around Laurens’ thigh and squeezed it lightly.  “That was mean.”

Laurens shook his head, relief overpowering any insult he might have taken.  “It’s fine,” he said, bending down to kiss the top of his head.


	232. Second Opinions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a Break Y/N; Make a Move Y/N

“Okay,” Hamilton said, throwing his tattered collection of handwritten notes onto the cafeteria table and shoving them across its surface towards Lafayette.  “I can’t do this.  I’ve had it up to, like—I have to write a paper still,” he said, switching topics suddenly.  “But I can’t start on that before this fu—before this test because if I move over to looking at that I’m going to forget something important.”

“Are you really?”  Lafayette asked, picking up the pile of notes carefully and flipping through them.  “I think you have studied more than anyone in your class.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.  The exam’s this afternoon and if I could sneak a look at the questions ahead of time, I would.  I wish I had actually gotten shit done over the weekend.  First the game, then that party…”

“You just need a distraction.”

“That’s the last thing I need, Lafayette.”

“Just to calm down so you’ll be able to remember things more easily.”

“John’s in a test.”

Lafayette wrinkled his nose.  “You still have me!  I am your friend!  We can do something less graphic than that but still equally fun.”

“Doubtful.  Hey,” Hamilton said, standing up and waving his hand over his head.  “Aaron!  He sees me,” he reassured Lafayette.  “He’s just acting like he doesn’t.  The cereal selection isn’t _that_ interesting.”

“Let him be,” Lafayette said.  “Maybe he is in a rush.”

“Nah, I’m the chronically late one.”

Hamilton remained standing until he had made eye contact with Burr and clearly motioned him over.

“You said I needed to chill.”

“We were going to do that,” Lafayette complained.  “If you invite him over the two of you are just going to talk about work.”

“Ugh, don’t even get me started on work.  I’ve got a million things to do at the office by the time the semester’s over, too.”

Lafayette huffed and leaned back against his chair.  “Do you want me to help?”  He asked after a moment.  “I can help.”

“What, with my job?”

“ _Oui_.”

“Washington’s paying me, not you.”

“I can still help,” Lafayette pointed out.  “I can file things for you or make appointments.  You can give me the busiest of busy work.”

Hamilton shrugged just one shoulder awkwardly.  “It’s not your job.”

“You don’t want me to shoulder the burden,” Lafayette said as Burr walked over and Hamilton motioned him to silence.  “You’re making this unnecessarily difficult for yourself.”

“Doesn’t he always?”

“Very funny.  What’d you get?  Does that have sugar on it?  I always figured you more of a bran and raisins kind of guy.”

“Don’t give him your coffee,” Lafayette instructed Burr, his words acting as just enough of a dare for Hamilton to try to snake his hand under Burr’s arm to grab his mug.

Burr pulled his tray away.  “You would have spilled that.”

“Would not have.”

“We are trying to relax and have a nice, peaceful breakfast,” Lafayette said, sliding Hamilton’s pile of notes to the side.  “We can be stressed about finals after.”  He lifted his own bag up off the floor and put it with a thud on top of the papers.

Burr tipped his head back slightly from that scene.  “Right.”

“Do you have any fun plans for break?”

Burr sat down with his tray.  “I don’t know about ‘fun,’ but I just found out that I won a place on a two-week program in DC.”

Hamilton perked up, attentive with an obvious jealous energy, and Lafayette mentally groaned.

“That’s not with Congress or the House, is it?  Bad time of year for something like that.  They’re all leaving, so it has to be another school or something?”

“No, no.  It’s through the Smithsonian.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said, the one word radiating envy.  “Cool.”

“Alexander.”  Lafayette rapped his hand on the table for every syllable of his name.  “You don’t need to have signed up for that.”

“I didn’t sign up,” Burr said, sounding miffed.  “There was a very competitive application process.”

“Yes, yes.”  Lafayette waved his hand dismissively at him.  “My point is that you have enough on your plate as is.  Besides,” he said, “don’t you want to use your vacation to put in a few choice appearances with the Schuylers?”

“I don’t need a whole month to do that,” Hamilton said, a little sulkily.  “Aaron’s thing is only two weeks anyway.”

“It’s a very intensive program.”

“You say that,” Lafayette said wisely, “but you know how schedules fill up, especially around the holidays.  If you were in town for a just a couple of weeks, realistically that would only be enough time to pencil in two or three relevant events and wouldn’t it be frustrating if none of those worked out?  Between the weather and the holidays…”

“And it’s the end of the year,” Hamilton added, nodding reluctantly  “So he’s probably swamped with work.”

“Exactly.”  Satisfied, Lafayette leaned back again.

“‘He’?”

“Phillip Schuyler.” Hamilton’s stomach growled and he looked around.  “Is the line—Oh.”  He picked up the neatly wrapped breakfast sandwich Lafayette put in front of him.  “You sure?”

“My eyes were bigger than my stomach,” Lafayette declared grandly.  “I just learned that one,” he told Burr, pleased.  “I’m getting very good at this.”

“Lafayette’s a genius,” Hamilton said through a mouthful of english muffin and egg.  “I hate him.”

Lafayette made a sharp noise of protest but Burr laughed.

Hamilton grinned and nudged Burr.  “This guy knows what’m talkin’ about.”  He swallowed.  “I’ll have better manners when I go to some fancy holiday part at the Schuylers’.  I’m not wasting my charm on either of you.”

“Practice makes perfect.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said, nodding at Burr.  “That’s why I’m so good in the sack.  You know.”

“How would I know?”

“I meant through the grape vine,” Hamilton said.  “Or is that your way of saying that you’re sorry you missed out on that opportunity while you had the chance?”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, picking his phone up off the table.  “Adrienne is calling me.  You two play nice and don’t shout anything inappropriate.”  He picked up and stood, angling away from the table.  “ _Bonjour, mon cher coeur._ ”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Hamilton protested loudly, trying to catch Lafayette’s attention.  Lafayette waved his hand at him dismissively without looking and Hamilton slouched back against his seat.  “I wouldn’t.”

“Yes you would.”

“Well, I want to _now_ , but only because he said not to.”

Burr took a drink of coffee and did not object when Hamilton took it from him as soon as he had set it down.  “You are such a child, Alexander.”

“Takes one to know one, or something.  Shit.”  He breathed out slowly.  “That’s some bad coffee.”  He took another, longer drink in spite of that.  “You want to swing by Dr. Washington’s office tomorrow?  He’s got the good stuff.  I’d offer to take you there now, but there’s no time and I really do need to get started on that paper after this.”

“I can just buy a better cup.”

“Yeah, but you paid for this one already.  The school owes you something half-decent.  He’s not going to be there,” Hamilton added.  He lowered his voice slightly.  “He’s off campus for the rest of the week.”

Burr hesitated a beat before responding.  “Maybe.”

Hamilton shrugged.  “Let me know.  It’d be for your sake, not mine.”  He put the mug back down on Burr’s tray.  He looked up at Burr’s face, searching for a proper answer.  When he didn’t get one he sighed and fold his arms on the table, nudging his sandwich out of the way.  “I’m tired,” he complained, looking across at Lafayette.  “How does he always have so much energy?”

“He probably actually sleeps at night.”

“Nah, not always.”

“Between classes, then.”

“Maybe.”  Hamilton hummed a low note to himself and sat up, sliding one of his sheets of paper out from under Lafayette’s bag and looking it over as he ate.  “He might also be right,” Hamilton admitted.  “I don’t really need to get a perfect score.”

“That’s true,” Burr said.  He added after a beat, “It is nicer to, though.”

“Ha.  See, this is what I like about you.  You don’t condescend to me.”

“I don’t think he was trying to be annoying.”

“Yeah, well.”  Hamilton glanced up from the paper.  Lafayette was still lost in enthusiastic conversation with Adrienne and wasn’t even looking their way.  “Still.  I know it’s just that he prioritizes differently, and that’s fine.  It’s nice to talk to someone who gets it, though.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Burr said.  “I still think you can be absolutely ridiculous.”

“Sure, the means are stupid.  But the ends are right.  Right?”

“Yes,” Burr said, finishing off the coffee.  “I suppose so.”

 

Laurens closed his bag into his locker at the gym and knelt down to fix the laces on his shoes.  Although their regular training schedule was thrown into mild disarray by finals they were still expected to make it up on their own time and—he stopped and checked his watch and winced—he was getting a later start than he wanted but at least he was there.

He looked up as someone crossed behind him and saw McHenry stop in front of his own locker, undoing his jacket with one hand as he put in his combination.

“How did last night go?”  He asked the question before he could second-guess himself and tried to pretend that he did not have any selfish motivations behind wanting to hear that it had gone well.

McHenry looked at him, surprised.  “Good,” he said.

“Yeah?”  Laurens undid one of his laces, carefully picking it apart with his short nails.  “What did you do?”

“Uh.”  McHenry opened his locker and tossed his bag and jacket inside.  “The play was good.  Well, it was pretty bad,” he amended.  “But it was one of those where you can tell that the actors are trying and it’s kind of enjoyable anyway.”

“How was dinner?”

“Dinner actually was good.  And the weather held last night, which was nice, since there was a little bit of a walk back to the station and then between her place and the stop.”

“You didn’t stay there again?”

“Uh,” McHenry said again, running his thumbs over the undersides of his fingers.  “No.”

“I thought you would have, since you did the other night.”

“We really didn’t do anything,” McHenry said, looking straight ahead.  He shifted his weight as if he wished that he had something else to do, but with the jacket off he was already fully dressed and had nothing to occupy himself with.  “The other night, I mean, we just made out.”

“And last night?”

“I mean…”  McHenry shrugged awkwardly.

“Why didn’t you?”

“It’s just…  It’s difficult.  I’ve got so much else going on already right now, and I like her, and we’re having a lot of fun…  I just don’t want to deal with being proven wrong yet.”

Laurens nodded, thinking that he understood.  He sat on the bench.  “She seems nice.”

“So do a lot of people.”

Laurens was surprised at how intimately that hurt.  “Yeah,” he agreed.  “But, I mean, she really does.  Alex likes her a lot,” he said, feeling the weight of each word as it passed his lips.  “And I don’t think he always has the best judgement, but he’s been very… Alex around her, and she’s still his friend.  I can’t say anything bad about her,” he admitted, “and I kind of wish that I could.  It would have come in handy when we fought.”

McHenry gave a breath of a laugh.

“I don’t know, I really do think she’s a good person,” Laurens said.  He paused, then looked away from McHenry, down at his hands.  “Not like you’re asking her to be a saint,” he added.  “Just not to be a bitch.”

McHenry didn’t respond and Laurens continued.

“I mean, has it gone badly before?”

“No.  But I’ve never…”  McHenry balled one hand tightly, his words getting more stiff.  “You know.  Tried to tell anyone.  For this reason.  So it’s not that it never mattered, just that it mattered… differently.”

Laurens was caught off guard by that answer and he had to quickly catch and keep himself from staring.  “Oh,” he said, hoping that he sounded sufficiently nonchalant.  “Yeah, that makes sense.”  He wished he could take his words back and come up with something smoother.

“Yeah.”  McHenry still sounded uncomfortable.  “So I’d like it to go well.  I mean,” he added quickly, “I’d like it to go well either way.  Because, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

McHenry nodded curtly.

Laurens looked slowly around the locker room, searching for another topic he could tangent to.  “Alex thinks I’m dumb for having been worried about—about telling you guys,” he said after several long seconds.  “About us.  Me.”

McHenry snorted and the air seemed less fragile.  “Nah.  Some things you don’t want to share with people.  You weren’t ready.  I get it.  And for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone felt like you were pulling one over on them or anything.”

The idea hadn’t presented itself like that to Laurens before but he found that he was relieved anyway.  “Good.”

“I’m kind of surprised he thought that, though,” McHenry said after a beat.  “But maybe I shouldn’t be.  You said he was pretty ticked about your dad as well.  Did his family just not care about stuff like that?”

“I don’t think they were around long enough to find out.”

“Oh.”

Laurens hadn’t expected to feel suddenly defensive of Hamilton in spite of fundamentally agreeing with McHenry’s assessment.  He wrestled with it and tried, not entirely successfully, to walk it back.  “You’re right, though.  He can be all or nothing.”

“Good for him, I guess.”

“He means well.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“He said that he’s been trying not to say anything else,” Laurens went on.  “And he’s been good about holding himself to that.”

“Look,” McHenry finally said, glancing over at Laurens.  “I didn’t mean to step on your toes or anything.”

Laurens winced.  “I know.  I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, thanks,” McHenry said, closing his locker door and stepping back.  “About Eliza.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“It’s nice to get a second opinion.”

Laurens was about to say that it hardly counted as one but caught himself in time.  “No problem.  I bet it’ll go well,” he said as he followed McHenry out.  “And you have good timing, too,” he added, the idea coming to him as they left their row of lockers.  “If you get there with her now, you’ve got all of winter break to take advantage of.”

McHenry gave an appreciative if not entirely real laugh.  “Yeah,” he said, “okay, that’s a very good point.”


	233. Vacation Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Packing

“Not that I don’t appreciate the company, but, uh, you know that Peggy’s having dinner with her folks tonight, right?”

“She told me,” Lafayette said, stretched out on Mulligan’s couch.  Lying back against one armrest, his legs were long enough that he had to prop his feet up on the other.  His boots were placed neatly by the door and he crossed his feet over one another, the bright blue and red of his socks clashing horribly with the rest of his outfit.  “But you are my friend too, and I was bored.”

“Right.”  Mulligan carried an empty suitcase out of his bedroom and lay it down on the floor.  “Well, if you’re going to be here you might as well make yourself useful.”

Lafayette tipped his head to the side, watching as Mulligan went back into his room.

“I’m picking up a couple extra shifts and it’s gonna be hellish enough as it is, so I’m gettin’ a head start on packin’ tonight.  Check the weather for me, will you?”

“It’s supposed to be in the low- to mid-twenties.”

“Come again?”

“Ah, sorry.  It’s going to be in the seventies.”

“That sounds more like it.”  Music suddenly turned on in the other room and when Mulligan came back it was with a small wireless speaker and an armful of clothes.  “Come on, get your butt off my couch.”  He dropped the clothes to the floor next to the suitcase and put the speaker on the armrest vacated by Lafayette’s feet as soon as he got up.  “I need you to give me your opinion on a shirt that I can wear to a nice sit-down place, ‘cause we’re definitely going out at least once, and two more that are—” he frowned and shook one hand back and forth, “—still nice but a little more casual.  You know, wouldn’t look out of place if I wore it to a museum or a memorial or something.”

“You have several good options,” Lafayette said, telling the truth but also opening intentionally generously as he sorted through the shirts.

“I know,” Mulligan said.  “And that shouldn’t be news to you, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve met.  Hell, you came to two parties here.  I know how to dress myself.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette said quickly.  So much for attempting to make the task seem easier.  “Ah, I just meant that you picked nice ones.  I like this,” he said, holding up a navy dress shirt and looking around it to see Mulligan’s reaction.

Mulligan nodded, stroking his chin.  “Did you see the violet?”

Lafayette carefully put the shirt to the side.  “This one?”

“Yeah.  What do you think?”

“I think you don’t really need my help,” Lafayette said.  “I think you just wanted to give me something to do.”  He looked between the two shirts.

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“True.  I like them both.  What pants will you be wearing?”

“I have the same pair for both of them.  Hold on.”

Mulligan went into the other room again and Lafayette went back to sorting through the clothes that had already been brought out.

“You need a swimsuit,” he called.  “Or I suppose you could buy one there.”

“I don’t swim.  Here.”  Mulligan tossed a pair of slacks into the living room.  “I’m thinkin’ the violet’s more festive.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“Cool.  I do like navy, though.  Maybe pick out navy in something else.”

“What are you going to wear to the beach?”

“Dunno.  Shorts.  Wait, the beaches there aren’t nude, are they?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Too bad.  That would have solved that.”

“Did you tell Alexander yet?”

“Nope.  I was going back and forth on waiting until I could send him a picture from the plane with my boarding pass.”

“Oh, that would be funny.”

“I know.”

Lafayette cocked his head to the side as he looked between two shirts, then put one down and picked up a third.  “Alexander said that you used to be a tailor.”

“Tailor’s apprentice,” Mulligan corrected.  “I worked for a guy.  It was a neat job, good hands-on experience.  Teaches you a lot about business tax, keeping books, that sort of thing.  Sewing too, of course.  I probably altered about two-thirds of Alexander’s wardrobe for him.  Bought it, too.  That’s only partially related,” he added, coming back out with another armful of clothing and crossing into the bathroom.  “I was already working for the airline when we met—he must’ve told you that.”

“He did.”

“Yeah.  Well, I travel for work, obviously.  I’ve gotten him things from different layovers.  If I see something while I’m hitting up the town anyway.  He’s doing pretty okay now so it’s not high up my priorities list, if I’m bein’ honest.  I’ll get him something tacky from Hawaii, though.”

“I’m sure he will love it.”

“Nah, it’ll drive him batty.  All you kids are so fashionable, or at least you try.  That one wasn’t a dig at you,” he said, walking into the living room and crouching by the suitcase, putting down the rest of the clothes and a few travel-size toiletries.  “You’re a very snappy dresser.”

“Thank you.”

“‘Course, with your money…”

“That’s true,” Lafayette agreed wholeheartedly.  “My friends back in Paris were _very_ fashionable.”  He handed Mulligan the shirts he had picked out and Mulligan folded them neatly.  “One of them, ah, I don’t know how to do it justice.  She was an it-girl.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the same way?”

“Oh, she was more than me.  I could not hold a candle to her flame.”

Mulligan laughed.  “Level with me.  Are you being modest here?”

“No,” Lafayette said.  “If I was, ah, let me see…  When I was in Paris with Alexander,” he said after a brief pause, “when we were in the city I was recognized by a two girls and they came up to talk to me.  But with Marie—that is her name,” he clarified unnecessarily.  Mulligan nodded and motioned for him to continue.  “If _she_ is out, so are the paparazzi.  They would follow her everywhere and report on everything she did.  Or they would try to,” he amended.  “They were not always the most accurate.”

“Gossip mill, got it.”

“She is very well-known,” Lafayette went on.  “She has a makeup line.”

“Cool.  Is it any good?”

“It is not bad.”

Mulligan laughed.  He got up.  “I need a bag for the shampoo and crap.”  He walked into the kitchen, still talking.  “So she was tabloid-famous.  What about the rest of your friends?”

“I suppose so.”  Lafayette tugged at the nubbing on the heel of his sock.  “We were quite young, though.  I think Marie has only gotten more attention since I left.  There was a rumor that we were dating,” he said, pulling off the little round pills of fabric.  “Someone took pictures of the two of us out together and it became a popular story for a little while.”

“Were you dating her?”

“No, of course not.”  Lafayette leaned towards the table, stretching his whole body out and supporting himself with one arm on the ground while he reached for his phone with his other hand grasping over his head.  He managed to reach it and he rolled back up.  “It was very silly.  We were never anything other than friends and all of us knew that it was, ah, how do you say, hot air.”

Mulligan came back with a plastic quart bag and got down on the floor again.  “Sounds annoying.”

“It was funny at first.”  Lafayette showed Mulligan the search results he had pulled up on his phone, all variations of surreptitiously snapped photos of Lafayette and a striking girl in heavy makeup and dark sunglasses.  “But it became very frustrating.  They are very good at, ah, at twisting your words.  Do you know?”

“Me?  Not personally, no.  John, maybe.”

Lafayette considered this.  “Oh, this picture they photoshopped,” he said, enlarging one of the two of them in front of the thick walls of a neoclassical building, his hand suspiciously low on her hip.  “See?”  He tipped it to himself to scrutinize further, then back to Mulligan.  “They made her skinnier, too,” he said, turning it back to himself.  He clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

“I don’t see it,” Mulligan said, sealing the bag, his items inside.  “No offense, she’s very pretty, but she doesn’t seem to fit right with you.  Not in that picture, anyway.  You two look more like models in a photo shoot than lovers.  Friends, even.”

Lafayette leaned back against the side of the couch, studying his screen.  “This is de Ségur,” he said after a minute, showing Mulligan a picture that he had taken and saved to his phone.  “He is my closest friend there.  Except for Adrienne, of course.”

“Of course.  You know him from school?”

“Yes.  He’s at university now and dating Adrienne’s aunt.  She’s our age,” he clarified.  “There is a large age gap between her and Adrienne’s mother.  Neither he nor I are Catholic.”  Lafayette clicked his tongue again.  “They can be very annoying about that.”

“Oh, yeah, your girlfriend’s pretty serious about that.  I remember.”

“Adrienne is different,” Lafayette said.  “It does not matter to her what other people believe, as long as they are morally upright.  She doesn’t even ask me to go to mass with her anymore.”

“Yeah, now you just find someone else to take her.  What are you going to do on vacation?  I’m pretty sure she’s going to want to go to all the Christmas stuff.”

“I will go with her.  It is a small price to pay.”

“You’re a good kid,” Mulligan said, packing more clothes away.  “I thought you were going to say that you were just planning on making me escort her again.”

“Would you like to?”

“Not particularly.  No offense, but I can do about one service a year and that was for the architecture.”

Lafayette nodded.

“Maybe they’ll have a tour set up or something.”

“Maybe.”

Mulligan looked across the living room of his apartment at the decorations still scattered around.  “I’ll tell Hamilton when I break the news to him, but would you remind him for me that he’s more than welcome t’ come crash here if he wants.  He can use my room, even, doesn’t have to sleep on the couch this time.”

Lafayette nodded again.  “I’ll tell him.”

“Good.  Maybe with two people it’ll sink in.  He’s a good kid.  _Stupid_ ,” Mulligan said, “but good.  I keep tellin’ him that, hey, you don’t need to spend winter all alone in your pathetic little studio.  Don’t tell him I characterized it that way,” he said, cutting himself off.  “I helped him get it.  But he’s always welcome to come stay here.  _Always_ ,” he emphasized.  “I know he can’t be lookin’ forward to break.  As much as he bitches he needs the schedule, I think, needs to keep busy.  And I can tell he gets lonely when he doesn’t have all of you guys around to torment.”

“I think he will be okay,” Lafayette said.  He had been watching Mulligan closely and curiously as he talked and he saw how he had stopped working, instead balling one hand into a fist and pressing it against the floor.  “He has several events planned out already.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.  He’s going to be doing things with Eliza and Angelica and Peggy, and several of John’s friends have already begun arranging for a birthday party for him.”

“Good,” Mulligan said, getting back to work.  “It’s his twenty-first.  Kid deserves someone to take him out and let him run wild.  I was going to see if I could get the day off if no one was going to be around, but I’m sure he’d rather party with people his own age rather than with me.  Besides,” he went on, not letting Lafayette get in a polite protest, “they’re going to get wasted and I’ll show up in the morning to make a pain in the ass of myself.  It’ll be fun.  You’re going to be around for that, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Take this as your warning, then.”  Mulligan pointed at him with his sunglasses case, then tucked it into the mesh overhang inside his suitcase.  “If you don’t stay straight-edge for it I’m gonna make you regret being born.  If you’re good, you’ll get to enjoy the breakfast I’m planning on making for whoever’s around and join me in gently roasting him.”

“That sounds like a very good plan,” Lafayette said cheerfully.  “I look forward to it.”

“Good.  You know,” Mulligan said as he laid neatly folded socks along the side of his suitcase, “what I said about Alexander, that goes for you, too.  You ever need a place to stay, you’re welcome here.  I figured I didn’t really need to tell you that,” he added, “since you were already lounging on my sofa when I got home.”

“Your brother let me in.”

“I figured.”

“He said to stop ignoring his Snaps.”

“The point is,” Mulligan said, powering past Lafayette’s asides, “Hamilton’s family so that means that all of you guys in his little clan are family, too.  Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Besides, Peggy likes you,” Mulligan added.  “She told me what you did for her the other day.  That was very sweet.”

“Oh, it was nothing.  We are in the same class, so I had to study for the final as well.”

“Not that.  Going to her art show.  You collected her girlfriend and dressed up fancy.  It made her feel like it was something important.”  Mulligan got up and walked to the front door.  He crouched and stared into the shoe rack as he talked.  “She’s kinda like Hamilton, you know, got a sense like she’s been talked over a lot.  She’s got a better head on her shoulders in some ways, though.  Doesn’t feel the need to overcompensate as much.  Anyway.”  He put one hand down on the floor for balance.  “I’m thinking I need one shitty pair of sneakers for any outdoorsy stuff we do, but I’ll wear those on the plane…  What do you think, derby?”  He pulled a pair out before Lafayette had the time to respond.  “We’re still on vacation, after all.”

“Do you need sandals?”

“Right, thank you.  I knew there was a reason I wanted your help with this.”

Lafayette beamed.

“So what about you?  Are you packed?”

“No, not at all.  But I packed to come to America in three hours and that went well.”

“Did it?”

“The packing part.  I did not forget anything important.”

“Guess they let you on the plane.  Not like you wouldn’t’ve had to buy things here anyway.”

“Exactly.  My friend,” Lafayette said, getting to his feet and half-sitting on the arm of the couch, putting his hands down on either side of himself and gripping the edge, “de Ségur, he was the only one that I told in advance of my leaving.”

“Yeah?  That must have been a hard secret to keep.”  Mulligan carried the two pairs of shoes into the kitchen and opened one of the cabinet drawers, rummaging in a large plastic grocery bag for two smaller ones.

“No, I only told him when I was already at the airport.”  Lafayette stretched his legs out in front of him as far as possible, carefully nudging away clothes with his feet.  “I had wanted to keep it a secret from everyone until—until it had already happened.  But I was too nervous.  I was at the gate and waiting to board.  I thought that if I did not tell him then I might talk myself out of it,” Lafayette admitted.

“Hah.  He gave you a pep talk?”

“No, he told me that I was being stupid and threatened to, ah, _vendre la mèche_.”

“Let the cat out of the bag?”

“Yes?”

Mulligan returned, his shoes bagged.  He knelt down by the suitcase again and fit them in at the bottom.  “It means he said that he was going to spill the beans.  Let people know about your secret.”

“Spill the beans,” Lafayette repeated.  “I like both of those.  Yes, he said that he was going to spill the beans and let the cat out of the bag because I was being an idiot.”

“He didn’t think you should go, then?”

“No, at least not like that.  But—I thought that if I did not go right then, take matters into my own hands, then I would never do it.  I did not think that I could handle the weight of going if it was known about in advance.  Telling him was just to put my pride on the line.”

“I get it.  It’s harder to back out once something’s made public like that.”  Mulligan looked over the contents of his suitcase critically.

“You still have space.”

“I know, I’m tryin’ to travel light as possible.  I’m plannin’ on buying a bunch of presents.”

“Ah.”

“And the company’s only giving me one free suitcase.”

Lafayette nodded.

“So,” Mulligan said, “what about your friend?  You still going to meet up with him?”

“Oh,” Lafayette said, perking up, “yes!  He’s going straight to Hawaii like you, so I will meet the two of you there later.  I’ll introduce you,” he said cheerfully, rocking his weight forward and back on the edge of the armrest.  “Once I get in as well.  It will be fun!  We can all do things together, all six of us.”

“Six?”

“He’s traveling with his wife.”

A flash of benign surprise flickered over Mulligan’s face.

“I really should schedule something in,” Lafayette said, unlocking his phone and opening up his calendar.  “You’ll like Thomas.”


	234. An Understanding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Office Espionage

“I didn’t know if I should head over without you or not,” Hamilton said, standing just inside Burr’s single with his hands in his pockets.  He rocked back on his feet, hands pulling his coat forward.  “I figured you’d be up, though.”

“What would you have done if I didn’t answer?”

“Dunno.  Knock louder.  Call you.  Leave a message telling you to meet me later, or not, your call.”  Hamilton looked around curiously.  The room was exactly as he had last seen it, or close enough to it that he couldn’t tell any difference.  The door to Burr’s bedroom was half-closed and Burr was talking to him through it as he finished dressing.  “I probably should have coordinated something more specific with you yesterday.”

“Probably.”

“Oh well.”  Hamilton turned slowly, pivoting on his heels, and looked at the kitchenette that came with the unit.  “You want me to grab you anything?  Breakfast?  One of those almond granola bars?”

“Are you going through my things?”

“No.”

Burr pushed his door open all the way and looked out suspiciously, still buttoning the cuffs of his sleeves.

Hamilton took his hands out of his pockets and held them up in a show of innocence.  “Honest.  I remember you used to have those with you all the time.  I figured you still would.”

Burr looked at him for a long moment, then relented.  “Cabinet next to the fridge.”

“This is a pretty swanky set up,” Hamilton said, walking over and opening the door.  “Fridge, microwave.  No stove, but I guess you can still use the communal one.  This stuff looks like it’s in better shape than mine, too, dunno if it’s technically newer, but that’s because I’m not sure what year mine’s all from.  Bunch of storage space.  Your own bathroom.  Door on the bedroom.  Nice.”

“It’s not bad.”  Burr vanished back into his bedroom.

“You’ve only got one more left after this,” Hamilton said, taking the bar out of its cardboard box.

“You can have it.”

“Yeah?  Are you sure?”

“I need to go to the store either way.”

“True.”  Hamilton took them both and put them in his pocket.  “Almost ready?”

Burr stepped out again, this time with coat and bag.  “Let’s go.”

“So we can get coffee at the office,” Hamilton said as they set off.  “I usually just do the regular one but there are a couple flavored pods as well.  Vanilla bean.  Hazelnut.  Someone dropped off a gift basket with peppermint flavored stuff.  Test was good,” Hamilton said when Burr didn’t respond right away.  “I knew everything on there, including the bonus question, so I’m not concerned.”  He sounded smug—a far cry from the previous morning.  “I should’ve known, though, that class is too easy half the time.  I swear every couple weeks it’s just repeat of shit I’ve already seen covered.”

“I’m glad your test went well,” Burr said.  “If I had to pick between the two, I’d rather spend however long this will be listening to you brag than bitch.”

Hamilton looked over at him in surprise, then grinned when he saw his completely flat expression falter.

“You fucker,” he said elbowing him.  “Fine, got it, I can talk about something else.  I can take a hint.”

“Can you really?”

“I dunno, maybe I can’t.  Maybe I give you a play by play of my entire econ final.  I’m pretty sure I still remember all the questions.”

“What did you do after you were done with the test?”

“John,” Hamilton said promptly, making finger guns with his hands and clicking his tongue.  “Actually, I’ve been working on this paper,” he said a second later.  “Jefferson—you know Jefferson—he’s having us do an essay instead of a timed final, except he’s treating it like a take home test so I couldn’t get an earlier start on it.  He only just put out the prompt on Monday,” Hamilton went on, “but, like, Monday _night_ , and I’ve been too busy to sit down and deal with it until yesterday.  We’re not supposed to copy but it’s enough open to interpretation that we can talk to each other about it, so Angelica was telling me last night that she already finished hers.”  He swore.  “Lucky.”

“When is it due?”

“Tomorrow.  I’ve got like…  I can write the pages,” Hamilton said.  “Obviously.  And I’ve got the material down pat, I know what I want to say.  I just need it to be really tight.  He was on my ass already about getting off topic and skipping ahead of myself and shit.”

“I can take a look at it, if you’d like.”

“Maybe.  I’m going to ask John to read it over before I submit it.  If he’s too busy or something, I’ll ask you.  Thanks.”

“I have to admit,” Burr said, pausing to wave at someone in the lobby.  “I’m surprised that you’re actually acknowledging that you need to fix anything, even if you did preface it with all the reasons why you know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, well, get forced to redo a bunch of shit, it kind of notifies you of the problem.  Not that I really think it’s a problem,” Hamilton added, back to his previous swagger.  “But it was a pretty good indicator of what he’s looking for at least and it’s not so unreasonable that I can’t try to make sure that I tick the boxes.”

“I see.  So this is less about personal growth, and more about manipulating the system.”

“Yeah—hey!”

Burr laughed quietly, his mouth behind his fist.  Hamilton gave him an affronted look but let it slide.

“What else do you have to do?”

“Hm?”  They were outside now and Hamilton flinched against the cold.  “Is it colder than yesterday?  It feels colder than yesterday.”

“I think it’s about the same.”

“Below freezing, then,” Hamilton said, as if that validated his point anyway.  “That’s the one thing I’d change about this place.  Like, ten degrees warmer.  Don’t make a global warming joke,” he warned, “we both know that’s not how I want it.”

“Do you think that you’ll ever get used to it?”

“Well, yeah, I know people are greedy and stupid, I’m just bitching about how short-sighted this platform is anyway—”

“No, not that.  Living up here.  You’ve been here for several years now but you sound just like you did when you first arrived.”

“Not _just_ like I did.  I don’t know,” Hamilton said, “I’m allowed to want it warmer.”

“You haven’t acclimated.”

“Not to the literal climate, no, but how can you when it swings around this much?”  Hamilton turned his face away from a gust of wind.  “I know the city, though.  I know where everything is.  I know how to find my way around and how not to get accosted.  That’s the marker of control, right?  Movement.  That’s why you watch where and when they put curfews in and restrictions on travel.  It’s trying to set the bounds on what is permitted and keep an eye on the population.  Like,” Hamilton said, shivering with another burst of wind, “okay, this is reaching back some, but look at the restrictions on the enslaved population early on in this country.  No weapons, of course, but also no literacy and no travel and no gathering at night.  It was meant to stop communication channels, block them up at the edges of private property.  My point is,” said Hamilton, “that if we’re talking about visibility and action, I know how to move through physical public space.  And how to do so in a way that is legible as quote-unquote native,” he added, taking his hands briefly out of his pockets to make quotation marks around the word.  “You’re not going to catch me gawking at the architecture in the middle of the sidewalk.”

“Did you initially?”

Hamilton snorted.  “Don’t ask me shit like that.  Yes, okay, it was impressive.  You know I hadn’t seen a city this big before.  I do wish sometimes that I was born into it,” he admitted.  He paused.  “But, sometimes I also am glad that I was not.  The contrasts and the continuities are fascinating and I don’t know how well I’d see them if I was coming at this from the other direction, you know?  Like, what if I was born and raised here and then up and left and went somewhere else, somewhere—not even necessarily back to the Caribbean, but just somewhere away from the center.  I’d get the culture shock, sure, but what would it mean?  How would I make sense of it?  It would have to be something different, because I wouldn’t’ve had—I wouldn’t’ve had it presented to me all along as a story running parallel to what I saw outside my own window.  If I grew up here and then one day I decided I was going to pack my bags and make my fortune somewhere out there in some world that I only heard rumors of—but then to get there and find that everyone’s already literate in where I’m from.  I’m not saying they majored in it, but they at least know how to read it.”  Hamilton shook his head.  “Maybe it’s a dumb question because I could find plenty of people just on this campus who did that.  Went out, got de-centered, came back.  Sat back at their desks with the compass and coordinates all back to normal.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.  Hell no.  That’s not the point.”  Hamilton glanced up at the campus building they were passing.  “I’m not—Well, okay,” he admitted, “maybe I am making a value judgement.  Shouldn’t be, though.  That’s not what it’s about.  Dice fall where they may, whatever.  None of us get to choose what we’re born into.  I know for sure I’d have changed some of mine if I could.  I don’t know that ‘jealous’ is the right word,” he went on.  “‘Curious.’  I dunno.”

He trailed off, hunching into his coat against the wind.

“I did mean the weather,” Burr said after a minute.  “And that was all.”

“I figured.  Sometimes I just like talking.”

Half of Burr’s mouth twisted up.  “‘Sometimes’?”

Hamilton looked up at him, his lips pressed into a thin, wry smile, and didn’t say anything.

“I can live with silence.”

Neither of them spoke until they reached the administration building and headed inside.

“Thank you.”  Hamilton took the door from Burr.  “That was a trade,” he said as they waited for the elevator.  “All that stuff I said out there.  That plus bringing you here in the first place.”

“All of these deals have been very messy.”

“Yeah, well.  That’s how it goes when you’re not at the other guy’s throat.  You got more wiggle room.  Continuing process of negotiation.”

“Mm.”

They got in the elevator and rode it up.

Hamilton dug his keyring out of his pocket, clumsily picking out the one for the office with numb fingers.  “Thought I lost all these,” he commented.  “Over fall break.  I would’ve been so fucked.”  The elevator chimed and the doors opened.  Hamilton led the way out and to the office, where he unlocked the door with the obvious ease of repetition.  “Right,” he said.  “You’ve been… less than helpful with what exactly you’re looking for, so I can’t really point you in the right direction.  Don’t be weird about any of this,” he went on, “‘cause I’m allowed to be in here and everyone knows I’m going to start training a guy soon to take over—plus, like, Lafayette’s here all the time and I’ve had John help me with stuff—anyway, don’t do anything weird and nobody needs to know.  Clear?”

“As crystal.”

“Excellent.”  Hamilton unlocked Washington’s private office and walked in.  “Coffee’s on the shelf.  We can use those mugs, I’ll just wash them after.  Here’s the thing.”  He stopped and made a sharp turn to the wall of shelving.  “Files.  Tons of files.  I did those,” he said, sounding almost chipper and pointing towards one long row.  “All this is tax info,” he said, using two hands to metaphorically shove a set of documents to the side.  “That’s mission statements, proposals, speeches, that sort of thing.  Those ones are all labeled with the various groups and organizations they pertain to.  I don’t really know what more you want on, uh, Dr. Bartow.  Theodosia. Dr. Theodosia?  I guess I should keep the title.  Anyway.  Between me and Lafayette doing our bits, I’m not sure what else there is.  We can try to find the exact complaint and minutes from the disciplinary meetings again, though.  Or, actually, _you_ can.  I’ll help, but I also really do need to get work done.”

Burr nodded.  “Thank you, Alexander.”

“No problem.”  Hamilton hesitated.  “I’ll be outside,” he said.  “Mostly.”  He poured water into the coffee maker and stuck a pod in it, mug under the spout.  “I’ll come back for this.”

“I’ll bring it to you.”

“Thanks. You gonna be okay here?”

“I know how to make coffee.”

“Hah.  Yeah, okay.  I’ll be in and out.”  Hamilton left, looking back over his shoulder as Burr carefully took a binder off the wall and flipped slowly through it.  Shaking his head, he went behind his own desk and turned on the computer.  As it booted up he crouched on the floor and pulled out one of the many boxes of less-important papers that he still needed to type up or scan or file.  He looked up a few minutes later when Burr brought out his mug.  “Excellent.”

“I let it cool.”  Burr took a sip from his own mug.

“Good call.”  Hamilton got up.  Burr handed his over to him.  “Find anything good yet?”

“No.”

“Can I tell you something?”  Hamilton asked.  He sat down in his chair, coffee in hand.  “I don’t know that you’re going to find anything else.  I offered to have you come because—I don’t know, I thought you’d like to look.  Double check.  But I know this place better than you, no offense, and I gave you all that I found in print.  I know how things are organized here.  And between me doing that and Lafayette asking the big guy in person…”  Hamilton shrugged.  “It sounds like it was a shit deal, but all pretty above water.  I don’t think her leaving has anything to do with that rumor about the two of you.”

“It wasn’t about me,” Burr said automatically.

Hamilton just shrugged again and took a drink.  “Damn,” he said.  “I’m going to miss access to this over break.”

Burr leaned his arms to the elbow the table and looked down into his mug.

“Hey.”  Hamilton scooted his chair a little closer.  “That’s a good thing though.  That scandal’s all come to nothing.  Everyone concluded it was just her ex being a wank.  Even Jefferson said so, so I don’t think her colleagues in general believed it.  She’s just leaving because she didn’t get her contract renewed.  That blows but it’s standard stuff.  Doesn’t mean she can’t get hired somewhere else.”

Burr nodded.

“So,” Hamilton started, then stopped.  He pushed himself as far back as the chair could move without taking his feet off the ground or dragging them over the carpet.  He moved forward again.  “I don’t get what the problem is.”

“I just wanted,” Burr said, carefully, after a long silence, “to find something helpful.”

Hamilton nodded, watching as he didn’t lift his head.  “I get that.  But I don’t think she needs help.”

“Or she just doesn’t need anything that I can offer.”

Hamilton was silent for another minute.  “Do you want to look again?  You really only just started.”

Burr shook his head.  “No.”  He looked up.  “You said there’s nothing there.  I trust you.”

“Do you?”

“On this, with your work.  Yes.”

Hamilton patted his forearm.  “I’m sorry.”

Burr breathed out and stood up, both slowly.  “It’s fine.  Do you need help with the rest of this while I am here?”

“Sure.  How fast can you type?”  Hamilton pulled a thick notebook into his lap.  “I’d offer to let you dictate but there’s no way you can read my handwriting.  I can barely make it out in parts.”

Burr laughed.  It was a little forced and artificial, but the show was there.  “Get up,” he said.  “I’ll help you for a couple of hours, but you’ve giving me the chair.”

“Fair enough.”  Hamilton stood and hopped up onto the desk, opening the notebook and crossing his legs.  “Okay, so you want to find the file on there that’s labeled ‘fucking taxes’—that’s a working title—and scroll all the way to the bottom.”  He cleared his throat.  “Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll begin.”


	235. Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Building Bridges

Laurens turned his phone over in his hands as he sat on his bed, staring into middle distance, his mind rocking gently between a blank and the looping memory of his last conversation with Martha.

 _Are you okay?_ Her words echoed, tugging at something without properly bringing it to the surface.  He didn’t know what they were catching on and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to find out.  _You only call when something’s wrong._ That wasn’t true, was it?  He just didn’t usually call in general.  It was coincidence happened that the last few times he had, he had something more serious that he wanted to discuss.  It wasn’t that he only called because something had gone wrong.  If that were true, he’d talk to her a whole lot more, things went wrong far more than how often he called her.

That was a logical fallacy, he pointed out to himself, almost in spite of himself as well.

As if in retaliation, his thoughts slid back to black.

He wondered, a minute later, like a piece of equipment shuddering back to life, how often his friends called home.

Lafayette didn’t count, he was in contact with Adrienne constantly.  _Not only Adrienne_ , he pointed out, almost arguing with himself.  _He calls Chavaniac all the time, too, he just isn’t as obnoxious about it._

André surely couldn’t count, either, because it couldn’t be normal to actually check in with your parents almost every day, and when he was rooming with him he had seen his mother send him care packages without his even asking for them, and surely that was coddling?

 _Tench talks to his parents a lot_ , he thought.  _And Tallmadge…_

Laurens felt his thoughts fade to nothing again and this time the darkness frustrated him and he pushed back.  He sat up and unlocked his phone and dialed and held it in his hands while it rang.

Martha appeared on the screen.

“Jack?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?  I call you.”

“What?”

“I call you,” Laurens repeated.  “Like right now.  See?  And nothing’s wrong,” he added, maybe too insistently for it to be wholly believable.

“Uh, great.  I’m at _school_ , Jack.”

“You still picked up.”  He hesitated.  “Do you have a test today?”

“Yeah.  History.”

“Do they still make you write in those blue books?”

Martha laughed, and something about it hit Laurens in the chest.

“No, grandpa.  No one uses those anymore.  The essays are typed.  We use this program that locks your laptop down so you can’t click off of the site until you submit it.”

“I know what you’re talking about.”

“Dad didn’t and you were sounding as ancient as he is.”

“He’s not even that old.”

“Whatever.”

Laurens paused and tried to gather his thoughts.  “European history, right?”

“Yeah.”

“First semester, so through to the 1800s?”

“We stopped on the Enlightenment.  Did you know—”  Someone shouted off screen and Martha turned away from her phone, grinning and watching whatever was playing out nearby.  It was strange for Laurens to see her outside of the house, in a setting where she was clearly confident and interacting with people who he couldn’t have put a face to if he had tried.

“I’m flying down in a little over a week,” he said.  She didn’t immediately turn back but he continued anyway.  “We still have championships so I’m going to be training still, but I’ve got nothing to do other than that.  Maybe we can do something sometime.”

“Yeah, sure,” Martha said without much concern.  “I’ll see when I’m free.”

“Okay.”  Laurens wasn’t sure what to do about his baby sister actually having a social life and a schedule, much less his trying to get her to make time for him.  The world seemed oddly off balance.  “Hey,” he finally said, “good luck with your test.”

“Don’t jinx me, Jack.”

“You’ll do fine,” he said, knowing automatically that it was true.  “Anyway, let me know.  I’ll see you later.”

“Oh—!  Jack,” Martha said, cutting back in just before he hung up.  “I ordered the stuff for Peggy.  I sent it to your address.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I used Dad’s card,” she said, interrupting him.  “I figured it’s his fault that you had to promise it anyway and it’s not like he’s going to complain about your giving her shit.”

Laurens snorted.  “That’s true.”

“I’m telling you so you don’t get spooked when the box shows up,” Martha said.  “Don’t toss it, okay?  I put _time_ into it.  I looked her up on Facebook first and everything.”

The corner of Laurens’ mouth curled up.  “Got it.  Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Go study,” Laurens said, “I’ll see you soon.”  He hung up as Martha groaned dramatically.  He turned the phone over in his hands again, just once, then stood.  He took his coat off the back of his chair and pulled it on, grabbing his keys and wallet and heading out.

He only made it to the common area on the first floor before running into someone he knew.

“…Hey.”  Laurens greeted Burr after an awkward back and forth of met eyes and half-nods.  Spurred on by an attempt at manners, he added, “How are you?”

“Tired.”  Burr folded his arms and let his head tip slightly to the side.  The answer felt strangely honest and Laurens didn’t know what to do with it.

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed.  “I think everyone is.”

“I had coffee with Alexander this morning.”

Laurens was surprised by that.  “He said he was going to the office.”

“Yes,” Burr said.  “That’s where we had coffee.”

“…Okay.”  Laurens folded his own arms, pulling them tight across his chest.  “So did you get work done, or what?”

“I owed him a favor,” Burr said.  “He had me help him type up his notes.”

Laurens blew air out past his lips.  “Lucky you.”

“I know.”  Sarcasm.

A beat.  Neither of them moved, continuing their impasse in the middle of the hall.

“I was going to…”  Laurens started, not actually sure what he was going to do.  “Get coffee,” he finished, just repeating the last semi-logical activity he had heard.  “My meal points reset after next week, and I can use them at the cafe.  Do you want to join me?”  He offered, not sure if he actually wanted to make the overture or if he was just acting on a lifetime of being told to be polite.

“Again?”  Burr asked.

For a second Laurens agreed that it was a stupid thing to ask and he was about to turn in advance of saying farewell, but then Burr spoke again.

“Why not, I suppose.  I have some time to kill.”  He unfolded his arms and pushed up one sleeve to check his watch.

Laurens wished privately that he had been ruder.  “Right.  Well.”  He motioned roughly towards the door.  “Then I guess let’s go.”

“How is he doing?”  Burr asked after they were outside.

The wind was cold and Laurens checked that his coat was done up all the way.  He glanced at Burr.  “Fine, I guess.  Didn’t you just see him?”

“I mean in general.”

Laurens shrugged,  not sure what Burr was driving at.

“I remember that he drives himself crazy during finals.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  I don’t know.  I think he’s fine.”

Burr looked at him as if he was waiting for a more elaborate answer and Laurens after a pause, continued, embarrassed at how much more he actually did have to say.

“He’s doing better than last year, anyway.  He just overdoes it.  He wants to do it all and do it all perfectly, but he doesn’t always take the smart way.”

Burr nodded and to Laurens’ continuing confusion his look moved from skeptical to satisfied.

“That’s true.  He’s a perfectionist.”

“Right.  It’s not like he’s not capable,” Laurens added.  “He can get the As, so why not aim for it.  He just—”  He stopped, awkward and not sure how to not talk himself into an uncomfortable corner.  “He’s fine,” he concluded.  “Once he gets his grades in and sees the proof of it, then he can relax a little.”

“Does he know how to do that?”

“What, relax?”  Laurence glanced at him again.  “Yeah.  It’s not like he works all the time, finals week is just rough.”

“Hm.”  Burr was looking straight ahead as they walked, not giving any indication of the cold.

He had just walked over from the administration building, Laurens reasoned, maybe he was used to it.

“You mean that he knows how to have a good time,” Burr said.  “But even then, he’s very high energy.  I’ve gone out with him before,” he reminded Laurens.  “He can be very fun, but it’s draining to spend so much time with him.  You can’t ever just have some peace and quiet.  Even at the party at the Schuylers’,” he went on, “he was non-stop, just talking the whole time, going from one subject to the next…”

Laurens shrugged.  “I don’t know,” he said, his words a little curt as he thought of the lazy mornings and afternoons he had spent with Hamilton at his apartment or the dorm.  “I think he’s fine.”

“For now,” Burr agreed.

Laurens shrugged again.  “I helped him shred papers at the office before,” he said, changing the topic.  “It was pretty boring.  I’d still rather do that than be someone’s typist, though.”  He thought he caught Burr look quickly at him but neither of them acknowledged the jab.  “Look,” Laurens said after a minute had passed in silence.  “I have to ask.  I thought the two of you hated each other.  What’s the deal now?”

“Hate is cold,” Burr said.  “We had a falling out, that’s not the same thing.”

“The few times your name came up it sure sounded like it.”

Burr laughed, very drily.  “I know what kinds of things he was saying about me.”

“Don’t tell me you weren’t saying the same about him.”

“I still had to work with him, remember?”  Burr ignored Laurens.  “If he really hated me, or if he had really made up his mind that any bridges between us were burned, then all channels of communication would have been silenced.  We did still talk,” he reminded Laurens.  “He was just incredibly rude about it whenever we had to.”

“That’s definitely true.”

“He’s very, very stubborn.  If he actually did not want to continue to work with me, he would have figured out some way around it.  Trust me,” Burr said.  “Hate is nearer to indifference than anger.”

Internally, Laurens rolled his eyes.  How pretentious.  “Right.  Well, if you two have made up or whatever then I guess that’s good.  For Alex, anyway.”

“I like him,” Burr said abruptly  “I think he means well and he’s very smart.  So you can take that stick out of your ass.”

Laurens turned, incredulous, then caught himself and looked away, his face burning.

“I thought you’d like to know about what he was like before you became friends,” Burr said.  “I figured that was something I had to offer.  But if you’re going to be a prick about it then I don’t have to tell you.”

“…Sorry.”  The word stung his mouth.  Laurens couldn’t bring himself to sound genuine.  “…Did you _want_ to tell me anything?”’

“I’m a good resource.  I was his first friend here.”

“Mulligan was his first friend in New York.”

“In the school, then,” Burr said impatiently.  “Don’t you want to know things?  You two have been dating for some time now and I’d think there would be some natural interest there.  He wanted to know about your past.”

In a flash, Laurens remembered the letters back in his room in Columbia and wondered if Burr had intended to dredge them up.

“Well?”

They were approaching the cafe on campus and Laurens took one hand from his coat pocket to slowly rub the back of his neck and then his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I guess.”

He could feel Burr watching him expectantly but didn't say anything else until he had opened the door and stepped inside, getting in the short line at the counter.

“You sounded surprised that he’s not running himself into the ground as badly.  Was he really that stressed before?”

Burr raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.  “Yes,” he said.  “He was almost frantic.”

Laurens nodded, silent.

“I think it was an adjustment to the workload and the expectations.”

“Right,” Laurens said.  “That makes sense.”

“Did you think it was easy for him?”

“No.”  He undid his coat and took his wallet out.  “Of course not.  I don’t think I would have been able to do it,” he admitted.  “But he talks in circles around things so sometimes it’s hard to know what it would have actually looked like to someone else.  I know he was having a harder time last year,” he said, “but, I mean, it wasn’t a great semester for me, either.  I don’t know.”  He ordered and paid and stood to the side to wait for Burr.  “He’s better than you think,” he told him once he had finished.  “I don’t know how much of the picture you can see, but you’re not the person he’s closest to anymore.  And it’s not just me—he’s got a lot of us now.  When you’re with him, it doesn’t feel like he’s spinning in circles.  Yeah,” Laurens went on, “he’s high order, but that’s just who he is.  He has high standards for himself and he’s generally able to meet them.  But he’s fine,” he said.  “I don’t need to know all the details of what he was like before to know that he’s doing fine now.  And,” he lifted and dropped his shoulders slightly, putting his hands back into his pockets.  He didn’t finish the rest of his sentence out loud, letting it fall into the space between them.  He offered Burr a reconciliatory half-smile.

He was trying to be fine, too.


	236. The Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Callender

“I have a test tomorrow morning,” Laurens said, shifting his mug from one hand to the other as he talked to Burr across the low table between the couch and chairs in the cafe.  “But as long as I review some tonight it’ll be okay.  Then I’ve got all of next week to relax before I go home.  What about you?”

“I won an internship for a couple of weeks down in DC,” Burr said.  “It should be interesting.”

Laurens scoffed.  “Sure.”

Burr’s mouth curved into a slender smile over the top of his own mug.  “Do you spend a lot of time there?”

“Every summer,” Laurens said.  It was obviously a complaint.  “It’s hot and it’s congested and it’s tedious.  You’re going in winter, though, so it won’t be as crowded at least, and I guess it won’t be any colder than here.”  He didn’t raise his mug to his mouth.  “Who are you going to be working for?”

“The Smithsonian.”

“Better than Congress.”

“You are so bitter,” Burr said, clearly amused.

Laurens shrugged, on edge even without the conversation going anywhere in particular.  “The Smithsonian’s cool,” he acknowledged, seeking a little distance.  “Archives?”

“Yes.”

“Neat.”

“I’d ask if you had any suggestions for what to do in my spare time while I’m there,” Burr said, “but somehow I get the sense that I should just look up a guide online.”

“No, I mean, it’s a decent place.  The museums are nice, but you’ll be talking to people who know more about them than I do.”

“It’s fine.  I take it that you usually intern for your father?”

“Yeah.  Well,” Laurens amended, “mostly.  It’s not…  It’s not like it’s really a job, not like how it would be if someone else was doing it.  It’s more like volunteer work, only I know everyone.”

“They’re easier on you?”

“I left halfway through the summer last year to go to France,” Laurens said bluntly.  “I was supposed to be going around with my father and helping him with things, which really just means meeting people and sitting in on stuff.  I fielded some calls for him, but that was about as interesting as it gets.”

“So you left.”

“It’s not like it’s a real job anyway,” Laurens muttered.  “It’s just bs.”

He put his coffee down and caught, to his surprise, sight of actual and undisguised hunger in Burr’s eyes.  He must have given something away, shown shock or distrust, because Burr quickly turned away.  When he turned back he had veiled it and sounded perfectly reasonable and sympathetic.

“It makes sense that you find that frustrating.  Especially once family is thrown into the mix.”

“Right,” Laurens said warily.

“Still.”  Burr took a sip.  “It’s a good way to learn the ins and outs of Washington.  I bet that will be a real leg up for you later.”

“…Yeah.”  Laurens didn’t feel like arguing with him somehow, even if he also didn’t agree with what Burr was angling towards.

He looked away from him, across the room and out the glass front, where he saw someone unnervingly familiar standing still and watching him.

He frowned and tipped his head away and Burr, seeing his expression shift, put his arm on the back of the couch and turned as well.

The figure outside lifted a hand, first finger raised, in acknowledgement and unspoken command, then made a beeline for the door.

“A friend…?”  Burr began to ask, shifting to face forward again.  He fell silent as Laurens shook his head.

He recognized him now, although he couldn’t remember his name.  He had seen him on the field in the crush of people after the game, talking to Grayson.

“James Callander,” the newcomer said, his hand already outstretched as he approached them at the fast clip of someone who wanted to make himself welcome before anyone could tell him otherwise.

Laurens hesitated, then shook his hand.  It was held a little closer than necessary.  “Can I help you?”

“You’re John Laurens,” Callender stated.  It was not a question.  He turned to Burr, hand outstretched again, and earnest expression on his face.  “James Callender,” he repeated.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Aaron Burr.”

They shook.

“I was just passing by,” Callender said, turning back to Laurens and then sitting on the couch next to Burr.  “When I happened to spot you through that window.  It’s really fortuitous.  I’m a reporter for the student paper,” he explained, taking a card out of his pocket and handing it to Laurens.

Laurens took it, reading his name and position and wondering who on earth would make themselves cards.  Hamilton, probably, he answered himself a split second later.

“I have another,” Callender was saying meanwhile, handing a second card to Burr.  “Please, take it.  That’s my number on there,” he said.  “If you ever hear anything interesting, give me a call, I’m at your service.”

“Of course,” Burr said, reading the card over as well.  His eyes flicked up and met Laurens’ in silent mockery.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Callender said to Laurens.  “We have one more edition of the paper for the semester and there’s just enough time to move some things around before it goes to print.  You all just won your final game of the season.  Is there any chance I can talk to you about it?”

“Uh,” Laurens shrugged.  “Yeah.  Sure.  Just about the game?”

“You caught the winning touchdown,” Callender said.  “So you’re the guy I most want to talk to.  Well, you and your quarterback and—”  He pulled his backpack directly in front of him and opened it, taking out a notebook and flipping through it.  “Will Hays.”

Laurens nodded, silent.

“But I caught up with you, at least, which is great.  It’s so hard to find anyone when classes aren’t in session.  I need to ask you some basic stuff first,” Callender said, almost apologetic, “before we move on to the more interesting things.  You’re going to have another game now, right?  Are you ready for it?”

“Uh,” Laurens said again, feeling like he was just getting dragged along by Callender’s energy.  “Yeah, we’re going to be going to championships, which is great.  We’re all looking forward to it.  I don’t want to say that we’re ready when we’re still training and getting prepared, but I know everyone’s working very hard.”

Callender nodded furiously as he wrote down Laurens’ response.  “Great,” he said.  “Are you doing anything special to prepare?”

“No, not really.  We’re working just as hard as before.”

“Things are different now, though,” Callender prompted.  “Since you’re the captain now.”

Laurens shrugged, put on the spot and uncomfortable.  “I guess.  But, honestly, it doesn’t change all that much.  It’s the same guys as before and no one’s position on the field got moved around.  Besides, it’s already the end of the season.”

“You must have chemistry with everyone already.”

“Right, exactly.”

“So has that changed?”

“What?”

“Is the team’s chemistry overall different now that your old captain left?”

“Oh.”  Laurens felt relieved somehow, like he had just dodged a bullet.  “No, not really.  Uh, we didn’t…”  He turned his hand over, then back.

“Did you not get along?”

“No, uh, I don’t mean that.  We just didn’t run in the same circles.”

“Would you say that there are different cliques among your teammates?”

“I guess.  That’s just normal, though.”

Callender nodded and made a noise to himself as he wrote.  “So, the people you are closest to…?”

“John André.  Tallmadge, Tench, Humphreys, McHenry, Grayson…  André and I came in the same year and we were roommates at one point, so I know him the best.”

“That makes sense.  And what about Charles Lee?”  Callender asked.  “You said that the team’s the same without him?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“So he didn’t have much of an impact, then, on how things ran?”

Laurens considered this.  “I wouldn’t say that,” he said.  “But he had a lot of attitude and there could have been worse things to happen than his leaving.”

“A lot of attitude?”  Callender leaned in, pen at the ready.

“Some people are just like that,” Laurens said, not entirely willing to deflect the question and spare Lee’s skin.  “It’s a chemistry thing, like you said.  Not everyone plays well with others.”

Burr coughed delicately.  Laurens ignored him.  Screw Lee.  Besides, he wasn’t saying anything everyone didn’t already know.

“So you really didn't like him,” Callender said.  “I know, I get it, you’re not allowed to say that,” he went on when Laurens didn’t immediately answer.  “But…”  He motioned between them hopefully.

“Lee was arrogant.”

“Is that a controversial claim?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me more about why he left?  Is it true that he’s been expelled?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“That’s a dramatic step to take, and so late in the season.”

Laurens shrugged, intentionally indifferent.

“…What about the rest of your teammates?  Did anyone else expect to be made captain?”

“No,” Laurens said, remembering his earlier conversation with Tallmadge.  “Not that I know of.”

“So you were pretty confident that you’d get the position?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Had you heard that you were the next in line?”

Laurens hesitated.  “No,” he finally said.  “I heard that I was up for consideration once, but not anything recent.”

“When were you considered?”

“Last year.”

Callender looked even more intrigued.  “Lee was already captain at that time.”

“Yeah.”  Laurens ran a hand through his hair.  “I told you that he had an attitude problem.”

“Your coach was looking to demote him?”

“You’ll have to talk to Coach about that.”

Callender nodded slowly and dragged the back end of his pen down his page of notes, skimming them over.  “Who was the student on the sidelines during the first half of your last game?”  He looked up, eyes clear and sharp.

Laurens felt something inside himself recoil.  “What?”

“Male.  Late teens, early twenties.  Long hair.  Wearing a long coat.  I assumed he was a student,” Callender said.  “Did he win a contest or a drawing?”

“No,” Laurens said.  “No, that, uh, I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”

“Your—”  Was there a pause?  “—friend.  I was sitting up front in the press box,” Callender said.  “I saw you talking with him.  It seemed like you were the person to ask.  It seems unusual for someone not affiliated with the team to be on the sidelines like that.”

“Oh,” Laurens said, feeling his face heat and hoping it was not obvious.  “That was…”

“That was Alexander Hamilton,” Burr said, cutting in smoothly.  “He and I are both members of the student council.  He’s trying to set up this new arrangement, encourage more student participation.  As you may know, our current demographics do not reflect the demographics of the larger student body.  A few of us are working to change that.”

Normally Laurens would have objected to how Burr was characterizing his involvement in a job that he had pushed back against so strongly, but it was far from the time for that.

“I see.”  Callender was writing furiously.  “Great.  Student council work.  Trying to get people more engaged, I can relate to that.  That’s our goal for this year as well, get more people in the loop on what’s going on on campus.  Thank you for sharing.  John—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Burr said again, pushing his sleeve back with two fingers and making a show of checking the time on his watch.  “John, we really need to be going.  I hope this has been helpful,” he said, standing.

“Very.”  Callender was on his feet in an instant as well, packing up as he stood there.  “Thank you both for your time.”  He sounded earnest again and nothing more than overenthusiastic.  “Thank you,” he repeated as he shook their hands.  “If you think of anything you’d like to share, please get in touch.  I’m going to be working on the paper next semester as well and like I said, we’re really trying to branch out and reach a wider audience.  Get everyone invested in what’s happening on campus.  You have my card, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Laurens said, pulling his coat on.  “When is this coming out, again?”

“Monday morning,” Callender said promptly.  “Bright and early.  We’re going to be working all weekend putting the final touches on everything, just like every week, end of finals or not.  We have some great shots from the game and I’m just so glad I got to speak with you.  We’re trying to bring in more of a human interest angle on things,” he explained.  “I’ve been arguing that that’s where we’re really lacking.  If we can catch people’s interest and show them why they should be paying attention, that’s our story.”

“Well, great.”  Laurens walked his cup back to the front and put it in the bin for dirty dishes.  Burr followed suit and Callender trailed both of them.  “Happy to help.”

“You’ve give me a lot to write about,” Callender said.  He waited until Burr and Laurens were both turned to face him again, before waving and leaving the cafe, almost seeming to vanish and reappear at set points in bursts of jerky energy.  “Good luck at championships.  Go team!”

Laurens laughed as soon as the door had closed behind Callender.  “Jesus,” he said, shaking his head.  “I’ve done interviews before and that wasn’t the worst one but it was maybe the weirdest.”

“You talk too much,” Burr said flatly.  “What would you have done if someone else wasn’t there to break it up?”

“I dunno.  Run my mouth off about how much I hate Lee and get scolded by Coach, I guess.”  Laurens shrugged.  “Everyone’s going to find out that he’s been kicked out anyway.  And,” he shrugged again, “frankly, I don’t fucking care.  I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true and everyone he can ask would agree with me.”

“And his asking about Alexander?”

“He said he wanted to know what he was doing there.  And you answered him,” Laurens said.  “Look, I’ve read the sports sections their paper does.  They’re pretty standard.  ‘Human interest’ means fluff pieces about how Grayson’s parents came to watch the first game he played in or how Humphreys is planning on getting his MBA after this.  He’s an awkward kid,” Laurens said, “but I’ve done interviews that will be seen by way more people than this.  Who even reads the school paper?  He’s not kidding that they need to get attention up.  Grayson knows him,” he added.  “They have class together.  He’s been following the team all season, apparently, but he’s such a minor player that I didn’t even notice him until last week.”

Burr just shook his head.  “It’s your life,” he said, “not mine.”

“I could say the same thing to you,” Laurens said, making an attempt at a joke.  “Good luck in DC for two weeks.  Let me know next semester how much you hated it.”


	237. Study Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *What It Says on the Tin

“I have exactly twenty-four hours to finish this,” Hamilton said, light from his laptop screen shining harsh and blue on him in the poorly lit room.  “Twenty-three,” he corrected himself, his hand pushed up into his hairline and his elbow on the desk.  Open books and scans lay around him in a disorganized mess.  “Because I need to submit it early in case there’s any technological issue.  Jefferson was very clear that midnight was a hard deadline and that he wouldn’t take any excuses for why it came in after that.  ‘Twelve o’clock is the cut off,’” he mimicked, “‘not twelve o’ one.’  Asshole.”

“You did all the research,” Laurens pointed out.  He looked up from his book and a takeout container of francesinha, the thick sandwich heavily cut into and swimming in red sauce.  A separate container of fries was open on the floor a little ways away.  “Didn’t you come up with an outline with Angelica?”

“I came up with an outline and ran it by her,” Hamilton said, a little touchy about the semantics.  “I let her look at it.  I just wanted her opinion, not her help.”

“Got it.”  The words were muffled by a mouthful of food.  “You want your half of this?”

“Later.”

“It’s already midnight,” Laurens pointed out.  “How long are you planning on staying up?”

“I need to get at least a full draft done.”

“Weren’t you working on this earlier?”

“Yes.  Hated it.”

“Got it.”  Laurens swapped the sandwich for the fries, deciding not to ask if Hamilton had only decided that he hated it after he showed it to Angelica.  “Do you want any help?  I can look at what you have.”

“You need to study, too.  I just…”  Hamilton pushed his hand aggressively through his hair.  “I’m not thinking straight.  I need more coffee.”

“Hey,” Laurens said, reminded.  “When should I give you your presents?”

“Plural?”

“Christmas and your birthday.”  He felt a twinge of guilt.  “I’m, uh, I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

“I dunno.  A little before you leave?  I’m not ready to do the gift exchange thing yet, John.”  He drank the remainder of the cold coffee in his mug.  “I’m so pissed about this,” he said in a sudden small explosion.  “I wanted to _avoid_ this.  I don’t actually like being this backed into a corner.  It sucks!  But, no, he wouldn’t give us the prompt ahead of time, and then the fucking paper isn’t even short enough to reflect that!”

“What an asshole,” Laurens said sympathetically.  “Seriously, Alex, let me look it over.  I only needed to review this anyway.”

Hamilton unplugged his laptop and carried it over to the futon.  He handed it to Laurens as he put the fries down and wiped his hands on his pants.

“Can you just…  I don’t know.  Tell me if this is concise enough, I guess.”

“That’s what I did last time.”

“I know.”

Hamilton sat on the edge of the mattress as Laurens began to read.  He planted his feet on the floor, knees up, hands between his legs.  He watched him anxiously.  “If you need me to explain anything…”

Laurens shushed him.

Hamilton looked forward across his room, leaned like he was going to stand, then thought the better of it and sat back.  He glanced at Laurens but got no reaction.

“I was arguing that the land law contradicted itself,” Hamilton said.  “The surveying and the parceling out.  It couldn’t be as accurate as it claimed and as it needed to be to justify itself.  Jefferson’s really big on it.”

“So you’re intentionally picking a fight?”

Hamilton’s silence answered for him.

“No wonder you’re trying to be so careful.”

“It’s not just that I only want to disagree with him,” Hamilton said.  “Sometimes it’s just easy.”

“I think this is clear,” Laurens said, correcting a typo on the page.  “You’re very precise, which is good.”

“Yeah, learned that one.”

“You have a pretty narrow scope.”

“That’s intentional too.  I don’t have the space to really get into all of it and I thought it would be better to dig deep.”

“It looks good.”  Laurens turned away from the laptop finally and kissed him.  “Besides, unless he actually wrote the legislation I don’t see how he could get offended.  It’s ancient.”

“The way he talked about it in lecture,” Hamilton complained, taking his laptop back.  “You’d almost think he had a hand in drafting it.  Thanks,” he said.  “Okay.”  He settled in, the laptop on his thighs.  He bit his lip as he stared at the screen.  “I need to get a full draft,” he said for the second time that night.  “Then I can refine it in the morning.”

Laurens looked at Hamilton, his hands on the keyboard but his fingers not moving, frustrated lines etched between his brows.

“Hey.”

Laurens put his hand behind Hamilton on the mattress, putting his weight on it as he leaned over and kissed the curve of his jaw. 

“I gave an interview to the school paper today.”

“Hot.”  Hamilton sounded distracted.  He typed a few words.  “About your workout routine?  What you do to stay so sexy?”

“About the team.  I told him Lee’s an asshole.”

“You didn’t.”  Hamilton looked up from the screen.

“No,” Laurens admitted.  “But pretty much.”

Hamilton put the laptop aside.  “And you’re telling me to watch myself.  Shit, J.”  He was grinning.

“It’s fine,” Laurens assured him.  “I didn’t lie.  And I didn’t say anything that bad.”

“Whatever.  I look forward to reading your scathing comments,” Hamilton said, clearly delighted, or as much as he could be at the moment.  He pressed against Laurens’ arm and brushed the tips of his fingers over his cheek.  “I hope you told Lee to go fuck himself.”

“I’ll call and add that in, if you want.  The guy gave me his card.”

“You should do it.  Challenge Lee to a duel through the press, that’s on theme,” he said.  “I’m arguing about a law from 1785, we’re just a couple of Lafayette’s costumes away from a time warp.”

“Kinky.”

Hamilton kissed him, then leaned back.  “What time are you going to bed?”

“Soon.  My exam’s in the morning.”  Laurens started to get up to put the food away but Hamilton caught his arm.

“Leave it.  I’ll finish it later.”

Without Hamilton using any actual force, Laurens felt him pull him down and they kissed again.

Hamilton breathed out slowly, the air brushing over Laurens’ bottom lip.  “Do you have, like, fifteen minutes before you need to get ready?”

“I think I can spare that.”

“Good.”  Hamilton kissed him again, hungrily this time and with one hand on his thigh and the other behind his head.  He clung to the back of his neck as he felt Laurens’ hands come up behind him and tip him over, lying him down on his back on the mattress.  He turned his face up, giving Laurens access to his neck and collar.  He arched as Laurens kissed his exposed skin and undid his shirt, opening it over the white cotton of his undershirt.

“What do you want to do?”  Laurens asked.  His voice was already a little distracted and breathless.  “For fifteen minutes?”  He popped the button on Hamilton’s fly.

“Let me touch you.”

“That’s not—really—”  Laurens cut himself off, Hamilton’s hand cupping him between his legs.  He rocked his hips forward, pressing himself into the touch.

“Mm…”  Hamilton gave Laurens a self-satisfied smile.  “You’re going to campus early tomorrow,” he said.  “Gym first, then test.  I gotta wish you good luck now, J.  I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”

Laurens laughed.  “Y-yeah?”

“Oh, definitely.  No way—around it.”  Hamilton turned his head more sharply to the side to give Laurens room to bite his neck.  He gasped as Laurens slipped his hand past his fly, rubbing him over his underwear.

“Just this?”

“Come on…”

Laurens kissed Hamilton again, bending his free arm up by his head and supporting some of his weight on it as he lay on top of him.  Hamilton went along with it, moving both of his hands up his sides and across his back, urging him down and close and eagerly returning the kiss.  Laurens fumbled for a moment, then got his hand over the elastic band.  The moment he touched his skin directly he was met with a sharp gasp and one hand gripping his shoulder tightly, sending a rush of heat through his body.

“You like that.”

“J…”

“We could do other things too.”

“ _J_ …”  The name faded into a kiss, then another one.

“Alex…”  Laurens teased.  It was delayed by several seconds until he could find a moment to say it and so much of whatever bite it might have had was lost.

Hamilton wasn’t listening to him either way.  He was shifting his hips uncomfortably as Laurens clumsily stroked him, the movement impeded by his clothes.  He raised one leg, changing the angle and giving Laurens something to rub against.

Laurens kissed him, moaning softly into it.

Hamilton reached down, hooking his fingers into Laurens’ belt loops and urging him a little closer, winning himself a louder groan and a hard pressure on his leg.

“You gonna get both of us off all on your own?”  Hamilton’s voice was low and smooth and almost taunting.  He pulled a little harder against his hips.  “Touch me a-and rub one out on my leg?”

“Hey,” Laurens began, feeling his pulse through his whole body.  His words were a little shaky.  “We can do something else.”

“Nah.”  Hamilton arched his hips more into his hand.  “I like this.  Sometimes it’s—nice to not—”  He lost the train of his own thought for a moment.  “—Not have to work for it.”  Laurens’ tongue pressed into his mouth again and he turned himself over to the insistency within him, sending his heart racing at every new nudge towards physical closeness.  He couldn’t keep from moaning and urging Laurens’ weight against him, feeling his desire near a tipping point.  Laurens’ hand was warm and familiar on his cock, and he knew how to move it and what pace to set to make him twist with desperate need.  Abandoning his earlier task, Hamilton wrapped his arms around Laurens’ back, gasping as he clung to him.

“J…”

“Say that again.”

“J.—!”

Hamilton had his eyes tightly closed, his mouth open.

Even as he clung to him he felt his orgasm build and then rush through him with a shudder.  He slipped one arm behind Laurens’ neck, pulling himself off of the mattress to bury his face in his shoulder.

Laurens had stilled while Hamilton came, and now he nudged his face back up and kissed him, a little too hungry still to be tender.  He left his hand between his legs, letting it explore now and stroke and touch for the sake of touching while Hamilton kissed him slowly back, sated for the moment but comfortable and not about to stop him.

Laurens groaned into the kiss and pressed himself to him again.

Hamilton moved his hands back to his hips, encouraging them to rock down and against him, feeling his cock hard against his thigh.

“You gonna finish?”

He heard Laurens’ breath catch in his throat.

Hamilton slid further down beneath him, brushing a kiss against Laurens’ throat.  He felt a pang of regret as he moved out of his reach and Laurens’ hand slipped out of his pants.  Pushing that aside, he undid Laurens’ fly and began to work him, running his hand over his shaft and urging him closer to the edge.  It wasn’t very difficult work.  Laurens was already fully hard and eager for release and his whole body moved into the touch as Hamilton quickly pulled his orgasm from him.

Laurens’ hips bucked and he thrust into his hand with a sharp gasp, spilling down his arm.  It was hot and sticky and send a tentative thrill down Hamilton’s spine, an insistent voice in the back of his mind asking why they didn’t just start over again from the beginning.  Hamilton shoved it away regretfully and pulled himself out from underneath Laurens, sitting up and slipping the couple of inches off the mattress and to the hard floor.

“…I need to change,” he said after a moment.  “And finish.”

“Thought you already finished.”

“Not _that_.”  He got up, rolling his eyes as Laurens grinned and turned over onto his back.

“Hey.”

Hamilton looked back, one leg out of his pants.  “What?”

“I’m just thinking.  I’ve got a week after exams before I need to leave.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to…”  Laurens trailed off, his thoughts still forming themselves.  “I don’t know.”  He put one hand behind his head.  “We could rent a room somewhere for a couple of days.  If you want.”

“In the city?”

“Wherever.  I said we’d have a redo on our trip over fall break, remember?”

Hamilton tossed his clothes into his growing pile of dirty laundry and grabbed new ones, then ducked into the bathroom.  “Yeah.  It was still a good time, though.  You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know, but…”  Laurens raised one shoulder in an awkward shrug.  “We’ll have the time.  I thought it might be fun.”

“I’m not saying no,” Hamilton clarified.  He reappeared fully dressed and with glasses on.  “I just don’t want you to feel like you owe me or whatever.”  He sat on the floor next to the bed.  “I’m down.”

“Yeah?”  Laurens turned his head to the side to look at him, then sat up.  “Okay.  It shouldn’t be until after Lafayette leaves, but then…”  He leaned forward and kissed him slowly.  “I’ll look into stuff,” Laurens promised.


	238. An Ocean Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thinking of You; Breaking the News

“I’m worried about the weather in Arizona,” Lafayette said, pausing in front of a store window to look in.  He leaned closer and his breath fogged up the glass.  “Everyone keeps saying how hot it is.”  He moved away.

“I don’t think it’s that hot in December,” Adelaide pointed out, taking a careful sip of coffee.  “They still have seasons, don’t they?”

“Do they?”

“They are above the equator, so it is winter for them.”

“But what _is_ winter?”  Lafayette asked.  “That sounds very philosophical,” he added, stopping at the next window to look in again.

“Focus.”

“I should look it up.”

“You really should.”

“‘Phoenix’s coldest days of the year usually occur in mid December,’” Lafayette read off of his phone after a quick search.  “Oh.”  He looked up.  “That’s good news already.”

Adelaide nodded and he continued.

“‘The daily maximum temperature averages sixty-seven degrees Fahrenheit.’”

“That’s very comfortable.”

“Yes, you’re right.”  Lafayette put his phone away.  “I won’t need to invest in all kinds of cooling equipment.”

“Were you going to?”

“I had not decided.  I mentioned my itinerary to a friend yesterday and he told me about all the people who have died from dehydration and heat stroke while going on hikes in the desert.”

“Mm.  Maybe don’t do that.”

“But the sixties is not bad at all.  I should put hiking back on the list of possible activities.”

They walked leisurely down past that store and to the next one.  Adelaide indicated with a tap on his arm that she wanted to go in and he followed her through the brightly painted door.  The store was warmer than the street outside and he loosened his scarf to accommodate the shift in temperature.

“What are you looking for?”

“I need to find a card.”  Adelaide turned a metal rack just inside the store.  “I should send one home to Maman.”

“Ah, that is a good idea.  I should send things home as well, especially if I am not going back to France this winter.”  He crouched, looking at the cards on the bottom rows as they passed by his face.  “Do you know my friend Angelica?”  He asked after a moment.  “She is the one with the two sisters.”

“We met briefly.  Why?”

“She is going to go to England after she graduates this coming spring, but she has not told her family yet.”

“Why not?”

“I think she will miss them very much,” Lafayette said.  “And I think she is a little afraid about that and about going at all.  I don’t think I can tell her that she needs to talk to them about it.”

“Because you did not tell anyone when you left.”

“Precisely.”

“You’re right,” Adelaide said.  “You cannot talk.”  She took a card off of the rack and considered it more closely.  “I told everyone about my plans,” she said.  “Everyone knew all of the places that I was applying to even before I had sent off all of the materials.  Everyone knew everywhere I was rejected or never heard back from.  My mother was hoping I would get a job in the capital so I would stay close by.  I wanted to travel a little farther away.  The company I work for here was actually the only one I contacted in America,” Adelaide went on, putting the card back and picking up another.  “I wrote to them on a whim, not thinking that they would actually be interested in me.  But then they asked to see my portfolio and my resume and then we had the phone interview and it went very well.”

“Your mother must be very happy for you.”

“Oh, she was distraught,” Adelaide said with a short laugh.  “She really had hoped I wouldn’t move very far away.  Besides, her image of New York is from those old crime shows and she thought it was a terrible place for me to move to.”

“Oh,” Lafayette said.  He looked up at her.  “I never watched those.”

Adelaide laughed again.  She put the card back and turned the rack slowly.  Lafayette admired the sound and how gracefully she raised and lowered her hand.

“I also finally met her boyfriend,” Lafayette said.  He paused a moment to see what the reaction would be.

“She finally stopped hiding him away?”

“As promised,” Lafayette confirmed.

“What did you think?”

“I don’t think he is as bad as she implied.”

“He doesn’t have to be a bad person.”  Satisfied that she was not finding what she was looking for, Adelaide stepped away from the rack and glanced around the store before walking out, Lafayette getting up and following after her amiably.  “Maybe they just don’t connect.  People can grow apart.”

“I wonder if they ever got along,” Lafayette said.  “There is a bookstore across the street.”

“Good.  Let’s look there next.”

“Angelica is very busy.  I think he must be too.  I bet there was never any real…”  Lafayette brought his fingers on both hands in, then flung them out like fireworks.  “Do you know?”

“That could be.  I don’t know either of them.”

“I know Angelica,” Lafayette said, reaching a satisfactory conclusion in his own mind.  “She is the sort to be so caught up in her own work that she might not notice something was off until later.  In her own life,” he clarified.  “She is more attentive to others.  She’s very good like that.  Poor Angelica,” he sighed, the narrative pieced together and newly tragic.  “But she will be going to England soon and I don’t think he will, and that will give a nice and tidy point at which to break contact.  I will encourage her to end it there, if she is in no rush to do so sooner.  It seems cruel to drag it out beyond that point, don’t you think?”

“Mm.”  Adelaide stepped into the crosswalk as the light turned to flashing red.  “Hurry.”

Lafayette hurried.  “Do you need to mail things to anyone else?”

“I bought a pack of cards at the store the other day,” Adelaide said.  “But my mother will see them and will be offended if hers is not special.”

Lafayette nodded.  He understood.

Adelaide picked up on that and laughed to herself.  “I don’t know why, but I almost thought that I would have to justify that to you.”

“It is nice to be remembered and thought of special,” Lafayette said, finding himself in turn justifying his reasoning back to her.  “That is part of the human condition.”

“Perhaps.”  Adelaide took another drink as they stepped back onto the sidewalk, avoiding a pool of muddy water at the curb.  “Is it also part of the human condition to generalize?”

“To find commonality!”  They entered the bookstore.  “To find strength in community and thrive—”  Lafayette realized suddenly how loudly he was talking and he lowered his voice to a more appropriate level.  “—to thrive by making connections.  Our experiences are not all that unique, they only seem that way when we don’t know anyone else who will admit to relating to them.”

Adelaide studied him for a moment, then turned away, walking through the shelves as she looked for cards.

“What is it?”  Lafayette followed her.

“I was just thinking that this must be part of the reason why you are so popular?”

“Ah, I am popular?”

Adelaide swatted him.  Lafayette grinned, pleased to have had the confirmation, even if she did not let him fish for further compliment.

“You are more than ready to admit to shared ground, but I don’t think you lie and pretend like it is there when it is not.”

“I try not to.”

“But you do connect with a wide range of people.  Myself, Angelica, your roommate and his friends, even the people you are planning on meeting up with on vacation are from different groups.  I think in many cases you yourself are the common experience.”

Adelaide rounded a corner, leaving Lafayette for a moment alone in the aisle.  He tipped his head to the side, looking up at the crowded shelf and considering that.

“Gil.”  She came back around the bookshelf, brows raised in mild concern.

“I think I want to buy something to read on my trip,” Lafayette said lightly.  “But nothing too tense.  Do you have any suggestions?”

“Hm…”  Adelaide looked around.  “Do you like mysteries?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s find out.”

 

“You can’t end a sentence with ‘for,’” Angelica said, turning Hamilton’s laptop back towards him.  “That’s a hanging preposition.”

“That’s elitist bullshit, is what it is.”  Hamilton took the laptop.  “It’s perfectly legible.”

“You asked me to proof read this.”

“I’m not mad at _you_.”

Angelica rolled her eyes and folded her arms on top of the table, bracing herself for the continued complaint.

“It’s considered acceptable standard formal English, you know.  The problem is not with the sentence, it’s with the Latin grammar that it’s being forced to conform to.”

“You know I can understand you,” Angelica said.  “You don’t need to prove that I can in order to prove that the preposition can remain at the end of the sentence and still be legible.”

Hamilton made a face.  “How was the paper otherwise?  Shit,” he muttered, hitting the delete key repeatedly and attempting for a second time to retype his sentence.  “It sounded better in the original version.”

“Then leave it.”

“No, I don’t want to get marked off for it.  I’d hate to give either of you that pleasure.”

“Your doing poorly does not give me pleasure.”

“No, but your being right does.”

Unable to argue with that, Angelica just shrugged.  “I liked your paper.  It was better than some of the other things you’ve written.”

“What a lovely backhanded compliment.”

“Send it in and get something to eat and go to bed.  You’re too touchy.”

“I just want it to be good.”  Hamilton rubbed his forehead.  “I don’t have room in this class to not get an A on this.”

Angelica’s phone dinged and she took it out of the pocket of her jacket, hanging across the back of her chair.

“Eliza?”

“Lafayette.”

“Shit, was he trying to contact me?  Tell him I’m sorry and I’ll be a better friend after I turn this in.”

“No, it’s fine.  He was just sending me the back cover of a book he’s buying.”

“Oh.”

Hamilton typed, scrolled, fixed another sentence.  After a minute he noticed that neither of them had said anything and looked up.  Angelica was looking down at her phone, brow furrowed.

“Angelica?”

“Sorry.”  She put her phone face down on the table.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes.  Just Lafayette being…  Lafayette.”

“Got it.  He can be a lot.”

“He can.”  They fell into silence for a beat again.  “God,” Angelica said, “do you know what’s annoying about Lafayette?”

“That he hardly bothered to study for finals?”

Angelica made a silent exasperated gesture.  “No,” she said, clearly meaning that there was something else she had in mind rather than that his lack of attention had not annoyed her as well.  “How he won’t let things go.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s annoying.”  Hamilton paused and realized that he was still present enough to pick up on the issue there.  “Wait, what did you do?  What is he nagging you about?”

“Finish your paper.”

“Must be really interesting if you’re using it as a bribe,” Hamilton muttered, trying to shift his focus back to his paper.

“No, I just don’t want you to complain later that you weren’t as successful as you would have liked to have been because you were distracted talking to me.”

“Yeah, that does sound like me,” Hamilton agreed.  “Right, quiet time.  I’ll harass you afterwards.”

He began typing again, not adding any substantially different information and barely looking up when Angelica pushed her chair back and stood.

“I’m going to look for a book,” she said.

Hamilton raised one hand briefly in acknowledgement.

“Watch my things.”

“Of course.  Fuck,” Hamilton swore once she left.  “I hate this.  I hate this, I hate this, I hate this…”  He aggressively deleted another sentence.  “Fucking pretentious Latin-speaking elite.  I swear to God, this is the dumbest class divide.”

“I thought I would find you here.”

Hamilton jumped at the sudden voice behind him, automatically lowering his computer screen slightly in shame as Eliza took the seat next to him.

“Is Angelica with you still?  Don’t do that,” Eliza scolded, reaching out and tipping his screen back up.  “You make yourself look so suspicious.”

“Angelica went to get a book,” Hamilton said sheepishly.

“Got it.”  Eliza swung her bag up onto the table and folded her arms on it, cradling her head between them.  “I’m done for the semester,” she said happily.  “Is this the last thing you need to get in?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to look at it?”

“Angelica already did.”

“You sound like you’re a little overwhelmed,” Eliza said.  “Maybe it’s better not to have any more eyes on it.”

“I’m so close to being done, Eliza.  I just want to submit it and for Jefferson to go ahead and admit that it’s the best thing he’s ever read.”

“Mm, do you have a secondary goal?  To fall back on?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Hamilton said, leaning in a little and speaking quietly.  “I would be all right with an A-.  I crunched the numbers and that would still give me an A overall.”

Eliza smiled.  “I believe in you.  You’ve written many papers,” she went on.  “Does this one feel like an A?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does it feel like an A-?”

“Definitely.”

“You don’t need to slave over it until the last minute,” she said.  “You’re allowed to turn it in a few hours early.”

“I know.”

“You really are.”

Hamilton hesitated.  He turned the computer to her.  “Could you look it over?”

“I’d be happy to.”  Eliza moved her back away and pulled the laptop in front of her.  “Do you have plans for after you turn this in?”

“Go back to my place and sleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”  Eliza scrolled down the page.  “I like this first quote you used.”

“Isn’t it good?”  Hamilton leaned over to read it again.  “I was proud of that.”

“It’s very well placed.”

“I reference it again at the end,” Hamilton said, tentatively pleased.  “You know, to sort of bookend the thing.”

“I love it when that works out.  It always feels so elegant.”

“How’re things going with McHenry?”  Hamilton asked after a minute.  “John said you guys went out the other night.”

“It’s going well,” Eliza said, not betraying anything one way or another in her voice.  “I’m having fun.”

“Cool, cool.  So are you guys going to—”  Hamilton stopped talking as Angelica came back, book in hand.  He saw the look of surprise and anxiety on her face as she recognized Eliza and how she slowed down as she approached the table.  “Did you find what you wanted?”

“Yes.”  She took her seat.

“I think this looks good,” Eliza said, sliding the laptop back over to Hamilton.

“Yeah?”  He was distracted again for a moment.  “So, send?”

“Send.”

“Okay.”  He opened up his email, mind still humming as he tried to compose the email.  “Dear Professor Jefferson…”

“I’m going to England this summer.”

Hamilton jerked his head up at the same time that he heard Eliza make a small startled noise.  “You’re—Seriously?”

Angelica nodded, sitting stiff in her chair and looking as though she was preparing for a fight.

“Oh,” Eliza said, leaning across the table.  Angelica gave her her hand without having to be asked for it and Eliza squeezed it.  “That’s so exciting!  Is it for a program?  When did you find out about it?  Angie,” she protested, when Angelica let out a small broken sob and interwove their fingers, pulling her hand to her face.  “Angie, it’s fine!  I’ll just have to come visit you and you’ll send us pictures and make us all jealous and—”

“I want to go to England,” Hamilton said.  “If Eliza’s going, I’m tagging— _Shit_ , I wasn’t done writing that!”  He quickly turned his attention back to his computer, frantically opening a new message.

“I’m sorry,” Angelica said, wiping her face with her other hand.  “This is stupid.  I was just so nervous and I’m going to miss you—”

“You’ll have fun,” Eliza reassured her, half-lying on the table and kneeling on her chair.  “It’ll be good.”

“Peggy moved out, too.”

“I won’t be lonely,” Eliza promised.  “I can always go stay at Peggy’s, or with Alex.  He owes me for helping him submit his paper.”

“He owes both of you,” Hamilton said.  “Probably Peggy, too, although I can’t think of why right now.”

“See?  And you’ll have fun,” Eliza repeated.  “You can tell me if the swans only attack people who are mean to them and make fun of all the tourists. You’ll be insufferable.”

Angelica laughed.  It was still a little choked but stronger.  “Don’t say that.”

“No,” Hamilton said as he sent his paper with a new email.  “She’s right.  Before Eliza got here you were having me rewrite sentences so they didn’t end with ‘for.’”

Eliza looked at Hamilton over her shoulder, puzzled but firm.  “That’s a hanging preposition.”

Angelica nodded and Hamilton closed his laptop in disgust.

“Fine.  Go to England,” he said.  “And see if I care when you write to me about all the things the swans attacked you for.”


	239. TGIF

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Start of Break

“So I’m thinking we hang out at Mulligan’s with the gang until like midnight, midnight-thirty, then we head back to my place.”  Hamilton watched Laurens’ face expectantly and as soon as he saw his brow furrow in mild confusion he jumped back in.  “Which one is it?  ‘The gang’ or my very creative telling of time?”

“Both,” Laurens said, falling in step behind Hamilton to let some people pass them on the sidewalk.  “But mostly the first one.”

“I’m trying a thing.”

“Who counts as the gang?”

“Us, Lafayette.  We’re the core.  The heart and soul.  Then whoever’s close enough to fill in the corners.  So, tonight, Mulligan, Peggy, Eliza, Angelica, Aglae…  I guess Adrienne, if Lafayette decides to bring her over instead of just going back to the dorm.”

“They’re not going to come over.”

“I dunno, they’re leaving soon and she likes all of us.  I think.  We can’t be worse than Lafayette, right?”

Laurens had to pause and think about that and Hamilton screwed up his face and waved his hands in the air to clear the question away as if erasing it from a chalkboard.

“Never mind, forget I asked.”

“Should we pick up something to eat?”  Laurens asked, looking into the window of a dimly lit deli as they passed.  He could smell salami and beef and his stomach growled.

“No need.”  Hamilton put his hands back in his pockets.  “Herc’ll feed us.  He checked twice if we were coming, so he’ll definitely have food.”

Laurens nodded.  “Hey,” he said.  “Are you glad you finished everything?”

Hamilton made a noise caught between a tired exhale and a laugh.  “Probably.  I’ve got shit to wrap up at the office still but it’s pretty mindless.  I’ll be happy when I’ve got my grades back, assuming it goes well.”  He saw a figure he recognized up ahead and picked up his pace, catching up with her just outside Mulligan’s building.  “Hello,” he said, leaning into view around her bulky coat.

“Oh, hey there.”  Sanders was carrying a large duffle bag in both arms and Hamilton slipped around her to buzz the apartment.  “Thank you.”

“No problem.  Uh, Elizabeth, right?  Alexander,” he said, motioning to himself.  He pointed at John standing behind them on the sidewalk.  “John.”

“I remember.  Nice seeing you boys again.  How’s school going?”

“We just finished finals,” Hamilton said, sounding perfectly pleasant and not nearly as frayed around the edges as he had let on a moment earlier.  “How’s work?”

“Crunch time.”

The doors unlocked and Hamilton quickly got them for her, holding them open until both Sanders and Laurens were inside.

“We open this weekend and I’ve got the director of the show that I’m working with still changing his artistic vision every other day and screaming about why aren’t the costumes ready for full dress rehearsal yet.  I swear to God I’m going to strangle him with the thirty yards of mint organza he insisted I come in and sequin last Sunday night only to decide by Monday afternoon that the sheerness just wasn’t cyberprep enough.”

Hamilton nodded, sympathetic in principle but without much to say on any of the specific words she had said.  “Justifiable.”

Sanders shifted her bag to balance on her hip and hit the button for the elevator.  “You two can take the stairs if you want, but I hit my goal steps hours ago.”

“I never did theater,” Hamilton said, readily making smalltalk while they waited.  “It looked fun but also like a lot of time that I didn’t have.”

“It is a big commitment,” Sanders agreed.  “But they never made you participate in a school play or anything like that?”

“Nope.  Wasn’t really a thing.  What about you?”  He asked Laurens.  “Did you ever do theater?”

Laurens shook his head and before he could answer Hamilton cut back in.

“Right, you were already a jock before college.  Aren’t you guys supposed to be lifelong enemies?”  He asked, motioning between Laurens and Sanders.

“Oh, I don’t know.  Hercules used to play football in high school.”

To Laurens’ amusement, Hamilton looked taken aback.

“Seriously?”

“Of course.  Did he never tell you that?”

“No.”

“Lucky you.  He wouldn’t stop talking about it when we first me.”

“Bragging,” Hamilton said, finding his footing again with Mulligan’s angle revealed.  “He probably thought it would impress you.”

“Maybe he saw how well it worked on you,” Sanders said with a sly wink at Laurens.

Laurens felt himself blush and he looked up at the ceiling.

“Hah!  Yeah, maybe,” Hamilton agreed, turning back and linking his arm with Laurens’.

“I have to say,” Sanders went on as the elevator arrived and they got in, “it didn’t do as much for me as hearing about his old job did.”

Hamilton nodded.  “Something in common.”

“Well, that.  And it’s nice to hear men not be afraid to admit to more feminine interests.  He’s not a tailor now,” she pointed out.  “He’s just a hobbyist.”

“That’s true, you’re the professional.  So what show are you working on?”

Sanders looked up to the ceiling of the elevator in dramatic exasperation.  “You wouldn’t have heard of it.  I’m not saying that to be a prick, the director wrote it himself and this is going to be its first staging with any kind of sizable audience.”

Laurens snorted, making an effort to join the conversation.  “No wonder he’s being so intense.”

Sanders turned to him.  “Exactly.  I knew it was going to be a nightmare when I signed on but he flattered me and, besides, I need the money.”

The doors opened at their floor and they got out.  Laurens watched Hamilton again eagerly hold the doors, this time with the button instead of his hand, and dart around Sanders to reach Mulligan’s apartment first and knock.

“Hey, you guys finally made it,” Mulligan said as soon as the door was open.  He patted Hamilton on the shoulder and nudged him inside, leaning past him to give Sanders a peck on the lips.  “Babe.”

“The line was down and we had to transfer,” Hamilton said, somehow already in the kitchen and talking through a bite of latke straight out of the pan on the stove.

“Excuses.  The girls didn’t get held up.”

“Maybe the train was running fine and people just didn’t want to see your face,” Peggy suggested kindly from where she was sitting on the ground next to the sofa, braiding Aglae’s hair while Eliza sat behind her on the couch and followed suit.  “Ow!”  She looked as far up as she could without turning her head.

“Peggy,” Eliza scolded.

Sitting in the chair at an angle to the couch with her own plate in hand, Angelica laughed.

“Don’t just eat out of the pan,” Mulligan said, locking the door again behind Sanders and Laurens.  “Get a plate like a civilized person.”

“Big words coming from a high school jock.  I bet you used to give swirlies.”  Hamilton took a plate from the counter.

“Calm down, Hamilton.  I didn’t go to a nice private school like any of you kids.  We had a small campus with only enough room for a shit athletics program and no money to make it any good in order to justify siphoning off any more into it.  It was just something to do to burn off some energy and take up time.  Besides, I got injured at practice and that ended that.”

“You still could’ve told me,” Hamilton said through another mouthful.

“I’m sorry,” Mulligan said dryly.  “I felt like it was more important to worry about things like saving your ass from lost baggage and letting you eat all of my food.  Save some for John.”

“I made him a plate!”  Hamilton came out of the kitchen and handed Laurens a messy jumble of latkes.  “I like that you left up the banner,” he said, nodding to it.  “And added a menorah,” he said, with an approving look at the candles at the table often coopted to hold drinks or the sewing machine.  He could hear Lafayette on the phone in the other room, although it was too muffled to tell what language he was speaking in.  “I bought you something,” he said, “but it’s for the final day, mostly because I only got you one thing.”  He nudged Laurens to follow him to the open seats on the couch and made a pleased noise when he noticed the challah on the table.  “I’ll just come back on Wednesday, okay?”

Laurens saw Sanders carefully put down her bag and glance at Mulligan.

“Sure,” Mulligan said casually, “but you’ll need to come by in the morning.”

“Work?”

“No.  More like the exact opposite of that.”

Hamilton looked confused.

“Well, I was gonna try keep it a surprise until we were takin’ off,” Mulligan said, grinning and putting his hand on Sanders’ back.  “But this guy’s using up the last of his vacation time before he’s promoted and flyin’ with his girl down to Hawaii.”

The door to Mulligan’s room opened quickly.  “And with Lafayette!”

“We’re flying on different days and different airlines,” Mulligan pointed out, shouting his response back down the hall.  “We’re just going to be in the same place.”

Sanders shook her head, amused, and went to sit at the small kitchen table.

“What?”  Hamilton asked, aware that his face was giving away just how stunned he was.  “You’re getting promoted?”

“I’m moving up in the world,” Mulligan agreed, leaning his folded arms on the back of the couch.  “I’ll be based more in the city so you’ll have to put up with a lot more of me.”

Hamilton twisted on the sofa to face him.  “You could have _told_ me!”

“Nah, I thought this would be funnier.  Besides,” Mulligan added, “I had to take a whole mess of online classes to qualify.  I didn’t want you breathing down my neck and reading ahead just to point out what I was going to get wrong.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Mm.”  Eliza pressed her lips tightly together like she was cutting off either a comment or a laugh.

“I wouldn’t,” Hamilton protested to her.

“Congratulations,” Laurens told Mulligan.  “That’s exciting.”

“Thank you.  I’m very happy about it.”

“Yeah, okay, congratulations,” Hamilton said, more begrudgingly than he actually felt.  “I still think you could’ve told me.”  He ducked as Mulligan ruffled his hair.

“Don’t worry,” Mulligan said.  “I’ll bring you a present.”

“You better.”

“Adrienne is arriving in three hours and seventeen minutes,” Lafayette said, practically vibrating with excitement as he rejoined them.  “I was just talking to her father and he said that she was well and in good spirits when he took her to the airport and that she has her large red suitcase and small matching bag, just like she showed me when I was helping her pack.”  He stood next to Mulligan and gripped the back of the couch tightly with his hands.  “I don’t know what I haven’t done yet to prepare.”

“Do you have your tickets and all your reservations?  Are you packed?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think you’re good.”  Hamilton leaned against Laurens as Lafayette took a half-step to position himself directly behind Eliza.  He lifted her hair over the back of the sofa and separated it into three parts.

“I’m too excited,” Lafayette said.  “I already ordered a car to the airport.  I even picked up some very good tranquilizers for the flight to Arizona.”

“Maybe you should take one now.”

“No, I need to be awake.”

Eliza started to turn around, then caught herself.  “Are your hands shaking?”

“Yes.”

“Alex…”

“Hey,” Hamilton said, taking the prompt and turning, kneeling on the couch.  “Lafayette.  Buddy.  Let’s calm down so we don’t have a heart attack before Adrienne’s plane lands.”

“You know it’s not good when Alexander’s the one preaching calm,” Angelica said, leaning forward and putting her empty plate on the coffee table.

“Oh,” Hamilton said, turning back.  “Oh, hey, did you…?”  He looked meaningfully between Angelica and Peggy.

Angelica nodded.

“Okay, great, because I was thinking that what made coming up to New York easier for _me_ was having people on this end to help get me set up.”

“Kid,” Mulligan said, “you do remember that you didn’t arrange to meet with me ahead of time, don’t you?  I stumbled across you at JFK.”

Hamilton shushed him.  “So the point is that maybe you should get in contact with someone in England before you go.  Then you can talk, get acquainted with London or wherever you’re going to be, already know someone in the area when you show up.”

“That’s a good idea,” Eliza said encouragingly.

“Alexander—”

“Seriously,” Hamilton said, cutting off Angelica.  “And you’re already in the apartment of someone who’s gone there a lot of times.”  He pointed at Mulligan.  “You should take advantage.”

“If you want to know anything,” Mulligan began to offer.  He collected the empty plates lying around and took them into the kitchen.

“Thank you.”

“Or,” Hamilton said, looking at Laurens.

Laurens stared back, puzzled.

“It might be nicer to be able to talk to someone our age…”

Laurens shook his head slightly, not sure what he was driving at.

“Isn’t your friend from high school in England?”

At first Laurens thought Hamilton meant Francis and he leaned away in confusion, then he realized what he was driving at and he shook his head, more insistently this time.

“That’s not my friend,” he said.  “I haven’t even spoken to her in years.”

“Who?”

“Oh, Martha Manning,” Lafayette told Peggy, unable to stop himself.  “His ex-girlfriend.”

Laurens flinched away.

“I know you don’t talk to her but it’s not like it’s really a favor, just, ‘hey, I know someone going to England, maybe the two of you could talk…’”

“Alex…”

“Look,” Angelica said firmly.  “It’s fine.  John doesn’t need to contact people out of the blue.  I don’t need him to do that.”

“I just thought it might be helpful.”

“I don’t want him to do that, Alexander.”

Hamilton’s shoulders drooped.

“That would be uncomfortable,” Angelica went on, to Laurens’ relief.  “For all three of us.  No one needs to bother this poor girl and make her play host.”

“We weren't going to _make_ her,” Hamilton protested, aware that he had lost and arguing more for the show of it than out of any hope of changing anyone’s mind.  “It would just have been an introduction.”

“Alex,” Laurens said, “it’s fine.  Angelica can take care of herself.”

“Exactly,” Angelica agreed.

Laurens caught her eye and she gave him a short grateful smile.  He nodded once in acknowledgement and returned his attention to his food.


	240. Draw Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends

“Oh, I told him to go fuck himself,” Hamilton said, sitting between Laurens’ legs on the floor and leaning back against him.  “Metaphorically,” he added, sounding so casual you might almost forget that it really wasn’t the same thing.  He tipped his head back against Laurens’ chest smiling up at him and looking for reassurance and praise.

Laurens hadn’t been listening, instead talking to Peggy as she sat next to him, back against the couch and legs drawn up to her chest.  Her hair was in a tidy french braid, the product of several attempts to reach an outcome that Eliza was satisfied with.

Hamilton frowned and reached up, tapping Laurens to get his attention.  “Hey.  J.”

Laurens broke off mid-sentence.  “What?”

“Never mind.”

“What?”

“Tell him he made the right choice,” Mulligan prompted from his seat on the opposite side of the coffee table.  He dealt from the deck of cards in his hand.

“You made the right choice.”

“Mm, you could sound a little more believable, but I’ll accept it.”  Hamilton sat up and reached forward to take his cards.  “Texas Hold ‘em?”

“Sure.  You know the rules?”

“Of course.”  Hamilton leaned on the table, one hand trailing familiarly up and down Laurens’ leg.  “Who else is in?”

“Don’t start without me,” Sanders called from the kitchen.

“You, me, Beth,” Mulligan said, sliding her hand face down a little closer to the edge of the table she would be sitting at.  “And Aglae, right?”

Aglae nodded and took her cards, then scooted over to sit not at the table proper but alongside Peggy, hooking her arm around her thigh.

Peggy looked flustered and stumbled over her words, stopping and then starting her sentence again.

“What are you talking about?”

“Um,” Peggy said.  “Classes.”

“What about?”

“I was asking what he’s taking next semester.”

“I only have one requirement,” Laurens added, coming to Peggy’s rescue.  “And that’s the senior thesis for my major, so that’s more independent work anyway.”

Aglae nodded, pressing a little closer to Peggy.  “So what are you going to take?”

“French,” Laurens said.  “There’s another reading class that looked interesting.  It’s more focused on the larger empire.  And then I just signed up for a couple of things in my major and another art class.”

“Five classes?  If I were you I’d be taking it easy.”

“The independent project doesn’t really count as a class.”

Aglae shrugged.

“And the art class is a lower level one.”

“Tell her why,” Peggy prompted.

Laurens looked a little embarrassed and he turned his face away slightly.  “I took life drawing this semester and I wasn’t interested in any of the introductory ones.”

“If he was going to move up he’d have to enroll in one of the majors-only classes,” Peggy translated.  She grinned encouragingly at him.  “It’s true.”

“It’s just because they don’t have a lot that they’re offering this semester.”

“So what are you taking instead?”

“Painting,” Laurens muttered, tipping his head further away.

“He used to paint animals,” Peggy said, all too pleased to know this and to be able to hold it over his head.  “Like, birds and fish.  Natural history style.”

Hamilton turned around at the table and braced himself with one hand on the floor, using his other to cup the side of Laurens’ face and plant a kiss smartly on his lips.  “My boyfriend’s so cute and talented,” he said smugly.

Laurens felt heat jump to his face as he forced himself to keep his expression neutral.

“You’re so red,” Peggy teased.  She looked to Aglae for encouragement, then poked Laurens on the cheek before he could stop her.

Angelica looked up from the laptop she and Eliza were sharing on the couch.  “Peggy,” she scolded.

“I didn’t do anything!”

Angelica gave a short shake of her head and shifted the computer more to Eliza’s lap, straightening one of her legs a little and bumping her shin against Laurens’ shoulder.

When she moved it, it was still close enough that he could feel her presence.  Somehow it was reassuring and that in itself was unnerving.  Laurens cleared his throat and very obviously changed the subject.

“What time is it?”

“Poker time,” Beth said, sitting down at her saved spot at the table with an open bottle of beer.  “All right, are we ready to start?”

Aglae sighed dramatically and extracted herself from Peggy.  “What is it again?”

“Texas hold ‘em,” Mulligan said.  “It’s just after eleven,” he told Laurens.  “So I guess Lafayette’s met up with Adrienne by now.”

“I’m surprised we didn’t hear from him the moment he caught her at baggage claim,” Angelica said from her spot on the couch.

“I’m not.”  Hamilton put down a card.  “It’s pretty hard to take a selfie while you’re making out.”  He drew one.

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“You know it.”

Peggy poked Laurens again. He frowned and shrugged, pushing the implication away.

“Play nice, kids.”  Mulligan put a card down and drew another.  “No fighting on Hanukkah.”

“Well—”

“Don’t,” Mulligan said, cutting Hamilton off before he could get started.  “Also even if you’re going to be a smartass, Hanukkah was after the fighting.”

Hamilton pulled a face.  “Whatever,” he said.  “And, you know what, don’t get too cocky about your lame tropical vacation, either, ‘cause I’m going on a trip too.”

“Oh yeah?  Where?”

“…I don’t know yet, but it’s gonna rock.”

Mulligan snorted and laughed.  “Okay, kiddo.  Whatever you say.”

“Seriously.  John, tell him.”

“Uh.”  Laurens was at a loss.  “Yeah, we’re going to go away for a few days.”

Hamilton pointed aggressively at Laurens without turning away from the table.

“You’re not leaving tomorrow, right?”  Eliza said.  “You were supposed to come over to our place.”

“Nah, not tomorrow.  I’m gonna kick Angelica’s ass at chess,” Hamilton explained, twisting around to talk to Laurens directly.  “You’re welcome to come of course.  I could use the audience.”  He broke into a broader grin suddenly, struck again by how handsome Laurens was and how pleased he was to be with him.  He moved back to lean against him again, nuzzling his chest with the side of his face and stretching his legs out across the floor and under the table.

“Where are you two going?”  Sanders asked while they waited for Aglae to decide on her next move.

“I’m not sure,” Laurens admitted.  He hesitated, then put his arms loosely around Hamilton.  “It might be easiest to just stay in the city.”

“That’s boring,” Peggy said.  “You should at least go upstate.”

“If they stay in the city they won’t have to worry about transportation,” Eliza pointed out.

“True.”

“It doesn’t matter where we go,” Hamilton said.  “The point is just that we’re going to get a place with a bed and—”

“Your turn.”  Mulligan cut him off again.

“I can’t reach.  Someone pass me a card.”  Hamilton held out the one he wanted to discard and Sanders traded him.  “Thank you.”

Laurens ducked his face down, not quite kissing the top of Hamilton’s head but putting his nose and mouth against his hair with a little nudge and breathing in the scent of him.  The room was surreally at odds to everything he might have expected December to be, down to the holiday being celebrated.  Even with Hamilton’s competitive nature and several people he wasn’t particularly close to sitting around him he was still struck by how slow and soft the pace was.  It wasn’t quite a breath of fresh air, but it did seem to suggest that he readjust his center of gravity.

“Straight flush,” Mulligan announced, his voice layering on top of the scene.

Hamilton made a disgusted noise and threw his cards onto the table, turning and curling up against Laurens’ chest to sulk in a moment of dramaticism.

“I was one off from having all four sixes,” Aglae complained.

“Maybe next round,” Mulligan reassured her, collecting their cards and shuffling the deck.  “I think I’ve got a few years of practice on you.”  The buzzer went off for the door and he put the deck down, getting up to answer it. “Hello?”

There was a burst of French back and forth chatter before Lafayette switched back to English to respond.

“It is me, Lafayette!  I picked up Adrienne and we are here to say hello to all of you before we leave to go have hot, _nasty_ —”  He suddenly became muffled, like Adrienne had pulled him away from the speaker or blocked his mouth.  Then he laughed and the room could faintly hear a string of apologetic and giddy French.  “ _—Désolé, désolé.  Je plaisante, ils—_ ”  His words became too distant to make out.

“…Right.  I’m letting you in,” Mulligan said.  “Come on up.”

Lafayette’s voice again, clear into the speaker: “Thank you!”

“I guess they cut the making out at baggage claim time short,” Hamilton remarked.  “They’re back faster than I thought they would be.  Well,” he amended, “I wasn’t really sure they’d be coming back at all.”

“I’m glad they are.”  Eliza uncurled her legs and got off the couch, leaving the laptop in her seat.  “I was hoping we’d get to say hi to Adrienne before they leave.”  She stood next to the couch, one hand resting lightly on the armrest.

“You’re staying at my place tonight, right?”  Hamilton asked Laurens, stiffly getting to his feet as well.

“I hope so.”

“I’m going to be flattered by that answer even though we both know it’s got less to do with me and more to do with the fact that you’ve got a shared double.”

“He’d kick me out,” Laurens said.  “There’s no way that he wouldn’t.”

There were footsteps down the hall, not as loud as the bag being wheeled along with them, and then enthusiastic pounding on the door for a second before Mulligan pulled it open to reveal Lafayette with one hand still raised and Adrienne’s carryon over his shoulder.  Adrienne herself stood just behind him with the rest of her luggage and Eliza was across the room and slipping past Lafayette to greet her with a hug even before Mulligan had finished welcoming them.

“How was your flight?  You must be exhausted.  Do you want anything to drink?”

“A little tired,” Adrienne admitted with a smile.  She followed Lafayette and Eliza into the apartment and after a short glance around, left her bag near the door.  “But the flight was very nice.”

“Did you fly first class?” Aglae asked, turning to face her without getting up.

“Yes,” Adrienne began and was interrupted by Lafayette taking her hand and squeezing it.

“Tell them what happened,” he said.  “This is very cool,” he informed the rest of the room, looking around and nodding in agreement with himself.  “This is very special.”

Adrienne gave an embarrassed laugh.  “Oh,” she said, “it was the pilot’s last flight before retirement, so they made an announcement and everyone…”  She paused and looked at Lafayette.

“Applauded.”

“Everyone applauded.”

“And?”

“And when we landed the, ah, the people at the airport, they put lights and water on the plane.”

Lafayette nodded emphatically and pointed at Adrienne to underscore her words.

“Oh yeah,” Mulligan said, herding them into the living room, “that’s always neat.  What a nice touch.”

“This could only happen to my dear heart,” Lafayette informed everyone with perhaps misplaced pride.  He sat on the couch next to Angelica and pulled Adrienne down beside him.  “Hello,” he said, patting Angelica happily on the knee.  “What have we missed?”

“Poker,” Mulligan said, taking his seat again.  “Do you want to join?  There’s no gambling involved.”

“No,” Lafayette said, “I don’t have the attention span for it right now.”

“I appreciate your honesty.  Aglae, Hamilton.  You still in?”

“Yes.  Did you tell Adrienne that I have a girlfriend now?”  Aglae slid up to Peggy again as Mulligan shuffled again and began to deal out the cards.  “She was at the party that we met at.”

“Of course I told her,” Lafayette said.  “I tell her most everything.”

Peggy cleared her throat, awkward and embarrassed, and got up.  Aglae grabbed her hand and squeezed it before letting her go.

Hamilton decided that his interest was piqued and moved to take Peggy’s vacated spot.  “I feel you,” he began, looking up at Peggy as she went into the kitchen, and then over his shoulder to see how much attention the rest of the room was paying them.  Lafayette had his arm around Adrienne’s shoulders as they talked to Angelica, and Hamilton felt that if it were almost anyone else the display would look artificial.  _Almost_ anyone else.  He was confident that similar behavior looked good on him and Laurens.  “I’m like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, with the PDA.”  He pointed to himself.  “That’s me.  And Lafayette,” he allowed, as behind him on the couch Lafayette took one of Adrienne’s hands and pulled it into his lap to play with.  “She’ll warm up to it.”

Aglae looked puzzled.  “What do you mean?”

“The touching,” Hamilton said.  “The cuddling up to her and the holding her hand and stuff.  John thought it was too much, too.  I’m just saying that it’s okay, she’ll get more used to it.”

Aglae gave him a strange look, but before she could say anything they were both called back to the poker game.

“Adrienne and I are just briefly in the city,” Lafayette was telling the others.  “We’re going to get breakfast in the morning and maybe do a very little bit of sightseeing and then we are off to the airport again.  I think we are going to go to the zoo in Phoenix,” he said, leaning forward a little and getting somehow even more excited.  “They have armadillos and roadrunners and a live ferret cam that I was watching at the airport.”

Peggy came back with a soda and sat on the arm of the couch, listening in to the conversation.  Aglae looked over at her after drawing a new card, brow slightly furrowed, then turned her attention back to the table.

“So,” Hamilton said to Sanders without looking up from scrutinizing his hand.  “What’s it like to date Herc?  ‘Cause I wouldn’t want to do it, no offense.”

“Excuse you,” Mulligan said.  “You know you’re not the one calling the hard no on this possibility, right?  That’s me.  I just wanna be clear that it’s not that I’d be into that before you make any weird implications.”

Sanders laughed and rubbed Mulligan’s shoulder.  “I like it,” she said.  “He’s a cheap date and he knows his way around a kitchen.”

Mulligan sat up straighter and jabbed a thumb at his own chest, looking proud.

“Yeah, I ran into you doing her laundry that one time,” Hamilton said.  He drew a card and made an obvious displeased face at it.  “You’re so whipped.”

“Are you tryin’ t’ trash talk me into losing?”  Mulligan asked.  “Because you’ve got a real weak game there as well as with the poker itself.  I don’t know what kind of insult that’s even supposed to be, Hamilton.  Shame on me, I know how to take care of adult responsibilities and can do nice things for my partner.  Right.  Show me what you have.”

They all turned their cards over and Hamilton made a noise of disgust, pushing away from the table and leaning back against Laurens again as Mulligan grinned and collected all of them.

“Not bad.  You would’ve had a flush, except Beth took that five of clubs before you could get to it, which sadly means your hand’s a whole lot of nothing.  What did you get?”  He asked Aglae.  “Three of a kind again,” he said approvingly.  “Very nice.  And that was another one of the clubs Hamilton needed.  You club-blocked him.”

Hamilton made a face.  “Deal me in again.  That was just bad luck.”

Behind him he heard Adrienne and Angelica talking in French, Adrienne giving her lists of things to see in Paris if she wanted to visit her while she was in England.  Angelica sounded genuinely eager, encouraged by Lafayette interrupting occasionally to add on.

Eliza sat next to him on the ground and put her hand lightly on his.  “Thank you,” she said quietly.  “For trying to help earlier.”

Hamilton had the good sense to keep his voice low as well, and he glanced up quickly to check that Laurens was listening to the others.  “I thought that…”

Eliza nodded.

Hamilton fell silent.  He paused, then shrugged.  “I tried,” he offered.  “I just…  This afternoon, at the library…”

“It will be all right,” Eliza assured him.  “I think we’re all a little bit more on edge right now than we would be at other times.”  She took the hand that Hamilton had been dealt and showed it to him.  “Just as bad as before?”  She asked, working to keep the excitement from her voice as they both looked at the hand, already a full house with three kings and two eights.

“Yeah,” Hamilton agreed.  “This is seriously not my night.”


	241. Overslept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awake; *Back to Reality

Hamilton woke to the low warm fan of the the heater and the sound of Mulligan getting ready for work.  As soon as he was awake he knew that Laurens was asleep beside him on the pull-out couch, both of them too tired after getting strong-armed by Peggy into watching a movie to make the trip back across town.  Eliza and Angelica had left at the same time that Lafayette and Adrienne had, but the rest of them had stayed and then, when the clock was reaching three, Mulligan had offered them the couch and spare blankets.

Mulligan crossed from the bathroom to his bedroom again and opened the door.  Hamilton could hear him stop just inside, talking in a low voice to Sanders.  He eavesdropped lazily, not hearing anything important or interesting, and lay perfectly still as Mulligan quietly closed the door and walked to the kitchen.

Mulligan opened the fridge and took a few items out of it.  Hamilton heard him pack them away for later.  He pulled out one of the chairs at the small table, scraping it over the linoleum floor, and sat in it, typing on the slide keyboard on his phone while he waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

The temperature properly elevated, the heater turned off with a rolling clunk.  Laurens continued to breathe slowly behind him.

Comfortable and warm, Hamilton sank back to sleep.

 

When Laurens woke it was with the uneasy sick disorientation of lying on a bed that did not feel familiar, with blankets and a pillow that smelled of someone else’s detergent.  His first thought was _Home_ , but only for a second before he knew that he was not in Columbia.  It wasn’t the dorm and it wasn’t Hamilton’s apartment, and then he remembered that they had still been at Mulligan’s far past midnight and the weather was significantly below freezing and the trek back had sounded so unpleasant that when Mulligan had offered them the couch they had both agreed to take it.  In the light of day he wasn’t sure it was the best solution.

He rolled onto his back and sat up carefully, still groggy and unsure.

The colors of the apartment were muted with the lights off and the curtains drawn and shutting out much of the sun.  It was quiet, but Laurens thought he could hear faint voices from one of the rooms.

He looked to his left, at Hamilton lying on his side, facing the arm of the couch.  His hair had been left in a ponytail and it was half fallen out now, messy locks pulling out of the elastic tie.  His lips were slightly parted, his arms curled up in front of him and hands just visible at the top of the blanket.  As Laurens watched he could see his hands and then his eyelids twitch.

He slowly climbed off of the sofa.  To his surprise and appreciation there were two toothbrushes left on the sink, still in their packages and clearly intended for their use.

He brushed his teeth as he stared at himself in the mirror, reorienting to the day and place and feeling the world settle into place around him.

Now that he was closer he could tell that Peggy and Aglae were definitely awake.  He could hear giggling and voices behind Peggy’s closed door and he wondered what time it was.

He spat in the sink and ran the water and fixed his hair as best he could, then returned to the living room.

 

Hamilton had read once, years ago, that each REM cycle throughout the night is longer than the one that came before, so that the longer you slept the more deeply you dreamt.  It had seemed at the time like a sick trick, punishment for working and simultaneously for not working enough, for daring to have places that you did not want to visit.

When Laurens sat down on the pull-out mattress it slammed the door on a place he had not been to recently: a lean apartment with shadows in the corners and a bed with a thin faded quilt.

He sat up quickly, the very smell of bleach and burnt cooking oil somehow in his mouth and he got off the couch and felt the floor trembling beneath him as he walked to the bathroom.

“Alex?”

He ignored Laurens for the moment, not sure until the cold water from the sink hit his face if he was going to take a breath or be sick.

He washed his face and felt his heart race crazily in his chest.  It was the stress from the end of the semester, he reasoned, and the spending the night on the sofa, which naturally reminded him of when he had first come to the city.

He washed his face a second time and opened the second toothbrush and leaned into the hall as he used it, calling back to Laurens around it.

“Wha’ times’s it?”

Laurens was still sitting on the couch, but the question reassured him and he got up.  His phone was charging on the coffee table where it had been dragged to the side and out of the way.

“About ten.”

“Late.”

Laurens heard him spit.

“Do I have any messages?”

Laurens checked.  “Angelica wants to know when you’re coming over.”

“Figured.  I’m not really hungry yet, but do you want to figure out lunch first?”

“Yeah.  It’s late already.”

“I know.  Shit.”  Hamilton came back out, squinting a little at the room.  “I was up for a bit but it was way too early then so I went back to sleep.  You startled me when you sat down.”

“Sorry.”  Laurens stood and handed Hamilton his phone, then put his hand at his waist and kissed him.  He had intended it to be light and brief but Hamilton immediately deepened it, slipping his arms around him and pressing him close.

Hamilton felt the solid warmth of his body and lowered his face to rest for a second against his chest, breathing in the familiar smell of his clothes and feeling his nerves calm.

“So…?”

“Peggy up?”  Hamilton stepped away.

“I heard her and Aglae talking.”

“Right, right.”  Hamilton raised his eyebrows as if getting at some unspoken sin.  “Clever girl—damnit, if she made us watch Jurassic Park I could have at least gotten some cool dinosaur dream instead of just getting that one line stuck in my head.”  He rolled his eyes.  “I’m going to see if they’re decent and if they want to do anything.”

“What are you—”

“Relax, I’m not going to actually make like a velociraptor and spring out at them.  I still think someone should do a remake with feathers,” he added as he knocked on the door.  “Would have been better than that theme park, or whatever they did with it.  Hey, you ladies up?  John and I were gonna head over to meet Angelica and Eliza in a bit.”

The door opened.  Peggy, still in pyjamas, stood in the frame.  Her laptop continued to play some best-of compilation on the floor behind her.

“So?”  Hamilton said.  “Do you want to come with?  We were thinking of maybe hanging out some, getting late breakfast, early lunch first.”

Aglae came up behind Peggy and wrapped her arms around her waist, leaning her chin on her shoulder and making eye contact with Hamilton as she licked her earlobe.

Hamilton tried very hard not to notice that she was only wearing a shirt and underwear.  He was glad, for once, for details to be smudged out.

“Um,” Peggy said.  “I think we need more time to get ready.”

“Mm,” Aglae agreed, her face against her neck now and one of her hands moving up over Peggy’s shirt.

Peggy grabbed it, face bright red as she struggled to maintain the appearance of composure.  “So, um, we’ll, um, we’ll catch up with you later.”

“Right,” Hamilton agreed, not entirely sure why he felt his own cheeks hot in response.  “Okay, cool.”

The door closed quickly in his face.  Hamilton ignored the heavy muffled thud against it even before he had turned away.

“They’ll catch us later.”

Laurens, still standing in the living room, pressed one hand to his mouth, folding his other arm across his chest.

“What?”

“I have honestly never seen you this embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed.  I didn’t do anything.”

“You just walked in on them.”  Laurens turned as Hamilton pushed past him, still having to keep his hand at his mouth to keep from laughing.

“Well, that’s not embarrassing to me, they’re the ones who should be—!”  Hamilton made an effort to stop and reset, running his hands over his face and back through his hair.  “Whatever,” he said, a little aggressively.  He took out and redid his ponytail.  “Whatever, they’re having—I’m glad for them.  Not my kids,” he added in a mutter.  “I’m glad for them.”

Laurens heard a faint noise that might have been the door locking.

“So,” Laurens said, pulling the blanket and pillows from the bed.  “Do you still want to wait around—”

Hamilton had his wrist and when Laurens turned around he put his other hand behind his neck and pulled him down.  Without breaking the kiss he pushed him down so that Laurens was lying at a diagonal across the mattress, Hamilton on top of him.

Hamilton heard Laurens’ breath catch and he felt him shift underneath him as he pressed his leg lightly between his.  He knew he hadn’t expected it and he was gratified by how instead of rolling him off, Laurens put his hands at his hips and gently held him in place.

Hamilton deepened the kiss, concentrating on his lips and his tongue and not on how he had been caught flatfooted or how he could still see the apartment he and his mother had lived in in such vivid detail—

He reached down and cupped Laurens over his pants, using the trembling gasp to ground him in his present reality.

“Alex…”

“I know,” Hamilton said, his voice low.  “Not the most ideal.  But I can’t help myself.  It’s not fair if we don’t.”

Laurens’ laugh hitched.  “Don’t know whose—standards we’re going by.”

“Mine?  Ours,” Hamilton corrected.  He bit Laurens’ neck and heard him try and fail not to make a sound.

“This isn’t our room.”

“It’s my old room.  I used to sleep here.”

“Did you used to—do—this?”

“Maybe.  Would you think it would be hot if I said yes?”

“There’s no door.”

“They’re not going to come out to check on us.  Trust me.”  Hamilton bit him again and sucked on the skin, rolling his hand over him and feeling Laurens arch his hips towards him.  “We can be fast.  I know you can be.”  He undid Laurens’ fly and slipped his hand in.

Laurens gasped and propped himself up on his elbows.  “H-hey, we’re going to meet people after, I don’t—”

“Mn, I know…”  Hamilton kissed him again, managing somehow to be reassuring even as he continued to rub him over the front of his underwear.  “I want to just get you off right now, but I guess that would be a bad idea.  We could take a shower,” he suggested.  “Or I could suck you off.”

Laurens sunk slowly back down onto the mattress and Hamilton grinned.

“Yeah?  You like that?  I haven’t done that for a while.  Sit up,” he commanded.

Laurens did so, moving to the edge of the mattress and pulling his pants and, after a slight hesitation, his underwear off.

“Good.”

Hamilton paused to admire him, his muscled calves and thighs, then got to his knees between his legs.

“Put your hand on my head.”

Laurens obeyed.

“You can pull my hair,” Hamilton told him.  “Let me know you're enjoying it.  I want to make you come.”  He ran his tongue underneath his shaft.  “And we both know we need to be fairly quick.”

“H-hurry up.”

Hamilton grinned.  “You’re right.”  He licked him again, relishing the taste and how it made Laurens’ hand in his hair quiver.  Before Laurens could say anything else he took him into his mouth at the same time that he put his hand underneath his sac, squeezing it gently.

Laurens groaned and Hamilton quickly took his mouth off of him.

“You can’t do that, J.  You need to be quiet or this isn’t gonna work.”

Laurens made a very small noise of protest.

“Can you do that for me, tiger?”

“Ha.  Y-yeah.”

“Good.”  Hamilton slid his mouth back onto him, pressing his tongue up underneath his shaft as he went.

This time instead of making noise, Laurens bit the inside of his lower lip and tightened his grip on Hamilton’s hair, tugging insistently as Hamilton moved slowly up and down.

“F-faster.”  The word was a whisper.

Hamilton ignored him and Laurens wondered if he had not been heard.  He pulled lightly on his hair instead, trying to urge him on.  His cheeks were flush and he was very aware of how exposed they were to someone walking in on them.  There was no way he could cover himself in time and no way to plausibly deny what they were doing.  He pulled on Hamilton’s hair again.  “Faster.”

Instead, Hamilton moved his hand behind his sac, just barely able to press against the skin there with his fingers.  Laurens’ hips jerked and with that pressure Hamilton did speed up slightly, taking as much of him into his mouth as he could comfortably and sucking against him as he pulled off.

Laurens put his other hand on Hamilton’s shoulder, tightening his grip on it and yanking insistently on his hair as his desire grew, his cock almost too sensitive in Hamilton’s mouth.

With a jerk of his hips and a rush of hot pleasure he came, having to quickly take his hand from Hamilton’s shoulder again to press it to his own mouth even as he encouraged Hamilton’s head to stay down.

Hamilton pulled slowly off and swallowed against him, then quickly moved back the rest of the way to wipe his mouth.

Laurens was watching him, breathing heavily, eyes dark.

“You did a good job,” Hamilton said, half teasing and half reassuring, as he gently pushed him back onto the mattress, cupping and stroking and touching him.  He held him as Laurens wrapped his arms around him.  Hamilton tucked his face in against his neck.  He kissed the small purple mark he had left.

“You need to get dressed.”

“How do you want…?”

Hamilton paused.  The contours of his old apartment were still lurking at the corners of his mind, memories made more real by their current setting.

“Later,” he said.  “Tonight.”  He kissed Laurens lightly and playfully and rolled off.  “Treat me real good.  Make it worth waiting for.”

“Are you sure?”

Hamilton tossed Laurens his clothes and looked around to make sure he had everything.  “Positive.”  He watched Laurens dress and helped him fold the mattress up again, the bedding and pillows tossed onto the other chair.  “It’ll give me something to look forward to,” he said, slipping under Laurens’ arm and looking up at him with hooded eyes.  He trailed a hand over his chest and let his fingers brush over the spot on his neck.  “Trust me,” he promised, “I’m looking forward to it.”


	242. Set, Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Various Schuylers (and André)

“Just look at all the detail.”  Hamilton lovingly turned over a knight in his hands, admiring the delicately carved eye on the horse’s head and the lines in its mane.  “The set I had as a kid was plastic,” he said, “and you could see the seams from where it was molded together.”  He set the chess piece down, joining a few of his pawns as they marched out from their original line.

“It is nice,” Angelica agreed.  She was sitting across from him at a round, dark wood table, her legs crossed under her skirt.  She moved one of her own knights out to match.

“My boyfriend gave it to me,” Hamilton said airily.  “Did I say that already?”

“You did.”

“Oh, well, it’s still true.”

“Well, I can only hope that you’re better at chess than at poker.  It’s for the best that no one was gambling last night or you would have been robbed.”

“Says the woman who wasn’t even playing.  You can’t talk smack if you don't get in the game yourself, Angelica.”

On the couch, Laurens put on his headphones to drown them out.

 

> J. Laurens: Seriously, that’s messed up

> J. André: That’s just how she is, it’s okay

> J. André: I guess it really was a couple of days to get it working again anyway

> J. André: And it was almost funny because I was on the old phone while I was at the airport and trying to meet up with her, then the very first thing she does when I found her was give me my phone back.  She has a point, I wasn’t able to get distracted with it over finals

> J. Laurens: I guess

 

Laurens received a selfie of André in a thick red and white sweater, his mother visible in the background.

 

> J. André: We’re decorating while my dad’s out

> J. André: What are you doing?

 

Laurens looked around, then angled himself to get a surreptitious picture of himself with Hamilton over his shoulder.  Angelica was mostly blocked by the angle of the camera.

 

> J. Laurens: Just hanging out.

> J. André: cool cool

 

Laurens was forced to look up from his conversation again as Eliza came downstairs, calling to Hamilton and Angelica as she did so.

“How far did you get?”

“We just started.”

Eliza descended the last remaining stairs and came to stand behind Angelica, her hands on the back of her narrow chair.  She studied the board.  “Alex, did you and John want anything to drink?”

“I’m fine.”

Eliza turned to Laurens.  He shook his head.  Satisfied, she turned her attention back to the game.  “How did you decide who was white?”

“We flipped for it,” Hamilton said, moving another piece.  “We thought that would be the fairest.”

“Mm.”  Eliza did not give Angelica any suggestion, but just watched her carefully move out her rook.  “Where’s Peggy?  She didn’t come over with you two?”

Hamilton grimaced very slightly and hovered his hand over the board.  “No.”

“Was she not up yet?”

“She was busy.”

The answer was shorter than it might have normally been and that just emphasized its tone.  Eliza paused, then raised very slightly back from the scene before stepping away.

“I want something to drink,” she said.  “John, are you sure you don’t want anything?”

“Uh.”  Laurens felt somehow obligated to accept something.  “Water would be good.”

“All right.”  She vanished into the kitchen.

 

> J. André: It’s just me and her right now so that’s my life today lol…  my sisters are getting in tonight and that'll be nice

> J. André: She says hi btw

> J. André: She wants to know your wrist size

> J. Laurens: Tell her hello

 

Laurens, resigning himself to having to engage one way or another, put his phone down and took off his headphones.

“Thank you,” he said when Eliza came back out and handed him a glass.  Not actually thirsty, he looked around for a coaster.

“Here.”  She sat next to him and pushed it towards him across the table.  She took another for her own glass.  “Are you talking to Lafayette?”

“André.”

“Oh.”

Laurens tried to keep the conversation going.  “He’s at his family’s place in Switzerland right now.”

“That’s nice.  Do they go there every year?”

“Seems like it.”

They both sat there.  At the table Hamilton tried to put a piece back down after he had touched it and Angelica scolded him.  To Laurens’ mild surprise instead of arguing with her he made a derisive noise and moved it immediately.

“Have you played with him before?”

Laurens shook his head.  “No.”

A pause while they watched Angelica take the pawn his move had opened up.

“This is going to get brutal,” Eliza commented.  Laurens noticed that she didn’t sound particularly upset about it and he registered slight surprise.  “Angelica’s ruthless and I bet he’s the same.”

“No shit.”  Laurens said the words without thinking and immediately wanted to take them back.

Eliza quirked a smile. “So,” she said, obviously feeling him out for specific information, “how did the rest of the night go after we left?”

Laurens shrugged.  “It was fine.  We watched a movie.”

“I saw Peggy’s snaps.”

 _Then why are you asking_ , Laurens thought to himself.  “We didn’t really do much else,” he said.  “It was pretty late by the time it was over and we left he apartment a little after getting up.”

“How is James?”  Eliza asked, with the tone of someone abruptly changing directions in a conversation.  Laurens wasn’t sure what direction the conversation had been going in the first place, or if it even really counted as one.

“He’s doing well, I guess.  I think he should be done with finals by now.”

“He is.  He told me.”

Laurens tried very hard not to appear obviously exasperated.  “Oh, good.”  At a loss for what else to do he took a drink of water.

“Are you going to see him before you go home?”

“McHenry?  I might.  We don’t have a set schedule right now, but he and I tend to both go to the gym at the same time in the morning, so I’ve been running into him there.”

“I’m surprised I’ve never seen you guys there.”  Eliza leaned her elbow on the armrest of the couch, her fist on the side of her face and her body angled towards him.  “You must be there very early.  I get in around seven.”

“Yeah, that’s after us.”  Laurens thought for a moment.  “I think they must stagger practices if we’re using shared equipment.”  He looked at her uncertainly.  “Are we using the same equipment?”

Eliza nodded.

“Right.  That must be part of it then.”

“Probably.  I miss the weather being nice out,” Eliza went on.  “It’s too cold now to go running outside, but I get so bored on the treadmill.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed readily.  “That’s the worst.”

“Do you run?”

“I mean—Yes, but not like…  You know?”

Eliza nodded, seeming to, in fact, know.

Laurens felt himself relaxing a little into what he was now sure was a conversation.  “One of my friends from the team does track and field in the off season, but I’m not interested in going that far.”

“I did track for a little bit in high school.”

“Isn’t it boring?”

“I liked the other girls on it,” Eliza explained.  “And, like I said, it’s better when it’s outdoors.”

“That’s true.  I played baseball for a couple years.”

“Oh, I was on a girls’ softball team in elementary school.”

“My sister plays volleyball,” Laurens offered.  “Her team’s actually pretty good.”

“She’s in high school still, isn’t she?”

“Yes.  She’s a senior.  She plays for her school’s varsity team.”

“That’s exciting.  Is she one of the starters?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens said the word proudly.  “She’s good,” he said, elevating his previous praise.  “It’s too bad they’re not reliable about filming her games.  I’ve caught them streaming once or twice, but they don’t keep them up for long and I’m usually too busy to watch them at the time.”

Eliza smiled, pressing her lips together as she did so as if to keep it from being too obvious.

“Uh,” Laurens said, feeling suddenly like he was dominating the conversation, and not even talking about anyone that she knew.  “So—”  He had to quickly search his memory.  “Alex said that you play defense?”

“Sweeper, usually.”  She gave him a brief calculating look.  “I’m the last one before the goalie.”

“I know.”

Eliza nodded, pleased.

“Did you want that position?”

She nodded again.  “That’s what I was playing in high school.  I’ve played all over the field,” she went on, “but I prefer defense.  Did James play sports other than football in high school?”

Laurens gave her a puzzled look, then shrugged.  “I’m not sure.”  He hesitated.  “You know,” he said, “I think he’s just not a very talkative person.  Like, with any of us.  At least not—he’s a good conversationalist,” he said.  “But I think you need to ask him directly.  About things like that.”

Laurens realized that Eliza likely knew about his fear that his father and brother had seen his final drawing project and wondered if Hamilton had told her about how he had met with his coach after as well.  Probably not, he reasoned, since it didn’t sound like Hamilton had explained the rest of that to her.  “He was talking about you the other day,” Laurens said, trying to carefully offer the correct amount of information.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  Like I said, I’ve been running into him at the gym.  He was telling me about your date.”  The word felt awkward on his tongue but he didn’t know what else to call it.

“Mm.”

It must have been the right word choice because she was smiling to herself over the rim of her glass.  Laurens felt faint relief.  At the table Hamilton took Angelica’s bishop and added it to his slowly growing pile.

“I know he wants to see you again,” Laurens said, hoping he wasn’t doing McHenry a disservice by volunteering that fact.  “It sounded like he was looking forward to having more time to be social over break.”

“I’m sure he was very busy,” Eliza agreed.

“Be nice to him,” Laurens said, impulsively giving more away than he had intended to.  “He’s a good guy.”

Eliza gave him a bemused look.  Laurens, embarrassed and unsure, turned away from it and took another drink.  He was saved by his phone lighting up indicating an incoming call from André.

“Sorry,” he apologized, pulling his headphones back on and answering.  He stood and took a couple steps away from the couch.  “Hey, André, what’s up?”

André’s face appeared on the screen.  “You never answered me about your wrist size.”

“Oh.”  Laurens looked down at his wrist.  “About seven and a half inches.  Why?”

He could hear André’s mother in the background scolding him for asking so directly.  Over his own shoulder Hamilton pushed the chair away from the table and laughed, his concentration on the chess game temporarily broken.

“Seven and a half?”

Laurens turned to see Hamilton raising his eyebrows suggestively at him.

“Is that all?”

Laurens, red in the presence of their audience, motioned curtly at him.  “He was asking about my wrist.”

“Mmhm, sure.  Whatever.  Sounds to me like he’s making a pretty blatant pass at you.  I can’t blame him,” he went on, dramatically turning to Angelica.  “But I thought you’d at least have the good manners not to respond to that sort of proposition in front of me.  Didn’t they teach you that sort of thing at finishing school?”

“God.”  Laurens turned away.  “You are the absolute worst.  Do you know that?”

“What did I do?”  André asked.

“Not _you_.”

Hamilton snickered.

“What do you want it—”  Laurens was cut off again, this time by a key in the door.  The key got stuck and the handle jiggled, then the ringer was pressed repeatedly.

“I’m coming, hold on…”  Eliza crossed quickly to the door as the bell continued to ring.  She undid the chain and opened it.  “Peggy,” she said, a little exasperated.

“It got stuck.”

“I could tell.”

Peggy entered, key still in hand.  “Who’s winning?”

“I am,” both Hamilton and Angelica said in unison.

Peggy looked impressed at the timing.

“Hey, John,” Hamilton said abruptly, “take your headphones off and show Peggy who you’re talking to.”

“What?”

Laurens did so, turning the phone to Peggy.

“Hello.”  André waved.

Peggy made a face at him and then at Hamilton for encouraging it.

“What did I do?”  André asked again.

“Nothing,” Laurens reassured him.

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Hi André,” Eliza said brightly, swooping in and putting her hand lightly on Laurens’ arm to tip the phone towards her.  “How’s Switzerland?”

Before André could say anything he was suddenly sharing the screen with his mother, her makeup impeccable for just putting up holiday decorations with her son.

“Who is this?”  She asked André while looking into the phone.  “Is this one of your friends?”

“Oh, yeah.  This is Eliza Schuyler,” André said.  “Eliza, this is my mother.”

“Such a pretty girl,” André’s mother said before Eliza could finish greeting her.  “Are you Chinese?”

“Mom—”

“I’m at Eliza’s house,” Laurens said, trying to take control of the conversation again.  “These are her sisters, Angelica and Peggy.”  He panned the phone over them.

“All such pretty girls,” André’s mother declared again.  “Your father must be fending off the boys with a stick.”

“Mom,” André began again.

She shushed him and kissed his temple, patting his arm and leaving him.

“Sorry,” André said, obviously flustered.

“At least she missed the dick part,” Hamilton commented, brow furrowed as he stared at the board again.  “That could have been real awkward.”

“So,” Laurens said to André, trying to remember what they had been talking about.  “Your, uh, your break’s going well?”

“Yeah, tomorrow night we’re going to the opera—”

Laurens lost the thread of what André was saying, distracted instead by Eliza interrogating Peggy in hushed tones just behind him.

“Did she stay over?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What do you mean, ‘you guess’?”

“Eliza…”

“—since I was, like, fourteen, so that’ll be fun.”

Laurens jerked back to the call.  “Oh,” he said.  “Right.”  While he faltered, trying to recall enough of what was said to respond properly, André’s mother came back into frame, leaning in next to him and asking a quick question in a language Laurens could not understand.  Even without verbal cues, he could tell that André gave her an emphatic and repeated “no,” and then, by the automatic way he looked between him and Eliza, he thought he was able to piece together the rest.

“Too bad,” André’s mother sighed, stepping away from the call again.

“I should let you go,” Laurens said, suddenly more than ready to get off the line.

“Right, yeah, you too.  Talk to you later?”

Laurens nodded.  “Later.”


	243. Prickly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gingerbread; Schuylers; Airport

“I’m so glad that we were able to do this,” Lafayette said with a brightness that belied how little sleep he had had the previous night.  His hand was intertwined tightly with Adrienne’s under the crisp white of the tablecloth in the Washingtons’ dining room.  “And thank you again for offering us a ride to the airport.”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Washington assured them, her gray hair neatly pinned up and at an odd juxtaposition next to Lafayette’s meticulously lightened and dyed tight curls.  “We want to make sure that you get there on time, after all.”

Lafayette nodded and squeezed Adrienne’s hand, trying to carry the conversation for both of them to make up for the time difference and language barrier.  “Thank you.  We appreciate it.  Adrienne and I were talking about how we had hoped to be able to see the two of you before we left.”  He squeezed her hand again to prompt a response.

“Mm?  Ah, yes.”

Lafayette picked up his fork with his free, non-dominant, hand, and carefully used it to slice off a piece of the sugar-glazed gingerbread on the small china plate in front of him.  “Also this spice bread is delicious.”

“Gingerbread,” Mrs. Washington corrected him.  “George.”

“Lafayette,” Washington said, stepping into the conversation so smoothly it almost seemed like he wasn’t doing so at his wife’s behest.  “Would you like another slice?”

“Ah, no, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“We have another loaf,” Mrs. Washington added.  “You should have some more.”

“Well, maybe a little piece,” Lafayette said, as a second piece was already being cut for him anyway.  “Thank you.”  He held out his plate.

Adrienne took a sip of tea, served in delicately painted cups that matched their plates.  The blue figures on her cup struck poses in the barest sketch of a garden, more attention paid to their suits and full dresses.  The early afternoon sun played over the chinaware and Adrienne’s face and highlighted the cool dusty tones of her hair and Lafayette thought for a moment that he knew exactly what they must have looked like in a previous life.

“We should be leaving here soon,” Washington said, eyeing the clock on the mantel.  “Do you two need to stop anywhere on the way?”

“No,” Lafayette said, double-checking his answer with Adrienne with a glance.  “We have everything.  I went to the pharmacy earlier this week and picked up what I will affectionately call my horse tranquilizers and so I am prepared.  There’s a horse on my crest,” he explained after a beat.  “I don’t know why I said it all so dramatically.  I think I assumed that Alexander or one of the others was here.”  He paused, then took a bite of his gingerbread.  Maybe it was better to regain his composure before he said anything else.

“Good,” Washington said.

Lafayette smiled with his mouth shut.

“I’ll wrap the rest of this up for you,” Mrs. Washington said, standing and taking the plate of gingerbread off of the table.  “Do you have room for it?”

“Oh,” Adrienne began, “you don’t have to…”

“We have space,” Lafayette assured both of them.  “Thank you very much.”

“I will help,” Adrienne said, relenting and following Mrs. Washington into the kitchen to package the bread.

Their voices muffled through several doors to just the dull friendly sense of having someone else in the house, Lafayette turned to Washington across the table and folded his hands neatly in his lap.  “I’m looking forward to meeting up with Thomas.”

“Yes,” Washington agreed mildly.  “Send him my regards.”

“I will.”  Lafayette paused, keenly aware of the tone and circumstances of the last time he had been in the house.  It had been easy enough to gloss over it before, but now that it was just the two of them the December light through the windows seemed a little sharper and cooler.  “I looked it up,” Lafayette said, “and I can bring plants back to New York from all fifty states, provided they are packaged appropriately and of species approved for transportation across the state borders.”  He waited with eager expectation for the delighted encouragement he was sure the thought and internet research would win him.  _That’s so thoughtful, Lafayette.  Please bring me all of them, Lafayette._

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”  Lafayette paused, waiting, giving plenty of room for the request.  When it did not come he threw open the door for it.  “So if you would like anything I can carry it back for you.  I don’t mind rearranging everything if I need to and I am just under the weight limit but I can always pay the penalty.”

“No,” Washington said.  “Thank you, I appreciate the thought.”

Lafayette was stunned.  A simple “no” and an acknowledgement?  That didn’t even leave him enough room to do the proper back and forth of both parties insisting that it would be no trouble at all.

“Oh,” he said.  Then, after a pause:  “Are you sure?”

“I don’t need anything.”

Lafayette tried not to let the disappointment show on his face.  “All right.”

Approaching voices signaled him to stand and put his napkin on the table.  “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said instead, with more formality than he liked.  “Is it time to be off?”

 

Laurens perched awkwardly on the couch, turning his phone over in his hands and all too aware of the muffled arguing occurring out of sight in the kitchen.

At the table Hamilton and Angelica continued to play, Angelica only barely betraying knowledge of what was happening behind them with a slight tension in her shoulders as all three of them listened.  Hamilton glanced up and towards the kitchen door, knight in his hand.

“Should we do something?”

“No.”

Hamilton looked at Angelica, weighing her answer, then shrugged and moved the knight.  “You should bring a set with you to England,” he said.  “We can set up the boards in front of the screen and play long distance.”

Laurens unlocked his phone.

 

> J. Laurens: Did you make plans to see Eliza again?

 

He had to wait a couple of minutes for a response.

 

> J. McHenry: No not yet

> J. McHenry: Why?

> J. Laurens: I was talking to her earlier and I think she’d like to see you again soon.

 

Laurens wondered if he had come to the right conclusion or not when the kitchen door opened abruptly but without slamming and Eliza came out carrying a bowl of diced fruit, looking almost perfectly unruffled, followed by a still obviously irritated Peggy.

Eliza put the bowl on the table and took her seat on the sofa again.  “I figured that they might be a while,” she explained, nodding at the other two.  “But we might…”  Her phone began to ring from the other room and she excused herself and quickly went to get it.

Peggy stole her seat, dropping heavily into it with a roll of her eyes.

“I told McHenry to contact her,” Laurens said after a pause.  “So hopefully she’ll be in a better mood when she comes back.”

Peggy scowled.  “I don’t care.”

Laurens shrugged and leaned forward, picking a piece of melon out of the bowl and popping it into his mouth.  “For wha’ it’s worth,” he said, pushing it into his cheek as he talked, letting it hide some of how awkward he felt about broaching the topic, “I’d be pretty jealous if my younger sister got some before me too.”

“You’re a guy,” Peggy said bluntly and maybe a little unfairly.  “And I’m not even that much younger than her.  Also, she has a boyfriend.”

Laurens shrugged.

“Whatever,” Peggy muttered, folding her arms and slouching down.  “This is stupid.”

Laurens nodded in relieved agreement and took another piece of melon.

“Alexander,” Peggy said, looking over at the table but not bothering to sit up properly.  “I have stuff for you.”

“What—Oh!”  Hamilton jerked his head to her, eyes wide.  “Oh, um.”  He glanced at Laurens, not at all subtly, and then back to Peggy.  “Okay,” he said, trying far too late to be smooth, “cool.  Do you want to give it to me now or what?”

“Yeah, hold on.”  Peggy got up.  She started to walk away, then looked back at Laurens expectantly.

“Oh.”  Laurens pointed to himself in confusion, then stood.  “Do you need me…?”

“Come _on_.”

“Right.”  Stealing a couple of strawberries from the bowl, Laurens followed her up the stairs to the second floor.  “What do you have for him?”

“I can’t tell you.”  Peggy led them down the hall and into her room.  It looked similar to the one at Mulligan’s, with the same sort of taste but skewing younger.  There was bedding on the mattress and another desk loaded with school supplies and general detritus of late childhood.

“Then why am I here?”

“Didn’t you want to get away from the super fun party downstairs?”  Peggy picked up a manilla envelope from the desk.  Something inside it slid and rattled.  “This is for him.”

“Got it.”  Laurens took it from her and let his arms hang at his sides.  “So…?”

“I dunno.  Do you want to hang out or something?”

Laurens felt almost like he could laugh.  “Sure,” he said.  “What do you want to do?”

 

“Do we have everything?”  Lafayette asked in French, hands fidgeting with the interior fabric of the pockets on his jacket as he waited with Adrienne at the boarding gate.  “Tickets?  ID?  Phones?  Money?”

Adrienne nodded.  “Yes.  It’s all in the bags.”

“Are you sure?”

Lafayette took his hands out of his pockets and patted them anyway, then crouched next to his carry on to check its contents again.  “Yes,” he said, satisfied.  “Good.  Do you have the gingerbread from Mrs. Washington?”

“Yes.”

“It’s very good,” Lafayette said, talking a little faster than normal.  “I think the secret is the orange juice.  She told me that she would scan me a copy of her recipe.”

“I enjoyed it too,” Adrienne reminded him.

“I’m so glad we were able to have breakfast with them.  I hope that wasn’t too early for you?”  He asked, gaze snapping back up to meet Adrienne’s.

She shook her head and patted the seat next to her with one hand.  “It was fine.  I will sleep on the plane.”

Lafayette nodded and stood.  He folded his arms and frowned at the closed doors they would soon board through.  “Adrienne,” he said abruptly, “I’m worried that they don’t like me.”

Adrienne gave him bewildered look.  “What?”

“The Washingtons.”

“I know, but why would you think that?”

I want them to like me,” he said.  “But I feel lately like they are just humoring me.”

“Gilbert…”

“Do you think they are?”

“No,” she said firmly.  “I really do not.”

“You’re too nice.  You see the good in everyone.”

“Gilbert,” Adrienne said again, starting to sound a little exasperated.  “They had us for breakfast at their house and drove us back down to the airport.”

“What if they felt obliged to do so out of common courtesy?”

Adrienne just shook her head.

“You’re right,” Lafayette said.  He chewed on his lip, then forced himself to stop.  “That is perhaps not giving them enough credit.  Or is it?  Politeness is not a mark against someone…”

“Gilbert, why do you think that they don’t like you?”

“I have not been spending as much time with them as I did initially,” Lafayette said with the tone of a confession.  “I have been busier this year with other social commitments.  I am worried that I offended them.”

“I’m sure they understand that you have other obligations.”

“And…  I did not tell you this in whole,” Lafayette said, finally taking the seat next to Adrienne.  “I really, truly though that my word alone would be enough to smooth everything out with André.  And while things did…”  He rocked one hand in the air.  “…Work out in the end, I cannot help but worry that I misunderstood our relationship or caused offense by how presumptuous I was.  I thought that Washington would like it if I brought him plants from our trip,” he finally admitted, dropping his hand and placing it over hers.  “But he declined my offer.”

“Oh.”

Lafayette nodded sadly.

Adrienne thought carefully and looked around the crowded terminal.  “…You could do it anyway,” she suggested after a minute.

Lafayette had been looking at their hands and he turned his gaze up to meet hers questioningly.

“You could,” she encouraged.  “If you are worried that there is something bad between the two of you, a gesture like that might go a long way to fixing it.”

“He said that he did not want any.”

“Maybe he was just being polite.”

“He _is_ very polite,” Lafayette acknowledged.  He thought it over.  “Do you really think it would be a good idea, my dearheart?”

“Yes,” Adrienne encouraged.  “Especially if we both put a lot of thought into it and get just the exact right plants to compliment what he already owns and what will grow on his property.  As long as it does not mean more work for him, how could he be anything but flattered?”

“We should look up cacti,” Lafayette said, newly enthusiastic again.  He intertwined their fingers and bent over to dig his tablet out of his carryon with his free hand.  “Thank you, Adrienne,” he said, looking up at her with deep and fond admiration.  He straightened up with the tablet.  “I think that the spikes won’t be a problem, but what color flowers would be best?”


	244. A Better Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing

“Did you know that one in ten people in the US have a third nipple.”

Laurens glanced up from his phone.  “That’s not true.”

Peggy shrugged and picked through the bowl of fruit they had stolen from downstairs.  “It was something like that.  It was weirdly high.”

Laurens shrugged as well, mirroring her, and adjusted the borrowed cable plugging his phone into the outlet on the wall next to him.  “Look it up.”

“You look it up.  Actually, don’t you see a lot of shirtless guys?”  Peggy asked.  “We can just do the math off of that.  What percentage of your teammates have more than two?”

Laurens looked up from his phone again.  “I don’t know.  None?”

“That doesn’t seem statistically likely.”

“It’s not a random sample of the population anyway,” Laurens pointed out.  “So it wouldn’t be accurate.”

“I don’t think being a jock has any correlation here, so it shouldn’t matter.”

“Okay, but most of them are also from the East Coast.  I’m just saying, there are things that make this not a legitimate survey.”

“You just don’t want to out them,” Peggy half-complained.  “Or maybe yourself.”

“You were the one who brought this up…”

“I’m just bored.  And we’re running out of strawberries,” she said, taking one of the last ones.  She fell silent and Laurens could feel her studying him while he tried to read.  “Can I ask you something?  You’re from the South, right?  That’s like the Midwest.”

“No, not really.”

“Sure it is.”  She pushed the bowl across the floor to him.  “Did you date that girl because you didn’t know you were gay or because you thought maybe you could trick yourself, or what?”

Laurens made a face without taking his eyes off the screen.  His whole body had tensed as soon as Peggy had said the word “date.”  “What?” 

“The one Alexander mentioned last night.”

Laurens didn’t say anything.

“I just don’t get it.”

“Didn’t you have a crush on André?”

“That’s not the same.  And no, not really.  I don’t know.”  Peggy was silent for a minute, thinking.  “I thought he was cool,” she said finally.  “I liked their music and he had the best hair and clothes.  And I thought it was good that he was taller than the others and that he could speak English because that way we would actually be able to talk.”

“How did you know he spoke English?”

“They did variety shows,” Peggy said.  “Duh.”

Laurens frowned and filed that away to look up later.  “Okay, but you still liked him.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I wanted to, you know, _do_ things with him.”

Laurens nodded slowly.  “I guess it was the same for me.”

“Your girlfriend was famous?”

“No,” Laurens said, still too on edge to be amused by how much more intrigued Peggy sounded suddenly.  “I meant that she was my friend’s sister and I already knew her because of that.  Plus, we went to the same school.  I don’t know.”  He shrugged.  “She was pretty enough, I guess.  And she wasn’t real annoying.”

“And that was enough for you to date her?”

“Everyone was dating.  I wasn’t about to be the only one.”

“I forgot you were popular,” Peggy sighed.

Laurens looked up at her suspiciously.

“…Not that you’re a loser now, or anything.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe Aglae was popular too,” Peggy mused.  She pulled her legs up in front of herself and rested her chin on her knees.  “What are you doing?”

“Booking a hotel,” Laurens admitted after slight hesitation.  “I told Alex we could stay somewhere for a few days.”

“Ooh, right.  Where?”

“High Line.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said.  He smiled without thinking about it.  “I don’t know if he’s ever been over there and it’s nice.  Plus it’s in the city so it’ll be easier.”

“Cool,” Peggy agreed.  She paused.  “Um, so, question.”

“What?”

“How did you learn to do all of this?”

“All of what?”

“You know…”  She drew out the word.  “This romantic stuff.”

Laurens looked at her like she was crazy.  “I’m just renting a room in the city.”

“You’re doing it because you said that he wanted to do a thing with you, and you’re not just picking something random, it’s _thoughtful_.”

Laurens shook his head, embarrassed at the idea that he was putting so much consideration into it.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I guess you already had a girlfriend.”

“No,” Laurens said, the realization coming to him as soon as she offered the suggestion.  “I was pretty shitty.  I don’t know,” he admitted after a pause.  “I don’t think I learned it from dating her.  Nothing real, anyway, just… token things.  Like to pick up the check, or to say I’d call.”

They were both silent for a minute, then Peggy grinned.

“Aw,” she teased.  “So this is all for Alex?  I take it all back about you being cool.  You’re such a dork.”

Laurens felt his face heat up but to his surprise he was grinning as well.  “Fuck off.”

“It’s okay, I’m not really serious.  I’m going to study you.  You’re, like, a gay icon.  A gaycon.”

“That’s not—  Look.”  Laurens decided not to engage with that.  “I don’t think you really need my help.”

Peggy looked skeptical and unsure and he tried to elaborate.

“It just seems like the two of you are doing fine.”

“Last night was fun,” Peggy agreed.  “But, um, she told me that you’re more… touchy-feely in your relationship than I am, and that she was jealous.”

Laurens looked at her, caught off guard.

“I _know_ ,” Peggy agreed.  “That’s not a word I’d use to describe you, either.  I don’t know,” she said, pulling her mouth to the side in something like a frown.  “It’s just kind of… embarrassing.”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed.  “I understand.”

“So I thought that maybe it was just that you both had already _been_ in relationships before so you were used to how it all was supposed to work…”

“I think you just learn as you go.  People are better at different parts of it.”

Peggy looked dissatisfied and Laurens continued.

“She probably appreciates that you actually listened to her and are thinking about it.”

There was a knock at the door and they both looked up as it opened.

“Uh.”  Hamilton said.  “They said you guys would be up here.  Am I interrupting something?”

“Who won?”  Peggy asked.

Hamilton made a face at her.  “We’re going to revisit it, thank you for asking.  J.?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens stood.  “Hey, how much time did you need to finish up your work at the office?”

“Ugh, I dunno.  A day or two?  Why?”

“So you would be okay with not getting around to it until later in the week?”

“I guess…”  Hamilton tipped his head slightly to the side, expression both confused and calculating.  He started to ask a question, then his eyes lit up and he changed his tone.  “Are we going somewhere?”

“I booked a place in the city.”

“Even better,” Hamilton said, his tone enthusiastic.  “Less driving more fuc—Sorry.”  He caught himself and apologized quickly to Peggy.”

“Ew.”

“Where in the city?”  Hamilton asked Laurens, ignoring Peggy again.  “You didn’t have to do that.  I can pay you half.”

“It’s fine.  I figured we should pack some things but we can check in tonight.”

“You found a room open without even a full day’s notice in December?  Jesus, you’re lucky you’re loaded.”

Peggy cleared her throat and tapped Laurens on the thigh with the manilla envelope.

“Oh, right.”  Laurens took it from her and handed it to Hamilton.  “This is for you.”

“Let me know if it’s not right,” Peggy said, finally getting to her feet, bowl in her hands.

“Great,” Hamilton said, holding it in both hands and clearly having to resist the urge to open it right then and there.  “Thanks, Margarita.”  He turned back to Laurens before Peggy could say anything, switching the envelope to one hand and putting his free one very low on his back and heading lower to cup his ass.  “J., we should head out then.  If we rush we can get packed and break in the room before dinner.”

“I’m right _here_ ,” Peggy complained.

Hamilton shushed her.  She scoffed.

“Uh, yeah, we should go,” Laurens agreed.  “Thanks for the company,” he told Peggy as they all made their way into the hall and back downstairs.

“This is perfect timing,” Hamilton said brightly.  “Lafayette’s going to be insufferable but now I can almost match him.”

“You’re in a good mood considering my queen took your king,” Angelica said, sitting on the couch next to Eliza, Hamilton’s chess set packed neatly back up and resting on the table.

“We decided the best two out of three, remember?  You don’t mind if I leave that here, right?”

Angelica shook her head and Eliza spoke up before Hamilton could dominate the conversation.

“James says hello.”

“Oh, yeah.”  Laurens had to remember to act like he hadn’t been the one to contact McHenry in the first place.  “Tell him hello.  Are you going to see him soon?”

“Mmhm.”  She sounded pleased and Laurens felt strangely relieved for multiple parties.  “Oh,” Eliza continued, “he wanted to know if you had given an interview to the school paper.”

Laurens’ stomach clenched even though he wouldn’t have been able to properly explain why.  “Yes.”

“Okay, good.”  Eliza sounded reassured.  “He said they contacted him and it sounded like they wanted to follow up on something you had said, but he wasn’t sure.”

Hamilton snickered.  “I’m sure they needed to double-check,” he said, nudging Laurens in the ribs.  “Probably didn’t want to be accused of slander.  Did McHenry tell them that Lee’s a colossal douche, too?”

Eliza looked puzzled.  “They didn’t ask him about Lee.”

“No?  Too bad.”  Hamilton got his coat from the closet and handed Laurens his own.  “Guess they’re going the boring route.  Not going to do a segment on where he can shove it.  Too bad.”

“We need to get going,” Laurens said loudly, cutting him off before he could go on any further.  “Thank you for having us.  Alex.”  He guided him towards the door.

“Good game,” Hamilton called over his shoulder to Angelica.  “Watch your back next time!” Once the door closed behind them, Hamilton wrapped his arm around Laurens’ and leaned into him slightly. “Can I tell you something?”

Laurens nodded, replaying his interview and wondering what it was that he was so nervous about.

“So I had this shitty dream last night—well, this morning, really—and I didn’t want to tell you just because I didn’t want to get bogged down in it.  I don’t know if it was really a dream,” Hamilton said, talking through it in circles.  “More of a memory.  Of sorts.  A fictionalized memory.”

He looked up at Laurens to see if he was following along and Laurens nodded.  Satisfied, Hamilton continued.

“It was of our place back in St. Croix,” he said.  “You know how when you’re just waking up and you think you’re somewhere else?”

The knot in Laurens’ stomach tightened further and he nodded.

“It was sort of like that.  I think it was because we slept over at Mulligan’s, made me remember what kinds of things were closer to me back when I was staying with him.”

Laurens knew he wanted prompting and so he asked, “What was your memory of?”

“The house my mom and I lived in,” Hamilton said.  “Well, part of it.  It was a pretty small place,” he said, sliding his arm down Laurens’ and intertwining their fingers.  “Real thin walls.  The windows didn’t quite close properly so every year when it would get rainy we’d have to shove stuff in the cracks.  Cheap tiled floor, I guess that was a step up from the cement one before that.  Anyway, there was this rectangular room,” he went on, using his free hand to draw out the dimensions in the air in front of them as they walked.  “And it had a table and a couple of chair and stuff like that.  At the other end of it was the, uh, I guess it was more of a kitchenette.  I’m not sure what the difference is, but it was pretty small.  We had a sink and a stove and a fridge, though, and my mom would cook…”  He trailed off, then squeezed Laurens’ hand and continued.  “So in my memory—dream?—I’m standing I guess in that living room area and I’m facing the kitchen and I can see the big pot on the stove and some of my papers on the fridge.  The only other thing I can see from there is a little bit into the bedroom and just the corner of the bed.  We shared the bedroom,” he confessed, clearly embarrassed to admit it.  “Uh, it’s not as weird as it sounds.  She was gone a lot for work and, uh, I had a fold out cot and I’d sleep out in the living room if she brought a man home, or in the summer when it was hot…”

“Okay,” Laurens said.  He didn’t want to say that he understood and remind both of them that he had never been put in a similar position.

“That room was quieter,” Hamilton said.  “That’s all.  And that’s where the drawers were so that’s where all my clothes and stuff was.”  He paused, falling silent for several steps.  “Anyway.”

“Was that it?”

Hamilton didn’t respond right away.  “It was just… weird, you know?  It’s not a place I think about—I didn’t like spending a lot of time there.  And it wasn’t the most recent place I was living before moving here.”

Laurens nodded.

“I spent a lot more time working or at school than I did at the house.”

Laurens nodded again.

“I know I lived there,” Hamilton said, trying very hard to keep his tone casual and steady, “and I guess it was fine, but I don’t have great…”  He trailed off and tried again.  “The house was empty when I saw it,” he said, “but I know it was supposed to be when she got sick.”

Laurens tightened his grip on his hand, his concerns about the interview forgotten.

“It’s stupid.”  Hamilton made a show of shrugging.  “But hey.  I kind of wish that I had better associations with it.  It’s not like everything that happened there was shit.  The place I lived in next was better, though.”

“What was that like?”  Laurens asked, not sure what else to say.

“The landlord’s place?”  Hamilton bit his lip, raising his eyebrows slightly as he thought about how to describe it.  “A few steps up the socio-economic ladder.  Uh, it was probably about three times the size, which makes sense because they actually owned that other place and they had more kids.  I was about the same age as one of them, I told you that.  We shared a room once I moved in.”

Hamilton fell silent again and they both walked the rest of the way to the station without saying anything.

“The point I think I was trying to make,” Hamilton said once they were waiting for the train and the air was thick and smelling of the underbelly of the city around them, “is that that was all fucked up and sometimes—like when the semester is over and we’re on break and I actually don’t need to do any serious work and can fuck off with my friends and my gorgeous boyfriend springs for a hotel for us—I just feel really fortunate.”

They had broken apart from one another to go through the turnstile and down to the platform and somehow now they were holding hands again, both of them, and standing face to face.

Hamilton rose up and kissed him, too slowly and softly for the setting.  If either of them had been paying attention by that point they would have noticed that the noise and dirt of the platform would have been better suited to something rough and carnal.  As it was, Hamilton pulled back, bringing his heels back down to rest on the ground.

“I’m going to tell my father that we’re dating over break,” Laurens promised.  For some reason in the murky underground after the warmth of the house and the walk back, it seemed to fall neatly into place.


	245. Getaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Hotel Sex

Hamilton’s shoulders hit the dark wood of the backboard at the head of the hotel’s bed and he let himself slide down, leaving his arms up, catching Laurens with one leg as he lowered himself over him and pulling him in.

Laurens kissed him as if he was already anticipating their separation later that week, aggressively pushing his tongue into his mouth and unable to settle on which side to turn his head to.  He switched again as Hamilton tightened his hold on the back of his leg, using the vice of his thigh and calf to press him closer.

“Pants.”

Laurens nodded and brought his trembling hands down to undo his own fly without letting the kiss be broken for more than the one word.

Hamilton dropped his hands from above his head and pushed him, abrupt enough that it was almost a slap to the front of Laurens’ chest.

“Not _yours_ —”

“Oh.”

Laurens shifted his attention, quickly undoing Hamilton’s pants and yanking them down, leaving his gray briefs on once he saw how much he was straining against them.  He worked his pants and socks all the way off and tossed them to the floor, then took hold of one of Hamilton’s arms, holding it up as he leaned in and ran the flat of his tongue over the bulge in his underwear.  Hamilton moaned and slid his free hand into Laurens’ hair, running it through and then back and tugging on it encouragingly.

Laurens shook him off and sat back.  “Take off your shirt.”

Hamilton obliged, fumbling slightly with the buttons but quickly getting it off and dropping it off the edge of the bed.

“Turn over.”  Laurens indicted the direction with a jerk of his head.

“What,” Hamilton began, letting his hand fall between his legs and slowly rubbing himself.  “You’re not going to strip first?”  His breath caught in his throat as Laurens grabbed his hand at the wrist and lifted it off of himself, holding it between them as he kissed him.

“Turn over.”

His voice was low enough that Hamilton almost thought he felt it and a delighted thrill ran through his body.  He obeyed.

“Got it.  Now wh—”

Hamilton stopped talking abruptly with the snap and sting of elastic.  Laurens ran his palm over the curve of his ass and dipped his fingers under the edge of his underwear again.  “Did you bring what I asked you to?”

“Of course, J.”

Hamilton felt the mattress shift when Laurens got up.  He restrained himself from turning to watch, impatient excitement building.  It felt like minutes passed before Laurens returned, one hand resting lightly and fleetingly at his hip.

“Lift your hands.  Stay still.”

Hamilton was about to point out that he had been still, but then Laurens moved to kneel at his side and he was binding his wrists together with the tape he had received for his birthday.  More than that, once Laurens had gotten it started, he had managed to switch to using only one hand to wrap the roll around.  It was clumsily, but freed up his other hand to grasp and stroke Hamilton over his underwear and he pressed his hips greedily towards the touch, dignity lost.

“Raise your head.”

Hamilton did so with a short whine when Laurens took his hand away.  His eyes were already closed but he felt the heavy fabric of the blindfold settle over them and Laurens tie it off tightly behind his head.

“Can you see through that?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“You know, when you say it like that you should like—  Ah—”

The rest of Hamilton’s sentence was cut off by Laurens’ hand unexpectedly back on his cock, stroking and urging but not giving enough resistance for him to press into.  When he lowered his hips, Laurens moved with him, taking his hand away before they reached the mattress.

Hamilton whined again.

“J…”

“Do you remember what we said?”

“When—?”

Laurens was still touching him, now teasing his head through the fabric.  “Before we went to Vermont.  We said that we were going to rent a place and that I was going to make you come again and again.”

Hamilton shivered.  “So let’s—get to it.”

“I’m not even undressed yet, Alex.  You’re the one who’s desperate.”

Hamilton made a frustrated, vaguely irritated, inarticulate noise.

Laurens got off of the bed.  “Turn over.”

Hamilton hesitated a moment, then rolled onto his back, away from the edge of the mattress.  When nothing happened he asked, “J.?”

“I’m just looking at you.”

Hamilton turned his head away, embarrassed and awkward.  “Seriously?  Come on, J.”  He gasped at the soft touch suddenly running down his torso.  Laurens’ fingers lifted up before reaching his hips and Hamilton felt his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

Laurens took him in, the sharp angles of his body and the red tint at his cheeks.

“You’re embarrassed,” he commented.

“I’m _naked_.”  The red flush deepened.

“Not quite.”  Laurens ran his hand down Hamilton’s thigh, causing him to give a little jerk of surprise.  “You’re hard, though.  It’s very obvious.”

“C-could have told you that.”

“I think you like hearing about it sometimes.”  Laurens kept his voice low and watched as Hamilton’s hips quivered.  A darker gray spot was starting to form on the fabric over the tip of his cock.  “You’re dripping.”

Hamilton’s wrists were bound together and he was blindfolded, but he threw his arm over his face and turned into his shoulder to hide anyway.

“How close are you already?”

“J…”

Laurens lightly drew one finger down Hamilton’s shaft, making him gasp and groan.

“We didn’t even do anything yet.”

“You were touching me.”

“Hardly.”  Laurens stroked him again, getting the same reaction.  “I think you just like it when I’m mean to you sometimes.”

“Shut up—!”  Hamilton gasped, not anticipating Laurens’ hand on his bare chest or to have his nipple teased between his fingers.  “J.,” he said, shifting to pleading.

“What is it?”  Laurens toyed with his nipple and the head of his cock at the same time.

“J., I—  Mm.”  Hamilton bit his lower lip.  “Please…”

“I could order room service,” Laurens said, grinning and not meaning it.  “I could have someone come up here and just toss a blanket over you before they open the door.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure?”  Laurens took his hand off of his chest and picked up the phone from the table next to the bed, making sure to do so loudly enough that Hamilton would be able to hear.

“Wait—”

“Hello, I’d like to place a dinner order—”

“John, wait—”

“—yeah, the special.  Ten minutes?”

Hamilton froze, not sure if his leg was being pulled or not.  He listened carefully and was sure he heard Laurens put the phone back down.

“You didn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then I guess there’s no need to rush, right?”  Laurens took his hand from his cock, running it down his thigh instead and rubbing just at his base.  “If we won’t be interrupted…”

“You didn’t, right?”

“That’s what you said.”  Laurens stroked his collar and chest with his other hand.

“You wouldn’t have,” Hamilton said, feeling more confident.

“Maybe I’m feeling reckless.  I like showing you off to people sometimes.”  Laurens ran his hand down Hamilton’s side.

“Yeah, but n-not like—that.”

“I want you to come before we fuck,” Laurens said.  “Ten minutes,” he teased.  “That’s plenty of time, right?  I can still be clothed.”

“J…”  The name turned into a gasp when Laurens cupped him.  “Please…”

“Please what?”

Hamilton groaned.  Laurens was moving his hand over him faster and with more pressure.  He rocked his hips into it, seeking release.

Laurens put his hands at his side and encouraged him to turn over, which Hamilton did readily.  He got on the bed behind him and took his time tracing the slight ridges of each rib along his chest and the smooth lines of his waist, finally bringing his hands back to his hips.  He leaned forward, pressing against him from behind, still fully clothed.  Hamilton moaned against the bed, his head ducked down between his arms.

Laurens left one hand at his hip, pressing lightly against the hard bone, and wrapped his other arm around him, finally slipping his fingers through the opening in his briefs and brushing them against him.

Hamilton’s breath caught.

Laurens stroked lightly up the underside of his shaft, feeling Hamilton’s hips jerk, then ran his fingers and then thumb over his cockhead.  It was damp, precum having been rubbed off and over it by his briefs, and Laurens could suddenly feel his own pulse beating in his groin.  He teased him for a few seconds then was unable to resist.  He slipped Hamilton out of his underwear and wrapped his hand around his cock, pumping its full length as Hamilton gasped against the sheets, his voice louder and desperate.

“God, John, _yes_ —”

Laurens pressed against him, not as close to the edge but still hungry.  Hamilton was hard in his hand and then suddenly he felt his cock throb under his touch, the contraction and release as he spilled forcefully onto the sheets.  Laurens moved his hand down and up again and the motion pulled a breathy moan from Hamilton’s mouth and another spurt of sticky liquid, this time dripping down onto the bed and between Laurens’ fingers, his hand up by his cockhead as he came.

Hamilton was still catching his breath, disoriented and sensitive to the touch, when Laurens pulled his briefs down.  The next thing he knew, Laurens’ hand was back on his bare cock, slippery with lube and working to keep him erect.

“J.—”

He cut himself off as a slick finger penetrated him from behind, and by the brush of skin against his leg he guessed that Laurens was naked as well.  Hamilton didn’t say anything as Laurens added a second finger and stretched him, letting his audible breathing and the arching upwards of his lower back talk for him. 

“I’m going to fuck you,” Laurens said, slowly moving his fingers in and out, “and then I’m going to jerk you off again.”

“H-hah.  Yeah…?”

“Just touch you all evening.  Make you uncomfortable for hours.”

“Bastard.”

Laurens grinned.  He continued to toy with Hamilton’s cock, not trying to get him off again while he was still so sensitive but also enjoying the feel of it slick and firm in his hand.

“I know we said that we just needed the bed but maybe we should take advantage of the rest of this place,” he said, casting his gaze around the small room.  “Maybe tomorrow I’ll fuck you over the desk.”

“Against the—window.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”  Laurens agreed.  “All right.”  He took his hand away and pushed slowly into him, closing his eyes to compose himself while Hamilton let out a low, rough moan.  It sent a rush down his spine.  He pulled out halfway and began to thrust, stopping when Hamilton made a short sharp noise.  “Are you—?”

“Don’t stop.”

Laurens didn’t need to be told twice.  He pushed fully back into him then let himself go, thrusting deep into him and seeking his own release.  He set both of his hands at Hamilton’s sides, steadying himself against him and letting his world narrow to just the immediate sensation and building anticipation.  He could hear his own breathing coming staccato and knew from that alone that he was close.

“A-Alexander…”

Hamilton hooked his foot over the back of Laurens’ calf encouragingly, unable to physically pull him closer in any other way.

Laurens came with a groan, desire overtaking and washing hot through him as he thrust into him, his hands shaking where they pressed against him.

Laurens pulled out after a few long seconds, his pulse pounding through his veins.  He got off the mattress without saying a word and took off and knotted the condom, dropping it into the trashcan by the bed.  Then he was back on the bed, rolling Hamilton over onto his side and lying down next to him, one arm around him and the other stroking the side of his face as he kissed him.

“H-hey.”  Hamilton moved his face away.  “Hold on.”  He raised his hands and used them, still bound, to push off his blindfold.  His hair was messy from where it had been pulling it and he looped his arms over Laurens’ neck, pressing close to him and kissing him back.  He slipped one leg between Laurens’, relishing the feel of skin on skin.  “…You didn’t actually call room service, did you?”  He asked.

Laurens breathed out hard though his nose.  “No.”  He slipped one hand down, trying to touch Hamilton again.

“Wait, wait, wait.”  Hamilton tipped his hips away.  “Dinner first?”

“You sure?”

“I’m hungry.”  Hamilton presented his bound wrists to Laurens.

Laurens shifted himself up onto one elbow and started to pick at the tape.  “Was that too tight?”

“Nah.”  Hamilton’s stomach growled audibly and he gave an embarrassed laugh.  “So, dinner?  What did you want to do?”

“The room service did actually look good,” Laurens said, scratching his neck with one hand.  “I could actually call them this time.  I think you need to put pants on, though.”

“Or step into the bathroom when the guy comes up.  No need to harass the staff.”  Hands freed, Hamilton stretched out on his back, then pulled Laurens gently down on top of him.  He kissed him slowly and languidly.  “Call the kitchen,” he said after a minute, one hand tracing patterns across Laurens’ shoulders.  “But tell them that they can take their time.”


	246. Wanderlust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoo Date

“Everyone made it sound like this was going to be so much more painful than it actually is,” Lafayette said brightly, sunglasses and light jacket on, Adrienne’s hand tightly in his.  “It’s a beautiful day, a perfect amount of sun, just a little bit of wind.”  He squeezed her hand and looked slowly around the enclosures at the zoo, then down at her.  “The best possible company.”

Adrienne pulled him gently to the side of the path to let some of the other zoo patrons pass, responding in French.  “Did you want to show John the animals?”  She adjusted her equally large sunglasses and flicked through pictures on her phone taken a few minute prior of the two of them on the colorful menagerie of the zoo’s carousel.  “Should I send all of these to you?”

“Yes, please.  And I would like to show John the reptiles, I think,” Lafayette said, putting his arm around her and flicking the free map open with his other hand.  “Where is that?”

They both studied it, then looked up and around, trying to line up where they might be on the map with the buildings and busy carousel. 

“I see a frog on the map.  Is it that way…?”  Lafayette pointed hesitantly with the map.  “It must be close.”

“I think so.”

“Let’s see if we can find it.”  Lafayette led her off, hands intertwined again and swinging.  “That reminds me, before we leave I want to stop at the gift shop and buy a postcard for Henriette.  You should send her one, too.  It would be good for her to have a strong female role model, and also she did not entirely believe me that you were actually my girlfriend.”

“Can I add a line to the postcard that you send her?”

“Of course.  That might be better.  There’s no sense in overwhelming her with mail,” Lafayette conceded.  “Do you think working our way through the zoo clockwise will be a good idea?  I want to make sure that we have plenty of time for the local exhibits and I am intrigued by this one goat drawn off all on his own,” he added, holding the map folded up to just one quadrant and staring bemusedly at the isolated animal.  “Does he not have any friends?”

“Maybe he needs a larger territory.”

“Than everyone else?  The hyena and the lion are sharing the same green oval.”  Lafayette looked up and pushed his sunglasses up into his hairline.  They were under cover, walking alongside rows of embedded enclosures holding various reptiles.  “Ah, perfect!”  He bent over in front of one of the glass windows, watching the unmoving snake on the other side.  “Let’s call John and let him know that we are thinking of him,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket and using the camera to fix his hair as it rang.  “John,” he said excitedly as soon as Laurens picked up.  “You’re decent!  Adrienne and I wanted to say hello to you and Alexander.”  He turned the camera to include Adrienne as well.

“Wait, slow down…”

“We found reptiles,” Lafayette went on brightly, not bothering to switch into English.  “Look at them!  I like this one for you.  It has such nice colors.  I sent you pictures of turtles earlier, but they were not very good.  Is that why you didn’t respond?”

“What’s Lafayette doing?”  Hamilton asked, sitting up and suddenly in view of the camera.  He shifted his weight to the side and took out his ponytail, working his hands through his hair.  He squinted at the screen.  “Where are they?”

“Where are you?”  Lafayette asked, returning the question.  “Is that a headboard?  I don’t recognize that one.  This is not Alexander’s apartment,” he explained to Adrienne.  “And you’ve seen our dorm.”

“We’re at a hotel,” Hamilton said, dropping one hand to yawn behind it.

Lafayette noted that he was shirtless.

Hamilton began putting his hair back up.  “Where are you?”

“We are at the zoo in Phoenix,” Lafayette said in English.  He moved the phone around them in a fast arc to show off their surroundings.

“That’s a small zoo.”

“We’re at the lizard exhibit, John,” Lafayette scolded.  “Weren’t you listening?  There are children around,” he added pointedly.

“…Right.  Well, it would have been easier to listen if you were actually talking in English.”

“I always talk in English.  It’s so nice to not have to bother.”

“He’s on vacation,” Hamilton said, lying back down and out of view again, his voice heavily sated and lazy.  “Let him live.”

“I am a little offended you did not tell me you were going anywhere,” Lafayette said, walking with Adrienne past the exhibits.  “I thought we were friends.”

“We didn’t even leave the city, Lafayette.  And I only got the room yesterday.”

“I told you all of my plans.”

“Not really.”  Laurens looked down when Hamilton hit him lightly on the leg.

“He sent me a PDF.  I was supposed to share it with you but I forgot.”

“Adrienne and I made that together,” Lafayette scolded again.  “We put in clip art.”

“Right.  Sorry.  Look,” Laurens said, “I think we should let you get back to the zoo…”

“I’m going to call you again,” Lafayette warned.  “So keep that in mind.  I love both of you but don’t need to _see_ anything.”

“We’re not even doing anything,” Hamilton complained from out of frame.  “Stop with the slut shaming, Lafayette.”

“I’ll call again when I find more turtles,” Lafayette promised.  He hung up.  “John was not nearly as appreciative as he should have been when I sent him that picture of the very large turtle in Boston,” he complained, back in French, to Adrienne.  “I’m going to continue to bother him with them until he gives an appropriate reaction.”

“Didn’t he have one as a pet?”  Adrienne asked, leading the way through the exhibit.  “Maybe he misses it.”

“Maybe.  Maybe I am being cruel by showing them to him.  Maybe I don’t care,” Lafayette said, slipping his arms around Adrienne from behind and burying his face in the side of her neck with a mischievous grin.  The bright day and high energy was infectious.  “If I was back in New York,” he said, his mouth brushing against the fabric of her blouse, “I would be at the dorm all by myself and it would be gray and cold and sleeting out and I’d have nothing to do but play on John’s console or read moody poetry and think about how much I miss you and how nice the air outside Paris is when it blows all around you in Spring, which is the exact same thing,” he went on, “because half of the reason why that is so good is because you’re there too.”

“Gil,” Adrienne began, twisting in his arms and pushing him gently off of her.

“No,” he said, tightening his grip instead and pressing his face closer.

“People are staring.”

“They are very jealous.”

Adrienne laughed and managed finally to turn around so that they were face to face.  She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him, then pulled back before he could properly respond.  “I want to see the tropical birds.”

Lafayette nodded, mute for a moment.  “Yes,” he said clumsily.  “Ah, where are those?”  He tried to unfold his map and instead dropped it to the ground.  “Oh…”  He knelt and dropped his phone to the floor as he did so.

“I think they will be one of the last things we see,” Adrienne said, kneeling alongside him and picking up the map.  She frowned as she studied it.  “Which I don’t mind,” she said, “I just want to make sure that we have enough time.”

“Of course,” Lafayette agreed readily.  “That will be the grand finale we will finish with.”

They stood and Adrienne took his hand, the map in her other one, and tugged him towards the next enclosure, looking carefully between the drawings on the paper and their surroundings.

Lafayette, behind her, had his eyes on his phone.  “I like this third picture you sent me the best, I think.  You can see the tiger you are riding on quite well.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to post it.  Alexander told me that I was not popular anymore.”  He made a face.  “I don’t _need_ to be popular,” he complained.  “It is not a competition.”

“I know.”

“But it was very rude of him to insinuate that I’ve lost at it anyway.  I’m still very popular,” he went on, superimposing different filters over the image.  “I’m far more popular than he is.  And I’m not shallow,” he added defensively, going back and forth between two of them.  “I don’t hawk products that I’ve barely even tried and I don’t try to stir up drama.  It’s not my fault if I enjoy sharing my life with people.  I lead a very interesting life.”

“Mm.”  Adrienne glanced back at him.

“There,” Lafayette said, the filter decided on.  He typed a caption and series of hashtags quickly with just one thumb.  “Do you think this looks good?”  He showed her the screen.  “I think carousels look very whimsical.  It is not particularly seasonal, but maybe that will play well because the weather has been so poor back east.”

“I think it looks fine, Gilbert.”  Adrienne fell into stride alongside him and linked their arms.  “Do you want to be more active on social media over vacation?”

“It seems like a good time for it,” Lafayette said.  “Don’t you think?  There is plenty to do in New York, but I’m very very busy and I fell behind…  Not that it is a competition,” he added, very quickly.  “But there are new things to see out here!”

“That’s true,” Adrienne agreed.  She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“You don’t mind, do you?”  Lafayette asked, the question dawning on him as soon as he had hit post.

“No.”  Adrienne shook her head.  “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

Lafayette frowned, wondering if that was really an answer to his question.  “We can send pictures to your parents.  We’ll take a picture with the birds,” he promised.

“I’d like that.”

Lafayette smiled.  That sounded more like what he was looking for.

“Gilbert,” Adrienne said, speaking his name carefully so that it slowly cut through his thoughts.  “I’m going to graduate this spring.”

“That’s right,” Lafayette said.

Adrienne was silent a moment, waiting.  When he didn’t say anything else, she prompted, “I’d like it if you came back to attend the ceremony.”

“Oh!  Of course!”

Adrienne smiled at him, obviously encouraged.  “It could be fun,” she said.  “I’m sure everyone back home will want to see you again.  We could spend the whole summer together, and then in two years when you graduate here, you can come back to Paris and stay with us again while I finish up.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, newly enthusiastic.  “We can…”  He trailed off, not sure in the moment what there was for them to do in France.  “…Spend plenty of time together,” he said, drawing upon the one thing that he knew that he could look forward to.  “And do that in Paris.  Look,” he said, pointing and distracting both of them, “prairie dogs!  ‘Black-tailed prairie dogs live in large underground towns,’” he read off of the signage in English.  “Alexander would read the Spanish translation to see if I could understand it,” he told Adrienne.  “He hasn’t actually done that yet, but I bet that he would.”

They both peered into the enclosure, watching the rodents move in and out of their dirt holes.

“I’m going to take a snap,” Lafayette said, unlocking his phone again.  “And I’m going to caption it ‘thicc.’”

Adrienne laughed.  “The Arizona exhibits are this way,” she said once Lafayette had gotten his picture.  “I think if we are a little fast we should be finishing up there just in time to participate in the giraffe feeding.”

Lafayette looked up from captioning his picture, eyes wide.  “I forgot about that.  All right.”  He quickly finished up and put his phone in his pocket.  “Let’s be judicious with our time,” he said, taking her hand and setting off at a fast clip.  “America is so _big_ ,” he enthused.  “We can’t even spend all of our time here.  We still need to go to the botanical garden and the Hohokam ruins…”

“We aren’t leaving until Wednesday, Gilbert.”

“I know,” Lafayette said.  “But I also want to see at least one of the museums about the Wild West while we are in it, and Tuesday we will be at the Grand Canyon…”

“It is a lot to fit in,” Adrienne agreed.  “It would be easier if things were closer together.”

“But they’re not.”  Lafayette couldn’t keep the excited awe out of his voice.  “Did you know that it is almost three and a half thousand kilometers between New York City and Phoenix?  You could fit a Europe and a half in there.”

Adrienne frowned at that math.  “Is that correct?”

“I checked it on my phone when I was waiting for your flight to come in.  Listen to this,” Lafayette said, “we will have travelled sixteen and a half _thousand_ kilometers over this vacation.”  He shook his head.  “That’s terrible for the environment,” he admitted as an aside, more to himself than for her.  They stopped in front of an enclosure of coatis, dark with white facial markings and long tails.

Adrienne nudged Lafayette.  “That one reminds me of you,” she said, motioning towards one particularly sleek one that was attempting to work something out of a closed box.

“My _fursona_ ,” Lafayette exclaimed in English, leaning forward with his hands on the rail at the edge of the exhibit and garnering a strange look from some nearby teenagers.  “This is much better than some boring labrador.  Quick, Adrienne, I know it is more pictures but please take one of me with them.”  He handed her his camera, almost dropping it again in his enthusiasm.  He stood with his back to the enclosure, putting his hands out as if holding up the space where the coati pawed at the box.

Adrienne stepped back and took the picture, carefully lining up where the animal fell to position it correctly.  “Do you want to post this online?”

“Maybe later,” Lafayette said, taking the phone back from her and eagerly inserting it into a text message.  “I need to send this to Alexander right now and tell him that he was wrong.”

Adrienne, amused, raised briefly up on her toes to kiss his cheek.  “I think the bald eagles are over there,” she said, slipping her hand into his and pointing with the neatly folded up map.

Lafayette’s head snapped immediately up.

“We can take a picture with them as well.”

“This is a fantastic zoo,” Lafayette said as they left the coatis behind.  “There were turtles at the moat at the entrance for John and bald eagles and giraffes…”

“There are giraffes at the zoo in Paris.”

“I’ve never fed them,” Lafayette said.  “But I will be feeding these in…”  He pushed the sleeve of his jacket up to check his watch.  “…Very shortly.  Plus,” Lafayette joked, flashing her a cheeky grin, “this one is in America and it has me.”


	247. Paparazzi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The High Line

“It’s cold,” Hamilton commented, hands in his coat pockets, as he stood on the path of the High Line, looking at the towering gray buildings of the city under the equally gray sky.  “I have a feeling this looks more colorful in the other seasons.”

“Probably,” Laurens agreed, looking out into the city next to him.  He watched as Hamilton breathed out hard, trying to see if he could get his breath to cloud up properly in front of his face.  “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, J.  I bet it would be a hell of a lot more crowded, too.  This is kind of nice.”  Hamilton looked over his shoulder at the abandoned elevated park.  Another couple had walked by them earlier and was now several yards away with no one between them.  “When do you ever find this kind of space in the city?  If it was snowing there would probably be people walking around up here, too.  This is the right kind of dreary.”

“It’s still fairly early,” Laurens said, checking his watch.  “More people might show up later.”

“That’s true.  Maybe they’re waiting to see if it heats up.  It was supposed to get sunny late this afternoon, right?”  Hamilton turned and squinted up towards their hotel room.  “I bet if it were snowing someone would be out here proposing.”

Laurens glanced at him, not sure how to read that.

Hamilton didn’t pay him any attention, still looking at the hotel.  “Properly scenic.  Close to Christmas.  You know I’m right.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, looking back over the city.  “That does sound like something that would happen.”

Hamilton started to snicker to himself.  “Can you imagine someone proposing in Times Square?”  He looked up at Laurens, a slightly mean grin on his face.  “Kneeling in the middle of that crowd?  They’d probably get yelled at for taking up valuable walking space.”

Laurens felt his expression shift to match.  “No,” he said.  “Those character actors would clear them room and then want to be paid for that and for appearing in the background of the pictures.”

“ _Background_?”

“Yeah,” Laurens agreed, “you’re right.”

“Who would you rather have crash your proposal pictures?”  Hamilton asked.  “Elmo or Mickey Mouse?”

“I saw a pretty good dinosaur once,” Laurens said.  “Seriously.”

“That’s cool.”  Hamilton slipped his hand out of his pocket and took Laurens’.  “Can I tell you something?”

“What?”

“I’m going to miss you when you’re in South Carolina.”

Laurens turned his face away guiltily.

“I’m not saying I’d like to switch places,” Hamilton added.  “‘Cause I know it’s not like it’s going to be a fun trip for you, even if it’ll probably be nice to see your siblings again and whatever.  A week in that house was enough for me.”

Laurens felt a prickling of concern, almost fear, at that, and wasn’t sure why.  “Yeah,” he said, trying to allay his own anxiety.  “Thanksgiving break was bad enough.”

“It’s just the atmosphere,” Hamilton said, explaining without realizing that he needed to.  “It’s so tense.  And maybe that was because Lafayette and I were visiting, I don’t know.”  He leaned against Laurens as they started to walk down the High Line.  “Too many people.”

“Mm.”

“I’m going to miss you,” Hamilton said again.  “That’s all.  But, hey, that means I’ll be all over you when you get back,” he teased.  “So there’s _that_ silver lining.”

Laurens forced a half-laugh and let Hamilton move away to answer his phone when it rang.

“Shit.”  Hamilton fumbled the phone as he took it from his pocket.  “Hello?”  He turned away from Laurens when he spoke.  “Yes, speaking.  Oh!”  His tone became immediately bright and he took Laurens’ hand again, flashing him a pleased smile.  “Yeah, you heard right.  I’ve been on the student council since my freshman year and there’s obviously some demographic bottlenecking.  It’s a real problem,” he went on, swinging Laurens’ hand as they walked, “and I’m trying to fix it.  Sorry,” he apologized, “it’s kind of windy out.”  He tried to angle himself more out of the way of the breeze behind Laurens’ body.  “Is that better?  No, I’m actually at the High Line.  If you want, I can send you a copy of the motion I got passed to try and address the demographics of the student council,” he said, going back to the previous topic.  “It should be public knowledge anyway, it’s gonna go out to everyone via email before the semester officially ends.  Yeah, no, happy to help.  Like I said, it’ll be going out soon anyway, but that’s not my committee, I don’t do the community outreach stuff.”  He laughed, obviously flattered by whatever had just been said to him.  “Thank you.  Right, you could say that.  We’re definitely pushing diversity.  That’s one thing that I want to work on as I wrap up my time here before graduation.  It’s just important to get more people to the table, like, where I’m coming from, I’ve definitely felt like a bit of an outsider and I’ve talked to others for whom that’s even more of an issue.  Mmhm,” Hamilton went on, “definitely.  Reaching out to all those groups.  It’s something that I think will really make a difference going forward.  More access for everyone.  Like I said, there’s been this bottlenecking.  We need more variety in voices.”

Hamilton was silent for a moment and Laurens could distantly hear the murmur of another person talking over the line.

“Yes,” Hamilton said.  “Well, look, I work for the admin, too, at Dr. Washington’s office, and I can tell you that it’s not reflective of reality among the faculty and staff.  There’s definitely interest among, uh, among people for more outreach.”  Hamilton paused, then when he spoke again it was more reluctant and overlapping with the person on the other end of the call.  “Well— I can’t—  Look,” he finally said, lowering his voice a little and subconsciously turning his body away from Laurens.  “That information is out there, right?  Like you said it yourself, it’s easy to find.  So, you know, I’m obviously not going to deny that but I also can’t really speak to it.  You’ll have to contact him for more details.”

Hamilton perked up again and smiled up at Laurens.  He squeezed his hand.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I don’t know him personally, but I think he’s helped a lot of people.”

Laurens gave Hamilton a curious look and Hamilton tipped the receiver against his collar and mouthed, “Your coach.”

Laurens nodded and stopped them by some bushes that still had red leaves clinging stubbornly to their branches.

“Mmhm,” Hamilton said into the phone.  “Yeah.  Okay, great.  Sounds good.  I’ll send you the document.  That’s c-a-l-e-n-d-a-r?”  He paused, listening.  “Two l’s and two e’s.  Got it.  No, thank you.”  He hung up.  “Guess who that was.”

“The school paper,” Laurens said.  “James Callender.”

“Shoot.  Gave it away at the end, huh?  He wanted to talk to me about my work,” Hamilton bragged.  “I offered to send him some more information.  Sounds like there’s going to be a nice write up on it come Monday.  Looks like you’re not the only one who’s newsworthy,” he teased, giving Laurens a playful nudge.

“I guess not,” Laurens said.  “He’s really getting around,” he added after a moment.  “He talked to McHenry, too.”

“End of the semester.”  Hamilton shrugged.  “I guess he wants to end with a bang.  Get all the good scoops before break.”

Laurens remembered how irritated Grayson had sounded at the bar when he described him.  “I guess so,” he agreed.

“Plus, now that finals are over everyone’s got a little more time.  But not all of them are as lucky as me to have such a sexy and considerate boyfriend,” Hamilton added, taking Laurens’ hand in both of his and leaning in towards him, his eyes lidded and dark as he looked up at him.

“We’re not back at the room yet.”

“Pity.”

Laurens laughed, not able to bring himself to care about his father or classmates and leaned in for the kiss Hamilton was angling for.  “You’re terrible,” he said, letting their noses brush for a moment before pressing their lips softly together.

“A huge slut,” Hamilton agreed, pulling away playfully.  “That’s why when we get back I’ m gonna make you come so hard you see stars.”

Laurens laughed and shook his head.  “Did you still want to walk all the way down?”

“Nah.  It’s long and it’s cold.  Let’s go a little further, though.”

They set off again, hand in hand.

“I can’t believe I’ve never been here,” Hamilton said.  “I didn’t even think about it.”

“I can believe it.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s out of the way.  It’s not all that close to campus or to Mulligan’s, and you’re always busy.  I figured unless someone happened to throw a party or something out here you wouldn’t have come over.”

“That’s true.”  Hamilton kicked a pebble that had gotten knocked onto the path.  “I’ve never been to the Cloisters, either,” he said.  “Or St. Patrick’s.”

“You could have gone to that one with Mulligan and Adrienne.”

“I’m good.”  Hamilton was quiet for a few seconds.  “I would like to go to Rockefeller Center, though,” he finally said.  “You know.”  He scratched the back of his neck.  “The ice skating rink.  It looks pretty cool.”

“Do you know how to skate?”

“I can _balance_.”

Laurens snorted.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Sure.  We’ve got the rest of the week.”

“We can go in January, too,” Hamilton said.  “You know, if we run out of time.”  He raised his eyebrows suggestively and grinned at the pleased and embarrassed expression on Laurens’ face.  “You’re so cute,” he teased, leaning in again and reaching up with one finger extended to tap him on the nose.  His grin broadened rakishly when Laurens’ eyes widened in surprise.  “Come on,” he said, pulling him along down the path and aiming another kick at the pebble when they reached it.  “When we go to the rink I guess we can drop in at the cathedral, too.  I haven’t been on hallowed ground in a couple years, I guess I can break my streak for the photo op.”

Laurens groaned.  “We’re going to go to church for Christmas,” he said.  “I almost forgot.”

Hamilton snickered.  “Sucks to be you.  I didn’t peg your father as a real church going sort of guy.  I figured he just wanted the label and the excuse.”

“No,” Laurens said, “he goes regularly enough for it to count.  And it’ll look bad if we don’t go with him.”

“Ah, I was right.  It is all for the optics.  Maybe that’s good,” Hamilton said after a brief pause.  “If he’s not actually religious, maybe when you talk to him…”  He trailed off and looked up at Laurens encouragingly.

Laurens felt his spirits sink more heavily than they had with the mere annoyance of remembering that he would have to get up early and sit through mass.  He didn't know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“It could be part of the persona,” Hamilton elaborated.  “Or, you know, not all that deeply tethered.”

“I don’t know.”

“It makes sense, though, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about him, Alex.  Not right now.”

Hamilton, for a moment, looked like he was going to say something else, then he swallowed it.  “Right.  You’ll see him enough in a week anyway.”

The buildings alongside the elevated park seemed to lean over them more heavily than they had before.  On the one hand, it was oppressive.  On the other, Laurens felt almost protected, like they were making a thick cocoon of steel and concrete between him and whatever gaze was looking down at him through the cloudy sky.

“It’s pretty cool that this used to be a rail line,” Hamilton said after several minutes of silence.  He looked around them brightly and imitated with his hand, palm down, in front of them the way it cut through the buildings.  “Kind of eco-dysphorian, but I bet it doesn’t have that vibe in Spring.  You know what I mean.  It reminds me of those pictures of reclaimed abandoned shopping malls and schools.  Things like that.  Only this is an intentional hybridity.  It’s more honest about what it is than Central Park,” he went on.  “No screwing around pretending to be untouched nature somehow dropped—”  He snapped.  “—into the middle of the city.”

Laurens nodded.  “Yeah.  We can come back when it’s warmer out,” he promised.

“See what it’s like all green and crowded.”  Hamilton shivered.  “Hey, let’s take a picture at the bend up ahead.  We need something to send to Lafayette.  I’ll take one of you on your own, too,” he added.  “In case you want to show anyone.”

“That’s okay.”

“You sure?”

Laurens shrugged.  “I don’t really see the point.  Why would I show them a picture of just myself?”

“To make them jealous.”

“Anyone I’d show it to either lives in the city or at least has been here before,” Laurens pointed out.  “That’s not… what I’d need a picture of to make them jealous.”

Hamilton snorted, his cheeks flushed from the weather and the subtle compliment.  “I guess.”  He took his phone out as they approached.  “Shit, my battery really hates this weather.  Let’s head back after this, okay?  I need to plug this in.”  He positioned them so that the High Line was in frame behind them, turning and continuing on out of sight of the camera.  “Okay,” he said, putting his hand on Laurens’ back and leaning in with a broad smile.  He took a rapid series of pictures, mashing the button with his thumb, and stepped away.  “One of these has to have turned out.  Hold on, give me a sec…”  He scrolled through the camera roll.

Laurens nodded.  He had put his arm around Hamilton’s waist for the picture and his hand still lingered at it as he waited.  Unable to see the screen properly from his angle, he stared down the way they had come and saw the park still almost completely empty.  A woman was supervising as a very bundled up small child ran back and forth near some of the benches they had passed, and as he watched, a figure with a camera pointed towards them lowered it and turned away.

“Shoot,” Hamilton said.  “J., let’s try again.  You’re blinking in the best one.  Well, what would otherwise have been the best one.”

Laurens watched the photographer with sudden apprehension, convinced that he was being paranoid but also entirely unsettled as the figure turned on its heel and walked away at a rapid clip.

“J.,” Hamilton repeated, tapping him on the arm.

“…Right.”  Laurens let Hamilton maneuver him back into position and he smiled as best as he could for the picture.  He looked up again when Hamilton was going through their second attempt, and the figure was gone.

“I like this one,” Hamilton declared, showing Laurens the picture on his phone.  “I’m going to send it in the group chat.  Okay?”

“Yeah.”  Laurens nodded, trying to sound casual.  He turned slowly to take a look around them.  Hamilton had picked a relatively scenic corner.  Of course other people would want to get pictures of the park and the buildings, Laurens reasoned.  That made perfect sense.  Even if they were in it, it was probably just for a little bit of human interest, and while he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that, he reasoned that he himself had likely taken pictures that similarly imposed on the lives of strangers on the street.

Laurens put his hands in his pockets.  “Let’s go back.”

Hamilton sent the message and put his phone away.  “Just what I was about to say.”  He flashed a smile at Laurens and gestured between them.  “We’re like one mind.”


	248. Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late Night Conversations

So late at night that they had both lost track of time, Hamilton lay, sated, his heart slowly returning to its normal speed, on top of Laurens’ bare chest.

“Tell me something,” he said, drawing a finger over Laurens’ collarbones and across the light cover of hair over his chest.  He let his leg slide to the mattress and slipped it under Laurens’, hooking it.

“Tell you what?”

“I told you about my dream,” Hamilton said.  It was an indirect answer and he didn’t make eye contact while he spoke, looking instead at the shadow and dip of his neck and collar.

“Yeah.”

“And I did you good,” Hamilton added with a flash of a grin.  He ducked his head to the side when Laurens raised one hand to shove him.  Laurens’ motion was slower than it would have been usually and his arm just fell heavily back to the bed.

“All right,” Laurens said.  “Give me somewhere to start.”

“Tell me about your mother.”

“Not when we’re naked.”

“Come on, J.”

Laurens sighed and tipped his head further back.  He stared up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time how it was detailed with a molded grid.  “You said your mom was sick.”

“Yellow fever,” Hamilton answered.  “I don’t know if I ever told you that.  It’s ridiculous.  It’s the twenty-first century, you know?  It’s a, a poor person’s disease,” he said, the words harsh and bitter.

Laurens wasn’t sure he had heard him take that tone before and it struck him and he remembered how careful Hamilton was, especially around people he didn’t know well, to watch his presentation of material possessions, how he wore what lack of affluence he was not able to deny like a badge of pride.

“There’s a vaccine for it,” Hamilton said, moving his finger repetitively over Laurens’ chest and pressing a little harder than he had before so that the skin pulled slightly.  “And it’s very uncommon in the Virgin Islands.  It never should have been a problem.”

“Why was it?”

“I dunno.  Standing water.  Nah,” Hamilton corrected himself almost immediately.  “That would have meant a bigger outbreak, even assuming that most people were better off.  She was a flight attendant, travelled for work.  Freak accident of globalization.  I don’t know how I got it, too.  Maybe she brought the thing home with her or maybe it was at the airport, because I’d hitch a ride there occasionally…”  He trailed off and pressed his eyes shut.  “It was fucked.  It is fucked,” he said.  He put his entire hand, palm down, on Laurens’ chest and spread his fingers as if grounding himself.

“I’m sorry,” Laurens said guiltily.  “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Nah.  It’s okay, J.”  Hamilton opened his eyes again.  “If I didn’t want to tell you, I wouldn’t have.  And I’m done now,” he added.  “That’s all we’re doing for right now.  I’ll get into it more some other time.”

Laurens shook his head, not wanting to push it.

“You can tell me something nicer than that if you want,” Hamilton said.  “No one should be defined by their death.  Here, I’ll go again and you can follow.”  He cleared his throat and pushed himself up a little, moving an inch further down Laurens’ body.  “My mom used to buy us these generic store brand ice cups in the summer.  They came in these packs of, uh, four or six, something like that, and various flavors.  It would get really hot out and I remember sitting at the table and eating one with one of those little wooden spoons and the scraping noise it made as I chipped away at the ice.”  He focused his attention on the innocuous memory, using it as a bridge away from what he had been talking about previously.  “Your turn.”

“My mother used to cook a lot.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton prompted.

“She didn’t work,” Laurens explained.  “But she’d make these big meals, especially for Sundays.  She, uh, when I was younger, she’d volunteer to be the class mom and would help arrange things.  Stuff like that.”

“Cute,” Hamilton teased gently.  “You never told me you grew up in the fifties.”

Laurens made a face.  Between her and his father that seemed almost accurate.

“Did she do that for your siblings too, or were you the favorite?”

“She did it for them.  It’s more of an elementary school thing, so she just switched to them.”

“Got it.”  Hamilton leaned forward and kissed Laurens lightly, just under his chin.  He felt Laurens’ adams apple move against his lips and his rough stubble.  “Cool,” he said.  “Thank you.”

“I feel kind of like you’re trying to train me,” Laurens admitted.  “I don’t know if I like it.”

“I’m not training you, J.  You’re not a dog.”  Hamilton paused and then settled down against his chest.  “You’re interesting,” he said.  “I want to know more about you.  Is that so wrong?”

“No.”

“You should find it flattering.”

“It’s just…  You know I don’t like talking about this stuff.”

“You can tell me the nice parts.  I like hearing that too.  You knew her for almost two decades, you don’t need to focus on the bad.  That’s not going to do anything now.”

Laurens didn’t respond.

Hamilton sighed.  “Toss me a bone here, J.”

“You’re not a dog, either.”

“Nah, I’m a sexy tomcat.”

“Lafayette’s the furry, not you.”

Hamilton laughed.  “I can’t believe he actually sent that picture.  Thank you for backing me up, by the way.  There’s no way he’s something that doesn’t even exist in France.”

“He’d be one of those birds of paradise.”

“Are those French?  Do birds even count?”

“I don’t know.  You should ask him, not me.”

“Good point.  Come on,” Hamilton said after a beat.  “One more thing.  Then I’ll drop it for the night, I swear.  Doesn’t have to be family-related.  Something I don’t know yet.”  He waited while Laurens thought.  He could tell from the slight tension in the air that he was actually trying to come up with something and wasn’t just trying to get out of it.

“It can be dumb,” Hamilton said, trying to encourage him.  “What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Nothing,” Laurens replied, answering without thinking.

“A socialite?”  Hamilton teased.  “Just making bank off of the family name and flitting from charity dinner to political fundraiser?  I know that’s within your reach, J., but I didn’t think you’d have the patience for that.”

“No,” Laurens said, a little frustrated at having been misunderstood and needing to explain himself.  “Just—nothing.  I never thought about it.”

“Not ever?”

“I don’t know.  When I was really little, I guess.  I probably wanted to be a doctor or something.  I don’t know.  As I got older it didn’t seem to matter what I did.”

Hamilton fell silent.

“My father wanted me to study law.  It’s not something I was even interested in when I was in…”  Laurens trailed off.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you not want the degree?”  Hamilton asked.  The length of time it took Laurens to answer him told him the truth and he felt something heavy and frightened in the pit of his stomach.  He had pinned his hopes to a vision of the future that was suddenly revealed to be nothing but a flimsy façade and, to make things worse, he hadn’t even been aware that he had been leaning so heavily on it.  The image of the two of them as partners in a successful legal firm rose unbidden and painfully, embarrassingly, saccharine and unrealistic.  The knowledge that reality could not have been anything like the dream didn’t make its sudden realization and rending any less wrenching.

“I came this far.  I don’t want to just throw that all away.”

Hamilton couldn’t help himself while the shadow of the dream still lingered.  “You have the resources.  You could still switch—”

“I’m not staying in school for another four or five years,” Laurens said roughly.  “That’s stupid.  I’m not doing that.”

“But if you don’t like—”

“I like my major.”  Laurens cut him off again.  “It’s interesting.  It’s useful.”

“I knew you liked biology and science,” Hamilton said quietly.  “I didn’t realize you had—seriously—wanted to study that.”

“I never said that.  I said that I liked it when I was a kid.”

“You took classes in high school.”

Laurens shrugged, his face turning stony.

“Can I ask you something?”  Hamilton said.  When Laurens didn’t object to his question, he continued.  “So you like your classes well enough and you’re going to get the degree.  What do you think you’ll do with it?”

“Work that internship with you over the summer.”

“Then what?  Ideally, in an ideal world.”

“I don’t know.  That’s too far into the future, Alex.  I don’t like to think that far.”

“Do you want to go to law school?”

“I guess.”

“You don’t _guess_ ,” Hamilton said, sitting up.  The blankets fell around his waist.  “That’s too much work to do just because you think you might as well.  You should do it because you actually _want_ to—”

“I don’t know what I want, okay?”  Laurens said, propping himself up angrily on his elbows and looking up at him.  “I don’t know.  I don’t even know how I ended up here sometimes.  My father wants me to study law and join him in politics and this was how I was supposed to get there.  It doesn’t matter, Alex.  It’s not like I had any other plans, anyway.”

“You said you wanted to study other things,” Hamilton argued, frustrated and hurt and turning his attention to the next closest problem.  “When you were younger, at least.  I’m not _blaming_ you, John, I’m just saying that it’s a lot of work if you don’t actually want to do it and if you’re not just going to coast on your father’s name.  I put a lot of work into this, I know how hard it is but I at least like it.  I’m not doing this to please someone else, I’m doing it because I want to.  What is the point of going through all of this effort if you yourself don’t even want the end results?”

“The end results are fine.  My other interests were stupid anyway.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah,” Laurens said, “it is.  I so liked science.  Big deal.  It’s not like I could see a future there, either.  If I can’t see past twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, then why does it matter what track I take?  I might as well do what makes him happy until then!”

Hamilton was silent for several long seconds.  “Until when?”

“I don’t know.”

“J.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Hamilton took one of Laurens’ hands between his own and ran his thumbs over it.

Neither of them spoke for a full minute.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Hamilton dropped Laurens’ hand and made a show of rolling his eyes.

“I love you too,” Laurens added quickly.

“Right.  Hey.  You screwed up.  You were supposed to tell me something nice.”

“Sorry.”  Laurens tried to quickly think of something.  “Martha used to come on some of our camping trips when I was in the scouts.”

“Martha’s more of an outdoorsman than I am.”

“That’s true.”

Hamilton hit Laurens’ chest in mock protest.  “You were supposed to defend my honor.”

“From yourself?”

“‘No, Alex,’” he mimicked.  “‘You’re way tougher than my baby sister.’”

“She plays varsity and she once caught an opossum with an oven mitt and a laundry basket.  I don’t want to lie.”

“Jesus.”  Hamilton settled back down again finally, his head on Laurens’ chest.  “You’d ditch me for her in a zombie apocalypse.  Just admit it.”

“No way.”  Laurens put his arms around him loosely and felt them both relax into it.  “You’re less likely to push me out of the bunker as a distraction.”

“Pfft.  Maybe.”

“Only maybe…”  Laurens closed his eyes.

Hamilton yawned.  “Probably.”

“All right.  I’ll take it.”


	249. Have You Read This Shit?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tabloid Gossip

Hamilton was woken from a dreamless sleep by the electronic ping of incoming messages.  Still tired from how late they had gone to bed he ignored it, instead pressing his weight closer to Laurens’ side and letting himself drift back off.

He had only just fallen asleep when the same noise woke him up again.

Irritated this time, he shrugged the thick comforter partially over his face, jealous of Laurens’ apparent ability to sleep through the notifications.

When made noise twice more he rolled over and groped for his phone, muttering darkly, “‘m gonna kill Lafayette…”

He groaned and yanked his phone from the charger, squinting at the screen for a few seconds before realizing that he had no new messages.

It took hearing several more notifications, now coming in closer together, before he realized that it was Laurens’ phone that was going off.

Hamilton put his phone down and climbed clumsily over Laurens, bracing himself on the mattress and reaching out to the other nightstand, figuring that he could at least mute what sounded like a suddenly overactive group chat.  The screen was locked but lit when he picked it up and messages were appearing quickly, each one getting pushed down only shortly after it arrived.  Curious and not thinking about what he was doing, Hamilton brought the phone towards his face and leaned in closer, carefully balancing over Laurens in order to see what was going on.

 

> J. McHenry: no, it sounded like it was already basically written and he had talked to a bunch of you guys

> W. Grayson: Did you ask what he was using it for though?  If you asked he's supposed to say where the story’s headed or what he’s looking for

> J. McHenry: yea that’s what I said but I didn’t know that’s what was happening with it

 

A new message from Tallmadge appeared on the screen, pushing down the bottommost one from McHenry and reminding Hamilton that he was reading them from most to least recent.

 

> B. Tallmadge: Ok I just double checked and while he makes references to them it doesn’t look like he actually talked to Coach or Ben Walker.

 

The tone of the chat sounded frantic, made worse by how quickly they were talking, but Hamilton was unable to tell why.

“Sports stuff,” he said under his breath.  That didn’t entirely reassure him, so he added, “or whatever.”  The phone dinged again and he remembered that he had wanted to mute it.

 

> D. Humphreys: so NO one signed off on this?

 

Inappropriately, jarringly, a picture intended for him and Laurens from Lafayette popped up, hiding the entire thread.

 

> G. Lafayette: Adrienne et moi à le Grand Canyon :D <3

 

Unable to help himself any longer and frustrated by the sudden interruption, Hamilton unlocked the phone and went into Laurens’ group chat.

 

 

> B. Tallmadge: Uh did you guys see the paper today?

> D. Humphreys: Times?  Post?  Printer?

> B. Tallmadge: School

> D. Humphreys: nah, why?

 

Tallmadge had responded with only a picture of the front page, taken not quite straight on and the dark wood border of a table unevenly angled behind it.

Hamilton had the sense that if his own chest were made out of paper the disbelieving fear in it would have ripped it in two.

 

> D. Humphreys: wait the fuck??

> T. Tilghman: “Over the Rainbow: Coach, Star Players Celebrate Win & GLBT Acceptance”

> J. André: …Wait what’s going on?

> T. Tilghman: Humphreys you’re still on campus right?  You should get a copy it’s even more hhan it looks like

> B. Tallmadge: I’ll take a picture of the article for the rest of you.

> J. André: Thanks

> W. Grayson: Fuck i told calendar to get bent

> W. Grayson: Did he just make this up?

> D. Humphreys: Who did you talk to?

> W. Grayson: **CAllender 

> T. Tilghman: It says he talked to you and Laurens and Alexander and McHenry and coach

> W. Grayson: he’s lying then, I didn’t say shit to him, he’s been bothering me for an interview all semester but he’s way too on

> W. Grayson: Obnoxious

 

The next messages were a series of thumbnails from Tallmadge, each unreadably small newsprint, and the first and last with color pictures.  Hamilton flicked past them.

 

> B. Tallmadge: He basically just quoted you as saying no comment.

> D. Humphreys: I just skimmed it.  Shit.  The first half could be okay…

> T. Tilghman: Yeah we weren’t sure about that.  Did anyone get in contact with Laurens?

> J. André: He’s on a trip

> J. McHenry: omg

> T. Tilghman: Did he actually interview you?

> J. McHenry: yea but that’s way out of context

> W. Grayson: Coach put Laurens in instead of Lee bc he liked him more??

> B. Tallmadge: Let’s stay calm, guys, I think this all got blown out of proportion to the actual story.

> D. Humphreys: tbf it sounds like Laurens said that first

> J. André: Maybe I should call him before he finds this…

> J. McHenry: yea that’s what I said but I didn’t know that’s what was happening with it

> W. Grayson: Did you ask what he was using it for though?  If you asked he's supposed to say where the story’s headed or what he’s looking for

> J. McHenry: no, it sounded like it was already basically written and he had talked to a bunch of you guys

> B. Tallmadge: Ok I just double checked and while he makes references to them it doesn’t look like he actually talked to Coach or Ben Walker.

> D. Humphreys: so NO one signed off on this?

> J. McHenry: I thought what I was saying was just that we all like Laurens and the teams doing well.  It didn’t seem like anything I needed to check in with anyone about you know?

> T. Tilghman: That’s probably what happened w Laurens too….

> W. Grayson: shit

 

“Hey.”

Hamilton nearly jumped out of his own skin.

“What’re you doing?”  Laurens put his hands lazily at Hamilton’s hip and knee, the points most intuitively accessible to him since Hamilton was still half straddling him at an odd angle.  “Did Lafayette send something?”

Hamilton retreated off of him, handing his phone over, and sat cross-legged on the mattress, blankets pulled tightly into his lap.  “A picture of the Grand Canyon.”

“Nice.”

“…J.”  Hamilton twisted the blankets in his hands.

Laurens didn’t respond and Hamilton watched, helpless, as he read through the messages.

Laurens sat up, whole body tense and hunched over his phone.

“I didn’t see what the article said.”

“He screwed me,” Laurens said, voice trembling.

Hamilton was almost relieved to hear that it was with rage.

“This isn’t what I thought he would—All for a fucking story?”  He looked up, his face flushed with anger.  “What a fucking joke,” he said, throwing his phone down on the bed and getting up, finding his clothes in his open suitcase and pulling them on.  “Doesn’t someone have to sign off on what they print?”  Laurens was hit by a wave of nausea and leaned heavily on the table, the veins on his arms and the backs of his hands bulging.

Hamilton picked up the phone.  The chat had continued to progress.

 

> T. Tilghman: I mean that’s not title 9 or anything is it?

> D. Humphreys: I don’t know what it is but it cant be good.  It definitely looks bad.

> T. Tilghman: Do you think we should issue a corrective?

> D. Humphreys: An official statement I was going to say that

> J. André: I’m not sure if I’m allowed to sign off on anything like that…

> D. Humphreys: You think Twitter?

>T. Tilghman: Might be fastest

> B. Tallmadge: I don’t think anyone should say anything until after we talk to Coach

> D. Humphreys: I’m going home this afternoon and a lot of the guys already left

> D. Humphreys: Is Lee even in the city still?

 

Not sure how it could get worse than it already was, Hamilton scrolled back up to the pictures Tallmadge had taken of the article and enlarged the first one, the headline large and underlined over a color picture of the team on the field celebrating their most recent game.  Under better circumstances, Hamilton might have appreciated that whoever took it had managed to get Laurens being enthusiastically congratulated by a few of his teammates as the main focus, as well as von Steuben still recognizable in the background.  As it was, he was more than distracted by the choice to run the whole thing through a rainbow filter, the stripes marching horizontally down the image.

Hamilton read quickly through the multiple pictures of the article, realizing with increasing dread that as little as he liked it, everything in the piece seemed to be technically true.

 

Over the Rainbow: Coach, Star Players Celebrate Win & GLBT Acceptance

> Friday’s win was more than a feather in the cap of the university’s football team and athletics department.  In fact, it was more than the golden ticket to regional division championships that so many have been anticipating this season.  It also marked a new age in university life and collegiate sports, where homosexual and transsexual players can rest easy knowing that they have administrative backing.
> 
> More Stonewall than Stadium, crowds watched as new team captain and starting runningback John Laurens (#18, Senior) publicly mingled with his boyfriend on the sidelines during the first half of the game.  Alexander Hamilton, a Junior and member of the Student Council, told us in an exclusive interview that he wants to make the student body more inclusive and accessible.
> 
> It might seem fitting then that he was allowed access to the field during gameplay, a privilege not normally extended to people not on the team or affiliated with the department.  This was confirmed by sources to have been with the exclusive permission of Coach Steuben, who reached out to Hamilton and brought him down to the sidelines, allowing him and the captain to interact during the game.
> 
> “My parents didn’t sit on the sidelines when they were in town,” first-string kicker James McHenry (#16, Junior) admitted.  The paper can confirm that it is difficult even for members of the student press to receive access to the field.
> 
> So why the sudden outreach?  The answer may have as much to do with the changes in the make-up of the team itself as with the changing times.  We have discovered what has been an apparent open secret among members of the university administration and speculated about by others for years.  Coach Steuben’s salary has in part been used to support services for gay minors and youth off campus and he himself is rumored to be in a relationship with Ben Walker, the assistant coach he hired to work for the Athletic Department after he graduated from the university.  Perhaps he sees himself in his new captain and that’s why he allowed him the unusual privilege of bringing his boyfriend down to commingle on the field?  In a phone interview with Hamilton over the weekend he confirmed knowing Coach Steuben and made it clear that he was aware of his charity work  He also indicated that he thought it might be controversial, saying that he could not answer questions about it, although also that he “obviously [was] not going to deny” its existence.  Interestingly, Hamilton also works in the campus president’s office, and publicly available paperwork we found indicates that the administration is aware of this distribution of funds.
> 
> What may be less well-known is how deeply held this push for diversity runs. 
> 
> Our team of reporters was unable to find any information addressing Coach Steuben’s relationship with his assistant, although one source who asked to remain anonymous told us that it was known among members of the team and presumably among the faculty and staff.  In fact, there seems to be a lingering culture of secrecy among some members of the team, a culture that looks to be unnecessary.  One starting member of the team, who we will leave unnamed out of respect for his privacy, indicated quite roughly to our reporters that he did not want to discuss matters about diversity on the field after Friday’s win.
> 
> Is this a clash of cultures?  While Laurens and others celebrate their increased acceptance, others say yes.
> 
> Laurens told us that there are “cliques” within the team, and he himself as the new captain has players whose company he prefers to others.  Our reporters have confirmed that he spends his time with a relatively small group of players and that, perhaps more significantly, did not get along with others.  In an interview Laurens said about the previous team captain, Charles Lee (#14, Senior), that “he had a lot of attitude and there could have been worse things to happen than his leaving.”  When asked to clarify, he added that he thought Lee was “arrogant” and that he he did not like him.  McHenry and Tilghman (#25, Junior), two of the people Laurens had said were in his “clique,” agreed that Laurens had not shed any tears over Lee’s dismissal.
> 
> This perhaps indicates how far we have come.  With an activist coach and an eager to please administration, sports have become a “safe space” for GLBT players, as indicated by Hamilton’s unusual appearance on the sidelines of Friday’s game.  But perhaps such appearances will not be unusual in the future, as Laurens’ prominent role inspires other questioning members to come out.  Multiple sources confirmed that Steuben was seen as a positive force by members of the GLBT community and that even hinted tantalizingly that soon other teammates would find the same inner courage Laurens had shown and come out publicly.
> 
>  

Hamilton, stunned, recognized the picture that accompanied the end of the article.  That was the High Line, browned plants along the path and tall buildings surrounding it, and there was himself and Laurens, holding hands and identified by name in the caption.

>  
> 
> One dark cloud on this rainbow that still needs to be addressed, however, is in Lee’s abrupt removal from the team.  Sources have confirmed that he has not been attending classes and while he will be allowed to finish the remainder of his schoolwork remotely, he will not be walking in May.  Most stunningly, perhaps, is the erasure of his name and image from the most recent team materials in spite of his leading he team to dozens of victories during his tenure as captain, a track record which might allow for a little arrogance.  
> 
> 
> Interestingly, Laurens said that he knew a year ago that Steuben wanted to give him Lee’s position, even though Lee was not anticipated to graduate before him.  One anonymous source said that this possibility had not been discussed with or approved by Lee.  We were unable to reach staff for comment before publication but assume this is in keeping with university policies designed to promote diversity.
> 
> While the university has not yet spoken publicly about the disciplinary action taken against Lee, we just hope it was not for any special favor requested, as we are big fans of the opportunity for visibility offered to Laurens through the administrative connections of his boyfriend and his coach.
> 
>  

Hamilton put the phone down and looked up at Laurens.

“It’s ridiculous.”

“No,” Laurens said, still leaning on the table and talking through hard, shallow breaths.  “It’s not.”

“Okay, each _individual thing_ might make sense, and that’s a problem, but the piece as a whole is ridiculous.  John, no one’s going to believe it, even if they actually read it.  A lot of people already left campus anyway, no one’s—”  Hamilton stopped talking to get up and quickly dress.  “You can’t just make wild accusations against your coach and the administration,” he said.  “That’s the sort of battle that’ll get the people behind this in deep shit.  Besides, we all know why Lee got kicked off and it’s not about you.  It’ll be easy enough to disprove all of the really stupid parts of this.  I’ll go talk to Washington, trust me, he’ll be _pissed_ , we’ll get this pulled—”

With an incoherent noise of frustration and rage, Laurens brought his fist down heavily on the varnished black surface of the table.  The jolt of bruising pain cleared his head and steadied his breathing enough for him to stand up straight.

“You said Washington wasn’t going to be on campus this week.”  His fist was still clenched and throbbing at his side.

“I have his number.  I can call him.”

Laurens gave a curt nod.  “I need to go back to campus and sort all of this out.”


	250. Authorization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paper Collecting; Grand Canyon

“Shit.”  Hamilton crouched down, yanking the papers out of the kiosk in front of the library.  They were thinner than the normal school papers, only a few pages thick, with the bulk of the other stories obvious filler pieces about the end of the semester.  Hamilton stacked them up in his arms with a furtive glance around for any authority figures who might accuse him of theft and then straightened up, somehow managing to cradle his phone between his shoulder and ear.  “Pick up,” he muttered as it rang.

He carried the papers to the nearest trashcan and stuffed them in unceremoniously, scowling a little harder as he imagined what Angelica might say to him about recycling.

“Not the time, Angelica,” he said out loud as if she were actually there to listen.  “We kind of have some bigger problems on our hands.”

The campus itself was gray and largely empty, the bare trees and browning grass matching the abandoned feel.  Hamilton saw Humphreys approaching from the direction of the cafeteria, full bag on his back and two thick stacks of papers in his arms.

“Hey there,” he called out as he came closer.  He continued without additional preamble.  “I got all the ones from the cafe and the cafeteria, figured those were two of the spots to hit up first.  Swung by the stand at the public bus stop, too, but I don’t know if anyone even checks that thing.”  He came to a half next to Hamilton.  “I know Tallmadge got his copy at the on campus convenience store and he went back to grab the rest of them and was going to work his way out from there.  Tench was going to take the main path through campus from the frat and hit up the different buildings as he came to them.”

“That’s what John’s doing too,” Hamilton said.  “Just from the other direction.”

“I don’t think they’re even all open to students,” Humphreys said.  “It’s after finals.”

“That’s true.”  Hamilton folded his arms and stared out over the campus.  “I just got the library and I told Aaron to get the dorm for me.”

“Which one?”

“The one John’s at.”

Humphreys nodded.  “I think McHenry was going to work his way through them, too.”

“There’s still the health center,” Hamilton said.  “Gym…”

“We should get going.  Where’s the recycling?”

Hamilton winced and shrugged.

“…They used color ink, maybe these can’t be recycled.”

“That’s generous of you to say.  Uh, there’re some bins inside by the printers,” Hamilton said.  “Honestly, you’ll probably fill them up with what you’ve got anyway.”

“Thanks.  I’ll head over to the gym from here.  I can swing by the stadium, too.”

“Great.”  Hamilton nodded.  “Guess I’ll check the campus center since it’s here.  Hey,” he said, remembering suddenly, “do you have time?  Weren’t you supposed to be leaving this afternoon?”

Humphreys gave a worn but appreciative laugh.  “I got time.  I have to leave campus in a couple of hours but until then I’m here to help.  I’m sorry I can’t stay to clean this mess up properly, but I’m going to miss my flight if I leave any later.”

“No.”  Hamilton shook his head quickly.  “I get it.  Thank you.”

Humphreys made a gesture that might have been a shrug if he weren’t so burdened down with papers.  “Sucks.  How’s Laurens?”

“John?”  Hamilton asked, surprised.  He wondered a second later why he was surprised—of course one of Laurens’ friends would ask him how he had taken it.  “He’s… pissed,” he said.

Humpheys snorted.  “Sounds like him.”

“I’m kind of glad,” Hamilton admitted.

“Yeah.  Well, it probably helps that everyone else is pissed too.  He doesn’t have to feel like it’s just him against the world.”

“That’s true.  I’m sure that seeing the rest of you agree that it was bullshit let him just be mad, too.”

“I’m not saying that he didn’t get the worst of it,” Humphreys said, “but a bunch of guys got dragged through the mud in this thing.”

Hamilton nodded blankly, that having barely registered with him when he read it.

“Anyway.  You’re okay, too?”

“Hm?”  Hamilton was caught off guard again and this time didn’t have to shake his head at himself after the fact.  “Uh, yeah?  It’s not like it said anything about me that wasn’t true.”

“That’s not really the point.”

Hamilton just shrugged, not sure what else to say.  “I’m not John,” he finally said by way of explanation.

“Yeah.  I should toss these.”  Humphrey hitched up the papers in his arms.  “You said the bin was by the printers?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Thanks again.”

Humphreys actually laughed as he took a couple of backwards steps towards the library doors.  “You’ve got it all upside down.  We should all be thanking you.”

Hamilton wondered at that but let him go, walking at a fast pace towards the student center.

He passed a kiosk on the way and swore as he unloaded it, flipping the papers upside down so the color image on the front wouldn’t show as he carried them.  He was sweating in spite of the cold day by the time he reached the building, uncomfortably warm in his winter coat.  The building was locked and he dropped the stack of papers to the ground, bending towards the glass window on the doors and framing his face with his hands to cut the glare as he looked in.

“What are y’all doing?”

Hamilton actually jumped in surprise and turned around, resentful at how quickly his heart was pounding.

Jefferson was watching him with suspicious curiosity from the sidewalk.  “Forget something?”

“It’s locked.”

“Of course it’s locked,” Jefferson said.  “Campus is half-closed.  Even Dr. Washington went upstate to check on his buffalo farm.  He’ll be back Wednesday if you needed to speak with him.”

“I know when he’ll be back,” Hamilton snapped.  “I just wanted…”  He trailed off, unwilling to explain himself.

Jefferson’s eyes fell on the pile of newspapers.  “You have a paper route now, too?  What’re you doing?”

Hamilton took half a defensive step in front of the papers but Jefferson ignored him and walked up the stairs and picked one up anyway.

“They’re garbage,” Hamilton said, arguing his point without knowing exactly how he needed to frame it.  “This wasn’t supposed to be printed.”

Jefferson’s eyebrows rose as he read the article.  He unfolded the paper to follow it down the page, the turned to its continuation.  He flipped back to the front page a second later, scrutinizing it.  “This says it came out today.”

“It did.”

“By J. Callender?”

“James.”

“Where all did you find theses?”

“These are from that kiosk,” Hamilton said, pointing.  “I was checking if anyone stocked the locations in here.  There were others collected from all over campus.”

“And you’ve been throwing them out?”

“They’re bull and they’re free for the public anyway so I’m allowed to—”

“Be quiet for a second, Hamilton.”

Hamilton’s mouth snapped shut.  He watched Jefferson warily.

“Pick those up and come with me.”  Jefferson turned on his heel and walked briskly away.  Hamilton hurriedly collected the papers followed him, a sense of doom settling over him and frantic arguments over why, technically, what he was doing might look bad but was actually fine.

To his surprise, Jefferson did not lead them to the building he had his own office in, but to one of the others.  For a second Hamilton thought that perhaps he had chosen a closer place to tear into him out of respect for the armful of papers he was carrying, but he hadn’t even finished rolling his eyes at how dumb the idea was before Jefferson was knocking on a door at the end of a hall.

“Come in.”

Jefferson opened the door and strode inside.  Hamilton, still confused, hurried after him.

“Benjy, you didn’t authorize this, did you?”

Hamilton watched as Jefferson handed a copy of the paper to the senior professor behind the desk in what was clearly an unusually large corner office.  Various certificates on the wall identified its inhabitant as a Dr. Franklin and Hamilton thought he remembered Laurens mentioning his name before.

“I can’t say until I’ve looked at it.”  He picked it up and adjusted his glasses.

“This student of mine says that they’ve been distributed all across campus.”

“Without our permission,” Hamilton added, inserting himself quickly into the conversation.  “None of the people in that main article approve of what it says and that picture at the end of it was taken secretly.”

Franklin turned to the end of the piece, then went back to the front page.

“There are some… allegations in here against staff members,” Jefferson said, “that don’t look to me to be properly sourced.”

“I encourage all members of the student paper to carry out thorough investigative journalism—”

“This guy’s twisting what people told him,” Hamilton interjected again, even more angrily this time.  “And he’s got no right printing personal shit about—about any of us!”

“Sir,” Franklin said, looking gravely at Hamilton over the tops of his glasses, “I agree with you.  With both of you,” he said, hitting the paper lightly with the backs of his fingers.  “This is shoddy work at best.  Poor use of sources.  The author needed to discuss this anonymous source with me ahead of time and did not.  The tone is unconscionable and not in keeping with the newspaper policy and, as you both point out, violates the rights we work to grant members of our campus community, especially those who feature in our writing.  Besides, Friedrich’s relationship is hardly a secret,” he added in a scoff, handing the paper back to Jefferson.  “There was no need for that particular bit of exposé.”

Hamilton felt almost giddy with the whiplash of unexpected support.  “So you’re going to recall it?”

“I can’t recall what was never authorized,” Franklin said.  “There are multiple violations of policy in this that would have kept it off of the presses, perhaps most obviously that we were not supposed to run a paper this week.  This is, in my mind, a very expensive and very stupid prank.  And a waste of club resources.”

“The color photo seemed a little excessive,” Jefferson drawled.

“I would have made them shrink that to four by six.”

“So…?”  Hamilton prompted, not sure what was going to happen now that Franklin was settling back into his seat.

“I’ll put in a maintenance request to have whatever is left cleared away.  Penalties will be forthcoming.”  He cleared his throat.  “Thomas, since you’re here, did you see that email about the presentation in Lyon?  Would you still be interested in putting together a panel?”

“I saw that this morning right as I was heading out the door,” Jefferson said, helping himself to one of the chairs opposite Franklin’s desk.  “Have you talked to John?”

“He hates France,” Franklin complained, folding his hands and resting them on his stomach.  “You know how he is.”

Hamilton backed awkwardly out of the office.

“Hold on there.”  Franklin stopped him before he was fully out into the hall.  “Excuse me, young man.”

Hamilton took half a step back in.

“Please allow me to apologize about all of this.  As I said a moment ago, this is not in keeping with our standards and the gentleman who wrote this and any of his assistants will be disciplined severely.”  His tone, previously surprisingly placid in spite of his clear displeasure had hardened significantly.

Hamilton nodded.

“Oh, and Hamilton.”  Jefferson turned in his seat, sliding one arm up onto the back of the chair as he twisted to face him.  “Your newest proposal submission was much more satisfactory.  I haven’t had the chance to take a look at your final yet but I’ll be sending you my comments on both over break.”

“…Thank you,” Hamilton said, attempting to direct it to both of them.  He left, still carrying the last batch of papers he had collected and with the world strangely off-kilter underneath him.

 

“Neither of them ever got back to me,” Lafayette commented lazily, his hand securely in Adrienne’s and her head resting on his shoulder.  They were both sitting on a bench just off the cement path, looking over the dramatic tear through the earth before them.  The sun was bright and warm overhead, even though the air was significantly cooler than it had been in Phoenix.  Crows cawed somewhere from the trees behind them.

Adrienne squeezed his hand.  “I’m sorry.”

“They must be busy.”  Lafayette sounded dreamy, like he would have had his eyes closed if they were indoors.  “I’ll bother them later.”

“There’s barely connection out here.”

“That’s true,” Lafayette agreed.  “It took me several tries to send it.”

“Maybe they responded and their messages are lost somewhere.”

“Ah, like a treasure hunt.  We will find them later.”

Adrienne sighed comfortably and burrowed a little closer against him.

Still holding her hand, Lafayette moved his arm across her shoulders, pulling her to him.  “Did you know that this was all made by a very tall man with an axe?”

“Is that the legend?”

“Americans believe that it is true.  It is part of their traditional culture.”

Adrienne laughed.

“We shouldn’t make fun of it.  John told me that they believe that there was a giant with an equally large blue cow and when he walked through this part of the country he let his axe drag on the ground and that is what created this canyon.”

“Didn’t the signs we saw earlier say that it was made by the Colorado River?”

“Maybe.  I don’t remember.”

“Mm.”

They both watched two crows pass by overhead.

“His name was Blue Babe.”

“The giant?”

“No, the cow.”

“What happened to them?”

“I don’t know.  Probably they walked all the way to California.  Maybe we will see more evidence of them there.”

“Did they go into the ocean?”

“I…”  Lafayette closed his mouth slowly, looking concerned.  “I don’t know.”

Adrienne turned her face up and kissed his cheek.  “They’re all right,” she reassured him.

Lafayette laughed, a little nervously, eyes a little glazed over as he imagined Paul Bunyan and his ox sinking into the sea.


	251. Stand Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gift Shop; Diner

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  Lafayette, genuinely offended, asked as he paced back and forth outside the indoor gift shop.  “That is horrible and I wasn’t even there to hear about it!”

“I don’t think your hearing about it made it worse.”

“My _not_ hearing about it.”

“Right.”

Lafayette sighed and then flashed a thumbs up and a smile to Adrienne as she held up a shirt for him to see through the glass wall.  “I just wish I wasn’t finding out about this after the fact.”

“Only just.  It did happen this morning, after all.”

“Well, what happened next?  Is everything taken care of?”

Lafayette could hear the shrug in Hamilton’s voice.

“Yeah, pretty much.  It looks like it did, anyway.  We trashed all the stuff we could find and when I asked Tench later he said that by the time he and McHenry got to the last dorm the kiosk was already empty.  It seems like someone from the university cleaned up the rest.”

“They should issue a retraction.  They should print something in apology.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said.  “I agree.  But John thought that might be drawing even more attention to everything and maybe it’s better to just let it die silently.”

Lafayette flung himself down into one of the chairs in the common area.  “I just wish that I had been able to help.  I feel terrible.”

“The offer’s appreciated.  Fortunately it wasn’t needed.  A bunch of John’s teammates were still on campus and they helped.”

“Of course.  John is their friend.”

Lafayette could hear the affected nonchalance in Hamilton's voice as he offered up an explanation that let him downplay the events in question and walk back his initial report of how bad it had been.  “It wasn’t exactly complementary to the team as a whole, either.”

“What did it say about them?”

“You know.”

Lafayette refrained from pointing out that he did not in fact know because he had not been there to read the paper.

“Said that their coach was in some inappropriate office relationship.  Implied that there was some hiring scandal.  Made a lot out of people on the team being all Mean Girls and not liking Lee and John getting unfair perks, just drama like that.”

Lafayette breathed out hard in annoyance.

“I feel you, buddy.”

“I am glad that Dr. Franklin was able to sort it all out.  I like him.  He is a very interesting and smart man.”

“Right, you do know him.  I forgot that you know literally everyone.”

“I do not know literally everyone.”

“Practically, then.”  A pause.  “Speaking of your friends, I have to give credit where credit’s due and now that I’m saying this I don’t have to ever admit it again, but Jefferson was actually… really helpful.”

Lafayette had slouched far down in the seat, but he perked up.  “Was he?”

“Try not to sound too smug.”

“I’m not _smug_ ,” Lafayette protested, pulling himself up and leaning forward.  “I’m very happy to hear that.”

“Yeah, well.  Yeah.  I ran into him while collecting shit and he’s the one who took me to talk to Franklin.”

“They’re good friends.”

“Of course they are.  Anyway,” Hamilton went on, “I know you talk to him, so if you could figure out some way to, I dunno, thank him from me.  That’d be good.  And then I won’t have to mention this to him.”

“Of course!”

“And don’t make it weird.”

“I would never,” Lafayette assured him.  “I am very smooth.”  He covered the bottom of his phone to call across the room to Adrienne.  “I think he wears a small!”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Lafayette said, his tone still soothing.  “Oh, have you ever been this far west?”

“I have literally only been to the places you’ve gone to with me.”

“I’ve never been to the Virgin Islands.”

“I meant apart from that.”

“I think you would like it,” Lafayette said, settling back into a familiar excited energy.  “We saw crows and a deer and an armadillo, although that one was very dead.”

“Gross.”

“And the sunset,” he went on enthusiastically.  “The pictures I sent you don’t do it justice.  The way the light hit the canyon walls, Alex.  Everything turns red and pink.  It was really something special.”

“I’m glad you liked it.  I hope Adrienne’s enjoying herself too.  I know this American sightseeing thing is your jazz and not hers, so try to make sure she actually gets to have some fun, okay?”

Lafayette looked up and over to where Adrienne was smiling to herself and texting someone as she browsed through a rack of keychain memorabilia, a stuffed jackrabbit tucked under her arm.  “I’ll try,” he promised.  He nodded brightly at her when she held up keychains in the shape of part of the canyon with the names ANNE and ELIZABETH on them.

“You better.  Things have been stressful enough already without having to worry about you two.”

Lafayette settled back down in the chair, angling his body into the corner between the armrest and the padded back and getting comfortable.  “Thank you.”

“That wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.”

“We are staying at a cabin here and are going to get up early to see the sunrise,” Lafayette said.  “I do not have good reception most of the time so I will not be able to talk to you very well.”

“That’s fine.  How are you calling me now?”

“Ah, there is a little shopping area, with camping goods and snacks and things, and a place to eat.”

“Got it.  John says hi,” Hamilton added.  “He just got here.  Hold on.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

There was a clattering noise and then Lauerns came on the line.

“Hello?”

“John!”  Lafayette said happily.  “I missed your voice.  It’s been so long since I have seen you.”

“It’s been two days and you called me at the zoo.”

“But we live together, John.  I’m used to having you as a continual presence in my life.  We’re going to stay at the Grand Canyon overnight,” he went on, taking advantage of Laurens not being sure how to respond to that, “in a cabin.  Have you ever been camping at the Grand Canyon?”

“That’s not camping.”

“There is no reliable internet.”

“Is there running water and electricity?”

“There is a television,” Lafayette admitted.

“Right.  That’s not camping.”

Lafayette could hear Hamilton interjecting from somewhere nearby that if there was no internet he wouldn’t stay there.

“Alexander agrees with me.”

“You’re both soft.”

Lafayette heard something that might have been Hamilton hitting Laurens.

“What?  I just mean that that’s not camping.  He’s indoors and has amenities.  It’s not the same as actually hiking out somewhere and pitching a tent.”

Lafayette could not hear Hamilton’s response but by the low purr he delivered it in he had to assume that they had made up.

“ _Excusez-moi_ ,” he interrupted before they could get too sidetracked.  “We are still having a conversation.”

“Sorry.  Uh, yeah, I’ve been to the Grand Canyon.  My family went when I was a kid.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yeah, it was pretty cool.  It was a long time ago, though.”

“Which would you prefer as memorabilia, a magnet or a mug?”

“You don’t have to—”

“A fake lanyard?  I can find you something more interesting,” Lafayette promised, “but I thought you might like the kitsch.”

“Right.  Uh, surprise me.”

“I will.”  Lafayette saw Adrienne waving him over through the glass.  He kicked his legs out and planted his feet firmly on the floor, then stood up with a snap.  “I need to go, but I may call you back in the next half hour or so, so please keep your phones on you.”

“Got it.  Have fun.”

Lafayette hung up and went to meet Adrienne in the store.  “I have drama to tell you,” he said.  “But it can wait.  What is it?”

“I found these for my sisters,” Adrienne said, motioning with the keychains in her hand, a burgundy shirt draped over her arm.  “And I’m going to get them earrings as well.”

“Earrings?”

Adrienne took his hand and led him to the jewelry behind a glass case by the register.  “I like the turquoise with the silver filigree for Elizabeth,” she said, pointing to one of the pairs.  “I think she might wear those, don’t you?”

“Yes.  And which for Anne?  The flowers?”

Adrienne squeezed his hand.  “Yes.”

“Do you think I should get a pair?  I only have these and I think I can change them by now without problems.”  He touched one of the crystal studs in his ear curiously.  “What do you think about those small ones?”  He asked.  “I don’t want them swinging around but I want them to still be visible…”

“I think those are nice.  They’re a very pretty blue.”

“Yes, I thought so too.”

“All right,” Lafayette said.  “It’s decided.  You have the shirt for Alex and the things for your sisters and I will get that and—Oh, I need to find something for John.  And de Segur, I suppose.”

“And Louis.”

“Damn.”  Lafayette ran his hand over his mouth.  “Very well,” he concluded, “it is not decided after all.  Would you like me to hold these things for you, my Dearheart, so that you can take advantage of having reception?”  Lafayette almost dropped one of the keychains as everything was dropped in his hands.

“Find something light for Louis and de Segur,” Adrienne instructed him, already practically out of the shop.  “Because I will have to carry it back to France.”

 

“I still don’t trust him.”

Laurens shrugged, hand on Hamilton’s thigh under the table at the diner.

“I just know there’s some ulterior motive,” Hamilton went on.  “Like, he wants to hold it over me or use it to prove that he’s a ‘nice guy,’” he said, making heavily sarcastic air quotes.

“Or maybe he just thought it was bullshit.”

“Come on, J.  There has to be more to it than that.”

Laurens thought.  “Maybe he didn’t like that James Callender took a shot at the faculty.”

“Who?”

“My coach.”

“Does he count as faculty?  I think he’s technically staff unless he teaches a health class or something.”

“Alex.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Hamilton took a drink of water from the pebbled plastic tumbler.  “I dunno.  Maybe.”

“I think that makes more sense than him having some convoluted plan to get even with you.”

“Not necessarily to get even.  Just to be a dick.”  Hamilton put the glass down.  “Point taken, though.”  He waved across the room with a smile as the door at the front opened and several of Laurens’ teammates walked in.  “I’ll try to be less paranoid.”

Laurens took his hand from Hamilton’s leg and raised it in greeting, putting it down on top of the table.

“Less paranoid about what?”  Tench slid in opposite them, followed by Tallmadge and then Grayson.  “I’m frickin’ starved,” he added, drumming his hands on the table and looking over his shoulder for a server.  “You guys order yet?”

“No.  We were waiting for you.”  Laurens pushed his menu across the table.

“Thanks.  What do I want…?”  Tench studied the items listed behind the chipping plastic protector, then turned it over.  “Fajitas?”

“So weird day today, huh?”  Grayson said, crossing his arms heavily, one after the other, on the table.  “Fun way to kick off winter break.”

“What, a little exercise?  Cardio and weights from all the running around?  Paper is weirdly heavy.”  Tench turned the menu over a second time.  “Or do I want a burger?”

“Lobster.”

“I’m not ordering lobster at a diner.  Do I look like I want food poisoning?”  Still looking down, he had not seen the server arrive and he jumped when she cleared her throat.

“Could we get waters, please?”  Tallmadge asked, passing down the new menus.  Tench took his with a sheepish grin at the waitress.

As soon as she had left, Grayson picked up.  “So you were kind of vague before.  What did the professors say they were going to do to the guys working on the paper?”

It took Hamilton a moment to realize that he was the one being addressed.  “Oh, uh.”  He half-grimaced.  “They didn’t really tell me much.  I got the impression that Franklin wanted to go talk to them himself before fully committing.”

“That’s fucked,” Tench said with a resigned roll of his eyes.  “You’d think he could at least tell you.  We should all complain.”

His wording struck Hamilton as weird and he glanced at Laurens, expecting to share a look with him over it.  To his surprise, Laurens was nodding in agreement.

“Especially if he doesn’t dole out some kind of actual punishment,” Laurens said.  “He knew it wasn’t okay,” he went on, parroting what Hamilton had told him earlier, “or he wouldn’t’ve tried to sneak it out without getting it approved.”

“Hopefully something will happen.”  Tallmadge took a drink.  “I don’t want to have to think about it over break.”

It struck Hamilton that even among just themselves they really were talking about it as if it were a mark against the team as a whole, and that was so disorienting that he didn’t immediately register the question posed to him and had to translate it for himself and look back down at his menu before he could answer.

“Uh, I’m getting the fish and chips.”

Tallmadge nodded.  “Good call.”

Hamilton put his hand on Laurens’ leg and to his relief, Laurens dropped his hand from the table and mirrored the gesture.

“Can I say something?”  Hamilton asked.  “And, I mean, no offense or whatever but it’s kind of weird to me that you’re all talking about this like it was aimed at…”  He motioned broadly around the table.

“He said some pretty shitty stuff about a lot of us.”

Hamilton nodded and shrugged at Grayson.  “Yeah, I guess.  He talked to a bunch of you anyway.  But you weren’t all front and center.”

Tench looked guilty.  “Well,” he began, “no.”

“I’m just saying, that while it might have been ‘an attack’ on your team in general, from where I’m sitting it’s pretty clear that it was aimed in a very deliberate way.”

“They can be upset about it too,” Laurens said.

“Sorry,” Tench said.

“Don’t apologize,” Laurens said.  “You don’t need to apologize.”

“No, I didn’t mean that.”  Hamilton saw the uncomfortable looks on the faces of the three people sitting opposite him and for a moment regretted saying anything in the first place.  “But you have to admit that there was a deliberate angle taken.  Like, that was how it all got tied together, and the people who were most threatened weren’t, you know…”  He gestured across the table.  “Right?”

“Alex, it’s fine.”  Laurens folded his arms and leaned back against the booth.  “They’re not wrong.”

“Well, no, but also they are.”

“Let it go,” Laurens instructed.  “If we all want to agree that it was more than anything something against all of us, then good.  We dealt with it together and they helped to clean it all up.  I’m part of the team, remember?  That’s how it goes.  We work together.  We’re the same.”

Hamilton saw, so clearly, the argument he could take, but also that it would not play out neatly and that there would be no good short term outcome.  He picked up his glass and drank, letting the cold water and the ice numb his tongue.

“Right,” Hamilton said instead.  He did not say, “Sorry.”

The server came back.

“I think we’re ready to order,” Tallmadge told her.  He looked around the table.  “Do you guys all know what you want?”


	252. Facebook Stalking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friend Request; Old Albums

Hamilton lay on his back next to Laurens, staring up at the dark ceiling of the dorm room, too uneasy to sleep.  He played over events of the previous night and of dinner without the heart to put them or his thoughts about them into words.  Instead they ate at him and he wished he was alone with pen and paper so he could exorcise them and study them from a greater distance.  He would be alone again soon enough, he reminded himself, and tried instead to focus on the familiar weight of Laurens’ arm draped across his chest.

Hamilton didn’t think that he often lay awake like he did, and he envied him for it.

With a resigned sigh, Hamilton eased himself upright.  Laurens stirred and rolled over to face the wall without waking.  Leaning over the side of the bed, Hamilton was able to get his laptop out of his bag and resting it on his knees.  He opened it, quickly dimming the screen and leaning in close to better see it.

He opened his browser and clicked around idly for a minute, then let himself drift over to Facebook, where he typed “Martha Laurens” into the search with a self-justifying deliberation.  He found her immediately, recognizing the account as hers by their one shared friend and the thumbnail, a picture of her and a friend posing dramatically in formalwear by a pillar that Hamilton identified as one at the front of the Laurens’ house.

He hesitated after sending the friend request.  Now what?  He slowly deleted her name from the search bar, one letter at a time.  He stopped fully when “Laurens” was completely erased and sat in the dark, his pulse quickening.

One letter at a time, Hamilton replaced the surname with “Manning.”

A number of hits came back, giving Hamilton pause and forcing him to consider if what he was doing was inappropriate.

“Fuck it,” he muttered darkly to the room, and squinted at the screen, clicking on the first likely contender to see more information.

His third try (too young, too old, from the wrong state) looked surprisingly familiar and he wasn’t sure if he was excited or if his heart was sinking into his stomach.  The account’s profile picture was of a young woman, heavily but skillfully made up, at a club with friends.  Her long blonde hair was trained into large immaculate curls and her black sequined dress brightly reflected back the flash from the camera.  Much more importantly, the little written information he could see said that while she was originally from Columbia, she was currently studying in London.

Unable to help himself, Hamilton went into her pictures.  He was only able to see old profile pictures, but one of the very first was simultaneously so strange and so familiar that it made something in his chest hurt.

He enlarged it, grateful for at least the semi-privacy as he adjusted his laptop on his knees and studied the image of Manning standing next to Laurens before their prom.  What struck him again was how they had obviously coordinated their outfits, the soft blue of his jacket matching her dress and both of them wearing light pink roses and baby’s breath, her on her wrist and him on his chest.  He noticed again the artificial air to her ringlets—much more affected looking than her current style—and the cheap shine to the tiara on her head.

Laurens had his arms carefully around her and she had one hand lightly on his arm in return, and Hamilton snorted quietly at how staged that looked as well.  Part of his mind tried to point out that in all fairness, they were young and standing for a formal picture in what was likely a rushed setting and probably everyone’s pictures had come out a little less than ideal.  _No_ , he argued back bluntly, _he’s just gay and they look stupid._

That decided, he sent her a friend request as well, wanting to see the rest of her pictures of that night, and maybe the nights around it.  Maybe Laurens looked just as out of place when they were watching a game or at a friend’s house.  Hamilton wanted to know.

With a brief guilty look at Laurens, Hamilton closed his laptop and slid it back into his bag.  He lay down and curled against Laurens, wrapping his arm over his shoulder and tucking his face down against the back of his neck.

Now, at least, he could sleep.

 

“Hey,” Hamilton said, standing at the window and looking out at the patches of sun coming through the blanket of clouds, “fuck, marry, kill, your teammates, go.”

“Seriously?”

“Lee can count for ‘kill.’”

“So…  You’re just asking me which of my teammates I’d fuck?”

“Or marry.”

“Pass.”  Laurens was sitting at Lafayette’s desk and he looked at the cat by his feet.  “I’m surprised he didn't give this to you for Christmas.”

“I’m not.  He’s saving it for my birthday when he’ll be around to make a bigger deal about it.”  Hamilton made a face.  “He’s probably going to buy it its own mouse ears or something.”

Laurens snorted.

“I think I’d do fuck Gouverneur,” Hamilton said, answering his own question but changing the parameters.  “Marry…  I don’t know, John Jay, I guess.  I feel like I could get a favorable prenup from him.  And kill Aaron Burr.”

“I thought you were friends again.”

“I know, but old habits die hard.”

Laurens laughed.

“Okay, seriously, J.  Your go.”

“No way.”

“Kill Lee,” Hamilton said.  “Marry André?  He’s off at his family’s personal ski resort or whatever, so he’s clearly loaded.  Fuck…?”

Laurens looked over his shoulder at him and shrugged.

“Fuck Tallmadge,” Hamilton decided.  “You two’ve got a similar look somehow so it might be weirdly aesthetic.”

“Or incestuous.”

“I mean, you don’t look like _twins_ …”

“Fuck, marry, kill your professors.”

Hamilton grinned.  “Gross.  All right, kill Jefferson for sure.”

“Right.”

“Uh, all my professors ever?  Or just the ones I’ve had this year?”

“Just this year.”

“Shoot.  Hm.  I guess I’d marry my econ professor because then he could handle my finances and I could make bank.  I fuck any of the others, I guess, whoever seemed the most likely to give me extra credit for it.  You?”

“None of them are fuckable.”

“You’re taking classes from Franklin, right?  I bet he’s into the kink.”

Laurens grimaced.  “Come on.”

“Seriously.  I bet he’s got a bondage suit.  I bet he’s into water sports.”  Cackling, Hamilton ducked the eraser Laurens threw at his head.

“I’m going to make you pay me back for the pizza,” Laurens warned as his phone went off, alerting them that the driver was outside the building.  He grabbed his keys and phone and left as Hamilton took the vacated seat and leaned to the side, looking under the desk at the porcelain cat.

“Just you and me,” he said to it.  “But soon enough it really will be you and me.  I guess we better get used to each other again.”

He took his phone out of his pocket and held it up over his head, carefully angling for a selfie with the cat for Lafayette.

That accomplished and sent, he settled back in the chair and flipped through his windows.  Only a few seconds had passed before he stopped short and glanced down at the cat again.

“So,” he said.  “You ever do something that seems a lot stupider in the morning?”

With a quick glance at the door, he closed the notification that Martha Manning had accepted his friend request and hesitated, his thumb over the link for her photos.

“Well,” he said, “we all know I’m not actually not gonna do it.”

He clicked and scrolled past the more recent albums chronicling her adventures abroad, down to the ones bearing names that referenced required high school readings and her hometown.  He picked one on a hunch, most because the cover photo looked like it was taken in the halls of a high school than anything else, and was met with a collection of images from some class event.  He almost didn’t recognize him but there, towards the end of the album, were two pictures that included Laurens standing innocuously in the back.

The door to the room opened and Laurens came in, pizza box carefully balanced on one hand.  “Lafayette has some paper plates,” he said.  “Can you get them out?”

“Sure.”  Hamilton put his phone down and scrambled to get them off of the shelf over Lafayette’s desk.  “Napkins too?”

“Yeah.”

Two of each in hand, Hamilton pulled the chair out with his foot and kicked it across the floor towards Laurens for him to put the pizza on.  “Here.”

“Thanks.”

“Smells good.”  Hamilton waited for Laurens to take a piece, then served himself, sitting on the edge of Lafayette’s bed with his plate.  “Hey, uh, J.?”

“Mm?”  Laurens looked over at him as he took a bite of pizza.

“Confession.  I, uh,” Hamilton began, taking his phone off of Lafayette’s desk.  “I couldn’t sleep last night and I was fucking around online and I kind of sent friend requests to some people because I wanted to see their pictures.  And, anyway, long story short is that Martha Manning actually accepted my request just now.”

Laurens twisted one side of his face.  “Martha?”

“I friended your sister, too,” Hamilton added quickly.  “So, there’s also that Martha.”

“Why?”

“I dunno.  I was half-asleep and had even less impulse control than normal.  I thought they’d have pictures of you,” Hamilton admitted.  “It’s not like I actually want to…  I dunno.  I thought they’d have good pictures,” he repeated lamely.

Laurens breathed out slowly and sank down to sit on the floor.

“I can unfriend them.”

“No,” Laurens said.  “Whatever.  It’s fine.”

“I’m surprised she accepted,” Hamilton said.  “I mean, thinking about it now, I’d think she’d just ignore me.”

Laurens shrugged.

“Seriously, J.”  Hamilton passed his phone from one hand to the other.  “If it’s too weird I’ll just unfriend them.  I can do that.”

“No,” Laurens said again.  He hesitated, then got to his feet and crossed to sit next to him.  “Can I see?”

“Of course.”  Hamilton quickly pulled the pictures up again.  “I only clicked this one album before you got back.  Can you tell me what’s going on here?  Why are you just _hovering_?”

“That was her grade’s class spirit day,” Laurens said immediately, the answer almost falling onto his tongue.  He hadn’t realized he’d be able to so automatically pull up the correct response and it was a little jarring how accessible it all was still.  “That’s why they’re all in the school colors.”

“Oh…”  Hamilton nodded slowly.  “Yeah, we didn’t do that.”

Laurens shrugged.  “It was a big thing.”

“So you are…?”

“That’s not my classroom,” Laurens said.  “I wasn’t in her year.  I don’t know why I was there,” he lied.  “I must have gone in to talk to her,” he went on, hiding the truth by making it sound like a guess.  “Her homeroom was close to mine and I’d walk past it sometimes.”

“Yeah?”  Hamilton prompted, trying hard to sound like none of it mattered at all in order to reassure both of them.  “That’s convenient.”

Laurens nodded.  He reached over Hamilton’s arm to move them through the other pictures of him.  Even though it was only a few years removed he looked obviously younger somehow, both in his physical appearance as well as in how he held himself.

“Were you dating at this point?”  Hamilton asked, knowing that he had to.

Laurens nodded again.  “Pretty much.  It really wasn’t all that much different from when we were just friends.”

“But you’d asked her out.”

“We’d gone to the movies a couple of times.  Things like that.”

Looking at the pictures, Hamilton didn’t think he would have been able to tell that they were supposed to be a couple.  Laurens looked so stiffly out of place, so obviously trying to seem cool without quite being able to sell it to an older and more critical eye, and not physically comfortable enough around Manning to give the impression that they were dating.  It looked more like he was a friend from a different social group standing awkwardly around the edges of an event that did not actually concern him.  Actually, Hamilton realized, that was exactly what the picture was of, even if no one at the time had recognized it.

He backed out to the collection of albums.  “Any better ones?  Not just of you,” he said, offering Laurens an escape, “but you were friends with her brother, right?”

Laurens thought for a moment, then grinned, the memory tempering the crawling discomfort he had felt at the previous images.  “Let me see.  I think she has ones from when he got his wisdom teeth out.”

Hamilton laughed and picked up his pizza.  “I never got mine removed.”

Laurens looked at him in surprise.  “Really?”

“Yeah.  I’m just too wise, I guess.”

“They’re going to mess up your alignment.”

“Oh well.”  Hamilton shrugged.

“Seriously, it can make the rest of them really crooked.  And that’s if they don’t get impacted.”

A little uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Hamilton shifted his weight and made a flippant gesture with one hand.  “Whatever.  I haven’t even been to the dentist since I was, like, fourteen and shit’s been fine.  I’ve just got good genes.”

Laurens, plate in one hand and phone in the other, stared at him.  “You haven’t been to the dentist since you were fourteen?”

“Uh, yeah?  When did you last go?”

“I go twice a year.”

Hamilton flinched.  “Okay, sorry, not all of us are fancy.”

“That’s not fancy, Alex, that’s supposed to be normal.”

“Dental insurance costs extra.  I’d have to shell out for an add on and I haven’t had any problems.”

“Okay,” Laurens said, mentally filing the information away for later, “when I get back from break we’re finding a dentist.  I’m sure we can find someone in the area who works with students.”

“My teeth are fine,” Hamilton muttered, self-consciously running his tongue over his upper row.  “I’m sorry they’re not _designer_ like yours.”

Laurens snorted with laughter at the phrasing.  “Here,” he said, hitting play on a video and passing the phone back to Hamilton as the person on camera slurred drunkenly.  He leaned against his shoulder to watch.  “This is him waking up from anesthesia.”


	253. Picture Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sister-City; Ice Skating

“We’re from France,” Lafayette told the older couple he and Adrienne were walking behind as they descended down a wide and well-worn trail into the canyon.  “Do you know Chavaniac?  It is in the, ah, the department of Haute-Loire. No?”  He motioned to Adrienne at his side.  “She is from outside of Paris.  Yes?”  He asked, prompting recognition from their walking companions.  When he received it he went on cheerfully.  “This is my second year in the United States.  I am going to school in New York City.  Where are you from?”

Lafayette carefully stepped around a sudden dip in the ground and put his hand lightly on Adrienne’s lower back to move her around it as well.  He jerked his head back to the other couple abruptly when he heard their response to his question.

“Lafayette?”

He turned quickly back to Adrienne, seeking confirmation that she had heard it as well and to see if she was as excited as he was.

“I am from Lafayette,” he told the couple enthusiastically, hand on his chest, pressing against the thick knit of his sweater.  “Chavaniac-Lafayette, that is my, that is my name!”

“Not Chavaniac,” Adrienne interrupted.

“No,” Lafayette agreed, “not Chavaniac, and my first name is Gilbert, but that is besides the point, if the point is Lafayette.  It is named after my ancestor,” he explained, “he was a general in your Revolution, that is why I wanted to come to America in the first place!  You said it is near New Orleans?  I have not been there yet.  Maybe this summer,” he said, giving Adrienne a bright and hopeful smile.

She shook her head, amused.

“We’re going to a few other places,” he went on, quickly rattling off the names.  “It is my goal to see all of the fifty states while I am here.  And the capital,” he added.  “And the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  My good friend is from the Virgin Islands,” he explained, “so I would like to see them.  If I was to go to Louisiana,” he mused, “I could go to Lafayette and finally see the Gulf Coast.”  He took his phone out to make a note to himself and take a picture of how far down into the canyon they had already gone.  The walls stretched a couple dozen feet overhead in pale orange and yellow and cream.  “This is like fate,” he declared, trying to get a tree in the picture for scale.  “If you are ever in Chavaniac, please let me know.  You don’t even need to call ahead, we would be just so happy to host you.  Come to the _château_ once you get in.  It has the American flag flying alongside the French one, so it is easy to find.  Even if you have other arrangements for where you will be staying, my grandmother would absolutely murder me if I did not insist that you at least come over for lunch.”

“He is very serious,” Adrienne explained, putting her hand on Lafayette’s arm.  He had been looking down at his phone and he jerked his head back up, caught off guard.

“Of course I am being serious,” Lafayette said.  He looked between her and the other couple.  “Did I not sound serious?”

“It is a grand offer,” Adrienne told him, switching their conversation to French for semi-privacy.  “I think people sometimes think that you are being hyperbolic.”

“Why would I lie?  That would just confuse everyone and would be very rude.”

“They don’t always know you or that you would actually like them to take you up on your offers.  They might think you are just offering in order to be polite.”

“I am not lying,” Lafayette said in English, trying to strike the perfect balance between earnest and sane.  “It is a big castle.  We have many rooms and my grandmother would think that I am being insufferably rude if I did not invite you since you are from a, ah, a sister-city.  Well, not a sister-city, per se, but one that shares a namesake.  My namesake,” he added.  “Do you have a pen?  I will write down my name and the address and you can look everything up online ahead of time if you would prefer.”  He turned back to Adrienne and switched back to French.  “Is that better?  I don’t want to be too formal about it.  Acts of generosity should be spontaneous.”

 

“I don’t have all this documentation of myself when I was younger,” Hamilton said with a grunt as he tried to shove his foot into the unyielding boot of the skate.  “It’s just—mother of—I didn’t have a ton of people taking pictures of me.  Well, for anything _fun_.”

“We were just looking at stuff people put up on social media,” Laurens pointed out.  “Not an album or anything.”

“It was called an album.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” Hamilton agreed.  “But I don’t think there’s that big of a difference.  The ones with decoupage and shit aren’t the only ones that count.  Someone thought to include you in those pictures and people liked them enough to put them online and even tag you in them.  Other than the fact that we were able to look through them, how is that any different from some kid with a disposable camera and a one-hour print stand?”

“Yeah,” Laurens relented.  “Okay.”  He carefully laced his skates up.

“I guess it’s missing some _je ne sais quoi_ ,” Hamilton said, “but I think I _sais_ that the _quoi_ is really just nostalgia.”

“I still think having it be tangible makes a difference.”

“My point still stands.  You can argue about quality and the level of thought that went into it, but at the end of the day people still wanted to document your presence, and not just as a formality.”  Both feet in the skates and one across his thigh as he awkwardly laced the boot closed, Hamilton stopped, eyes focusing on middle distance.

Laurens tied off his second skate and stood, shifting his feet in the boots to test their comfort and fit.  He turned and saw Hamilton staring at nothing.  “Alex?”

“Hm?”  Hamilton blinked and shook himself and came back to the present.  “Sorry.”  He continued lacing up the skate.  “You know who has a lot of pictures?”

Something about his voice was forced and at a slant and Laurens didn’t know what to make of it.

“Lafayette?”

“Well, yeah, him too.  I meant Eliza.”

Laurens frowned and folded his arms uncomfortably.  “I guess it runs in the family.”

“Hah.  Maybe.  You went upstairs, you saw all those portraits on the walls.”

Laurens shrugged.  “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I guess you wouldn’t.”  Hamilton made a bow and then switched to the other skate.  “You had a bunch of stuff like that at your place, too.  She had all these…”  He struggled with the word and with the laces.  “Dumb photo albums.  Not ‘dumb.’  I dunno.  I’d say ‘childish’ but that’s almost as bad because they were from when she was a kid.”

“When did you see those?”

“When I had dinner at their place while you were in Boston.”  Hamilton propped his foot up on the bench he was sitting on, trying to see if that would make lacing the skate any easier.  “She showed me some old pictures of the three of them.  Five of them,” he corrected himself to include her parents.  “Just really ordinary stuff,” he went on. “Pictures obviously taken by a kid, and not a prodigal one.  You know what I mean.  Blurry and washed out and shit.  The occasional one where the finger is half-covering the lens.  Really poor quality.”

Laurens didn’t say anything for a moment, trying to feel out the tone and what was left unsaid.  “Are you jealous?”

Hearing the words out loud was unexpectedly painful.  Hamilton forced a laugh and used it to deflect.  “Hey, I’ve been hella documented ever since I got to know Lafayette.  I’m just sorry for all you guys because you’ll only ever see pictures of me looking fine as fuck while I only have to do a little bit of digging to see you in your adolescent glory.  Granted, some blurry vacation pictures aren’t nearly as embarrassing as that yacht-club wardrobe of yours.”  Hamilton yanked the laces into a bow and stood, ankles buckling as he put his weight down incorrectly.  “All right.  Now what?”

“We head over to the rink,” Laurens said, half-turning to lead the way.

“This is so weird,” Hamilton complained as he followed him, lifting his feet unnaturally high with each step and putting them down heavily.  “Who came up with this, anyway?  Was there some guy in Norway who was like ‘och, jä, I’m gonnae strap knives to my boots, lookat mae.’”

Laurens laughed.  “What kind of accent is that supposed to be?”

“I dunno.  Norse?”

“You made it sound like you had skated before.”

“I have,” Hamilton said.  “You know, the wheel kind.  With the two in the front and the two in the back.”

“We’ll stick close to the wall,” Laurens promised.

Hamilton scowled at his back, but quickly dropped it since he couldn’t get a reaction.  “You know,” he said instead, “I’m surprised you were willing to go do this.”

“We agreed we’d go.”

“Yeah, but then after that whole Callender thing went down, I figured anything that involved actually going out in public was trashed.”

Laurens frowned and glanced back at Hamilton over his shoulder.  “I didn’t think this was that big a deal,” he said carefully.

“You and me?”  Hamilton asked.  “Here?”  He nodded past Laurens at the rink and the lights and the people.  “I’m not complaining,” he added.  “I’m glad you were cool with it.”

Laurens shrugged, a little stiff.  “It seemed fun.”  He stepped onto the rink and turned around, putting one hand lightly on the wall for additional support as he offered Hamilton his other.

Hamilton opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and took Laurens’ hand before stepping out onto the ice.  He quickly tightened his grip on it, starting to fall forward and reaching out automatically with his other.  Laurens caught it and they stood face to face for a moment before Hamilton let go of one, letting Laurens turn around and stand next to him,the wall on Hamilton’s other side.

“Right,” Laurens said.  “So you want to keep your center of gravity low and push yourself forward one step at a time.  Don’t lift your feet up so much,” he suggested almost immediately as Hamilton took a couple of clumsy steps.  “You’re going to lose your balance like that.”

Hamilton swore under his breath and stood still, frowning as he watched the flow of people move past.  After a few moments he tried again, mimicking how they were moving.

“Right, like that,” Laurens said encouragingly.  “You got the idea.”

“Seriously—Who came up with this?”  Hamilton asked, his words and train of thought both distracted by the task at hand.

“Coming down here?  I think that was you.”  Laurens took another stride, letting himself just glide next to Hamilton and gently tug him forward.

“Ha, ha.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

“No, we paid for the skates.”  Hamilton was staring down at the ice in front of him, concentrating on figuring out how to move on it.  “I want to figure it out.”

“It takes a little getting used to.”

“You don’t need to be nice,” Hamilton said.  “Did you even have rinks in Columbia?  It’s not supposed to be freezing there.”

“It’s not and we did.”

“Tch…”  Hamilton started to find his stride and began to move with a little more confidence, dropping his hand from the wall but still keeping it out for balance.  “Right,” he said, “I guess I wasn’t thinking about indoor rinks—”  He looked up at Laurens and cut himself off, not expecting to see his phone trained on him.  “What are you doing?  Are you filming me?”

“You said no one had any embarrassing pictures of you,” Laurens teased.  He lowered his phone slightly but still kept it facing him.

“What the hell, John, that wasn’t an invitation!”

“Are you sure?  It sounded like one to me.”

“Fuck off, give me that—”  Hamilton reached for the phone and overbalanced, stumbling forward and bracing himself on Laurens’ arm, held out rigid and parallel to the ground.

Laurens swayed unsteadily and flung his hand with the phone out for a moment, then once he had his balance again held it high, out of easy reach.  “Be careful.  You’re going to pull us both down.”

“You’ll deserve it, ass.”  In spite of his protests, Hamilton didn’t make a second attempt to get the phone.  Instead, he straightened up and squeezed Laurens’ hand, still in his.  “At least get yourself in there too,” he said.  “Jeez.”

Laurens drew his arm up and back and angled the phone so they were both in shot.  He flashed a grin to the still-recording camera.  “December nineteenth, Alexander Hamilton decides to go skating for the first time, not realizing that he doesn’t actually know how to skate and—Shit—!”

Someone knocked into Laurens while he wasn’t watching and he slipped backwards, his legs shooting out from underneath him while his phone flipped out of his hand.

“John, John, John, let—!”

Unable to let go of Hamilton’s hand in time, Laurens pulled him down to the ice with him, air knocked out of him as the unyielding hit of the rink was quickly followed by Hamilton’s forearm to his stomach.

“Shit,” Hamilton said, unsteadily pushing off of him and getting to his knees.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Laurens managed, the response almost more of a wheeze.

Hamilton started to laugh.  “What the hell, J.?”

“That kid ran into me,” Laurens protested, newly able to speak again.

“Uh-huh, sure.”  Hamilton shakily got to his feet.  He clumsily crossed the ice to retrieve Laurens’ phone.  “Is this still filming?”  He flipped the camera from his own face to Laurens.  “Look at this guy sitting on his ass,” he said.  “Some hot date, am I right?”

“Shut up.”  Laurens got to his feet and skated over.  “Give me that.”

“Don’t delete it,” Hamilton said, making his way back towards the outside of the rink so he could follow the wall.  “In fact,” he added, “send me a copy.”

“I will,” Laurens promised, putting his phone securely back in his jacket pocket.  His hand followed it and he glided smoothly alongside Hamilton, both hands now out of sight.  After they had traveled half the way around the rink, he spoke again.  “I drew you, remember?”

“What?”

“I drew your picture.”  Laurens was looking straight ahead as he spoke, eyes trained on the unnatural blue of the coat of the woman ahead of him.  “And, you know, that took a lot of time.  I put a lot of time into it.  Even just the sketches, it’s not like I wasn’t trying to make them good.”

Hamilton glanced at him, then back at the ice, then back up.  “I know,” he said, unable to even attempt sustained eye contact.  “You’re very good.”

Laurens shook his head.  “I just mean that I think…  Something like that, you know, that’s more effort than happening to get a picture of someone because they happened to be in the right place at the right time.  And then just making it available to everyone to see because it’ll make you look good.”  Laurens shrugged, raising and dropping his shoulders without taking his hands from his pockets or breaking his slow, easy stride.  “I understand what you were saying before, but I think the medium and the audience still matter.”

Hamilton nodded and looked up at him again.  Laurens still wasn’t watching and he didn’t see his appreciative half-smile.

“Got it,” Hamilton said, the smile still on his mouth as he went back to studying his feet and the ground.  “All right.  Point taken.”


	254. Anonymous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interrogated; You Understand; Leads

Laurens had just entered the gym the next morning, had barely paused to undo his jacket, when he was intercepted by Ben Walker.

“Coach wants to see you.”

Of course he wanted to see him.Laurens felt his stomach twist at the thought of having to reassure him that whatever he had heard about the article, it had been blown out of proportion.He nodded.

“Right.Come on.”Walker led him to the same small classroom where they had met with André before the final game.“Glad to be done with finals?”

Laurens shrugged at the small talk.“Yeah.I’m going home in a few days.”

“Looking forward to it?”

“Not really.”

“Well, if you ever decide you don’t want to, we would certainly enjoy your company around these parts.”

The apprehension Laurens felt flickered briefly into anger.No one needed to make excuses for him or to encourage him not to do what the proper thing was.“Thanks,” he said, trying to keep his voice flat and to hold his tongue.

“Whenever.This shouldn’t take too long, and then you can get started with your workout.”Walker held the door open for him.“I’ll tell him you’re here.”

He closed the door and Laurens wondered how hard it would have been to have taken him to him directly.He pulled out a chair at the table and dropped his bag and jacket to the floor.He sat down.There were no abandoned class materials this time.The room looked lifeless, almost like it was waiting for an interrogation out of a cop drama.

Before Laurens could grow even more impatient, von Steuben opened the door, holding it to allow Franklin entry before he followed him in.

Laurens quickly stood, embarrassed by how sullen he had been a moment before now that he had a larger audience.“Hello, professor.”

“Hello, John.Fancy your seeing me here,” Franklin said, the comment obviously intended as a playful jab at himself.He took a seat opposite Laurens and von Steuben followed.

Laurens sat down again as well as soon as they had done so and awkwardly played with his fingers in his lap, wishing he had changed up his schedule for just the one day and come in in the afternoon instead.“You wanted to speak with me, sir?”He asked von Steuben.

“The two of us do,” von Steuben said, motioning briskly at Franklin.“Ben?”

“You are aware of the article that was published this past Monday,” Franklin said, leaning slightly forward and putting his folded hands on the edge of the table.“I wanted to speak to you in person, as you were the person most targeted by it.”

“They just had a picture,” Laurens said.“That’s all that was different.”

“Laurens.”

The coaxing tone of his coach voice made Laurens wince.

“Everyone knows that it was bullshit anyway.Sorry,” he apologized without sounding like he meant it, “but it’s true.And it’s fine, I was talking to the guys when it came out and then again after it was taken care of, and we’re all on the same page.  
“Are you sure that you are not just on theirs?”

Von Steuben said something annoyed and low to Franklin in German with the tone of an old complaint.

Franklin pressed his lips together, clearly amused by the response in spite of the situation.“What I mean is,” he clarified, speaking slowly, “is that, in spite of the admirable camaraderie that you and your teammates share, it seems to an… outside reader that you took an unusually large portion of the heat.”

“He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”Laurens hadn’t expected those words to leave his mouth but his hold on his temper wasn’t strong enough to stop them.“James, or whatever his name is.He was telling the truth, so it doesn’t matter.”

Franklin and von Steuben looked at one another in surprise.

“Are you telling us that you authorized the release of that article?”Franklin asked.“Or at least of the parts pertaining to you?”

Laurens sat up straight in his chair, forcing his spine to press against the backrest.“No.”

Another shared look.

“Well,” Franklin said after a beat, “parts of it were very untrue and damaging to the reputation of others, as well as to the paper itself.Regardless of your characterization of it in the moment, if you did not give him the green light then he clearly violated policy.”

“All right.Was that it?I’d like to get to work.”

“Laurens,” von Steuben warned.

Franklin chuckled.“There is one other thing.We’re trying to get a sense of who the anonymous source was.James is insisting that he truly did not know and that he was contacted by someone who was told by another member of the team about his interviews.We hoped you would be able to help us out.”

“Why would I know?”

“You’re the captain,” von Steuben reminded him.

“You are the logical place to start,” Franklin explained.

Laurens felt shame heat his face.

“In addition to what it said about my personal and work life,” von Steuben said, speaking detached and almost clinically about what had been written about him, “this article was also wrong about something else.I put you in this position because you are a solid player and your teammates respect you.I told you this before, do you remember?”

Laurens nodded, face red as he stared at the table.

“Good.If I wanted to make a homosexual cabal, I would have done so.I have my ways.”

“You could have put him in as captain earlier, for one,” Franklin pointed out.“The fact that you didn’t and that you haven’t been actively recruiting both point against you.”

“Do you think someone in particular made those statements?”Laurens asked, bringing the topic back to something he could more comfortably address.“The ones in the article.”

Franklin and von Steuben glanced at one another, silently checking their response before turning back to Laurens.

“That’s not something that we can speak to at this time,” Franklin said.The gentleness of his tone told Laurens the answer.There was someone.

“The person who he talked to on the field was Grayson,” Laurens said.“I heard them.But all Grayson said was that he didn’t want to answer his questions.That was all.”

“Will Grayson,” von Steuben clarified for Franklin.“He is a good boy.A little brash.”

Franklin nodded.He studied Laurens intently.“And the other unnamed source?”

Laurens shook his head.“I don’t know,” he said.“The only person I heard speak with him was Grayson.”

“And no one has said anything?”

“I know—when I talked to James Callender, he told me that he wanted to interview McHenry,” Laurens said, his chest suddenly tightening.“And Hays.”

Franklin glanced at von Steuben again and von Steuben frowned.

“Only McHenry appears in this.”

Laurens’ throat was dry.“Maybe they never made contact.”

“Maybe.We’ll go over this later,” von Steuben told Franklin.

Franklin nodded, hands still folded on the table.

“Don’t you think it’s more likely that he just made it up?”Laurens asked.“If he was lying anyway, then why bother finding a source to go along with it?”

“He had information from somewhere,” Franklin said.“Both in the published article and in its draft, that much is very clear.Friedrich?”

“If you hear of anyone else that he interviewed,” von Steuben said, indicating verbally that Laurens was free to go, “tell me.”

Laurens nodded as he got up and gathered his things, worry gnawing at him.“Right,” he said as he saw himself out.“Thank you.”

 

“…Alexander,” Burr said with the resignation of someone who had already acknowledged that this was just their life now, “were you waiting long?”

Hamilton put his book down and got stiffly to his feet from the floor outside Burr’s door.“Twenty minutes, give or take.I figured you’d be back eventually.”

“You could have called.”

“Battery died.”He stepped to the side and waited for Burr to unlock his door.“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“About the internship?I can't tell you about that until after I return.”

Hamilton made a face.“Ha, ha.No, not about that.”He followed Burr inside and hovered behind him until Burr motioned towards the couch.

“Please.”

“Cool.”Hamilton crossed to it and sat.He toyed with his book, passing it from one hand to the other.“Thank you for your help the other day,” he said abruptly.“I’ll pay you back sometime.”

“I was already in the building.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s still awkward to have to go downstairs and carry away all that crap.”

“Do you want something to drink?”Burr hung up his coat and went into the small kitchen.“Coffee?Tea?Water?”

“Coffee.Thanks.”Hamilton kept talking while Burr got out mugs.“I appreciate, is all.It would’ve taken me a while to get over here and the faster we got that stuff taken care of, the better.”He paused for a beat.“None of it was above water,” he said.“Turns out that the actual adult supervisors or whatever hadn’t signed off on it so they yanked whatever we missed and anyone who worked on it is in hot water.”

“That was a stupid thing to do.”

“Yeah.Aaron,” Hamilton said, immediately chasing his own response with a question, “do you…”

Burr leaned against the fridge as the water heated.“Do I what?”

“It just makes me worry, you know?”Hamilton looked down at the back cover of his book as it rested in his hands.“A couple months ago, before John was out to anyone except I guess me and Lafayette, I told him that if his friends really were his friends…”

“What do you want me to say?”Burr asked.The coffee maker hissed softly.“I don’t have experience with this.”

“I know.You don’t.I mean, not really.”

“Do you just want me to offer platitudes?”

“No.”

“I can’t tell you that nothing will ever be difficult ever again.You knew to expect to meet people like this.”

“No,” Hamilton said, a little frustrated.“I know.And I’m okay—well, I’m not surprised by it.It’s not like I haven’t seen people be pointlessly cruel before.”

“Then what is it?”

“I thought his friends would be out for blood on his behalf,” Hamilton admitted.“I thought they’d want to, like, physically hunt down the jackass who said those things about him and pound him into the ground.”

“How violent.”

Hamilton shrugged, sullen.“That’s what I’d do,” he said.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Would be a little more intimidating if I was six foot four and two hundred pounds.”

Burr sighed and nudged one of the mugs more directly under the spout of the coffee maker as it began to pour.“I still don’t know why you’re telling me this.”

“Yes you do.”Hamilton let his hands with the book fall down against his knees and he leaned back against the couch, looking up at the ceiling.“Don’t tell me you don’t want to catch Jacques Prevost outside his office downtown and punch him in his smug little rat face.John’s not even upset with them,” Hamilton went on, still staring straight up.“That’s the part that gets me the most, maybe.I’m not saying he has to call them out on their shit or, like, make it into a whole big _thing_ , but he just doesn’t even want to acknowledge that they’re being even a little insensitive.”He looked forward again when Burr brought over the mug.“Thanks.”He took it.“You got a coaster?I wouldn’t ask normally,” Hamilton said, “but, I mean…It’s you.”

Back in the kitchen, Burr threw one at Hamilton.It bounced off the couch next to him.

“Like a throwing star,” Hamilton said appreciatively.“Thanks.”He carefully bent over to pick it up without spilling his mug.“You know, I don’t know anyone else my age who’s so into looking mature.”He put the coaster down on the table.“My dishes are all mismatched crap.This looks like it’s from a set.”He took a sip from the mug.“Do you actually own a vacuum?”He looked around.“The funny part is that it’s all for show.It’s not like you don’t go out and get stupid.”He gave a short laugh.“Remember spring semester after I got here when we crashed that o-chem party?”

Burr, in the middle of setting the machine to heat more water, winced.“You don’t need to remind me.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure I do.”Hamilton took a longer drink, then paused, then asked, “When you said shit about me before, it was just because it was me, right?”

Burr glanced up at him.“I don’t follow.”

“When you talked smack about me, laughed about the idea of me and Lafayette, stuff like that.The joke was just that it was me and I was a prick, right?”He couldn’t hear how hopeful he sounded.

Burr could, however, and he intentionally did not look up from thumbing through a box of tea.“It was immature of me.”

“I don’t mind immature,” Hamilton said, jumping to reassure him.“I said immature stuff about you, too, stuff that kind of really falls into the same category, so we can be even.”

Burr picked out a teabag after much more deliberation than was necessary and they both listened to the crisp tear of the paper as he opened it and the steady flow of the water into his mug.

“We can be even,” Burr finally said.

Hamilton took the answer he wanted from that and smiled with relief.“Cheers.” He raised his mug and then brought it to his lips.“I told John’s friends that I thought they were wrong,” he said.“I didn’t want to push it beyond that, but…”He shrugged.“I felt like someone needed to tell them.”

“You’ve always been good at saying things.”

“Buy my silence,” Hamilton joked.

Burr laughed.“How much?”

 

Laurens took his time getting showered off and changed, waiting for McHenry to join him at the lockers.He was fully dressed and wondering how much longer he could realistically continue to fix his hair when he finally showed up.

“Hey.”McHenry nodded at him, his gray shirt near black in places from sweat.

“You talked with James Callender.”

McHenry stopped short and Laurens winced.

“Sorry—I’m just—confirming.”

McHenry still looked unsure, so Laurens continued.

“I just spoke with coach.I told him one of the people who wasn’t mentioned by name was Grayson.He was just checking in about all of it.”

“Oh, yeah.”McHenry nodded.“He caught me just after my final.”

“You didn’t know what he was going to say,” Laurens stated.There was no point in asking.

“Of course not.My quotes in there are all technically correct.I think.I wasn’t really paying attention,” McHenry admitted.“It sounds like what we talked about, anyway.”

“Did he say if he had talked to Mary?”Laurens asked.He tried to sound casual.He took his bag out of his locker and then tossed his comb in.It clattered against the metal back and then wall.He closed the locker.“I’m only asking because he told me that he wanted to talk to the three of us.”

McHenry frowned and ran a hand over the back of his short hair.“I don’t know,” he finally said.“Sorry.I was really tired.”

“It’s fine.Did he say if he wanted to speak with anyone else?”

McHenry shook his head.“No, I really don’t think so.”

“Thanks.”Laurens spun the dial of the lock and took a step back, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he did so.“I’ll ask her.Do you know if she’s left for break?”

“Not yet.Hey,” McHenry said, just as Laurens turned to leave.“I know you’re leaving in a couple of days, but if you’re not too busy, do you want to do something?I feel like I didn’t get to see anyone the last two weeks for more than a few minutes at a time.”

Laurens nodded, impatient to find Hays.“Sure.Tomorrow, maybe?Let me know what your schedule is.”

“Okay.”McHenry flashed him a smile.“I’ll see you tomorrow.”


	255. Role Model

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurens Doesn't Know how to Den Mother

“Maybe I’ll stay here over break,” Hamilton said, stretching out luxuriously—or as luxuriously as possible—on Laurens’ bed.“It’s cozy, especially for just one person.”

“Your place is bigger.”

“Not by as much as you’d want.”Hamilton flipped over onto his stomach and wrapped his arms around Laurens’ pillow, smashing it under his chin.“This building is newer.”

Laurens sat on the mattress next to him, typing on his phone and not looking up.“You’d have to share a bathroom.”

“Okay, but how many people are actually staying put?I don’t think it would be that bad.”Hamilton watched him type, then leaned to the side, pressing his body against him.“Lafayette?”

Laurens shook his head.“I’m trying to get in contact with someone on the team.”

“Oh.”

Laurens locked his screen and let his phone rest in his hands.“I’m worried that Mary said something to to James Callender.”

Hamilton turned his head to the side, resting his cheek on the pillow.“Like what?”

“The parts of the article that came from an anonymous source.He told me he wanted to interview, uh, her and James McHenry.”

“Didn’t sound like her,” Hamilton said.His voice was slightly muffled by the pillow.

“Did you even talk to her at the Schuylers’?”

Hamilton shrugged.“I just figured she wouldn’t be as… you know.”

“As what?”

“I dunno.Dickish.”

“She’s pretty snarky.”

“Pft.Yeah?”

“Yeah.She’d make fun of your glasses.”

Hamilton swatted Laurens’ back.“Okay, okay.Still.I don’t know, didn’t seem like she’d gain much by being a jerk towards you and the coach.You both outrank her and I’d think she’d want to be making nice right about now.Not burning her bridges and all that, especially those connecting to people who are in a position to make whatever she wants to do next go smoother.Unless you think her meeting with your coach didn’t go well?”

Laurens shook his head.“No.I could hear enough of what they said.And I saw her and McHenry when they left.I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but she was happy.”

“Then it’s weird to think she said anything…”Hamilton gestured limply.“Like that.”

“McHenry wasn’t actually complaining about you being allowed on the field.Everyone’s words got taken out of context, even mine.”

“Are you telling me that you were perfectly cordial and polite and not actually rubbing Lee’s face in how much he sucks?”

“I didn’t say it where he could hear me.”

“You know, when that’s your defense…”

“I would’ve said that part anyway,” Laurens added after a brief pause.“I don’t care that he included that.It’s not like I’m obligated to be nice to Lee anymore.”

“Team spirit, what’s that?”

“He’s not on the team.”

“To be fair, I don’t think he was ever on your team.”

Laurens didn’t have a smart comeback so he let that be.He reached across the bed and put his phone on his desk.“McHenry wanted to do something with me before I left.Is that okay?”

“Of course.You don’t need to get permission.”

“I’m leaving soon,” Laurens said.“I want to spend time with you.”

“Fair enough.Maybe do something short.You guys got coffee last time, didn’t you?Do that again.”

“You should come.”

Hamilton wrinkled his nose.“I don’t want to be the third wheel.”

Laurens paused.“I could tell him to invite Eliza.”

Hamilton tried not to sound like he was uncomfortable with the suggestion.“Sounds good.Our last double date went excellently, after all.”

“That’s different,” Laurens said.“Isn’t it?”

It was, Hamilton thought, but not for any reason Lauren could be implying. “Why?”

“That was earlier,” Laurens said.“That was the problem, wasn’t it?That it was too soon?”

“Right.”Hamilton nodded.Right.Too soon.“Would also be fun to just do a guys’ thing,” he said.

“You know, something, uh, manly.The first time I met Eliza she painted my nails, maybe I don’t want to subject the two of you to a spa day.”The excuse sounded flimsy, even to his own ears, and he wasn’t at all surprised to hear Laurens question it.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.I just...I think it would be awkward.”

Laurens didn’t respond right away and Hamilton turned his face down into the pillow, hiding his wince and bracing himself for the dip in the mattress before Laurens got up.

“I’m trying to be nice to them,” Laurens said.To Hamilton’s surprise he sounded guilty.

Hamilton looked up.Laurens was facing away still and turning his phone over repeatedly in his hands.

“What?”

Laurens grimaced.“Look,” he began.“Obviously I didn’t...I don’t know, they just rubbed me the wrong way at first.It seemed like they were—showing off, or something.”

“Showing off?”

“You said I was being jealous,” Laurens muttered, embarrassed at having to go over it in detail.“I’m just trying to explain why.It’s not only that they were friends with you.Part of the reason I was annoyed was because it felt like they thought they knew you better than I did.”

Hamilton felt almost bad about how much he appreciated his good luck.

“But I know I was being unfair,” Laurens went on.“…Mostly because you told me, but still.I guess it wasn’t apparent, but I was trying to be nice.Especially to Eliza,” he added.“She’s—nice,” he said, at a lack for another descriptor.

Hamilton cracked a smile.“She is.”

“And I was being weird about her and I know you didn’t like that.I thought it would be okay if we did something together.I talked to her when you were playing chess with Angelica.”

“I won,” Hamilton interjected.“...And thank you.” He rolled to face him and put his hand lightly on his back.“For trying to get along with them.”

“You put up with my family.”

“That’s true,” Hamilton agreed.“You might still owe me.”

“So,” Laurens began, “what should I tell McHenry?”

“You don’t need to invite Eliza if you don’t want to,” Hamilton said, secure in his new excuse.“I won’t be offended, promise.We can do something, just the three of us, or you can even go hang with him for a couple of hours.I don’t mind.I want you to have friends besides me and Lafayette too, remember?”

Laurens nodded.

“Hey, speaking of Lafayette, is he in LA yet?”

“Still on the flight.”

“Damnit, I really should look at that itinerary.”

“It’s more engaging than I thought it would be.They included a ton of pictures.”

“Yeah?”

“Phoenix had a sun with sunglasses and the Grand Canyon had a mouse with hiking gear.Nice.What’s the picture for LA?”

“A food truck and the Disney castle.”

“Ah.”

Laurens’ phone buzzed and he leaned back over Hamilton to pick it up.

“Lafayette finding the in-flight wifi?”

“Mary.”

“It’s weird to see you getting calls and texts from girls that you’re not related to,” Hamilton said, rolling onto his back.“First Peggy, now Mary…You’re practically more of a lady’s man than Lafayette or I am.”

Laurens snorted.

“Who do I got,” Hamilton mused, staring up at the ceiling.“Angelica, Eliza…I guess I can add in Peggy, although I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to her on the phone not in a group chat with the other two.Is that it?”He looked at Laurens as he typed.“Seriously, J.Is that it?”

“I guess so.”

“That’s just _sad_.”

“They’re all sisters, too.”

“God.How far the nightly have fallen.”

“I’m going to punch you if you keep whining like that.”

“If we include your sister we’re tied.”

Laurens hit him, but not hard.

“Mary’s on campus,” Laurens said.He stood.“She’s leaving tonight but is free to meet up now.”

“Cool,” Hamilton said.He sat up and took down his hair, combing it out with his fingers.“Where are you going to meet her?”

“Cafe.”Laurens was gathering his things.He glanced up.“Do you want to come?”

“I mean, if you’re going to just be talking about team stuff…” Hamilton began.

“Probably.”Laurens hesitated, trying to figure out how to explain why he had offered.“After Thanksgiving,” he said, “I met up with McHenry and it was really good.It was nice to talk to someone who understood, you know?”

Hamilton nodded.

“So, I know that the two of them have been talking, but…”His conversation at the gym had never really left him, but it now more audibly chased itself in circles around in his head.“It’s my responsibility to look out for her.Especially because she’s still young,” he said, “and…If someone had reached out to me after I came out to them, I don’t know if that would have made it easier, but it wouldn’t have made it worse.”He saw Hamilton watching attentively and he tilted his body towards the door.“I thought it might be helpful if she talked to you.I don’t know what it’s like to be different like that.”

“J.,” Hamilton said slowly, “I’ll go with you if you want, but you do know that I’m not trans, right?”

“I know that,” Laurens said quickly.“But—”

“J.,” Hamilton said again, trying not to laugh incredulously.“You’re _gay_ and only came out to your friends a few weeks ago.You haven’t talked to your father or one of your brothers yet.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“What, and like my situation is?Jesus, J., cut yourself some slack.”Hamilton caught his hand and pulled him down.He kissed him lightly.“She already knows you, so if you want to broaden her circle then, sure, I’ll come and see if she’s actually as rude as you say.But you and McHenry aren’t coming from the exact same place as each other, either, and you just said yourself that that went well.”

Laurens nodded, then hesitated.“It’s different.”

“Why?”

“McHenry has it worse than me.”

“Why, are both his parents assholes?Sorry.”

Laurens shook his head.“No, just because he’s trans and he’s Black, and…”He trailed off, remembering how paralyzed he had sounded when they talked in the lockers about his date.

“He’s not looking for your pity,” Hamilton said bluntly.“So don’t give it to him.”

“It’s not pity, Alex.”

“Whatever it is.And I’m not looking for that, either.Okay?I’ll come if you think it’ll go better with an additional person, but I’m not going just to out-trauma your teammate.”

Laurens put his keys and his phone in his pocket.“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“That’s how it came off.”

“I just don’t want to screw up,” Laurens said, his voice an ashamed mutter.

“Just be friendly,” Hamilton said.“You don’t need to be the Best Gay Ever, or anything like that.Although maybe you can get someone else to talk about boys with,” he said, perking up.“See if you can ask her if she thinks I’m cute too.If you can.If it doesn’t fall naturally into conversation, then don’t push it.I bet you could get there by telling her about Tallmadge, though.”

Laurens laughed at how keen Hamilton was being.“So you’re not going to come?”

“How about this:I stay here and unless you tell me otherwise I’ll walk over in about twenty minutes.That way you can still talk to her on your own about whatever interview shit you want to sort out and then I can show up and charm her and we can all hang out for a while.”

Laurens nodded.“Okay.”

Hamilton got up and slipped his arms around him, sliding his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and kissed him again, longer this time.

“…Or you could tell her that you’re busy right now but will meet her in an hour…”

“She’s already waiting for me.”

“Damn.”

“Twenty minutes?”

“Yeah, sure.”Hamilton unplugged his phone from the charger.“I’ll get an alarm and finally look at Lafayette’s itinerary meanwhile.”


End file.
